LIVE DISCUSSION: Anthony Rogers - Sovereignty of God (Part 1/5)

A jail cell, a relentless skeptic, and a borrowed Bible set the stage for a story that crashes headlong into a burning bush. We sit down with apologist and pastor Anthony Rogers to unpack how Exodus 3 reframes everything: God’s name is not a label but a claim on reality. When the Lord says I Am Who I Am, he isn’t reaching for a reference outside himself—he is the reference. That single truth transforms how we see judgment, mercy, identity, and mission.

Anthony walks us through the terror and tenderness of the bush that burns without burning up, a living picture of holy fire held by sovereign grace. We explore why the God of Scripture swears by himself, how that anchors promises beyond circumstances, and what it means for people who want assurance that doesn’t wobble with the news cycle. Along the way we press into tough questions: Does God restrain his rights? How do we hold moral responsibility alongside divine decree? Why does Daniel 4 insist that reason returns when our eyes lift to heaven?

The story broadens as we track Israel’s path into Egypt and out again, recognizing providence in the twists of Joseph’s betrayal, imprisonment, and rise. His brothers meant evil; God meant it for good is more than a comforting cliché—it’s a lens for living when life feels unfair or out of control. We connect this to Jesus before Pilate, where delegated authority meets true sovereignty, and to Job, where the Creator refuses the dock because he answers to no one and never denies himself.

Come for the theology, stay for the clarity. If you’ve wrestled with God’s sovereignty, human freedom, or the fear that your life is just random chaos, this conversation offers ballast. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s asking hard questions, and leave a review with the one moment that shifted your view of God’s name.

Transcript

Guest Intro And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Christians, uh, I want to introduce you to uh Anthony Rogers, a a a well-known uh Christian apologist and pastor, father, husband, all that kind of thing, and um uh uh a faithful man of God who has who spends a lot of his time having discussions and debates and and speaking about things that are um biblically sound and and um things that are consistent with many of the things that we have that we discuss on a nightly basis. And um and I was talking to Pat one day, and he thought it would be a good idea if it were possible to get Brother Anthony to fit us into his busy schedule. And since it was either now or next year, I decided that there's no better time than now to take advantage of getting this this brother here um to come and and and spend some time with us and talk about the word of God. And if I remember right, we were talking about that you were gonna deal with Brother Anthony, uh uh the sovereignty of God, but you can certainly go start with that and just let things go as you see fit. And um, because you know, we have a really, really good group of people, and they'll start to fall in here real quick because they're used to me being late. So, so um, but anyway, I wanted to introduce you to everybody, Anthony Rogers, and this is uh Bible provocateur and on our group, and we welcome you. We welcome you, and it's a privilege and an honor to have you here, brother. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Thank you. I am delighted to be here.

unknown 1:48

Yeah.

Conversion Story In A Jail Cell

SPEAKER_01 1:49

So where would you like to begin? Okay, well, I thought that I would begin with a text of scripture that was momentous for the people of Israel and also for me in my own conversion, namely Exodus chapter 3. So, as a little bit of background, I was converted at 18 in a prison cell. I grew up in Southern California, ran with gangs, engaged in all sorts of criminal activity in the late 80s, early 90s. Eventually, that landed me in a good bit of legal trouble. I was incarcerated for stealing a car that belonged to the chief of police in Las Vegas. So I guess I went big in a sense. So uh my parents had moved us from California when I was 17. They thought changing my environment would also change my heart. So they were, if anybody knows the buzzwords, they were functioning as good Pelagians. They thought that evil is something that comes from the outside rather than from the inside. Jesus said in Matthew 15 that it's from the heart that evil proceeds. And so my parents, thinking this would help, took me to Las Vegas. After a short period of time, I fell in with the same kinds of people I was running with before, got in trouble, as I said, went to jail, and I was incarcerated. I was put in a jail cell with a self-professed devil worshiper. I like mentioning this story because it illustrates a lot of the different things that I'm going to talk about. But one of the things that happened was this guy had a axe to grind against God. I had no thought of God at all. This was of no interest to me. I went to jail because I loved engaging in crime. And this guy wanted to keep talking to me about the God he hated.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Right.

First Encounters With Scripture’s Judgment

The Burning Bush And Holy Fear

SPEAKER_01 3:59

And he kind of got annoying to me. He just kept talking about things, and I kept saying, look, I'm not I'm not interested. Uh you pursue your vendetta as you please. I'm just not interested. But uh eventually he persuaded me to get a Bible because he just needed to show me all the terrible things that he was telling me about God. When I got a Bible, he couldn't sh show me what he thought he could. And then I had a bunch of time on my hand. And I thought, well, might as well read this thing, got nothing else going on. So I started reading the Bible, and on every page, it appeared to me as though God was angry with sinners, and he was no one to trifle with. So, for example, within the first three chapters, Adam and Eve sin, and they are banished from the favorable presence of God. Uh, as the story moves forward, it only gets worse from there. The entire world is flooded uh during the time of Noah, and then God uh sends fire down out of heaven and consumes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And again, as I say, it just kept going from there. And I remember thinking, my goodness, these guys, in uh my estimation, weren't as guilt-ridden as I was. Now, maybe I wasn't entirely uh perceptive enough at the time, but I knew that I was doing things out of pure enjoyment uh for doing wrong. And it it just struck me that this God who was uh judging sinners was going to judge me. And when I got to Exodus three, it I when I tell you that it felt like I should be falling out of my bunk, uh, it's this is the reality. I I was I was on my bunk and it just felt like uh I should be on the floor. Now, those of you that have read the passage and are familiar with it have something of an idea already what I'm thinking of. It's it's the text in in Exodus 3 where God appears to Moses in the midst of a bush that's blazing with fire but not being consumed.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Right.

God’s Name And Self-Existence

Swearing By Himself Vs Created Things

SPEAKER_01 6:19

It says that Moses turned aside to see this sight. He sees it from a distance, apparently, and he goes over to the bush, and then God calls to him from the midst of the bush. And Moses, it says, turned aside his gaze because he didn't want to look at God. And this is the normal response of people whenever God puts in an appearance. But they don't think that this is like uh, you know, meeting their favorite actor or musician or something like this. They're filled with terror. So Moses is terrified and believes that uh if he looks upon God, it will spell certain doom for him. But the whole symbolism of the bush that's on fire but not being consumed is a symbol of grace. The idea is that God is a consuming fire, and sinners do deserve God to break forth in wrath against them, but God is gracious. And in this case, he's gracious to Moses because God has come to fulfill the promises that he made to the fathers, of whom Moses is a descendant. God had covenanted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, telling him he was going to be a God to them and to their seed after them, and he would deliver them with a mighty hand out of the clutches of Pharaoh and so forth. But uh what happens in the narrative is that God tells Moses that he's going to use him to deliver this nation, this nation of guys who were slaves. They weren't uh people who were educated, they weren't trained for war, uh, they didn't have uh the implements of war. Uh they were in every way uh in a bad position to be leaving Egypt, which was at the time the greatest superpower on earth. And and so Moses is going to go to the people of Israel and tell them that God says they're leaving. And and Moses is a shrewd guy, right? He he knows. Now I'm I'm married to a Jewish lady. Uh she's a believer in Christ, but uh she's Jewish ethnically, and uh interacting with her family, I I realize that uh what we see here in Exodus is is uh you know, it's true of Jews all the way back, right? So I always know when we do something, my father-in-law is gonna have some questions, right? He's gonna he's gonna have some questions about our decisions. And Moses knows these people, they're gonna have some questions. And one of the things they're gonna ask is, who is this God, Moses? Right? Who is this person that you think spoke to you from the bush? Now, imagine it if somebody came to you and said, you know, I heard a voice, you you're gonna have some questions too. So I don't think this is just a Jewish thing. Anybody who would just buy somebody coming to them and saying, you know, God spoke to me, that's that's a problem, right? It shows a great deal of naivety and and foolishness. But uh Moses asked God for his name so that he can take it to the children of Israel. But when you think about it, how is the answer to this question going to satisfy the reason behind their question? What they really want to know is how do we know that this is God? How do we know that he can affect this deliverance? How can we bank on your words that you're claiming are from him? And and here's what really just bowled me over. When when Moses asked God for his name in Exodus 3, you all know the reply. If if you've read the account, it's stuck in your memory. There's there's no way uh this is you know ever going to get out of it. But but God replies to Moses, I am who I am. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. So the the question is, as I said, how does this satisfy their reason for asking the question? Well, think it through for a moment. When I read this the first time, I remember thinking, that's the most incredible answer I've ever heard. I never in my life would have even thought of this, but it's the most suitable answer to satisfy what they're really after. If you were to ask me, who are you? I would tell you similar to what I was already doing towards the beginning of our talk. I would talk to you about where I came from. I might talk to you a little bit about my parents, I might mention my ethnicity, my family history, my grandparents came from Sicily in the 1900s, and you know, all this sort of thing. Notice what I'm doing in order to identify who I am. I'm pointing to things outside of myself as reference points. So if if you think about it, if I say I caught a fish this big, you you'd look at me and think, well, that doesn't help me. But if I go like this, now all of a sudden you understand. Now you have a reference point. Well, who is the God of the universe, or what is the God of the universe going to point to as his reference point? If he's the creator of everything, if nothing exists but what he willed to exist, then nothing is ultimately his reference point. He's the reference point for everything else. Nothing else ultimately explains him. He is self-explained, he is his own reference point. And that's the idea here in Exodus 3. God is saying, I am who I am and all that I am in and of myself. I am sufficient unto myself. I am self-dependent, as it were. I don't depend on anything outside of myself. I am eternal, immutable. All that's packed into this expression. And this is all uniquely true of God. God alone is self-existent, self-contained, self-explained. And that's why, as you look through the biblical record, you see God doing things that are unlike other beings, although he made us in his image, so there are some points of correspondence, but they're always very limited. But but think, for example, of when the fact that when God swore to Abraham, it says, God swore by himself.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Right.

Grace, Sovereignty, And Human Approach To God

Deuteronomy And God’s Exclusive Prerogatives

Jesus Before Pilate And True Authority

SPEAKER_01 12:50

I swear by myself as long as I live, says the Lord. And if you read the text of scripture with an eye to that, you'll see that he does this repeatedly. Another example of this is in Isaiah 45, where he he talks about swearing by himself. But it happens scores of times where God swears by himself. Now, this stands in stark contrast to, say, the the religion of Islam. If you look at the Quran, even though Allah claims to be the God who made everything, and you know, he's aping the God of the Bible, in the Quran Allah swears by created things. He swears innumerable times by things that he supposedly made. So he has a falling out with himself. He speaks at cross-purposes with himself. He pretends to be this God, but can't keep up the appearances. He swears by everything under the sun, including the sun. Well, not so the God of the Bible. He's always consistent with himself. And this just fills out this idea that God is absolute. He's not qualified by anything, he's not dependent on anything. Uh, he is who he is and all that he is in and of himself. So uh this text of scripture for me was was just uh earth-shattering. It it made it clear to me that this is a God who can't be trifled with. My only hope, and the world's only hope, if they're going to have this God's favor, is if he chooses to be gracious to them. And a person is going to have to come to him on his terms, right? We can't lay down for this God the way by which we will approach him. He's the one who would determine if anybody's going to have a relationship with him. He's also going to be the one who determines how they're going to have a relationship with him. Everything is necessarily going to be dependent upon him. It's just inescapable. It's built into the idea of God as God. People used to say, and maybe still say it, I haven't heard it in a while, but you know, people would used to say things like, you know, uh, uh, who gave you the right to play God? Right. The idea behind that is people will do certain things, and it's only God who can do that. So that they're overstepping their creaturely boundaries. Uh you think, for example, of uh Deuteronomy 32, another favorite text of mine. In fact, it's it's very relevant to this text. In in Deuteronomy 32, 39, God says in in a song that Moses is to teach the Israelites, God says, See now that I, I am He. And literally in Hebrew, it's see now that I, I am. So it's very emphatic, but it's another I am declaration. And then he says, There's no God besides me. I put to death, I make alive, it's I who wound and I who heal, and there's no one who can deliver out of my hands. What God is saying here, uh, there's there's a lot really that's packed into this, but he's saying that the absolute right to give and take life belongs to him. And that means that if civil magistrates, for example, take a life, uh, they can only do so if God has delegated that right to them. And even then, they can't expect to be effective in that if God does not grant them the power. He could always thwart them, right? It's God who has absolute dominion. This is why Jesus, even when he was standing before Pilate, you know, Pilate says, Don't you realize I have the authority to execute you? And Jesus said, You'd have no authority unless it was given to you from above. By the way, as a bit of an aside, it's really interesting if you read the account of Jesus' trial closely, although on one level it's obviously the case that Jesus is being tried. If you're familiar with Johannine's style and irony and so forth, John deathly works through this account in a way that uh it, if again, if you read it closely, actually seems to turn things on their head. It's as if Jesus is the one holding court and Pilate is the one on trial. So as an example, some translations obscure this, but it says uh uh he brought Jesus out, he's gonna present him before the people, and then it says, uh, he sat down in the judgment seat and so forth. The way some translations render this is as if Pilate sat down on the judgment seat, but it doesn't exactly say that. The way it's worded leaves an ambiguity, and you're supposed to be wondering who sat on the judgment seat. And it again, if you read through the j uh the Gospel of John very closely, you see that it's like a trial's being prosecuted all the way through it. And Jesus is the one holding court. He's calling witnesses. He talks about the witness of Moses, he talks about the witness of John, the witness of others, he talks about his own witness and the witness of the Father. The idea is that court is in session. Witnesses are there, and the presiding judge is Jesus. So even though he's going to submit himself to death, it's all under his sovereign control. Everything's happening exactly as he determined, exactly as he wanted. And uh so, but back to the point, though, the uh the scriptures present God as the one who has sovereign lordship and dominion over everything precisely because he is who he is. He is the I am, the one who exists of himself, not from anyone else, the one who exists by himself, who causes all things to depend upon him. Now, this idea is written large across the pages of scripture. It's kind of remarkable when you think of people objecting to it, because the fact of the matter is people do, even professing Christians. But it's just as clear from Scripture that God is sovereign as that God is God, because that that's basically what it means to call him God. To say he's God and not sovereign is to speak nonsense. Uh as I said, uh the statement that people make sometimes when they say, uh, you know, who who uh you know who gave you the right to play God or who died and made you king. What that taps into is the idea that God can do the sorts of things that we're objecting to other people trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Let me let me let me ask you something, and you don't have to answer this now because I don't want to ruin your flow, because I like I want you to keep going the way you're going. Um because one of the things that I say a lot, and you can't help saying it because it's the truth, which is that uh the rights that God has, he has because of his nature, as you talked about. That's his nature is the nature of God is to have the right over all that God creates and everything that he that he everything he owns and he is sovereign over. So and you may know you may want to answer this now, you may want to answer it later. So what I want to put out there is do you see scenarios where God restrains his his rights or suspends his rights in any given circumstances to give men leeway to do things on their own?

Sovereignty Defined And Defended

Does God Restrain His Rights

God’s Moral Will And Decree

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Okay, so uh it depends what's meant by that. We have to distinguish in scripture when it's talking about God's moral will, his revelation of what's right and what's wrong. Scripture says that morality is a reflection of God's character. So the law of God is a transcript of the character of God. It's it's like a uh a window or mirror, if you will. So we say, be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect, or be holy as God is holy. That shows that the actions we're called to engage in are a reflection of God's own character. So think of some of the commandments, for example. The first commandment says, have no other gods before me or besides me. The reason for that is because there aren't any, right? So it reflects the reality as it is in God. It says not to worship him in an idolatrous fashion. We're not to worship him in a way that's contrary to his nature and character, because it's contrary to his nature and character, right? He's not an object subject to our manipulation like an idol or uh, you know, whatever uh you think of when you think of idolatry, I mean, biblically defined. Uh so this uh shows us that morality is a reflection of God's character, and it's obvious that people can transgress that. People can have false gods, people can worship God falsely, people can take God's name in vain. In that sense, people can violate the will of God. But We also have to speak about God's will in a more ultimate sense, meaning that which God effects or purposes and brings to pass. Because Scripture's clear, God's will in this sense cannot be violated. Right. God can't stop being God. He would be denying himself. It's kind of like asking, can God lie? No, God can't lie. He can't lie. He can't deny himself. He always has to act in accord with his own character. So he can't wink at sin. He there's just all sorts of things that are incompatible with what it means for him to be God. And this is where you get passages like Ephesians 1.11, where it says he works all things after the counsel of his own will. Or Psalm 115, where David says, Our God is in heaven and does whatever he pleases. One of my favorite texts on this is Daniel 4. It's probably a favorite of anybody on this topic, if they've spent any time reading the Word of God with an eye to what it says about God's sovereignty. Remember in the context, Nebuchadnezzar, who has obviously violated God's will, his moral will, uh, with impunity. In fact, the the whole point in the context is that Nebuchadnezzar has uh exalted himself in his own eyes and before people, basically thinking of himself as God. He's crediting himself with the success that he's had in subduing nations. And so it says he walks out onto the parapet of his house and he's he's basically saying, Look at this great Babylon which I have built. But God, as you know in the story, uh, basically drives him mad to expose to him that he's not ultimately to be accredited with his success. It's God who enabled him to be successful. Now, this is going to be very relevant to something I plan to do down the road in this talk, but I won't go over all this now. But here's what happens at the end of this period. So Nebuchadnezzar goes mad for a period of seven years, and then God lifts that period of imposed sanity. And here's what it says in the text of Daniel it says, at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me. So notice the conjunction here. He turns his eyes to heaven. The idea is now he's looking up, whereas before he's looking down as if he's at the pinnacle, right? He's the one who's seated atop everything else on a lofty throne. Now he's of a different mindset. He's looking up now, and it says his reason returned to him. These two things go together. Uh sinners often think that they're uh they're they're the captain of their own ships, and uh they're they're eminently rational. Uh but according to scripture, anybody who's not ultimately uh oriented towards heaven, looking up to God, is not portrayed as uh rational. But uh it says, He blessed the Most High and praised and honored him who lives forever. And this is what he said for his dominion is an everlasting dominion. Now, pause there for a moment because uh dominion is essentially another way of talking about sovereignty. It refers to a person's uh the exercise of their authority and power over a domain. And then it goes on to say, his kingdom endures forever. A kingdom is the domain of the king. That's the idea behind it. So his kingdom is an everlasting dominion, his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, What have you done? So it states positively that God exercises dominion over everything. He does whatever he pleases. Nobody can can stop that. And then it, you know, then it says, uh, nobody's even in a position to question him. And if if people just think this through for a moment, there's really no escape from this. Oftentimes people want to think of God as obligated to measure up to theirs what they think needs to happen, their standards of justice. Uh they think that you know, if God does this or that, then they can complain and so forth. But scripture never presents God as if he's on trial. God is never the one who's on. Think of the book of Job. Uh the whole book of Job, you you've got chapter after chapter where a bunch of guys are sitting around trying to make sense out of what's happened to Job. And at the end of the book, God, God appears, and one of the remarkable things about it is God doesn't ultimately answer Job's questions. He he basically just puts Job in his place. He says, Where were you, Job, when I made the world? You know, where were you when I did this or that? Did I ask you how to do this? Did I come to you for wisdom? Did I come to you for permission? And and who's God going to answer to? Uh you know, when we think of somebody being responsible, we we mean that they're answerable to somebody. But there is no other God to whom God must answer. Now, that would be bad news if God was arbitrary and fickle and so forth, but remember what I've been talking about. God is a certain kind of being. He's true to himself, he can't deny himself, so he can always be relied upon, he's always true. Right? So we're not dealing here with a fickle and arbitrary being, though we're certainly dealing with a being who is sovereign and does as he pleases.

unknown 28:10

Right.

Nebuchadnezzar Learns Dominion

SPEAKER_01 28:10

So, okay, so uh I'll come to some more of what uh I think is uh important. You know, there's a lot that's important in all of this, but uh there's a background to what happens in the lead up to Exodus 3. So in Exodus 3, God is coming to Moses and he's saying, I'm I'm gonna use you to affect my people's deliverance. He tells Moses who he is, and Moses is gonna in turn tell the people. But what God says there is that this is a fulfillment of the promises made to the patriarchs. Now, one of the things that we know from the prior history when we go back into the book of Genesis is that the people of Israel are in Egypt because of what God had done prior to that. So they're in Egypt and in need of deliverance precisely because God put them there. It's not like they're there by accident. God's going to deliver them by a mighty hand, but he also put them there. And so, you know, one of the things to think through with respect to this is that you know God is sovereign not only in the deliverance that he's going to affect, but also in what people need to be delivered from.

unknown 29:24

Right.

Job’s Lesson And God’s Freedom

Exodus Backstory And Promises

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Uh and and when you go back uh and you see uh how this all eventuates, remember it all happens because Joseph goes down to Egypt. Now uh that story in itself is is a huge one. It it's a very prominent uh story in the book of Genesis. It takes up a significant portion of Genesis, you know, chapter 37 through 50. That's that's a huge block of text when you think about it, because the the primoval history before Abraham is all recorded in 11 chapters. So from the time of Adam all the way down to Abraham, that's a long period of time. You're talking about millennia, and so it's very concentrated. But then God spends several chapters telling us about the life of Joseph, which fits into a very narrow range of time, a couple of or you know, hand or several decades. Obviously, this is very important, but we can't obviously look at all of it. But one of the things that looms large in this whole account is the fact that Joseph's brothers are at odds with Joseph. They're not happy with Joseph for all sorts of reasons. And so they devise a plot to get rid of him. They want to do him in and get rid of him. And uh, I can't help uh in bringing up the story, mention something of what's going on there typologically. The whole point of that story in terms of its uh pointing to the Messiah is that Joseph is a type of Jesus. He's the one who's betrayed by his brothers, he's sold into slavery, he's thrown into a pit, he's taken out of the pit. This sort of thing actually happens several times to Joseph, where he's basically consigned to uh a situation which is a form, at least uh symbolically elsewhere in scripture of death. You know, when somebody's cast into a pit, the psalmist often speaks of Sheol as a pit, right? Uh it it talks about uh Sheol as a dungeon. Uh so the the the very imagery that's being used of Joseph is is one that's eliciting from us this idea that Joseph is being consigned to death, but he's being delivered from it over and over again to make sure you don't miss the point. Well, eventually, after decades, Joseph is exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh because he accurately interprets Pharaoh's dreams, showing that he has the spirit of the living God within him. And Pharaoh recognizes that he's a man who has wisdom. So who better to put in charge of everything than this guy Joseph? And uh what what happens is a famine happens uh across the area of the world uh adjacent to Egypt and around it. And uh Jacob, Joseph's father, and his other brothers have to go down into Egypt in order to get food. And who do they encounter? Well, it's first of all, it's the brothers who go down. Jacob stays behind along with his wives and his youngest son, Joseph, or excuse me, his youngest son, Benjamin. And uh they go down, and and you know what happens there. There's a there's a bit of a uh a game that Joseph is playing with them because they don't recognize him. It's been a long time. He's probably got a big old beard, and he's not likely talking to them directly, but through uh interpreters. He's probably speaking Egyptian, and you know, so he's keeping a distance. They don't know who he is. Uh they just know that uh things aren't going well for them because uh their their money's ending up in their sack and it looks like they've stolen this and all that. Uh so he he's causing a lot of trouble for them. Well, at the end of the account, at the end of the account, he eventually discloses who he is. Jacob comes down into Egypt with all of his sons and his wives and children and so forth. And eventually he dies, and the brothers realize, uh-oh, you know, our father has died. Maybe Joseph was not taking vengeance on us just because our father was alive. Maybe he's now gonna take care of us in a negative way. And so they they say, you know, our father, when he was still alive, said, you know, and they and they come up with this uh story about how he's uh he wanted Joseph to take care of them and so forth. And Joseph sees right through it. And and you know what Joseph says, and and to me, this is uh this is a a verse that ought to be, you know, if not often at the forefront of one's thinking, always there, at the ready to uh exert an influence on you in all of your daily experiences. Joseph says, uh, as his brothers uh say to them, think about this. This is probably where the statement came from that I was alluding to earlier. Uh they say to uh Joseph, Your father charged before he died, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong. And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for am I in God's place? Am I in God's place? Right? Uh who who who made you God, right? Uh who who gave you authority to do this? Joseph is saying, Am I in God's place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about