In Exodus 5, Moses stood before Pharaoh with a simple request: let God’s people go three days into the wilderness to worship the Lord. Not to a shrine down the road. Not to a sanctioned corner of Egypt where the sacrifices could still be seen and managed. Three days out — far enough that the worship couldn’t be watched, controlled, or blended back into Egyptian life. Pharaoh’s counter-offer, again and again, was some version of “worship here.” Stay close. Stay comfortable. Stay just far enough removed to feel spiritual without actually leaving.
That negotiation is still happening. Three Days’ Journey is built around the conviction that a great deal of modern American Christianity has quietly accepted Pharaoh’s counter-offer — a faith that has syncretized the values, appetites, and false gods of the surrounding culture into our worship, our discipleship, and our life together as the church, while still calling itself faithful. We haven’t renounced the Lord. We’ve just let Egypt move in with us.
The pattern behind the project
Scripture gives us this pattern twice. In the Exodus, God didn’t merely rescue Israel from slavery — He judged the gods of Egypt, one plague at a time, to prove they were no gods at all and to bring His people out into a wilderness where He alone could be worshiped. In Revelation, “Babylon” and “Egypt” become names for the same old system in a new age — the world’s commerce, comfort, and power dressed up as inevitable, until God judges it and calls His people out one final time: “Come out of her, my people” (Revelation 18:4).
The book A Three Days’ Journey: The Distance Between Egypt and Glory — Book One in the Holy Defiance series — takes that pattern seriously. If God judged the false gods of Egypt then, and Scripture says He will judge the false gods of Babylon at the end of the age, it’s worth asking an uncomfortable question in the meantime: is He doing some of that work already, in stages, in the modern American church? Materialism, entertainment, partisan politics, self-image, comfort itself — these all function as gods in a life, whether or not we’d ever call them that out loud.
This isn’t a message of despair. It’s a call — the same call Moses carried into Pharaoh’s court — to walk the whole three days, not just far enough to feel better about staying.
What this project includes
Three Days’ Journey started as a book, but it was never meant to stay one.
- The book itself — A Three Days’ Journey: The Distance Between Egypt and Glory, Holy Defiance Series Book One — walking through the Exodus and Revelation pattern in detail, chapter by chapter.
- A weekly blog, following a six-month reading and reflection calendar, applying the Three Days’ Journey idea to real events, holidays, culture, and questions the church is wrestling with right now.
- Small group study guides, leader’s notes, and personal devotions, so a church, class, or family can walk through the material together rather than just reading it alone.
- A podcast series [in production — launch details to follow], carrying the same conversation into a weekly listening format.
- Visual teaching resources for churches and small groups who want to bring this material into a classroom or sanctuary setting.
Wherever you start — the book, the blog, a small group guide, or an episode — the invitation is the same one Moses carried out of Egypt: don’t settle for close enough. Ask for the whole three days.