Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Exodus 14-17 -- Part 2 : Dr. Matthew Bowen

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

Dr. Bowen returns and teaches about trusting in the Lord, how manna reminds us of our covenants and spiritual needs, and the importance of remembering the Lord’s hand in our lives.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/episodesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. Matt, are we ready to move on because I'm just interested in this idea of we've had this incredible experience and you might have a tendency to think nothing's ever going to be hard again, right? I've never, never doubt. And then you take a drink of water and you go, this is bitter. Yeah. You remember how you felt when you're baptized?

After I was baptized even when I was eight, I felt really, really good. We've really repented and we feel the Holy Ghost. We just don't ever want to do a bad thing in our lives, ever again. But then 10 minutes later, or you know, something happens. You get mad at your sister or your roommate, or you have a misunderstanding with your spouse, and then the balloons popped and you're brought back down to reality. I was just thinking here, you know, Star Wars, the episode four ends on just this tremendous high note.

And then movie Empire Strikes Back shows that they're right back in it. That's kind of like that in our lives. The opposition is going to be with us in one it's kind of like that in our lives. The opposition is going to be with us in one way or another till the end of our lives. You have this wonderful, wonderful moment in the waters of Mormon with Alma, but then Amulant is out there circling in the wilderness and pretty soon he's going to find you, but you in bondage. I think life has its verse 22s, Moses brought the children of Israel from the red sea. They went out into the wilderness and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.

Like life has all the sudden things go blah and it's not so fun. By the way, since you brought up the Amelon, talks about Amelon and the taskmasters, Mulsiah 23 or 24, that language is specifically taken from the Exodus. It sounds like the Egyptian taskmaster. It is. It's a different language. Mormon is deliberately trying to draw that comparison, so that the redemption of Alma the Elder and his people is like,

it's a replication of history. For ancient Israel, history wasn't just one linear thing. It was circular. Like a cycle, yeah. Like one eternal wreck playing out again. And was I a 23 and 24 with the redemption of Alma, the elder and his people. Oh, it absolutely is. Matt, you're dying. This is not fair. This is a new redemption story. That's what I like about this is because when the rising generation has trouble, the angel doesn't have to say arise and remember Moses. He says, arise and remember the captivity of thy fathers. All of a sudden it is very recent for them. And that's why I like that. They have a new in the book Mormon, their own Deliverance story. It's great to remember back to Moses, but now they have their own. And remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of hewam.

We talk about the new and everlasting covenant being new and everlasting. But we have to connect to the most recent stories too. We were just talking about the experiences of the pioneers. Brighamian, yeah. You know, that they were in a captivity of sorts. They were in circumstances that they definitely hadn't chosen and that they needed to be delivered from. This is Mosaic 2417, the Lord to the to Alma, thou shalt go before this people, and I will go with thee and deliver this people out of bondage.

That is, that's Moses' language. It says when they get out in the valley of Alma, they poured out their thanks to God, just like Exodus 15. their thanks to God, just like Exodus 15. The songs of redeeming love. Their men and all their women and their children lifted up their voices in praises of God. There's your Exodus 14 and 15, right there. I think that's what Alma, Alma the younger, is asking the members of the church and Sarah Helmland to remember because some of them had been there. Some of them, this was still living memory for them, that can you remember even in our own history the saints got out to the valley and they tilt the desert and made it bloom and all of that.

But you read some of the stories in church history. Brigham Young was really worried that the saints, his greatest worry was that they would get rent and kick themselves out of the church. Right. I love that. This people will stand robbing, mobbing persecution and remain true, but my greater fears

that they cannot stand wealth. I share that in my class, and as how many of you woke up in the middle of the night with this horrible nightmare that you became rich? Oh, so glad I woke up. That was awful. Suddenly I had all the money I needed. That was terrible.

That's when I'm like, President Kimball. Lord, give me this mountain right Lord Give me this difficulty I will I'll take on that trial of I'm a rich man. Yeah So far we've channeled Thiniland the roof and Star Wars. We're doing pretty well here So they've had this incredible experience and they're now they're pretty thirsty. They go to drink the waters of what is it, Mara?

Mara, yep. And they're bitter. First 23. And that becomes the basis for the naming of the place. You know, Mara. People murmured, what shall we drink? Is there a Hebrew meaning to that word? Yeah, Mara means bitterness.

And you remember Naomi in book Ruth. Naomi is a name that means pleasant or sweet. And then she says, you know, with what's happened to her, she says, you know, call me Morah, bitter. The opposite. Then in verse 25, when it says, any creditor, Lord and Lord showed him the word in Hebrew there is actually like in a similar word, where you get the word Torah or Yara means to teach by pointing the finger. The Lord pointed him to, you see, there are a tree or a piece of wood. It can, it might not be an entire tree because he has to throw it in the water, cast it under the water and the waters were made sweet. And it's interesting because it points the episode will explain the meanings behind the names of these different places where they'll travel

in their journey. We should go to the the manna. So again, we got murmuring again. That's got to be the Lord. Here we got murmuring again. We got murmuring again. The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and the children of Israel said unto them, here we go again. To God, we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. And here's the misremembering, right? When we sat by the flesh pots and when we did

eat bread to the fall, when the circumstances aren't ideal, or even when we're immersed in sin, we can sometimes remember the past. I think Joe Spencer's talked about this, that sin misremembers the past. So their misremembering is whole thing. We did eat bread to the fall. Wait, weren't you guys in bondage? Yeah This wasn't a trip down to the cafeteria at Women halls You know where they could eat anything they wanted I mean they're misremembering the past and so I think it's interesting that the Lord proposes here is going to teach them Then vote Lord said unto Moses the whole I will reign bread from heaven for you and note there's a

crystallological type there that the Savior himself and John 6 and that wonderful bread of life sermon that he's really tapped into. And the people shall go out and gather a certain raid every day and that I may prove them or test them, whether they will walk in my law or no. A skip to verse six. And Moses said unto all the children of Israel at even, then shall you know that the Lord hath brought you out of the land of Egypt. They need to be reminded of that. Yeah, already.

Already. There's not a huge time that's elapsed here. It helps us appreciate that miracles, even big miracles can have a short shelf life in terms of our memory. We'll connect this to the sacrament, right? That's one of the reasons people in other faiths wonder why we have the sacrament so often. Weekly. Gosh, I'm so thankful we do. I am too, because we have to be put in remembrance, at least that often.

When we remember Christ and we covenant our willingness to remember him, we're not just remembering him and his atoning sacrifice. We're also remembering all the other acts of deliverance, great and small and all of the other miracles in our lives. And we need to be put in remembrance of that constantly. And this would have been putting them in remembrance of that every day. Had daily and twice on Fridays before the Sabbath. This is great stuff. It's difficult to become converted to like daily scripture study or daily prayer. But once you are and you realize the blessings of that daily habit or that daily reminder, it really is quite a wonderful experience. And Hank, I love how the Lord connects this to food.

Just yesterday, I was teaching blessed today that hunger and thirst after righteousness, and I thought, have you ever in your life said, you know, I don't think I've had a thing to eat since Thursday. You don't forget to eat for four or five days, but you might forget to take in some spiritual food for that long. That's why I love the daily part of this. I'll ask my students that how many of you

have ever fasted for a day and everybody's hands up, then you say how many of you fasted for two days or three and then the hands dropped down pretty quickly, then I'll say how many of you've gone for more than a week without reading your scriptures. I don't tell them to put their hands up, but they get the point. Our bodies remind us really quickly, or feed me, feed me, feed me, but our spirits aren't quite that way.

We have to take thought for their nourishment. There has to be more intentionality and purpose in that nourishment. How often do hunger and thirst need to be addressed? I like to ask them well, pretty much daily. Do you ever get to the point where you're like, well, I guess I've eaten enough in this life I've ever done hungry and thirsty. No, never. Virtually speaking, I'd love to try to make that connection. I should live up to it myself, but I love that idea of daily manness. You keep murmuring, so I'm going to send daily man to remind you that way.

John, my good friend, Lynn Bowler, hasn't missed a day of reading the book of Mormon since he was 12. And he counts as a large part of his success in life is he says because I just have that daily habit. I was also thinking of Enus, my soul hunger. My soul hunger, not my body hunger, my soul. Yeah. That's good. And that's connects to the sacrament prayer. That connects to to the souls of all those per take of it. The word nefesh, we talked about that a minute ago, and the nefesh had a reference to not only a person's soul, it was the idea of the entryway of a throat, and it was the word they had for appetite.

And in the sacrament process, it's not talking about our physical appetites, because nobody is going, except maybe on Sunday. Nobody's going to get, you know, satisfied by one piece of bread, a cup of water, but we're talking about our spiritual appetite. We were really being focused on that in the ordinance. I've never made that connection between Enis, my soul-hungered, and the sacrament to the souls of all those who partake of it.

You're showing me things I've never seen before. And I would say, John, you've probably already made all these connections. You're like, oh, yeah, I'm not at all. I'm right there with you. And I do not I keep thinking of is when at the end of Jesus's visit in the new world, when he says, and it says he expounded all the scriptures in one, I thought, how do you get a ticket to that? Cause somehow I bet he connected everything they had to everything else they had.

And I think that's kind of what we're getting a taste of today. Thank you, Matt. You're connecting the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon in wonderful ways. Oh, in wonderful ways, and the New Testament. I wrote down your quote with the murmuring of chapter search that here we go again. Because I mean, there's a lot of murmuring in verses 7, 8,

and 9. He hears your murmurings against the Lord. And then there's more in verse 12. He has to send quail. The quail miracles are, I think, in Utah, you see this because they're around. The quails are, and you see it in the miracles, they kind of come crashing in to the camp, and you have your watch quails. It takes them so long to react to recovery. They're not the swiftest on the uptake at all So you can kind of see You know how the Lord made it so easy for him I won't send hummingbirds. I'll send Quail

They do man. I've never noticed that but we have a bunch around here and on the road It's almost like you're gonna hit them before they run out of the way. Yeah, you're going come on guys. Come on move I ate quail once and before they run out of the way. Yeah. You're going, come on guys, come on, move. I ate quail once and it's really nothing to write home about. I mean, it's like chicken joke. Yeah. It kind of makes me feel grateful. I have heard the murmurings.

He even hears that. It doesn't say I have obtained noise canceling headphones, but he's even heard the murmurings and he responded, wow. Yeah, what is the word murmur? I mean, do we know much about that word? Cause obviously Nephi uses it to describe his brothers. Yeah, I think I'm trying to remember Lohan,

I think is one of the verbs that's used, I think, and I think that there's another one, grumble, complain. Grumble, I think it's grumble. He's like, I've heard your stomachs and your mouths. My mouth is murmuring and my stomach is grumbling. Well, you mentioned John 6. Can you tie these together for us? Because I think it's so cool the way the Lord does it in John 6. It says, your father's a man in the wilderness and are dead. But he connects, he says, I am that bread from heaven.

The type, it's like this with the brazen serpent miracle, and a number of the other types that we read about in the Pentateuch in these stories. It's not the type itself that's the thing. For Lehigh and their family in the wilderness, it wasn't the Leahona itself that's the thing. For Lehigh and their family in the wilderness, it wasn't the Leahona itself that was the thing. If you don't get to what the type is pointing to, you remember, there's a couple times

where this connection's made, and Jacob makes it in, Jacob IV, Amulac makes it in Alma 34, that the law was pointing their souls. Yeah. To him. It pointing our souls to him. Every wet pointing to that great and last sacrifice, the types can get in the way if the

deeper spiritual understanding isn't understood. It's not even what the sacrament to. When you're really young as a kid you know you're just excited about the The bread and water coming around you know you're not thinking much about what it means even there We're if we're not careful the symbol gets in the way of what is symbolized if we're not thinking And we're not looking to Christ and that verb is associated with both the miracle of the Brazen serpent and the liahona in the Book of Mormon, the looking to him, seeing him, looking upon him in faith.

Tell us the meaning of the word mana. Yeah, that was an interesting. mana is the spelling that comes out of the Greek Septuagint. That's the Greek translation that was later made of the Hebrew Bible. In Hebrew it's just mon. And there's a play on words going, they called it mon-hu, and it can mean two things, it can mean what is it, or the statement can mean it is mon. And there's an Arabic word actually, mon that refers to the Tamarisk man of the Sinai Peninsula. That word means like thin or fine, and that's how the the man was. Yeah, there's a plan where it's going on in the story here. You know, what is it or it is? Mon. Sorry, you can either be taken as a question or a statement, but the question might make better sense in the context of the story.

And there are other Semitic languages in which man is a, uses a word asking a question. For your children, okay, have your bowl of, of that. What is it, right? Exactly. What is it, mom, right? And the Lord wants them, he says, I want you to do this daily, except for the day before the Sabbath, you're going to gather as twice as much.

And it seems like they have a hard time keeping all the instructions. The look of verse 20, notwithstanding, they are not in Damascus, but some of them left it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was wrothed with them. They seem to figure it out though. This is how it's a daily thing. It's a daily thing. This is how it's going to work. Elder Christopherson, he's got a series of videos where he talks about the daily bread and what that means for us. I really love it. I recommend them. The Lord is patient with them. He's giving

them bread day to day. One of the the things that Elder Christopherson said was that because the Lord's showing such patience with them and with us, we also shouldn't expect immediate deliverance from problems or just immediate solutions to things. The Lord doesn't expect immediate perfection from us either. But day by day increment. That's another thing that the manic can symbolize for us. And the sacrament too, daily incremental

gradual improvement. The Lord's not expecting perfection from us and we shouldn't expect instant gratification of our desires from him. That's really great. I'm thinking of Matthew 5 in the Lord's Prayer. Give us this our daily bread, like this incremental, I understand the idea of my relationship with you is incremental. It's day by day. And just that the Lord would use that as a metaphor for himself, as I am that daily bread. I'm the John VI. I am the man I that came down from heaven. And the man of that, they said, are you gonna be like Moses?

And he's like, Moses didn't give you the man. Yeah, I gave you the man. Some of them were really grossed out because they thought, how can this man give us his flesh? They think he's talking about corpse consumption and things that were just completely against the law of Moses and they failed to really tune into what was beyond assemble. Right. It was him. Well this is a hard saying. His apostles come up and say, what are you doing? And many

leave after that, right? That's John 66 is many from that time. Fourth walked no more with him. Well, and as Matt said before, where are you going to go? Where else would we go? What else is out there if you're trying to convince people against the truth? Well, what have you got to offer? They can offer the, I guess, Esau's bowl of lendle soup, which, you know, lendle soup, if you've had it, I mean, it's decent. I don't think lendle soup is anybody's favorite food, but in the end, I mean, Esau exchanges

the eternal blessings of the Abrahamic covenant for a bowl of soup. All of the father has, who the father is, his essential life and character for a bowl of soup. All of the father has who the father is, his essential life and character for a ball of soup. Jewish rabbis have drawn attention to that, the exchanging of eternal things for more or less balls of soup in the world. I've noticed right at the end of 16 that Moses has Aaron make a kind of a memorial, bowl this pot of bread is going to be something that to remember. So it's like an item that is used to remind me. One of three witnesses that will go into the arc of the covenant. Aaron's rod will be

another one of those when we get down the line. The tablets of the commandment, which will be forthcoming also later in Exodus. And then here's that first witness. It's the Omer of Mana from what they're experiencing now. It's the first witness through them. I got to tell you this has been fantastic so far. Okay, let's go to chapter 17. Again, murmuring. Verse 2, wherefore the people that chide with Moses and said,

give us water that we may drink, and Moses said unto them, why chide you with me? Wherefore do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted for water and the people murmured against Moses and said, wherefore is that thou hast brought us out of Egypt? Again, here's the the theme. You've brought us out here just to kill us. To kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst. The miracles have a short shelf life. And that was another lesson from the book of Mormon, right? Laman Lemuel saw some of these types of miracles. They heard the voice of the Lord. They saw an angel. Unless you're remembering constantly, we've been talking about

daily bread, weekly, partaking of the sacrament, unless you're being put constantly in remembrance of the Lord. That was the, in fact, that was the goal of the Law of Moses. You remember, a benedite talks about this, about the, it kept them in the path of their duty. The Law of Moses was designed to do that with its types and rituals and everything so that you would be constantly thinking about the Lord. And King Benjamin talks about having the law constantly before their eyes.

And I was the goal of the factories too, remember? Even putting scriptures and boxes on the forehead and on the rest. So it's just always there. Bind the law to your head. And so Moses, I think he's for over his life at this point, he says, and Moses cried under the Lord saying, what shall I do under this people? They'd be almost ready to stone me. They're gonna kill me. They crossed through the Red Sea.

I fed them every day and they're about ready to kill me. So they're not singing, we thank the O God for a proper. And the Lord said, when the Moses go on before the people and take with the of the elders of Israel and thy rod, we're with thou smotest the river and take in thy hand and go. And again, we talked about how Nephi would have understood what's happening here in terms of the rod and the word. The hold I will stand before the thereupon the rock in Horib. So this is very near Sinai. And thou shalt slight the rock and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. that the people may drink and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And then you get an explanation of the naming of the places here, and he called the name of the place,

Masa, and Mary about because of the chiting of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not. Those places, Masa means testing, you know, place of testing or testing ground or something like that. And MediBah means contention. So they're they're testing the Lord and they're contending with the Lord. And so that'll be memorialized in these these place names. So don't name your children Maribah. My hair shall all washpaws is probably not going to be on anyone's short list of baby names. Destruction is imminent. Yeah, destruction is imminent.

Although you think about it, it is a good appropriate name for a toddler. When Isaiah's wife heard that, like, oh no, what type of child is coming? You can imagine her not saying anything, but just raising her eyebrows, looking at him like, maher shala haspah. Where's this going? Can I name the next one? What was Shire J. Shab, the other, what was that meant? A remnant shell return, right?

Shire, yeah, Shub is a remnant Shall Return. And that one's, you know, that's actually connected to the Exodus 2. That ties into that passage in Isaiah that we were talking about in Isaiah 51, that the Redeemer would be able to return to Zion with songs of everlasting joy on their heads. So in the name, there's the judgment. There's Remnant implies that there was a, you know, divine justice overtook them at some point, but then there's also implied mercy, you know, the remnant then will repent and return or come back. So he smites the rock and the water comes out. What am I

supposed to see here? This is something that I think Isaiah loads to that he'd led them to the desert and they thirsted not. You know, for Lehigh and his family, I wonder what this would have met, you know, the being led in the more fertile parts of the wilderness where there were. There was game where there was food, but also water sources where they could drink. When we think about that, you know, again, typologically, like we talked about the way, the journey, it's not easy, the Lord provides.

And that's that same, back to 1st Nephai 17, he said that he would be their light in the wilderness and he said, I'll prepare the way before you. And so I think this is a part of that. This is a part of him getting us away. In fact, the meaning of the idiom, prepare the way means to clear the way. It means to take the obstacles out of the way. Thirst would be an obstacle. Well, I think about a modern application of this would be, life got really hard for me. And I don't see a way. We're in the middle of the desert here. I don't see a way that I'm going to survive this.

And the Lord's you are going to survive. I'm going to provide a way. And it's going to come from an unlikely place. It's might the rock. Can I bring up another movie? Please do. George Bailey, and it's a wonderful life. Show me the way, Lord. And he's, I'm not a praying man, but show me the way. You could probably do an impression. Couldn't you, John? Well, I'm not a praying man. I don't happen to have $8,000 to you. I've loved that scene. Show me the way. I love that, John. That idea. I love it. And I love the answers to prayers come from a place where you just wouldn't think it would come from.

Unlikely sources, you get the place you didn't think was going to be a blessing and it ends up being a blessing. You know, I think most of listeners will have experiences like this when they think about it, people who stepped into their lives at different times in different ways and helped shape their lives and maybe helped open a door for them where there wasn't a way forward before. Well, I think Amulac is a perfect example of that. What you just mentioned for Alma, you remember in Alma 8, he went in there the first time and to Alma and IHon had a really rough experience. He's ready to walk away from the situation,

but then I have always loved this, that the Lord sent him the very angel that had stopped him in the way before. You talk about it, tender mercy, in terms of helping Al-Maniha know that he was in good standing with the Lord at this point for all of his efforts. And then the angel sent him back and I'm sure it was the same angel who appeared to Annuleck. I'm so glad that Mormon chose to include that sentence, behold, I am he that delivered it unto you. It's like that, that was me.

Do you remember me? You know, I scared you so bad back then, but you're doing so well now. Never heard anybody say this, but I'd love to believe that angel is a benedite. I just think that would be cool if that were to. I would too.

That was watching that family, that Alma, the elder defended, and now he's talking to Alma the younger and saying, you know, you're doing great. I, ever since I knocked you flat and was I at 27. Maybe we should change the primary song. I know the Lord provides an unlikely way, right? He wants me to obey. Something that I probably won't see coming. I was thinking about this idea of holding up Moses's arms and thinking about a contrasting

don't steady the ark, but here is a help Moses by holding up his arms when they were fighting with Emma Lack, not to be confused with the MU Lack we've just been talking about the Book of Mormon. This is sustaining in the most literal sense of the word. Sustained comes from a Latin word that means to hold tenet and sub from below. To hold from below. Yeah, I mean, that's what they're doing. This is, I think, crucial to Joshua's growth and his role

later the hill fill with the Lord when he is Moses' successor. But him and who are being there on the right and the left of Moses, anybody who's served in the church and a capacity as a bishop or a Choram president or a Relief Society president or primary police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a police or a jump ship and don't help very much. It can leave the bishop or the president. It can feel pretty lonely if they don't have the support. The footnote has grew heavy with weariness. That sounds kind of, yeah, if you're alone, you're grow heavy. It's a great application for that. When I was called to be bishop and had, I don't know, a week or two to find counselors. When those counselors accepted, oh, this, the heaviness and wearingness was, was decreased.

I knew I had counselors now that had agreed to, to do this. And okay, maybe with these two guys, I can do this. And it's not just counselors as well. We all sustain. We all sustain. We all sustain. Yeah. I heard it called once the covenant of common consent And that was my favorite way to hear it call that it wasn't just that this isn't sustaining that is signifying that you will sustain which is an ongoing Covenant with a covenant hand, right? There's our right hand again. Yep. Yep. We sustain President Nelson and the first presidency

in the 12 when we support their prophetic initiatives. If we are pulling a children of Israel on them and we're almost ready to stone me. Yeah, and if we're mentally, if not literally stoning the prophets, you know, I've been amazed in, if I can speak plainly here, and so, at social media over the course of the last few years, people who profess to be active members of the church are willing to, to say about the prophet and the first presidency in the 12, the kinds of things that they're willing to say.

And I've even seen people say that they, to the effect that they wish that the president of the church would die or that they wouldn't shed a tear. And you cannot say that you are sustaining the prophet in any meaningful sense if you harbor those types of attitudes. Know that one of the best things that we can do for ourselves spiritually is to get a testimony of the Savior and that he calls living prophets and then we can get a testimony that they are guided from the Lord. And I do not say that to imply infallibility. That's not a word that we use in connection with mortal human beings other than the savior himself

He's the the one we would say is infallible, but we do receive his word with Patience as if from the mouth of the Lord himself and if we can learn to do that. I think we of the Lord himself. And if we can learn to do that, I think we, because when we murmur and complain, like we've been reading about in these chapters, the one that was really hurting as first ourselves, and we can also damage the faith of our children and their ability to receive the word of the Lord through the prophet and patience and faith. Elder Jeff Yard Holland gave this talk years ago called a prayer for the children, I think, and he said that we can't flirt with cynicism

and skepticism and then not expect our children to turn that flirtation into full-blown romance. Exactly right. Amazing talk, prayer for the children. That verse 17, four, the people be almost ready to stone me. I think we have seen a little bit of that. I just wrote in my margin, people who are attacked on social media, go and think, look, well, look what they're doing.

Stoning you on social media. And then this idea of sustain, I'll hold you up from below. So sustaining isn't just not stoning Moses. Right. Now, I'm the I sustain him. I haven't I haven't thrown any stones. I haven't complained. I haven't posted anything. Are you actively holding him up? I think President Nelson, I hope I'm right on this. He said it's also upholding their prophetic priorities. We're willing to honor not only them, but honor what they counseled and they've decided on behalf of where the saints need to go that we uphold that and not dig in our heels, the chiting there. That's the contending that's not going to facilitate having the presence of the Holy Ghost in our lives so that we have that voice behind us saying,

this is the way walking it, way Isaiah describes, we can't have that kind of revelation that we need if we're big and in our heels of this, that whatever comes from the the prophet at every, at every turn. Man, Matt, that's beautiful. And I like how the Lord is preparing Joshua here. Write this in the book and make sure Joshua writes this down because he's going to need this. He's going to need this. Elder Maxwell gave a talk called Murmur-Nott in October of 1989 and he said, Murmurs have

short memories. Israel arrived in Sinai then journeyed onto the Holy Land, though they were sometimes hungry and thirsty, but the Lord rescued them, whether by the miraculous appearance by Quail or by Waterstruck from Iraq. Strange, isn't it brothers and sisters, how those with the shortest memories have the longest lists of demands? However, with no remembrance of past blessings, there's no perspective about what is really going on. This powerful verse in the Old Testament reminds us of what is really going on. And then he quotes Deuteronomy 8, 2, and thou shalt remember all the way,

which the Lord thy God led thee, these 40 years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether that would keep his commandments or no. That's good stuff. Murmors have short memories, but a long list of demands. A long list of demands. Wow. It ties together a lot of things that we've been talking about today. It does. Very nice. So we've got the commandant to get it in writing. Then there's that last bit about the Amalakites that they'll come back very famously in 1 Samuel 15, you remember, with Saul. This kind of leads to the end of his kingship and the Lord's rejection

of him. So maybe not too much more to say there. That name of the altar that's built, Jiharra and Nisi, that word Nase is a word that means, it can mean enzyme, or standard, or banner. It's the word that we're going to see later with the Brazen serpent in Numbers 21 when Moses puts a serpent on the pole. It's also the same word that Isaiah uses when he talks about lifting up a enzyme to the nations and the standard.

That's a really important word for Isaiah. So it Isaiah 2? Yeah, the fact he uses a theme. If you're ever want to fun exercise, go through every instance where Isaiah uses the word enzyme standard or banner. That's kind of fun. I did not realize how heavily Isaiah leans on the books of Moses. There's a lot of Exodus imagery in Isaiah. So great. Matt, this has been fantastic today. Really just a lot of fun. I feel like I've just opened up new rooms in my own house like where, how long has that been there? And I've never seen it. I think our listeners, one, are grateful for you. And then two, I think they'd love to hear a little

bit of your journey as a Bible scholar and a Latter-day saint. How did those come together for you? I'm going to share some weird stuff that I don't think I've ever shared publicly. My mom will remember this. I was just really into the scriptures at a very young age. In fact, I would even write my own, you know, I would write them. This is at five or six, just imitating biblical language. So, I guess that should have been a sign that this was all on the way. My mother did something that just really has served me well, set me up for good things. She read the book of Mormon with me, around the time of my baptism.

She read through it with me twice. There's a tradition in Judaism of taking Torah, scroll, parchment, and putting honey on it, letting the children put that on their tongue. And it helps them. It's the idea of making the word of the Lord sweet unto them. You'll remember that passage in Jeremiah. My words were found and I did to eat them. Joy and rejoicing of my heart eating the word and having it be sweet.

I went through a period of time where I really struggled as a teenager in terms of activity and faith. And I just, it was, I had a testimony that the church was true, but I just kind of lost my orientation to the gospel in a lot of ways and I didn't really find it until I was 18, almost 19 and really coming into mission age. And then some really awesome things happened during that period of time in my life that really kind of I had experiences that showed me that the Lord really knew who I was.

And I mean unmistakably knew who I was. And what direction he wanted me to go. In fact, I'll never forget I've been praying about whether to serve a mission and how that answer came and when it came. And it was one of the most distinct answers to prior I've ever received and it was not something I conjured for myself because I didn't want to serve the mission at first. But when the answer came and it came, it was like my entire body was filled with light from the crown of my head and then working down to the souls of my feet, and I comprehended with every aspect of who I am, what I needed to do, and it helped make the decision to go serve, and I went and served

in the California Roosevelt Mission, and had experiences there that gave me the first inklings that I would need to study some ancient languages, and I let somebody talk me out of it when I got home, because they can't make any money doing that. But eventually the Lord brought me right back around to that. I was the, I think, the late bloomer. I was 26 by the time I graduated from BYU in Provo and I was 31 by the time I got into

the graduate program that I wanted to be at the Catholic University of America. By the way, I, no pun intended. I met my wife, Susie. This was six weeks maybe after I got out of Washington, DC. How you escape Utah Valley is single, you know, after being there most of my life. I managed to do it, but I met Suzy right after that and then we started our family and the blessings just came. I think that's part of a big part of my testimony is I saw the miracles along the way,

unmistakable that helped me, that opened doors, helped me get to where I needed to go. And even when disaster struck, I mean, my wife after our second son, Nathan, was born. He was born by a placenta eruption about 15 weeks early, almost, not quite 25 weeks. And he lived 33 days and even then there wasn't a miraculous Healing and in giving us the outcome that we all hoped for and wanted But even in that we saw so many miracles from the very beginning

to the very end and And afterwards we saw miracles things I could talk you know and go into a lot greater depth that those miracles showed us proof positive that the lord knew our family he knew us individually he knew we needed he helped us get to Hawaii help me finish writing a lengthy dissertation of 500 plus pages you know what that's like. And it's, you know, it's just miracle after miracle. And then the miracle that I mentioned earlier today of being able to stay here in Hawaii and raise our family here, you know, even in the great blessings and even in the trials has just been one testimony after another to me

of the goodness of God. I know that he knows me. I only get really disappointed when I know that my performance could better measure up to the blessings that he's given me. But even then, I know, like me, if I know in whom I've trusted and I know I'm just gonna pick myself back up

and keep trying and keep fighting and keep moving forward. And the world today, like we're all experiencing, we all, you know, we've all been through a lot with COVID. We're seeing a lot now happening with the world being in commotion, with what's going on in Ukraine. And I just know that through it all, it is all in his hands. Our time here's going to be not that long in the grand scheme of things,

but I think we really will be grateful for all of the relationships that we've developed. The Lord's goodness has been really manifested to me there in wonderful ways. I couldn't have done anything that I've done without the help of a lot of people in helping me and shaping me in ways great and small and being instruments and empowering me to to do the things that I've done. That's something I'm grateful for every day, those types of blessings. I would just close with a testimony of Jesus that I know that he lives and I know that he atone for me that he atone for all humankind and that he is the way, the truth and the life. He can show us the way because he is the way that atonement is real.

And one day we're going to know it even better than we know now. And the proofs will be unmistakable. We will realize then how much we love him, but even more how much he loved us. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. What a great day. John, by the way, what a great day. Thank you. Dr. Matt Bowen, thank you for your time and your expertise. It's been wonderful.

Thank you. All of you for listening today. Thank you for being with us. We're grateful for your support. We want to thank, by name, our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Swanson, and our sponsors, David and Verla Swanson. We hope all of you will join us on our next episode of Follow Him. Thank you.