followHIM - Exodus 7-13 -- Part 2 : Dr. Andrew C. Skinner

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

Dr. Skinner returns to discuss the plagues that afflict Egypt, their purposes and symbolic nature, and how they remind the Israelites about God’s love for his children.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. And so, Pharaoh chooses these plagues. It's not the Lord. That's what I think the point that we're trying to make is that it's not the Lord. The Lord always gives Pharaoh a choice. And it's Pharaoh who chooses that which brings about the Lord's promise, his signs and wonders that if he doesn't let the Israelites go, then he and his people will suffer the consequences. And even in the Passover celebration among the Jewish people, there's this sense that Jehovah is sorrowed over the fact that lives are being lost because of the hardness or the heaviness of Pharaoh's heart. He doesn't wish any of his children to have to suffer these kinds of things, but they've been warned. As you pointed out, it's God remembering his covenant, and he would prefer to have all people join the covenant.

But because of Pharaoh's hardened heart or heavy heart, that won't happen. So I just wanted to kind of make a general comment about the nature of the plagues. So the first nine plagues that are recounted in this section of Exodus can be divided into three groups of three plagues each. Chapter 7, verse 15, through chapter 8, verse 19. That's the first set of three plagues. Chapter 8, verse 20, through chapter 9, verse 12. That's the second grouping of three plagues. And then chapter 9, verse 13, through chapter 10 10 verse 29. What's interesting about this grouping of plagues is that we see Moses going to Pharaoh to deliver the warning as Pharaoh is going out to the river Nile in the morning to participate in his daily devotions, daily ablutions, his washings,

in his daily worshiping the chief gods of the Egyptian pantheon. And so three times the Lord says to Moses, you go out at the time of Pharaoh's early morning personal devotionals, if you were, personal worship sessions, and you remind him that this is going to be his lot if he doesn't accede to Jehovah's wishes. So with that in mind, maybe we can just take a moment or two and look at the first nine plagues. And the idea of the plagues, yes, again, it is to cause Pharaoh to capitulate and to let Israel go so that they can go into the wilderness and they can offer

sacrifices to Jehovah and worship him in their own way. The Lord wants them to worship Him, the true and living God, and break away from the false gods of the Egyptian pantheon. So that's the purpose of the plagues, but the audience that Jehovah has in mind is Israel. And the first plague, which we read about in chapter 7, centers on the Nile. And we're all familiar with this plague. Pharaoh went to the Nile each morning to worship the supreme deity, and that supreme deity was the river Nile. Historians will remember that it was Herodotus, 5th century BC Greek historian, who said, Egypt is the gift of the Nile. So the most important of the deities, and Farrell confirms this every morning, is the River Nile. And what happens? The River Nile then ceases to be a source of life. It's changed from living water, if you will, from pure water into blood. And scholars have debated whether or not this is literal or whether or not it was figurative for the red color that the Nile begins to exhibit.

Some people say, well, the Nile River was changed because the red silt from Ethiopia was washed down on the banks of the Nile, and it caused the whole river to be changed. Others say, well, no, it looks more like an algae bloom, red algae, and this would cause the fish to die and the river to stink. I'm not sure it makes any difference to me. What does make a difference is that this is the Lord's doing, and that the Lord is behind the miracle. The Lord says by the corruption of the Nile, I have power over your supreme deity.

And by extension, I have power over life and death. I hear you saying that the idea is that, yes, Pharaoh is going to suffer all of this, but the Israelites need to know because they've been in Egypt for so long, they've been indoctrinated, they need to know that the God that they're about to learn about is much more powerful than the gods they've been culturally a part of for the last few centuries. That's precisely the point. Thank you for that clarification, because that's exactly what the Lord is trying to do here. Even when they get out of Egypt, they're going to say, we should have gone back. We should go back. We had leeks and melons. We had tasty treats on our table. And now all we've got is this manna. And we don't even know what it is. In fact, the Hebrew that's translated as the word manna, manhu, literally translates as what is it? They want to go back because things weren't so bad. Niall treated us pretty well.

Yeah. So these nine presentations are hopefully going to remind them. And that's the point, is that in every instance, it's Jehovah who controls life and death. It's Jehovah who controls the forces of nature. It's Jehovah who's the true and living God and can extend that power into the lives of every Israelite covenant member if they will allow him to. And they're getting lesson after lesson after lesson to make the point. And yet, in a way way they also are hardening their hearts. They're just not getting it. And ultimately what will happen, this is skipping ahead, but ultimately what will happen is

that the great event of apostasy involving the golden calf, which again is one of the Egyptian deities, is the thing that causes Israel to lose the higher priesthood, the higher law, including what we would refer to as temple ordinances. And in their place, we have the lesser law and the lesser priesthood. That's not what God originally intended. If you read chapter 19, God wants to make the delivered Israelites a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And he's not talking about Aaronic priesthood priests. He's talking about the kind of priests and kings that we go to the temple in our day to understand and to receive ordinances that help us become that kind of a priest and king. These are Melchizedek priests, kings and queens, priests and priests.

That's what God wants to do at the base of Mount Sinai, but they won't allow that. They can't let go of the old gods. No, and again, this is jumping ahead, but you think about the way that this is presented to the Israelites through Moses. The Lord says to Moses, I want to make of them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. I want to make them kings and queens, priests and priestesses. Moses tells that to the Israelites. And what do they say? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This sounds great. We will do all of this that you command us. And then when God starts requiring something of them, namely what we refer to as the 10 commandments, what do they do? They retreat, like many of us. They say, well, yeah, well, we didn't really realize that we're going to have to do something to receive these great blessings. And so I think that that mindset is alive and well in these chapters 7 through 13. The second plague in chapter 8 verses 6 through 8 centers on the frog or the goddess Heket. The frog was sacred in ancient Egypt. It was a symbol of life springing forth. It was associated with the concept of resurrection. In fact, it was a symbol of resurrection.

And it was an animal considered sacred by all Egyptians that is now being manipulated by Israel's God. And the plague of frogs also shows that miracles and signs don't produce lasting conversion in most people. And we see that with Pharaoh. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm going to let them go, but please get rid of this plague of the frogs. And what does Moses say? Well, I give you the honor of telling me when you want this to happen. And Pharaoh says, well, how about the next day? Well, he retreats. He goes back on his promise to let the Israelites go. So signs and wonders, miracles don't produce lasting

conversion in many people. They do in some, but some other things are going on there. That's Exodus 8.15. When Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, yeah, it wasn't that long that he turns around and like, oh, okay, we're fine now. Now, what's interesting about the first two plagues is that the magicians of Pharaoh's court are able to duplicate these signs and wonders, just like they were able to duplicate the staff becoming a serpent. It ends after this. They will no longer be able to duplicate the staff becoming a serpent, it ends after this. They will no longer be able to duplicate this. And so as the signs and wonders intensify and they strike at the very heart of who the Egyptians are, the magicians are not able to do what the Lord God is able to do.

And this is seen beginning in the third plague, Exodus 8, verses 16 through 19, referred to in the text as lice, but it's actually stinging gnats that issue from the soil. And remember, the soil is also worshipped by the Egyptians. So now Jehovah has caused the soil, which was once beneficent to the ancient Egyptians, to turn on them. In the biblical text, the phrase, the dust will become gnats, is probably symbolic of the enormous numbers of these stinging creatures. We don't know exactly, I think, the nature of these stinging creatures, but we know, for example, how painful it is to be bitten by a horsefly or how uncomfortable it is to be bitten by a whole bunch of mosquitoes

or how uncomfortable it is to receive any kind of a bite from an insect of this sort. And so, there's a passage in the biblical text which said that people become covered with these lice or stinging gnats. And gee whiz, that cannot have been pleasant. And Pharaoh cannot have been ignorant of the fact that his recalcitrance is causing his own people, those who worship him as a living God on earth, to suffer. Fourth plague, actually, we like to say flies, but if you'll notice the text, it is 824. 824, the Lord says, so there are grievous swarms, but notice the word of flies is in italics. Those words don't appear in the original text, so they're grievous swarms. And these grievous swarms are none other than the dung beetle, the scarab.

Egyptologists and students of ancient history will recognize that the scarab is an emblem of the sun god Ra, or Ray, one of the greatest and most enduring symbols in ancient Egypt. And so what we have is we have these swarms of scarab beetles that are supposed to represent these beneficent and kind gods, but now have turned against the people, and it's the Lord's power that's behind that. So I think that that's an important distinction to make. I'm seeing the plagues are dismantling Egyptian theology right in front of the Israelites. That is a very good point. That's exactly what's happening, is that the belief system of the ancient Egyptians is now in significant peril, and it'll get worse from this point on.

And that's the point of the plagues is that they intensify, and they begin to strike at the very culture and life support system of the Egyptians. In Exodus 6, those wonderful verses, 6, 7, 8, I will redeem you. I will bring you out from the Egyptians. Primarily, as you said, he wanted the house of Israel to know who he was. Exodus 6, 7, you shall know I am the Lord your God. But then in Exodus 7, 5, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And I love that Jehovah is always a teacher. But what Hank just said, look at Exodus 12, 12, against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. The Nile is not God. I am God. Let my people go. Frogs are not God. I am God. Let my people go, right? Swarms

are not God. I am God. Let my people go. And he's discrediting those Egyptian gods one at a time. I love that he could have, with one plague, got the people out because he's God. But first he wanted to show that each of the Egyptian gods were not God. And then, okay, now we're leaving. It's how I like to look at it. It's almost last God standing, right? Because he's knocking them off one by one. These are God's children too, and he loves them. And he doesn't wish the full force of the benevolence of these signs and wonders to attack them or to do them harm. And that's why it's a repetitive request. Please let my people go. No, I'm not. Well, okay. Based on my promise to remember the covenant, then you're going to have to suffer the full force of these signs and wonders. So, I think that you've hit on some wonderful insights.

So far, it hasn't been too bad. I mean, it's awful with the river turning to blood. First plagues are just inconvenient, right? Yeah, there's lots of, it's very uncomfortable. Life has become very uncomfortable. Yeah. And with the swarms, I mean, with the stinging gnats or whatever they are, it's starting to become painful. Yeah. Yeah. But still, you're right.

We can manage this. Things are not as bad as they could get. Unfortunately, they're going to get as bad as they can get. And the fifth plague then centers, starts to really bear down on the most important of the deities because the fifth plague centers on livestock, both the sacred bull, which is known in Egyptian parlance as the Apis bull, A-P-I-S, and also one of the most beloved of the cow goddesses, Hathor. And you remember that the Apis bull is a sacred animal and represents Pharaoh himself. And every year, not every year, but every generation, a new Apis bull was chosen and he was treated well.

And he becomes a symbol of the greatness of Pharaoh. And when he dies, there's great mourning throughout the land and they have to choose another one. But they start treating him like a god. I'm even more impressed with the fact that Hathor is demolished theologically than with the Apis bull because Hathor was one of the most popular goddesses in all of Egypt. She was worshipped widely across the empire. She was the goddess of mothers, the goddess of women,

the goddess of women's physical and psychological well-being, but also the goddess of dance, the goddess of women's physical and psychological well-being, but also the goddess of dance, beauty, and music. She's the personification of joy, of goodness, of celebration, of love. And so when she's attacked, then a really significant part of Egyptian culture is being destroyed, at least in the minds of the Egyptians who know what's going on. I'm looking at a picture of Hathor, the cow-headed goddess of the desert. And it's interesting when you see their pictures because she is represented as a human form, but a cow's head in the picture I've got. And you mentioned earlier Heket,

the god of resurrection, that she has the head of a frog and a human body. And the deity, don't think of them as purely humanoid. Some of them had the heads world, that in the pantheons, parts is parts, and so they're interchangeable. You know, you can have the head of a ram and the body of a lion, for example, that bring together different aspects of eternal life. Every Egyptian noble desired to have eternal life. And there were wonderful aspects of eternal life that we don't need to talk about because we can imagine them. Joy and life and living like the gods and having family around. I mean, the idea of family is alive and well in all three periods of Egyptian history. The Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, and you have the gods, male and female god, producing children.

Well, the idea that family was going to be part of what you would enjoy as you enjoyed eternal life was inculcated into every young Egyptian. Now what's happening is all of the different aspects of eternal life are being dismantled. They're being destroyed. And who's doing it? Jehovah. And not because he's malevolent, not because he wants his children to suffer, but because he needs the Israelites to be able to reach their full potential because they're keepers of the covenant. They are the ones that are responsible for allowing the covenant to go forth to the rest of the world. The sixth plague of boils shows Jehovah's power over personal health. This is chapter 9 verses

8 through 11. There's a difference between religion of Jehovah and Egyptian religion. Egyptian religion promoted no one-to-one relationship with God. It was, you know, a group kind of effort. And we see Jehovah saying, no, this is a very personal thing between me and you. The seventh plague of hail also demonstrates Jehovah's power over the gods of hail and fire. The lightning god Min was one of Jehovah's power over the gods of hail and fire. The lightning god Min was one of Jehovah's targets. Min is also associated with fertility.

So you can see that each of these gods has several portfolios, if you will. They're associated with and responsible for different aspects of life and eternal life. The god Min also gave its name to one of the governmental districts. There were 42 districts that made up ancient Egypt, and they're called gnomes. And these are not little furry people that are running around. The word gnome comes from the Greek gnomos, which means law. So 42 centers of law and government, and one of these was dedicated wholly to the god Min, and it was a sacred area from which agriculture was regulated.

So now we're saying even the ability to grow crops is going to be affected by all of this. Eighth plague of locusts or grasshoppers, and these are brought in by the east wind. We all know about the devastating effects of the east wind. It's even mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon, yeah. Will you talk about that? Because a west wind would bring moisture from the Mediterranean, right? Yeah. And so why was the east wind, why did that become an old world symbol for destruction?

This intense and dense cloud of dust came with the east wind and it raised the temperature by many, many degrees and it made life unbearable. But even more than that, it destroyed the crops. It was not a pleasant thing. And it's called, in Arabic, it's called the Khamseen. That has reference to a specific time of the year, 50 days after a certain period, and you could expect the Khamseen. And it really is a very unpleasant situation. So the Khamseen brings these hordes of migratory locusts to devour the crops. It's getting worse and worse.

The ninth plague is darkness. And here where we see Jehovah hitting the Egyptian pantheon very, very hard because when the darkness is brought to pass, the target is Ra, the great sun god, the chief of the Egyptian pantheon from very, very early times. The sun itself became a god, and it's a prominent figure in ancient Egypt because you rarely see rain, or maybe occasionally in the winter months, and even then when the rain falls, it brings the dust out of the air and looks like big black drops of gunk that are falling down to the ground. And so this is really, really serious because it's the creator God. In fact, in some accounts written on papyrus, humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat. And so the Egyptian

people would call themselves the cattle of Ra, and it's spelled capital R-A or capital R-E. But the point is, is that now we have struck at the very core of external things that the Egyptians had placed so much faith in, so much stock in. It's not the most serious plague. That's, of course, reserved for the last plague. And the last plague is the death of the firstborn. And I do want to read chapter 11, verses 1 through 7. It is so, I think it is so powerful. It's so arresting. Sobering. Sobering is exactly the right word.

So this is chapter 11, where the Lord, after repeated attempts to get the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, the Lord says to Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterwards, he will let you go. Hence, when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out. Hence, altogether, he will be done with you. He will not want to have anything more to do with you. Speak now in the ears of the people and let every man borrow of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor jewels of silver, So basically the Lord is saying, you're not going to go out of Egypt without some wealth. They'll be glad to give you the resources that they have just to get you out of their midst. So it's the idea is I'm going to go to my Egyptian neighbors and say,

I'm going to take your silver and gold. And they'll say, if that'll get you out of here, sure. I look at the word borrow in verse two with some amusement, you know, because what the Lord really says is you go ask, it's even stronger than ask, I think, the context. You tell your Egyptian neighbors that you want this and this and this. And so, borrow is kind of a euphemism there because they certainly aren't going to return anything. Verse three, the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt,

in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people. So the signs and wonders has worked its miracle. Even Moses is now regarded with respect and honored among the Egyptian people themselves. Verse 4, Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, about midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt. And notice that when it comes to the death of the firstborn, it's God himself who's acting. He may employ an agent such as a devourer or a destroyer, but it's God himself who takes this upon himself because we are his children, and he does not want to leave that, the taking of life, to Moses or to any of his other servants. And so he's the one that's behind this.

Verse 5, And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon this throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of the beasts. So this ultimate disaster includes everybody from the highborn to the low. The firstborn of every class of people is affected by this last and great plague. And here we begin to see the symbolism of another firstborn who would die some 1,300 years later or 1,250 years later in the person of Jesus Christ.

Verse 6, There shall be great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against man or beast, that ye may know that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And I think that difference is because of the covenant. We come to this very sobering chapter

and this is to be read with great sadness. As a child, I delighted in the triumph of good over evil, but the older I get, the more I realize that this was a sad occurrence, not just to the Egyptians, but to the Lord himself, because he loves all of his children, but he will not go back on his promises. I want to remind everybody of something Jennifer Lane, Dr. Lane taught us about the flood. She said, you know, mankind chose to put sin everywhere over. And so God had the flood.

The remedy matched the amount of sin, right? So the flood had to cover the earth because sin was everywhere. And I look at this and I'm reminded of when Pharaoh tried to kill all of the Israelite boys. boys, and it's almost like he chose, so long ago, he chose this last plague, that the answer is fitting for how far they were willing to go to stop Jehovah. Yeah. So, looking at it visually, you could say that chapter 1 and chapter 12 of Exodus represent bookends of a process that began hundreds of years before with the death of Israelite children and the death of now the Egyptian firstborn. From a literary standpoint, it's absolute genius. But more than that, it's true and it happened. And I don't look at this with delight. I look at it as God sorrowing over that which they brought upon themselves

through the wickedness of one man. And what's the old saying? When the wicked rule, the righteous mourn. And that's what we see here. The symbolism behind the Passover elements, all in one way or another, point us to Jesus Christ. And there are many ways to read and to go through chapter 12. But for me, the most important is the symbolism that we derive from the elements of the first Passover that point us to the great and last sacrifice. It's out of this Passover, the establishment of the Passover, that we see the creation of the sacrament, the transformation of the Passover Seder meal into the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And then the idea of the firstborn, the only one who could make

an atonement, the birthright son, if you will, as we understand the obligations, the responsibilities of the firstborn to have the leadership of the family. At least I see that in chapter 12 here. So let me just suggest a couple of things as we go through. We notice, first of all, in verses 1 and 2, that the Lord says that this month in which the Passover is established shall be the beginning of months. And actually, in the Jewish calendar, it is late March, early April. It becomes the religious new year. And from that, I look at the Messiah, the Savior, and Jesus Christ's gospel presents, if you will,

a restoration of old truths, but it also signifies a new beginning. And particularly the ordinances associated with the gospel. We're baptized. We become new creatures in Jesus Christ. So the redemption that is provided that will occur here parallels the redemption that's provided by Jesus through his gospel and the ordinances. Chapter 12, verses 3 and 5.

To fulfill the Passover, each of the families must choose a lamb. And this lamb has to be without blemish or spot, as it's described in verse 5. Your lamb shall be without blemish. A male of the first year ye shall take it from the sheep or the goats doesn't make any difference. And this will be sacrificed and then eaten by every family or groupings of individuals, as the text seems to imply. And of course, we recognize that this is a pretty unveiled reflection of Jesus, who is described as the Lamb without blemish or spot, 1 Peter 1, verses 18 and 19.

It seems to me that the Lord has now taken down Egyptian theology thoroughly, and he's going to rebuild his new theology. Well, it wouldn't be new, but new to these people. And it's all going to center around the Lamb of God. That's a great observation, an important observation. Yeah, he's taken down the Egyptian pantheon, and he's taken down the religious concepts associated with them. And admittedly, they pointed to good things, eternal life, but

they did it in the wrong way. All of the ordinances and blessings associated with the Melchizedek priesthood from the time of Adam on, which is referred to as the patriarchal priesthood, and gave internal blessings to its followers, tries to be imitated by Pharaoh in his day. And that's why when you sail up and down the Nile, or you go to all of these tombs and temples in ancient Egypt, you find representations of God's giving to human beings eternal life. And some of them are pretty stark.

There's a panel of images on the south side of the Holy of Holies in the temple at Karnak, and it shows the different stages through which a person had to go in order to become like one of the gods. Anointed, clothed with a special clothing, a special hat on their head, and then finally being ushered into the presence of Osiris, who was the resurrection god. The ultimate goal was not wrong, but the worship of false gods was. And so all of that is done away with, as you point out. And now we have this new religious system that Jehovah is revealing to them through the prophet Moses. We look at verses 6 and 7, where it's required of the Israelites to put blood on the doorposts as a sign of their commitment to the covenant, and also a signal that the destroyer will pass

by them and that their firstborn children will not be affected. And so we ask a couple of questions. Why this action? And I think we've answered that, to identify the participant as a follower of the true and living God. Why the blood? Well, because as we learn later on in Leviticus chapter 17, blood is the symbol of redemption. Leviticus 17 verse 11, For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls,

for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. And so by putting blood on the two side posts in the lintel, the crossbar of the entrance, we are signifying that we are fully engaged in the idea of redemption by the shedding of blood. For the next 1300 years, the shedding of the blood will be by animals that represent or point to the ultimate and great and broad perspective, understanding the atonement from not just the Bible or the New Testament, but from the four standard works. I remember just trying to study the prayers on the sacrament prayers that we offer, and just that little phrase, which was shed for them. It led me to Hebrews 9.22, which sounds like Leviticus 17.11 a little bit, without shedding of blood, there is no remission. That's right. That's

exactly right. I love that the Israelites here are saved by the blood of the lamb. Yeah, the verses that just precede verse 22 in Hebrews chapter 9 talk about the blood of the lamb as a substitute for the blood of the individuals, right? The blood of the people. And we could talk about the way that ancient sacrifices were conducted in the temple, but that would take us too far afield. The point here is that the atonement comes

from the shedding of blood. It did anciently. And then the very person for whom all of these elements of the Passover are pointing to comes and he makes the great and last sacrifice. And no longer then is the shedding of blood required, but something even harder for us, and that's a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Interestingly enough, by the Lord asking us to offer a broken heart and a contrite spirit, he is asking us to offer the very things that Jesus himself offered.

In Gethsemane, his spirit was crushed. That's the meaning of the word contrite, right? It's crushed. So that happens in Gethsemane to the Savior. How does he die on the cross? Well, if you read Elder Talmud's book, Jesus the Christ, Elder Talmud says he died of a broken heart. He died of a ruptured heart, however medically you want to describe that. So the very things that Jesus himself offered as part of his atonement are the very things that now we must offer after the shedding of his blood.

We must offer the broken heart and the contrite spirit. We must, in a sense, relive Gethsemane and Golgotha in our own lives. Interesting that before Jesus shows himself to the righteous in the new world in 3 Nephi 11, the importance or urgency of it, I don't know, in 3 Nephi 9, when they just hear a voice, that's when he says, no more animal sacrifice. And what you will bring is a broken heart and a contrite spirit. You become the sacrifice. Andy, it seems to be all centered on the blood of the lamb. And then he also mentions the leaven. He wants unleavened bread. That's verse eight, verse 15, seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread. Get all the leaven out of your houses. So can I see maybe repentance in this, that yeast represents sin? And I'm seeing the first principles of the gospel here, faith in the Lord Jesus

Christ, faith in the Lamb of God, and repentance with the unleavened bread. Here's the grand secret. It really hasn't changed from the time of Adam. Yeah. Just a couple of more points, and then I want to say something about chapter 13. We notice that hyssop is to be used in the establishment of the Passover. You'll take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in blood that's in the basement, strike the lintel in the side post. Interestingly enough, this hyssop, I think, foreshadows the

crucifixion. And we could read John chapter 19, verse 29, which talks about the use of hyssop in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Again, part of this act of atonement and shedding of his blood. I'm going to skip a little bit just for the sake of time here, but look at verse 43. The Lord says to Moses and to Aaron, this ordinance of the Passover shall only be eaten by those who are not strangers. Those that are not members of the covenant community shall not eat of the Passover. And it causes me to think about those verses in 3 Nephi 18 where we're told that no stranger is to partake of the sacrament. It's a covenant requiring a commitment and full participation. This is an act that requires us to use the phrase that's all the

rage these days. It requires us to be all in, nothing lacking, nothing lacking. So there are some significant parallels to that. Verse 46, no broken bone of the Paschal Lamb. And of course, we know that to no bone of Jesus Christ was broken on the cross. John 19, verse 36. These are some of the main elements that we associate with the establishment of the Passover commemoration, and they are what recapitulated, I guess we could say, in the great and last sacrifice that we commemorate, not with a Passover meal, but with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave this talk in October 1995 General Conference called This Due in Remembrance of Me. Yes.

And he gave this great list of all the things that we could remember. But in that talk, he said, Do we see the sacrament as our Passover? Remembrance of our safety and deliverance and redemption. I loved how he connected Passover with sacrament. The sacrament is our Passover, he said. Yeah. And again, to just reiterate what Paul says, more pointedly, Jesus Christ is our Passover, is the way he put it.

Now, he very well may have meant Jesus Christ is our Paschal Lamb, our Passover Lamb, but I love the openness of the statement, Jesus is our Passover. Well, at the end of chapter 12, we see that the Lord then fulfills completely His promise. He brings the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies. And this then leads us to talk about the results of the Exodus and the results of the Passover. And these are described largely in chapter 13 of Exodus. Number one, Israel is delivered from death and delivered from Egyptians, the bondage of the Egyptian leaders, largely because of the last plague, Pharaoh's sacrifice, if you will, of the firstborn males. And again, we're delivered from all different kinds of bondage as a result of

our Heavenly Father's sacrifice of his firstborn. I could not help but think of section 69 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I wasn't going to mention this, but section 69 has a verse that haunts me because I wonder, have I really done what I'm supposed to do? The context of section 69 is that it goes back to section 47, where John Whitmer is called to be the church historian in March of 1831. And then here in section 69 of the Doctrine and Covenants, his assignment is spelled out in more detail in November of 1839. But these are the two verses that haunt me, starting with verses 7 and 8.

Nevertheless, let my servant John Whitmer travel many times from place to place and from church to church that he may the more easily obtain knowledge, preaching and expounding, writing, copying, selecting, and obtaining all things which shall be for the good of the church and for the rising generations that shall grow up on the land of Zion. It seems like what the Lord is saying, everything that you do, all of your actions, are to be funneled to this purpose, and that is to teach the rising generations that shall grow up on the land of Zion.

And that's the didactic aspect to the teaching aspect of Passover, that these things are to be taught generation after generation after generation so that, again, this idea all of us consider ourselves as though we were part of the original Israelites who came out of Egyptian bondage because of the Lord's strong arm and outstretched hand. There's an interesting point in that wonderful cartoon, The Prince of Egypt, where Pharaoh's son says, I will not be the weak link. And that's kind of what the Lord is saying here is pass this down, pass this story down to your children. We have an obligation to tell our children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren, if we see them, what the

Lord has done for us. So much, it seems, of some of the things we do in the gospel is to remember. And we hear that word in the sacrament prayer twice, the Passover. Now, this is so that you will remember this. The Feast of, now this is so that you will remember this. The Feast of Tabernacles is so that you will remember that we dwelt in tents when we left. And all these things about remembering, because as we read the scriptures, we tend to forget. President Kimball's old saying, the most important word in our theological vocabulary is remember. And remember for a purpose, not only to remember that we have responsibilities to others because of the Lord's goodness, but to just remember how good

Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are to their children. Jesus Christ is the greatest manifestation of Heavenly Father's love for us. And that then takes us to maybe the central characteristic of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. 1 John 4, God is love. Everything that God does is influenced and shaped and mediated by His perfect love. That's the essence of His personality. And if we want to put a further point on it to Elder Holland's book, Christ and the New Covenant has this section on charity, the pure love of Christ. And he says, pure charity has only been manifested once in the history of the world. And that's the atonement of Jesus Christ.

One of the things that we learn in chapter 13 is that special articles of clothing are to be worn by Israelite men. Verses 9 and 16. Special clothing that are markers or symbols of the covenant and markers or symbols of the great and mighty acts of God in not only the lives of the Israelites then, but Israelites later on. And thus, by extension, the great things that God has done for us in our lives. There are actually three words that are used to describe the same thing in verses 9 and 16. The Hebrew word is totafot. The Aramaic word is tefillin. that are used to describe the same thing in verses 9 and 16. The Hebrew word is totaphot, the Aramaic word is tephilin,

and the Greek word is phylacteries. And these are small boxes that have leather straps attached to them, and they're fastened to the forehead and to the left arm, the arm that's closest to the forehead, and to the left arm, the arm that's closest to the heart. And what's in these little boxes are very carefully, precisely written passages of Scripture. They have to be written very small because the boxes are only about an inch or an inch and a half square. And what are the passages that are contained in these phylacteries? Exodus 13, 1 through 10, so where we're at right now.

Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 9, the Shema. Shema Yisrael Adonai Echeinu Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 11, so two passages from Exodus. Exodus 13, 1 through 10, Exodus 13, 11 through 16, they're broken, they're separated into two separate passages. So four passages of scripture in these little phylacteries or in these boxes, and they all have to do with the mighty acts of God, the greatness of God, and how we must remember and teach that to our children. Pretty significant.

A special route for the Exodus is outlined in chapter 13. Notice that the Lord does not take the Israelites to the land of promise by way of the Philistines, the coastal highway, because it's too dangerous. He has them go by way of the Red Sea or what's in Hebrew called the Yom Suf, the Reed Sea. Even though it's easier to go the other way, the Lord wants to protect his people. And there's got to be a life's lesson in that. God guides us away from things that we may not be able to handle. And if we listen to him, then we can enjoy his blessings. If we don't listen to him, then we have no promise. I'm weak enough that I don't need to not heed the Lord and step into

places or circumstances where I frankly don't have the ability to resist. And I think we see that as an underlying theme here. I have a real appreciation for the Exodus story. It increases, I think, our appreciation for Moses as well as for Jesus Christ. I made a couple of notes here, and I wanted to see just what both of you thought about this. If I'm a listener at home and I'm thinking, well, how am I going to relate this to my family or my teenagers or my seminary class? How do I do this? I think one thing has to be that I'm seeing a message that the Lamb of God, the Savior, can save you from false gods, can save you from bondage, any sort of addiction you may have. Egypt can be seen

as an addiction and that you want to get out of that addiction. And the Lamb of God can save you from that. The Lamb of God is going to save you from the sting of death that you're going to live again. Andy, I think you've helped us focus here that the entire Exodus story is based on this lamb of God. And the blood of the lamb is what saves from all of these different trials and problems and difficulties. When you read verse 17 of Exodus 13, I hear the Lord saying, don't go back to Egypt. And I almost hear that in my mind as we sometimes want to go back to our sins. We have a tendency to go back to the pains of the past, go back to the old gods. He says, don't return to Egypt. I don't want you to go back. I like that. Don't reverse course.

And don't take the easy path in life. Take the path that will get you to your destination safely and securely. That's become a life lesson for me. There are easy paths to take. Don't always follow the easy path and be open to suggestions from heavenly influences, from the Holy Ghost that wants you to arrive at your destination. I think of a new member of the church who has to break down their old theology, right? The old theology is done away with. This new theology comes in. Keep going. Keep going. The Lord's going to help you cross the Red Sea, right? He's going to get you to where you want to be, right? He'll guide you. Let that old theology go. Let this new theology take root, and the Lord will guide you. John, what do you think?

I love what it points out in our Come Follow Me manual. The Savior wanted the Israelites to always remember that he had delivered them, even after their captivity became a distant memory. This is why he commanded them to observe the Passover feast each year. What similarities do you see between the purposes of the feast of the Passover and the sacrament? I love that every single week we can focus on the sacrament table. We focus on the Savior's sacrifice, that we are saved by the blood of the Lamb. It's not wheeled in at Christmas and Easter, let's put the sacrament table in a storage room. It's every week to help us remember and to make that the focal point. It's not to hear talks. That's great too, but we go to take the sacrament again and renew our

covenant. And I love that today we're seeing, I don't want to say all started back then because it started with Adam, but this has always been the focus of the lamb of God and the blood of the lamb is how we're saved. I see a switch for teenagers as well, that let's say Egypt is like this worldliness and the sacrament is this new theology. And there's this idea of let's dismantle the worldliness out of our life. And even if it's a little painful, let's dismantle this and let's focus on, like you said, John, this sacrament experience where we connect with the real God. I think of entertainment and phones,

and all these can be like Egyptian gods that need to be dismantled, taken down. And let's focus in on the Savior as our God. What did President Nelson say recently? That if most of the information you get comes from social media, your ability to feel the Spirit will be diminished. And then look at the sacrament table.

You can always have His Spirit to be with you. Yeah. Absolutely. I guess I'm in the stage of life where I'm looking at it from a parental and grandparental point of view. I'm always drawn to the words in Deuteronomy 6, which have a lot to do with what we've been talking about today. And the Lord says, These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,

and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Those are words to live by for parents and for grandparents that we can significantly influence our children's lives by talking always about these things. I have the privilege of serving at the Provo Missionary Training Center, and every Tuesday night we get a devotional presented to us by either a general authority or general officer of the church. And two weeks ago, we had the privilege of having Elder Christofferson talk to us. And of course, his message was the doctrine of Christ. But he said something that I think will always stick with me. He said to the missionaries, never tire of speaking of Jesus Christ.

Never tire. When you lie down, when you wake up, your daily walk and conversation, never tire of speaking of Jesus Christ. And I think that with that concept in mind, our study of the Old Testament becomes so much more rich. The Old Testament is really the human family's first testament of Jesus Christ. We have many testaments. We have the New Testament. We have the New Testament.

We have the other testament, the Book of Mormon. But the human family's first testament of Jesus Christ is the Old Testament. And you remember Jesus' encounter in Jerusalem with groups of people that leaned towards him and those that were opposed to him. And he gives them a surefire way to know that he is the son of God, the savior of the world. He says in John 5, 39, search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life, but they are they which testify of me. And by that, I think what he meant to say is that don't follow the Pharisaic view that simply studying the scriptures brings you eternal life, which was a principle that the rabbis taught in his day, but rather search the scriptures that you can know about me and know me,

and that will bring you eternal life. The words on a printed page will never bring anybody eternal life, but feelings that they cause and the actions that they impel you to perform, that will bring you eternal life. Andy, I think our listeners would be interested in your, you know, here's your decades of being a religious educator, knowing so much about the scriptures, having taught, I think, a class probably on every standard work. What's that journey been like for you? And also the journey of life from being a father to now a grandfather. Walk our listeners through your journey a little bit. Well, that's a really interesting question. I wish that I could say that I lived a wayward life and I had a road to Damascus experience in my life. But to be quite honest with you, I was raised by good parents. They were converts to the church not too many years before I was born. And the truth of the matter is I cannot remember a time when I didn't know that these things were true.

I wish that I could say, oh, I had this dramatic conversion experience, but I'm one of those that didn't. Detractors to the gospel come and go. But the longer I'm at this, the more evidence I find for the truthfulness, not just in the Old and New Testaments, but in the restoration of the gospel through living prophets. This has been an amazing journey for me precisely because it has strengthened so deeply those things that I have always known to be true. And like everybody else, I've had sacred experiences that have been aha moments, but I can never remember a time when I didn't know that these things were true. One of the, I guess, the key elements in my own faith trajectory, if you want to call it that, has been a deeper appreciation of the centrality of Jesus Christ in everything that we do. And also the interest that our Heavenly Father has in each one of us.

I don't pretend to know how our Heavenly Father and His Son can know each of us so intimately and so well. I just know that they do. And that's been a source of strength. It's gotten us through some hard times. We had real sadness a year and a half ago when one of our sons-in-law just collapsed and died on a Friday night. We'd just spoken to him 45 minutes before that. We miss him a lot. But if there's one thing I can say about him, 36 years old, I don't think I know of a person who was more ready to meet his maker than he was. Just a pure-hearted, good-souled person. And it caused a bit of a crisis in faith for me. You know, how could Heavenly Father let somebody this good die, take him away from a family that needed him and from my wife and I who enjoyed his company? This caused a lot of suffering.

It's okay if I call it a revelation. The interesting moments have always been, well, now you can appreciate even deeper the experiences of the Savior, who faced all injustice, who experienced greater contradictions than any person in any of the worlds that he created has ever faced. Now you begin to understand what he felt in the garden and on the cross. And that's been a significant period of growth for me, even this late in my life, having known that these things, always having known that these things are true, but there have

been some amazing moments of personal revelation that have come from that. So that's been kind of my journey. I started out not to, I didn't even go to Brigham Young University as an undergraduate. My wife did, so I'm hoping that salvation will come to me clinging to her coattails. But when I first joined the BYU faculty, I think that there were one or two of the old-timers who looked with suspicion on me because I had not come up the, followed a typical path. I've been grateful for that because I have seen and heard and experienced things that are undeniable. So that's been a cool part of the experience. Oh, Andy, we had a great lesson and then you just gave us a, just a perfect ending. Really. John, by the way, what a great day.

So fun to hear the familiar voice of Andy Skinner for all this time, because we haven't talked for a long time, but it just felt so good to sit down with a couple of friends and talk about these wonderful stories. And I took a lot of notes today. Thank you. You're very kind. What a beautiful day. Well, we want to thank you. Well, thanks. Thanks for the privilege. Thanks for the privilege.

We were very fortunate, very blessed to have you. Thank you, Dr. Andrew Skinner for being here. We want to thank all of our listeners. Thank you for supporting us. And thank you for your time with us. We know that your time is precious. And the fact that you spend a little bit with us is just wonderful. Thank you.

We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorenson, and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorenson. And we hope all of you will join us next week on another episode of Follow Him.