followHIM - Genesis 3-4, Moses 4-5 -- Part 2 : Dr. Shon D. Hopkin

Episode Date: January 9, 2022

Dr. Hopkin returns to discuss the heroism of both Eve and Adam, the love story that is apparent in the Garden of Eden,  new insights into our personal Fall, and new applications in the Cain and Abel story.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 ProducersDr. 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 EditorAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsKrystal Roberts: French 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. I think for me personally, I have seen, as I've learned more and more about this, the value of the Book of Mormon is just increasing in my eyes. 2 Nephi 2, 2 Nephi 9, Alma 12. I've started reading Alma 12 the other day and I'm like, wow, we know so much about this story because of the Book of Mormon. I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that. The Book of Mormon sheds, it like opens up the window here to what is really happening. And Hank, can I make a connection? Because who is 2nd Nephi 2? It is Lehi talking to Jacob, who later on writes 2 Nephi 9.

And I love the whole backstory. Jacob, let me kind of explain. You were born in the wilderness. You've seen family contention. Let me explain the fall. Let me explain opposition and all things. Let me explain why. And then later, Jacob explains it with even more detail in 2 Nephi 9.

So it's fun to see that, oh, that's the same guy, Jacob, who's learned a lot about the fall and fallen man. That's really great. Genesis 3 now for a little bit, then you get this moment then when Eve, and as I like to think about it, Eve feeling this tension. And Adam would probably pretty just easily say, no, I understand how this works. If the fruit is offered to you, you say no, right? That might be what Adam might do there. I know the rules and I'm obedient. I'm going to follow those rules.

Eve maybe feels this tension a little bit greater. And, and there are biblical readers who would say it was always intended. This is a maturation story and they're supposed to eat the fruit at some point that there comes a time when you don't stay in the garden, you leave the garden. And that's more, again, less, not, not so much Christian or Pauline readers, as we might say it, but Jewish readers are a little bit more, they just sort of come at that text without having the New Testament and say, no, the idea is at some point she's going to eat the fruit and they're going to leave the garden.

They're going to eat the fruit and they're going to leave the garden. Well, so she's got this growing tension in her and then Satan offers her this fruit. Now, it's not a good image when you take the fruit out of Satan's hand. You know, there's some almost ritual ordinance, almost sacrament imagery there that we should not miss in our rush to just say everything is perfect here. I'm not sure that we want to say everything is perfect here. I'm not sure that we want to say everything is perfect here. An analogy I like to use is, you know, if I buy, at least in our family, if I buy a car and I don't tell my wife and I come home with it, that's not a good thing. There's other families where that might work really well, but not in my house.

No, when you do those things, if you're going to have children, well, I mean, just functionally, you know, it's a decision two people have to make, right? But here Eve makes a decision that has a very permanent effect on her relationship with Adam and she does it without Adam being present. And so there's a break here that's caused. And then the way that I like to read it and that i see it is that then satan lucifer is trying to enhance that break when he sends her to sort of confront adam and try to get him to partake but but this is where the love story is enhanced and i think in our marriage

there are these times when we've done something that might be hurtful to the other, to our partner. And then Eve very powerfully, vulnerably stands in front of Adam, naked as it were, right? Honest, open, vulnerable. I've eaten this fruit. And Adam, I love this moment, this woman that he had first looked at and loved when God says, it's not good for man to be alone. And here's Adam and Eve, and now they've been apart and they come back together. And Eve is being honest with him saying, I've taken this fruit and I got to leave the

garden. And Adam looks at her and there's this potential betrayal, you might say, but it's really this powerful decision that moves the story forward. You know, I suspect if it's me in the garden, I'm still playing with the lions. Like I'm never going you. We're doing this together. And then God shows up. And to me, what he sets up is to restore the breach that just, you know, my reading of the text. Now, Eve, you need to listen. You need to be part of this. You're not just doing your own thing here. I know you're highly capable and you're linked to this man who may not always seem highly capable. I had a woman in my ward who said to me once, you know, there was a time my husband had done some dumb things. And this went on for a number of years where I realized I've been just treating him like another child in our household.

I haven't been allowing him to be an equal with me. I had relegated him to unequal status because he had done some things that have been hurtful to the family. And there was a time I needed to change that in our marriage. And now we're equals again. And to me, that's what God is saying to Eve. You got to be linked with Adam. Listen to him, follow his leadership. Yeah. As he has followed your leadership. And I love Eve's powerful leadership and that Adam's willing to follow her out of the garden. And then God links them back together and says, Adam, you got to work hard here.

You're going to, you got to take a leadership role here. You got to be involved. You got to be engaged. And I don't want to generalize that too much. I don't know that that works in all of our situations, but there's certainly some powerful potential messages there for what Eve does, how beautiful and powerful it is in this moment when she stands in front of Adam and she's saying what needs to happen. And Adam doesn't know you're bad and you're wrong. And I

reject you instead. He says, he's, he's humble enough to say, oh, oh, okay. I'm coming out of the garden with you. We're, we're together. I'm with you. And it's beautiful. It's redemptive. And then God sort of reunites them, recleaves them back together by saying, you got to rely on each other. This is marriage. It's husband and wife, wife and husband. So I think there's some beauty that can come out of that. If I could maybe introduce another question that I think Latter-day Saints often ask, and that is what about these conflicting commands?

Oh, and let me just add part of that I find helpful. Part of what we were just discussing, well, was there anything wrong? Well, there was certainly something risky. We will at least put it that way when Eve makes that decision, you know, that maybe could have been made unitedly together. She's feeling that tension could, could, and we don't know how the story played out. Right. So I'm just suggesting possibilities, but if she had discussed that with Adam and they had gone to the Lord in

prayer, how might that have looked different? I don't, I don't know. But one of the things I'm doing is sort of connecting the, I don't know. But one of the things I'm doing is sort of connecting this idea that Eve was the one in transgression that we get in the New Testament with this idea. But it was a glorious decision. And I think we can have it both ways, honestly. I think we can, you know, she makes that first decision. And it's powerful. But it's risky.

It's really risky. It's powerful, but it's risky. It's really risky. It's bold, but it's risky. Sean, would it be fair to say that, because I've had students say before, doesn't Satan have to do this in order for this to happen? And I like what you said there, that this could be a maturity thing, that eventually they are going to partake of the fruit and the Lord plans on them doing that. But Satan came in and rushed the process or stepped in where he had no place to step in, right? I don't know. I've related it to one day I'm going to talk to my kids about the birds and the bees when they get old

enough, but then somebody else comes in and decides to talk to them about that before that. Is that wrong? No, it was going to happen, but it was not your place. Is there anything to that or am I way off? Well, I actually really like that as a potential reading here that Satan, and it's clear in Moses, if we look, let's go back to Moses for a second to sort of connect with what you're saying here. Moses chapter four, verse six, Satan put it into the heart of the serpent for he had drawn away many after him.

And he sought also to beguile Eve for he knew not the mind of God. And then he said, well, how do I understand that? Is he dumb? Does he not get how this is supposed to work? I feel like Satan would have known more. And the way I read he knew not the mind of God is he doesn't understand the concepts of redemption, of love, of sacrifice. It's not that he intellectually doesn't get it, but he thinks he can break this apart by inserting himself. I like what you said there, Hank, prematurely into this discussion and trying to sort of short circuit the whole process. And he thinks this is going to work. And I, at least I

like to imagine him when Eve, he's like, go, go talk to Adam. This is all going to implode. This is going to be great. And then Eve stands in front of Adam and is so powerful and loving and good. And Adam is so open to Eve that it actually turns the other direction. And yes, they leave the garden, but God inserts himself now in the story because there was a plan. There was a preordained plan. There's a redeemer here. And so let me, let's make sure we understand that. I love that.

Satan knew not the mind of God. And I like that, understanding that as Satan knew not the soul of God, what it means to love, what it means to be willing to give oneself up for another, right? He doesn't understand sacrifice. He doesn't understand love. Yeah. Yeah. So, I know this isn't going to work. Envy is going to win out. Jealousy is going to win out. Pride is going to win out in Satan's mind because that's sort of the principles that he understands. And by the way, there's a lot of evidence that he was he got it right. You know, they understand humans pretty well, understood humans pretty well. But then there's the redemptive evidence that points the other direction. And this is the battle of course, of good versus evil.

Okay. So let's go back to what I was about to introduce this idea of conflicting commandments. And is that fair? Would God ever do that? Students like to say, no, the way that we've set this up, you know, I don't think that works. And my take is that this now is higher level agency that they're learning. Lehi in second Nephi 2, he sort of sets up that they're given all of the things to begin to learn about agency. I like to see it as a seven-year-old sort of, do they have agency? Well, God has created a space where they're protected because they don't fully get it, but they're starting to get it. They've got opposites that they can choose between.

They've got choices and God has placed consequences with those choices. So they've got the setup there, but what they don't have is the experience yet, right? And so now this is higher level between two goods. This is like one of your children has had an accident where they burned themselves and you haven't had family prayer yet.

Do you rush your child to the hospital or do you stop and have family prayer? Well, I think, you know, you rush your child to the hospital is the right decision. Oh no, we didn't pray as a family. Now we've transgressed that law or, you know, you go to the hospital and you run a red light. You're actually liable you run a red light you're actually liable for running that red light and if you get in an accident then you'll get ticketed for running that red light but most policemen are not going to give you that ticket if they don't have to because they get you are you're following a higher law you're transgressing one law this is like nephi

not wanting to kill laban and god says you got to this. And he transgressed the law, you might say. And because of the transgression of that law, that's one of the reasons Laban and Lemuel are so ticked off. We can't go back to, we're kicked out of the holy city now because you did this, but he was following a higher law. To me, these are decisions we have to make every day of our lives. You can't do all of the professions that you think would be awesome. You can't, you know, experience everything you want to experience.

You can't marry all. I like to tell BYU, you can't marry all the people. You have to pick a person. You know, you're going to marry one person, you know, and we have to make these kind of decisions. You can't write all of the missionaries in the world, you know, and write in your journal and cook all of the loaves of bread for everyone you know, and write in your journal and cook all of the loaves of bread for everyone. We have to choose and that's okay. And, and there's inherent,

but there are consequences. So let's set up this weird situation where the, the question is, am I going to smoke a cigarette or am I going to kill someone? And I choose to smoke a cigarette, you know, over, this is silly maybe, but you know, I choose to smoke a cigarette, you know, over, this is silly maybe, but you know, I choose to smoke the cigarette. Well, God isn't going to hold me accountable as a sin if that was the right decision, but I'll still get tar in my lungs, right? I still have to leave the garden, right? There are consequences to transgressing a law, even if we're not accountable.

And the Pearl of Great Price book of Moses later on says, I've atoned for your transgression in the Garden of Eden. It's done. You were figuring it out. You made a choice. And now we're moving forward. I've atoned for that. Would God do that?

Well, I think, yeah, that's what mortality is. I mean, we deal with this every day of our lives. I think it's a Mary Martha thing too. They're both good things. What do you do? And Sister Bonnie Parkin talked about that story and said, you know, it's not like choosing whether to go visiting, teaching, or rob a bank. They were two good things. Hank will laugh of where I'm going from my source, but there's an old episode of the Andy Griffith show where Andy's trying to kind of bend the rules to help somebody. And he says to Opie, there's a boy in a pond who was drowning and the sign clearly said no swimming. Well,

would you save the boy? And Opie says, well, he couldn't let him drown. And he says, yeah, he has to save him. And he says, says, in those cases, we don't break the rules. We just bend them a little bit, you know, to help somebody. And I thought that was a really good way to put it for a kid that there's some competing goods there. The boy shouldn't be swimming. It says no swimming, but you don't just let him drown. You go in there and you swim so that you can save him. I thought that was pretty good. Let's now begin to move Adam and Eve out of the garden. And if we

look to it now towards the end of chapter three, there's a couple of things that I want to point out here. One is this idea that Adam is taught what I want to call the first truth of mortality in the sweat of thy face. So this is Genesis 3 verse 19, and we could look at it in the Pearl of Great Price if we wanted to. I think they're exactly the same. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. So the first, what I like to think of as the first truth of mortality is you are going to need to work it's what we call the law of the harvest work then will be how you're going to live and survive in mortality it's going to be a little different than in the garden where it's just sort of spontaneously there the law of mortality is you exert effort and then that effort is rewarded.

Now, mortality isn't perfect. Sometimes you exert effort and it isn't perfectly rewarded, but that's the general rule. But if we go over to the Pearl of Great Price account and the Cain Abel story, there's this really interesting moment where Cain, it's pretty clear that he wants his brother's flocks, that he really wants them. And then when he, that he's jealous of his brother and that functions in a lot of different ways. This is chapter five, right? Yeah. We're now in Moses chapter five or Genesis chapter four. So I've sort of jumped forward for a moment.

Okay, no problem. And there's this moment then in Moses 5 verse 33, and Cain gloried in that which he had done, saying, I am free, surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands. So I've committed a sin to get what I want. And notice if you back up now to verse 31, you get what leads up to that. Cain said he was taught this by Satan.

Satan came to him and taught him what I call the first great secret or lie of mortality that Satan teaches. Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret that I may murder and get gain. And so you have right here at the beginning of the account set up, I would say, in opposition to each other. God tells Adam, you're going to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. And Satan shows up and says, no, Cain, you can sin to get what you want. And I like pausing here with students and just having them think about this a little

bit. And I say, pick a sin, any sin, not the one you do, because that'd be awkward, but, you know, think about any sin and how it's actually motivated at some somewhere lower in the motivation, you know, as we build towards that sin, I wanna get something for nothing. And you could think of gossip that I want to use instead of building a relationship through love and sacrifice,

I'm gonna tell a secret that puts me in this position of trust with you, right? You could think of lying and how I wanna shortcut the system or cheating to get something for nothing. You could think of breaking the law of chastity, of pornography as this effort to click a button and I can get my brain.

If you look at the brain, it looks the same way as physical sexual intimacy and marriage. Typically though, you court someone, you get married, you do dishes, look at the brain, it looks the same way as physical sexual intimacy and marriage. Typically though, you court someone, you get married, you do dishes, you go on dates, you raise children together, right? Or I can get something for nothing. And I have had people in my ward. I had one person say, I don't want the real thing. I want the fake thing, right? That's, that's way more persuasive for me. I want to click the button, um, and just be automatically loved. All of us do this by the way. So this,

this sort of being sort of seduced by this, getting something for nothing where we're looking for the shortcuts, but this idea of we want the easy path of getting something for nothing and it it weakens us as humans we are light and truth at our very core and then when we go to sin to get what we want it warps who we are and then we need the redemption that comes through the atonement of christ and and re-accepting truth that first great truth of mortality, I'm going to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow. Wow. What a fantastic insight. Can I expand that a little bit? Because I love the idea that those who are seeking signs in Jesus' day,

and he would say, it is a wicked and an adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign. And then Joseph Smith said something that at first I was like, whoa, what? If you see a man seeking a sign, you may set it down that he is an adulterous man. And I remember Robert L. Millett connecting those for me once and saying, look, one of them is saying, I want all of the evidence. I want the testimony. I don't want to do any work. I don't want to do any commitment to finding out. That's the sign seeker. Show me the proof, I don't want to do any work. The adulterer says, I want all the benefits of marriage.

I don't want any of the commitments of marriage. And it was the same something for nothing kind of mentality. And I had never connected that with Cain before. You can murder and get gain. And when I've taught that to my classes, I've said, how many TV shows, and I had a percentage somewhere, a USA Today article that talked about crimes committed, the number of times a violent crime or some kind of crime is committed, and in the movie, they get away with it. I can murder and get gain. I can do stuff and get away with it. And that lesson continues to be taught today.

This becomes, by the way, if you're going to go to the Book of Mormon, this becomes the foundation, foundational belief of secret combinations that we're going to murder to get what we want. If you just look modern day at the tobacco industry and a group of people who was willing to hide the reality that they were killing people because they were getting gain. So they were

willing to hide that. You'd say a group of people, and I don't know any of those people, so I don't mean to point the finger too strongly there, but just more at the general choice that was made there somewhere. Yeah, we know this is killing, but we're going to keep marketing to children because we make more money that way. This is a seductive concept. And the Book of Mormon says this is the kind of concept that led to the downfall of the entire Nephite society. And I would suggest this desire to get something for nothing.

You could say it's at the center of some of our most serious societal problems today. It will destroy a society when too many of us decide, I want to get something for nothing. A society cannot bear up under the weight of that burden. And so this is not just a minor thing. The fact that it stands here at the entrance to the biblical story and to our story of mortality, I think is sort of a big deal that it's here. And by the way, I got to add, I first learned this and I sort of expanded on it from a seminary teacher whose name is Jack Rose. I don't, I've never told him that this has been an important

concept for me. I wrote a paper where I included this idea and I put his name in a footnote, but got to give a shout out to him for first introducing this idea to me. This is fantastic stuff. I automatically thought of Jesus, the temptations of Jesus, Matthew chapter four. Take the shortcut. Jesus, take the shortcut. And he refuses every single time. He will not take the shortcut. And we have a great, we have that chance every day, right? Don't take the shortcut. Be disciplined like Jesus. Be a disciple of Jesus means be as disciplined as Jesus. The other thing though, that I wanted to grab from this storyline before we leave the garden entirely is this moment in let's just stay in the book of Moses, Moses chapter four,

verse 27 unto Adam and also unto his wife. Did I, the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. Now there's really interesting stuff going on and some of it probably literal, but a lot of it probably figurative with clothing and covering. Many know that the Hebrew word that is translated as atonement is kippur and it has connections of covering. It's both the kind of covering that happens

when you smear blood, like atoning sacrifice kind of covering, but also potentially the covering that happens when you smear blood, like atoning sacrifice kind of covering, but also potentially the covering that happens when we're naked, we're vulnerable, and then God puts a clothing that sort of covers our nakedness, covers our flaws, covers us, and gives us authority to stand in his presence again. Well, so Adam and Eve do this interesting thing where they go, it's almost like they're dressing up like the tree of life. And I sort of like it, right? They put the leaves on, they get these fig leaves, right? And that works okay. Fig leaves aren't terribly successful,

probably. I mean, the fig leaves are, you know, okay, but they're not very permanent and, you know, they're not maybe perfectly effective as a covering, but they do add some color to the story. Our efforts, right, when honestly done are important. They matter. It adds some variety. It adds some color to the storyline. But what we really want is God's covering, right? And God is going to truly cover them in ways that will protect them as they're now going out into the challenging world. And what you get here is most likely it would appear to be the first death that Adam and Eve have ever encountered as these are coats of skins. These are animal skins that cover them. And we might even as Christians, we have in the Pearl of Great Price

in the book of Moses later on, Adam and Eve know how to do sacrifice. They've been taught about sacrifice in the garden of Eden before they leave, but they haven't been taught all of the implications of what it represents. They learn that as they're moving forward out of the garden, but they know how to do it because Adam's offering sacrifice out of the garden of Eden. What does this mean? He says, I don't know. I was just told I was supposed to do it because Adam's offering sacrifice out of the Garden of Eden. What does this mean? He says, I don't know. I was just told I was supposed to do this. So this could be the place where God first teaches them the law of how to sacrifice and

that they need to sacrifice. Now think of the beauty of this sacrificial animal then providing the skins, the garments that are going to cover them as they leave the garden. And so that sacrificial offering, then the lamb or the animal that sacrificed there covers them, Christ covers them. And so they're dressing up sort of as the tree of life. That's nice. They put leaves on. God puts the image of Christ upon them, the image of the atoning one to remind them who they are to say, this is who you're supposed to become. I'm going to put the image of God on you.

I'm going to dress you with power and authority and protection as you leave the garden now. And then that serves as a reminder to them uh of their relationship with god and that they want to return back into the presence of god it's just a few possible thoughts there so beautiful the the idea that they before he ever cast them out of the garden they were covered by christ is is so so intensely christian the idea of um I remember Joseph McConkie was saying, and he was always really definite about everything, but he said, so they were covered by the lamb. And I raised my hand, how do we know it was a lamb? How do we know? And he said, it just has to be.

That was his answer. But as you've said that, Sean, you're the Hebrew expert. So I remember looking up the lexicon on coats because when we think of coats, we think of an outer garment. But when I looked up coats, I think the word was ketoneth. Ketoneth, that's it. And it was an inner garment worn next to the skin. I mean, I read the definition and just went, wow, an inner garment worn next to the skin that goes down to the knees, rarely to the ankles, also worn by women. And I thought, wow, look at that.

They were covered by this before they were cast out of the garden. Yeah, it's that word ketoneth. Yeah, that's really, really nice. And skins is sort of fascinating here. Or is the word for skin, and it is more or less a homonym with the word or. So one starts with an ein, or that's a skin and or that starts with an olive is light and and the biblical authors love doing that with the hebrew sort of playing with that sort of hebrew language um and this idea that he's covering them with garments of light so they've

done the leaves great but these are garments of light and there are other implications of okay is it bad to be naked? When did they start? Should they feel ashamed for their innocent nakedness? No, it's maybe, you know, the world or Satan that makes them feel ashamed of that. But once they then have transgressed and have moved out, are beginning to move out of God's presence, then they really do need that covering to help them move forward. So there's all kinds of fun things we could stick on here for another couple hours, right? But –

How did you pronounce it? Kafar? K-A-P-H-A-R? Yeah, kafar is the verb to cover. Kippur is the PL sort of past participle that is often translated as atonement, covering. Yeah. And see, because I thought it's so interesting they tried to cover themselves. And then I read in the Book of Mormon, well, that if we are not, without the atonement, we are exposed to the demands of the law.

And I think, oh, look at that. We could be covered by Christ or we'd be exposed. I think I'm in Alma 34 when I say that to the demands of the law. And I can see where the idea of being dressed is protected as being covered by Christ. Otherwise, we're exposed. I also see in Moses 4.16 when the Lord says, where are you? And Adam says, I was afraid. I hid myself.

This idea of shame and fear have been introduced into Adam's life. And the Lord is saying, there's no need to hide from me. Right? You don't need to be ashamed of yourself. So I like that idea. The Lord's like, don't hide from me. It's okay. Who told you that you should be ashamed?

Right? Who told you that you should hide ashamed, right? Who told you that you should hide from me? This is really interesting. We could play the what if game all day long and we were just guessing, right? But if Adam and Eve had prayed about, well, how are we going to follow the second commandment if this had gone a little differently without Satan, the serpent introducing himself into the story, how would this have looked different if that relationship had moved forward that they had understood now we take the fruit and it's, it's part of their communication with God is Latter-day Saints would understand this is what has to happen. And by the way, uh, many other Christians are going to say, what are you even talking

about this? The fruit that was, that is, you're reading that very differently than we do. And, and we will just say that we are. Um, but what might this have looked like? And yet there is a redeemer that, that turns this story back into gold, back into what it needs to be as each of us come to him. I can't tell you how many of my students would, in their life, do something wrong and decide to hide from God, right? Rather than just go and, yeah, instead of going to talk about

it, it's like, well, I'll just stop going to church. I'll stop going to the temple. I'll stop, you know, I'll just hide from God for a while. And I can hear the Lord saying, why? Why are you hiding from me? You don't have to be ashamed of yourself. Come talk to me. I just think it's a beautiful idea to think that the Lord loves you despite the things you've done wrong. Come talk to him. It's okay.

Come talk to me. I remember Boyd K. Packer telling a story once where his son had done something pretty wrong. He had stolen the family car and gotten in a car accident. And the police officer said, do you want to make a phone call? And he said, yeah, I want to call my dad. Right. That he trusted that I made a big mistake and I need to talk to my dad about it. Right.

That's an automatic. I need to talk. I'm not going to hide from him. He's the one who can help me through my mistake. So I just, you know, anybody listening who's made mistakes, we've all made mistakes. Go to the Lord with your mistakes. Don't hide from him. Brother Wilcox's talk in general conference about, I'm a hypocrite. Well, you would be if you're trying to lie about it or hide from it or say it didn't really happen or the church is wrong for having high standards. But if you're owning it, you're talking to your bishop, you're trying to fix it.

That's not a hypocrite. That's a disciple. I mean, that was a great moment in Brother Wilcox's talk. You're trying to come back. And so don't be afraid of the bishop either. Go talk. Well, and this emphasizes the point of just how fruitful, and I use that pun, you know, that play on it, how fruitful this story is. And of the whatever, five or ten insights that we've discussed here today, there are a thousand more.

This story will reward those who spend time pondering it. All right. this story will reward those who spend time pondering it. All right, well, let's just spend a few more minutes teasing out some things with the Cain and Abel story. We've spent a lot of time in the story of the fall and we've done some jumping into the Cain and Abel story, but there's some fascinating things at the Pearl of Great Price that Moses chapter five provides

as we come out of the garden. One of the things that it adds is that to our understanding is that Cain and Abel are not the first children born to Adam and Eve. And that's, you don't get that in the biblical account. And so you've got verse two, you've got sons and daughters and they're beginning to multiply and replenish the earth. And Cain and Abel haven't shown up yet, right? You get that they're being taught the gospel of the fall and that it introduces when, when this turns wrong,

when people reject the Lord and move away from the Lord, this gets ugly fast. You know, we've got the first murder, we've got lies, we've got deception, we've got envy and covetousness. I mean,

you got the 10 commandments are showing up in a very negative way. The breaking of those commandments, you got it playing out here very quickly in Adam and Eve's own family. And by the way, I suspect Adam and Eve are pretty good parents. There is a reality of agency that I think all of us have to acknowledge. We don't want to acknowledge it. And if we're going to take the blame for all of the sins of our children, then we get all the credit for all the good they do. And it just doesn't work that way. We have to teach the best we can and then honor agency. And you see God doing that. Yeah, that's interesting, Sean, the way you're setting this up.

It's awesome. They've fallen. It's great. They're moving forward. And then we take a very dark, a very dark turn. And it introduces with Satan, right? In Moses 5.13, Satan came among them. Yeah.

And if we keep going in that verse um so he's saying don't believe what your parents are teaching and they actually love they're more interested in what satan has to say than in what god has to say as their parents are teaching it and this is interesting men began from that time forth to be carnal sensual and devilish soish. So there is, again, this sort of carving of a middle way out where the consequences of the fall are significant. And certainly we have these fallen bodies that, you know, sort of crave satisfaction and we're drawn that way. But it's when we actually listen to Satan and we'd say, you know, as we're sort of

moving out of those beautiful Garden of Eden first eight years, and then we begin to love Satan more than God, that's then the shift to carnal, sensual, and devilish. That's sort of an interesting teaching that is found here in Moses 5. So then let's come into the Cain and Abel story again and do a little bit more there. I think many of us feel sympathetic with Cain that he's bringing the best he has and that Abel is bringing the best he has. And maybe we think,

well, Abel just got lucky. Why does he gets, he's a, he's a sheep herder, a shepherd, you know? And so he brings of his stuff and God takes it. But Cain doesn't, uh, you know, he brings the fruit of the ground and Joseph Smith has made a point here where he says, uh, let me just read this statement from him.

Cain offered of the fruit of the ground and was not accepted. The sacrifice of animals was instituted as a type by which mankind was to discern the great sacrifice, which God had prepared to offer a sacrifice. Contrary to that, no faith could be exercised because redemption was not purchased in that way, nor the power of atonement instituted after that order. Consequently, Cain could have no faith and whatsoever is not a faith is sin. So there's an important point here that Cain,

who by the way has been taught what it means to sacrifice. And there is a rebellion here where he says, I want you, I want to do it my way. God, you have to take me on my terms. And what I say, my personal sensitivities here are going to rule the day as opposed to submit. Oh, you've said we're going to do it this way. Yeah.

But I till the ground, I'm bringing my stuff. And it's like he has purposely said, I reject that. I'm going to break that ordinance the way that God has instituted for it to be done because what I want to do trumps what God has asked me to do. And then it's not quite so sympathetic of you that we get of Cain here, right? Where Cain is really willful. He's really self-vaunting. He really does want what he wants as opposed to listening to God. And then that story continues to play out. That sort of pride and self-exertion of will then leads him into a competitive relationship with his brother, where this is not about

their obedience to God, but it's about being better than the person next to him. He wants what Abel has. And then it's sort of like the story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah. It sort of goes from sin to sin. In fact, there's this really fascinating moment. Verse 23 of Moses 5, if thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted. The verse before, why art thou wroth?

Why is the countenance fallen? His sacrifice hasn't been accepted. And by the way, it's Satan who tells him to sacrifice like this. So Satan is setting this up. He's like, hey, you should do this. Yeah, you should do it this way. And if God really loves you, he, you know, I'm introducing some things into Satan's language there. It's back in verse 18, where you get that Satan commands him.

And then verse 23, his sacrifice hasn't been accepted. And God says to him, if you do well, you shall be accepted. And if thou do us not well, sin lieth at the door. Satan desireth to have thee. And so God is actually being really good with Cain. He's like, whoa, it's okay. But don't be angry now. This decision you've made will lead you in sin is at the door. So come back onto my side.

I'm not angry, you know, so much as that you just need to do this the right way. But what happens is we choose our own direction. We want it to be validated. And when it's not validated, then we sort of run down that road. Sin lies at the door. And how often has one decision

in a day led to another bad decision, another bad decision, and all of a sudden, you know, you wake up late and you don't say your prayers. And by the end of the day, you've robbed a bank and, or maybe not that extreme, but there is sort of a modeling of how this happens, how we can sort of descend and descend pretty quickly. Yeah, and the Lord stops, hey, hey, hey, just be humble. It's okay. It's okay. Just be humble.

Let's turn this around right now, and we'll be okay. But he just will not. He won't be. It's be thou humble, and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, right? And he just refuses to turn this initial decision around. I just wondered if you could comment on something. It's so kind of interesting, kind of strange. Satan commands Cain in verse 18, make an offering unto the Lord. Doesn't say make an offering unto me, but he says make an offering unto the Lord. But the thing that I find really strange in verse 29, I'd love to hear your comments,

when he sets up this oath, swear unto me by thy throat, if thou tell it thou shalt die, swear unto thy brethren by their heads, and by the living God that they tell it not. So, it's strange that Satan would involve the name of God in an oath to do something bad, to do something totally against the name of God in an oath to do something bad, to do something totally against the commandments of God. Well, I think that's a great thing that you're pointing to. That's really helpful, John. And what you are seeing is the mixing and the turning upside down.

It goes from identifying good as good and evil as evil to all of a sudden it's intermixed. And by the way, if we're, this story is set up as a foil of the garden of Eden story where Satan, you can see sort of what he's going for. Eve, go talk to Adam and, and yet Adam and Eve then love each other and God, it allows God to be part of the storyline. And now we get the opposite of that storyline. Go make an offering to the Lord and hey, you're going to do this for him, but now swear by me, but use the name of God.

And so that we can give it this veneer of righteousness, but it's really, it's actually wicked in intent. And we have to acknowledge just how often religion can be used for evil intent to control, to coerce, and that that is never what God's intent is. God's intent is to enhance agency and to encourage healthy choices that will allow people to move forward in a proper relationship with him and with each other. And you can see how Satan is just doing really clever things to sort of twist that up and weave it all together so that it's so hard to pull it apart and bring it back into a right relationship. It seems to me that Satan loves to get people to mix up their friends and their enemies, right? That this idea, Abel is your brother.

He is your friend. He's your teammate. No, he's your competition. He's your enemy. Do you want to comment too on this ironic statement that Cain makes says, now I am free, which I guess is what Satan wants you to think when you are getting in bondage to him that you are free.

Well, I do think there's some, you know, if we go back to what we were discussing before with this idea of the great secret is I can get what I want for nothing. And I think we want to be careful about what adrenaline rushes mean. You know, I think someone who is addicted to shoplifting, who loves shoplifting, you know, I think that's how they feel. Every time they want it and they're gonna get it. And then when they get it successfully, then they have that same kind of reaction. I'm free, but the problem, of course, the irony that you're pointing out is it,

then it just closes things down as opposed to broadening the spectrum of, so I'm free. In other words, I got what I wanted, but now I'm less and less able not to use Abel's name there. I'm less and less able to, um, to, to make choices that will allow that to continue in healthy ways. And by the way, this is all book of Moses is a pearl, a great price and, and just a nod to the revelatory strength of

what we get here. This is profound scriptural text, revealed text, and this is deep thinking, so to speak. This comes from God because it reveals human nature in very powerful ways, and it continues to reward us as we go back to it and dig deeper and deeper. Right. I liked it. Joseph Smith was a prophet. What was he? 2024?

When he's writing this. Well, I got to point out another one just for, we've already gone past this, but you don't even notice what's happening. If you go back to the beginning of Moses chapter five and verse one, and it came to pass that after I, the Lord God had driven them out and later on, he's going to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow as I, the Lord had commanded him. And then there's this shift. By the time you get to verse four, Adam and Eve and his wife called upon the name of the

Lord from first person to third person as they come out of the garden of Eden now into a fallen and something has changed and it's so subtle that you miss just how nuanced and profound this text is there's so much going on in this text that that it'll reward us if we dig into most 24 year olds right like this don't they sean i mean that yeah exactly. This is so good. This is so good. Maybe the last thing that we want to talk about here is this idea that is set up here, both in the Pearl of Great Price and in Genesis of the need for redemption.

And this is, we started off talking about the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. Well, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is one covenant that weaves itself through. And so this theme that Elder McConkie has talked about and that we want to reemphasize here is creation, fall, and atonement. And another way of putting that is creation, fall, and then redemption through covenants. And the power of those covenants is in the atonement of Jesus Christ, right? And we walk this path in a daily kind of way, a week-by-week way. You know, as a Latter-day Saint, I take the sacrament on Sunday and I'm renewed, I'm ready to go.

And then by Monday morning, I've experienced the fall again, you know, and then I'm moving forward to be redeemed. And this is how we move forward in life. We have created a new job, a new day, a new relationship, that creation stage. And then there comes a moment when we are like, oh, it's not perfect. And there's a fall. And then God is there to carry the story forward.

We are not held captive by former mistakes. God, and this is the way the biblical storyline is gonna play out, but there's covenants that are offered and he's gonna pull Noah and then Abraham. And of course we know it's before that it's Enoch and others into this covenant relationship. So one last little thing I'll say about this, I like to say in class, I don't need to worry about my past because of the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I don't need to worry about my future because of the power of covenants. I know that God will be there for me because he has promised he would be there for me. And Christ is the great symbol and sign of that. I don't need to worry what choices I'm gonna make because I've covenanted where I'm going to be. Repentance takes care of my past, covenants take care of my future.

And through the atonement of Christ and this covenantal relationship, we can return back into the Garden of Eden, but at a better level, at a higher level, return back into the presence of God. And he's calling us there. He's drawing us there. Wow. That idea of creation, fall, atonement happening over and over in our life, that is creation, fall, redemption, creation, fall, redemption. I mean, look at marriage,

creation. It's amazing. It's perfect. It's wonderful. Oh, wow. It's not as perfect as I thought. Redemption, right? I can, send me out. The same with having a child, right? Is look at this beautiful creation. And then it's, oh, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Redemption. I can fix this relationship. It just happens over and over. Sean, Dr. Hopkins, this has been fantastic. I have learned so much. I think our listeners would love to hear just a little bit of your personal story when it comes to your research, your scholarship, your education, and your faith. Tell us just a little bit about your story. So I always wanted to do something where I could serve others. So the idea was I was either going

to be a medical doctor or a teacher, right? And then as often happens as missionaries are returning from the mission field, think, oh, I want to teach the gospel. And that doesn't always work out. But in my storyline, it did. I ended up being a seminary institute teacher. But I always had. I was an ancient Near Eastern studies major. And I wanted to understand the scriptures in ways that could then help them come to life for me and for others.

And Joseph Smith studied Hebrew. And I thought, well, I love Joseph Smith and who he was. And so that the example of him as a seeker after God and one who gave me confidence that I could seek after the Lord and then that the Lord would be willing to reveal himself to me in his own way and in his own time motivated my academic studies. And I would just say that as over the years, digging deeper and deeper into the academic study and the study of the Bible, that it has only enhanced my understanding of the richness of what we are provided in the restoration of the gospel. And it's such, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible is such a beautiful place to see that. Who else, where else are we living out these ancient stories?

And they are alive and powerful and real today. We are making covenants. We're emphasizing covenants. We're emphasizing covenants. We are listening to prophets. As Moses said, would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets. And here we are in a situation where in the latter days, God is calling all of us to know what it means to communicate directly with God. So we follow prophets and we learn the prophetic gift. We gain the prophetic gift ourselves. And there's temple. There's priesthood.

There's strong female leaders. There's strong male leaders. And my study of the Hebrew Bible only serves to strengthen my confidence in the message of the restoration. I am so grateful. As I sometimes tell my students at BYU, I've learned about the nature of God, the most about the nature of God from Isaiah and from Joseph Smith. They've given me confidence that God is willing to reveal himself to me and that their mortality's still got a while

to go for me, I hope. Um, but that quest has been rewarded. I feel that, um, I've come to know God better as I've been guided towards him. And my confidence has been increased through the restoration and honestly, through the teachings of the the old testament as strange as that may sound to some listeners um this has helped me be a better man and there's a long ways to go on that journey but um it's only enhanced me in my relationships with others and my relationships with the lord fantastic fantastic john i think you'd agree we're better men. I think all of our listeners are better men and women because of what we've been taught today. Absolutely. I've made so many notes and I've always, I mean, I feel embarrassed now. I had never seen what a love story this Adam and Eve, the episode of the fall was. I always thought,

oh, that's the fall, but look at the love story in there. And the love allowed God to become part of the story again. Just so wonderful. Well, I just wanted to say how fun it's been to be with you. And it is fun to study the scriptures together. There's so much there. And there's more always to be discovered. And not just interesting tidbits that are academically or intellectually

interesting, as good as that stuff is. Um, but things that'll change us, that'll have power to, to change who we are. It's so satisfying, uh, to study the scriptures together. And with, uh, two people who I loved and admired for quite some time, uh, it's really fun to be with both of you. Uh, you are, You are very kind. Honestly, I tell my students, this is what I do for fun. I read scriptures for fun.

They kind of look at me like, you need to raise the bar for fun. But this is fun for us, right? This is our version of a good time. We want to thank you, Dr. Sean Hopkins, for being with us. We want to thank all of you for listening. Grateful being with us. We want to thank all of you for listening. Grateful for your support. We couldn't do it without you.

We have some people we need to thank. Our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorenson. Our sponsors this year for Follow Him, David and Verla Sorenson. And, of course, our amazing production crew, David Perry, Jamie Nielsen, Lisa Spice, Kyle Nelson, Will Stoughton, and Scott Houston. We love you, our team, and we hope all of you will join us next week media. Come find us on Facebook and Instagram. We would love it if you would subscribe to, rate, and review the podcast. Share it with your friends. That would be awesome. Go to followhim.co, followhim.co

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