followHIM - Genesis 5; Moses 6 Part 1 • Dr. Kerry Muhlestein • Jan. 26-Feb. 1 • Come, Follow Me

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

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Coming up in this episode on Follow Him. My mission president was at this gathering and came back and reported this to us. President Packer was there and there was a question and answer session and he kept saying, okay, well on this, you're going to have to have the spirit guide you. And another one, you're going to have the spirit guide you. And then finally someone asks, okay, so how do we make sure we have the spirit with us to guide us? And my mission president said his answer was two words. Hello, my friends.

Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with John, by the way. John, I read Moses 6 verse 38. There is a strange thing in the land. A wild man hath come among us. I remember being 12 years old, listening to John, by the way, speak. You weren't that old, John. You were probably mid-20s. I remember where I was, John. I was on your left. I was looking way far over there. Wow. I was 12 years old. I was at Youth Conference. and I thought, he's amazing. It was like a stirring within.

I'm being serious here. It was like, he is great. It stirred me. There is a strange thing in the land, I would have said. A wild man hath come among us. Something amazing is happening. How interesting. Thanks for a wild strange man.

It must have been in the ballroom of the Wilkinson Center maybe. I don't know how old will the Wilkinson Center is. It might have been the JSB Auditorium. I honestly don't remember where it was. I remember being on your far left. And I was just like, this is awesome. A St. George Youth Conference, St. George Steak. We were up at BYU.

John, we are privileged, honored. We love him with all of our heart and soul. He's part of our follow him family. Dr. Carey Mealstein is back with us. Carrie, welcome back to the show. Thank you. Speaking of Strange and Wild Men, thank you for having me back on.

This was the perfect chapter, Carrie, as I prepared. I thought, strange and wild. That's who I think of, yeah. Our offices were across the hall from each other. There was strange and wild things happening over there. You walk in his office, John, and there is Egyptian artifacts. You're going, this is incredible. This guy, he knows everything. Kerry knows everything. It's a strange and wild thing in a good way, in a good way. John, when you think of Enoch and what we get from the prophet, Joseph Smith. Oh, thanks for asking that. There is a YouTube video out there called the Old Testament in eight minutes. I think it was written by the former brothers, a couple of seminary teachers out there.

The funny thing is they've rushed through the Old Testament really well. They talk about Enoch and how his city was taken, which is not Genesis, which is Moses. Because we don't get in in the comment section, they're like, wait, what? When did that happen? And I'm like, Okay, that's Pearl a Great Price. So I think about a mention of Enoch in Genesis, but a full story of Enic in the Pearl of Great Price. That's what I think of. Yeah. Carrie, what are you thinking we're going to do today? Where do you want to go? John's getting us right there. This is an amazing revelation. This is one of those days where we just have to be grateful for the restoration to be so blessed to have the flood of light that came through the prophet Joseph Smith, because not only do we know more about Enoch, but the profound truths that he teaches. Some of the most important profound truths, I think chapter six, one of the most beautiful chapters

in all of Scripture. I've said that about a number of chapters, but it really is an amazing chapter. I am so grateful to be blessed by the truth that was restored to us through Joseph Smith. Yeah. What does Genesis chapter 5 give us about Enok?

And Enok walked with God. Yeah. And then you think, Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder if Joseph Smith said, Is there more to learn there? And what? Here just comes a flood of light knowledge, which turns into Moses chapter 6. About 60 times that much now.

Joseph Smith gives us 60 times as much as what is in Genesis. Yeah, it's incredible. There's many times where I'm teaching classes at BYU and I'll say, how do you know that? How do you know what you know about this certain topic? They'll say, I don't know, the scriptures, the Bible. I'll say, no. It's in the scriptures, yes. It came from the prophet Joseph Smith.

The benefit we have of this 20-something-year-old farmer, it's understated. I don't think we realize what we know because of him. Well, Hank, that is a great question to ask is just, now wait, where do you get that? Because a lot of us have a reservoir of gospel knowledge that we draw from. But when you know, wait, what's your source for that? You're amazingly how much of that is clarifying in restoration scripture, ancient and modern, and it's a good question to ask. It's no wonder if you're the adversary, you attack the prophet Joseph Smith, because if you

can get rid of him, you can get rid of how much understanding of the Lord, how much understanding of the plan of salvation. Now, John, someone might be joining us maybe for the first time with Kerry, I forgot to prepare. Okay, here we go. I thought there was a joke in there somewhere, but that was real. Okay. John, I know you love his resume. Yeah, it's too big to read all of it, but I'm going to hold up learning to love Isaiah right here.

He can probably read this to us in the original Hebrew, but I'm going to read what's here in the About the author. Kerry Milstein is a professor, former associate chair of the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, where he's taught Old Testament for nearly three decades. Also a director of research for that department. He received his bachelor's in psychology, Hebrew minor from BYU, a master's in Hebrew and ancient Near Eastern Studies from BYU and a Ph.D. From UCLA, I love saying this, in Egyptology. With a secondary emphasis in Hebrew and literature, he's the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project.

He and his wife Julianna are the parents of six children. They have lived in Jerusalem on multiple occasions while Kerry has taught there. before we started recording I was just talking to Carrie about how when I was in high school I kind of had this fascination with King Tut and we talked about King Tut and now that you said what you did about his office Hank I need to get down there and see the Egypt. If I can't make it to Cairo, I need to just go to your office and see the Egyptian stuff there because I think the art beautiful and fascinating and interesting and everything. I think he's got the original tablets of Moses in there. Yeah, but I'm not supposed to talk about that. Yeah, under glass. Yeah, you'd think so.

He just gets him out and holds them. Let's jump into the ComeFault Me Manual because I want to hear everything Kerry has to teach us today. The title of our lesson this week is teach these things freely unto your children, Genesis 5 and Moses 6. Before we hit record, Kerry said, well, all you need to do is read Moses 6 and you get all of. Genesis 5, so I'm guessing that's where we'll spend most of our time. Here's the introduction.

Most of Genesis 5 is a list of the generations between Adam and Eve and Noah. We read a lot of names. We don't learn much about them. Then we read this intriguing, unexplained line. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Surely there's a story behind that verse. Without further explanation, the list of generation resumes. Thankfully, Moses chapter 6 reveals the details of Enix's story, and it's quite a story. We learn of Enix's humility, his insecurities, the potential God saw in him, and the great work he performed as God's prophet. We also get a clearer picture of the family of Adam and Eve as it progressed through the generations. We read of Satan's great dominion, but also of parents who taught children the ways of God.

Especially precious is what we learn about the doctrine of these parents taught. Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost. That doctrine, like the priesthood that accompanies it, was in the beginning and shall be in the end of the world also. Beautiful way to start. Carrie, you and I have been talking for a couple of months. Maybe before we jump into these chapters, you could give us some tips on how you approach the Old Testament. I would be so happy to, and that's something, I mean, really, we could spend hours on. I've got lots of things where I do spend hours on. that. I'll just give a couple of little short tips that hopefully people can expand upon or they can go to different resources to find more about it. One of those would be to remember that we're reading a book,

whether it be the book of Moses or as we get it in Moses and the Bible, the Old Testament, that is focused primarily. The main character is Jehovah. Even though as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know that Jehovah is Jesus Christ, Sometimes we forget that when we read the Bible. I think it is worth recognizing that every week we should learn something about Christ or Jehovah. Same being. It is worth thinking through that the Old Testament gives us insights into his nature, his character, how he interacts with us that we won't find in any other book of Scripture, just like any other book of Scripture will give us stuff that we don't find in the Old Testament. but I hope that everyone will approach the Old Testament this year asking themselves,

what have I learned about the nature of Jehovah and by extension the Father? Because Christ reveals to us what the Father is like. What have I learned about Christ and our Father and how he interacts with me and my relationship with him from the readings this week? That's one of the more powerful tools or lenses that we could apply to reading the Old Testament. I think it's a really wonderful one. Josh Sears a few weeks ago, Hank, that was so helpful for me. I thought, oh, that's so true. I think of Jesus saying, learn of me, listen to my words, and I'm thinking, Jesus, I forget, and I'm also Jehovah of the Old Testament. I'm Jehovah of those millennia. I'm Jesus of one century in the New

Testament. And I'm Jehovah of several millennia. Yeah, expand that you're going to see his character in all of those places too. And Hank, while I'm talking, Kerry has a podcast of his own called The Scriptures Are Real that we ought to reference, which is excellent. People should want to go to that after they'll, if they haven't already, after they hear Carrie today, they'll want to check that out.

The Scriptures are real. It's interesting, John. Occasionally people will say, oh, I like your podcast more than the other. I'll say, listen, we are all on the same team. Find a flavor you like. Yeah, we have one goal. We want to build the kingdom. Yeah, and there's plenty of time if we're listening while we drive and whatever else to listen to a bunch of podcasts.

And we each have different niches. Like, I'm really geared up this year. We're showing drone footage. I just got back from a trip where I was recording, driving, walking around. We're going to have different levels of people who want just to go through the text. They'll be like an episode with that. But then we'll have somewhere we're going through geography, archaeology, history, language, things. we all have our own things that we contribute and there's not going to be too much of studying the gospel and studying the scriptures together like how can we have too many resources there's no such thing yeah five years ago hank when i was first invited to be part of follow him podcast i thought audio because podcast is a play on the word broadcast except it's with an ipod so we'll call it a podcast But it's all video now. What Kerry just described, you've got drone footage in Egypt and stuff like that? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, well, in Israel.

So I purchased, they don't let you just bring your drone into Israel. I have to use licensed people. So I purchased some footage of key sites. And then I had one where we'd put it on the dash of the car so you can see us approaching. And then one where as we walk into places, you can focus in on places and all sorts of things. plus photos that I've been taking for like 20 years. Well, it's more than 20 years. 30, 30.

Actually, over 30 years, I've been taking pictures of things in Israel. And maps that I've been making and all those things. I put a lot of that in this book that's no longer in print. It's, I can't get it to focus, but it's the Essential Old Testament companion. There. There it is. Okay. The Essential Old Testament companion.

It's not in print anymore, but this is one where I did make maps. It's got charts. And it does have something in there like something you should learn about Jehovah for each week. It's from the old gospel doctrine lessons, so it's only about an 85 to 89% match. There are a couple different things. It's not available, but Covenant agreed to let me have the rights to that because it has so many pictures. It was too expensive to print. People can get that for free. I'm willing to send out the PDF of it to anyone who wants it for free. They can just email me at the scriptures are real at gmail.com. I'll give them a free copy of that, but that has lots of photos and maps

and charts and things like that in it as well. Yeah. That gives me a chance to talk about one other one that's available and carries in this one as well. It's called Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It's bits from our lessons four years ago. We also have a free PDF. You go to follow him.co. Carrie, you were right.

There is no dearth of resources for anyone who wants to understand the scriptures and wants to take the time for them. This is what we do for fun. we really like this stuff. Now let me give you a couple more points or lenses, however you want to call it, tools that will help people as they're studying the Old Testament this year. One of those is to look for symbolism. Sometimes we're in such a hurry to read, and I get it with, especially with the Old Testament, like we have big reading assignments.

Sometimes we had Section 93 in the Doctrine of Covenants. Read that one section. There are no weeks this year where we're reading one chapter. I get that sometimes we have to read quickly, but I hope people will slowly. down to look for symbols and especially symbolic action. The Lord had his prophets do things or he interacted with people in a way where it was real, but it was done in a way that would teach symbolically. And that's what the people in the Old Testament were attuned to. That's what they're looking for. We're going to miss a lot of what he's teaching us if we don't start to look for that. So for example,

with the Exodus, I mean, it really happened, but it happens in a way where the symbols are abundant. and if we'll slow down and take some time to learn from those, from almost any story or teaching in the Old Testament, I don't think you'll have a week where there aren't lots of symbols we can learn from. I would also suggest using a covenant lens, looking for what it teaches us about the covenant. You'll find every week there are things that the New and Everlasting or Abrahamic covenant, how if we look at it through that lens,

we'll see things and learn and understand things differently. Maybe I can touch on just one more that will launch us into where we're starting and what we're talking about today. If you were to go to Genesis 5, you'll see pretty much the whole chapter is a genealogy list. And a lot of people skip over it. Or you get the First Chronicles and the first thing of First Chronicles, all these genealogy lists and so on. In fact, one of my advisors at UCLA did his dissertation back in the day on Chronicles, and he said his dad tried to read and he's like, You're just talking about genealogy. What do I care about that? But there is actually a powerful lesson behind this. The Old Testament is the story of families. That's why these things are recorded in there.

It is the story of a family. It's the story of God and his family. And we get to Abraham and his family or Israel and so on. It's the story of family and bringing everyone in God's family into the covenant family so that we can all return to be with God again. But it's about family from beginning to end. And the beauty of the Old Testament is we don't get a sanitized version of the family. All of the families we encounter are messy, just like every family on earth. There are some powerful things we can learn from that. It's a wonderful thing. So if we will look for how the Old Testament teaches us about families, I think that will be a great tool in studying this year. Excellent. Well, with that, we can jump in, right? Yeah, because that's where it starts. Right.

Maybe I can do one other thing. Let's do a little bit of background on what we're looking at as we look at the Book of Moses. And you've probably talked about this a little bit before. No, let's not fear repetition here, Carrie. I think it's really wise that someone might say, wait, Genesis 5 and Moses 6 are the same? How come we have two? There's some particular elements of it that we need to understand to get what we're reading today. The book of Moses is the Joseph Smith translation of the first part of Genesis. That's what it is. It was so much. new material that we can't do it in footnotes. It's printed in its own book because it's so much material. It was printed before we were doing footnotes anyway. That's what it is and we just have to remember that. This is the Joseph Smith translation of the first part of Genesis. Joseph received it in chunks. For example, Moses chapter one is something he receives in June of 1830. The part we're reading now actually comes in some pretty quick chunks.

This is probably the fastest, densest period of time in receiving Joseph Smith translation of any periods of time or era, I would guess. Let's make sure we understand this, that on November 30th of 1830, the church has been organized for just over six months, barely over six months. And on November 30th, Joseph receives a revelation that they didn't have verses then,

but now when we put it into verses, it's known as Moses 552 through 618. We're going to start with chapter 6 verse 1, but we're going to start by reading a couple of verses before that because it's pertinent to understanding the story. We put in that chapter of break later. As Joseph received it, there was no break there. The verses are meant to go together. The very next day, he gets 619 through 52. That's a really big chunk that he gets there.

all one day, boom, chapter 6, verse 19 through 52. Then sometime in the next several days, we don't know exactly when, but maybe the next day, or maybe it's two days or three days later. He gets chapter 6 verse 52 through chapter 7 verse 1. Basically, we get within a three-day period, Joseph receives in these chunks of revelation, all of chapter 6 with the verses just before and after it that really kind of belong with it. hopefully that helps us understand the context of what we're getting here, but I especially want to look at it because it's easy for us to forget that the verses

that are coming right before this are part of the story, and that's going to be important as we get to the end of chapter six to try and make sense of some things. If it's all right, I'd like to look just at an overview of chapter five because it sets up six. I know you covered this in an earlier episode, but you get at the beginning of chapter five Adam and Eve learn about sacrifice and they're doing sacrifices. Then you get this interpolation. They're learning about sacrifices.

Then Eve and Adam start to praise the Lord and they prophesy things and they're grateful for the fall. Then it starts to talk about how they taught their children these things. And we get this whole long story about them teaching their children and their children are following Satan and they're killing each other and all sorts of things that we would rather hadn't happened. then at the end of chapter 5 it kind of comes back to where it was at the beginning when at least the way I read it it's not 100% clear but the way I read it we're back to when they learned about sacrifice verse 58 and thus the gospel began to be preached from the beginning so where we start this interpolation where it adds all this other stuff it says Adam and Eve start to teach their children now we go back thus the gospel began to be preached from the beginning being declared by holy angels this is the angel teaching Adam and Eve about sacrifice and how it's a similitude of the only begotten son, by holy angel sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost. Thus, all things were confirmed unto Adam by an holy ordinance, and the gospel preached, and a decree sent forth that it should be in the world until the end thereof, and thus it was, amen. We have to ask ourselves,

what holy ordinance is that talking about? I think we have two candidates, and it may refer to both. One, it could be talking about that sacrifice that they've just been offering. But he's been offering that for a while. That's maybe confirmed, only kind of confirmed. We're going to see at the end of chapter six when Enick is telling Adam's story the baptism of Adam. And I assume Eve is baptized as well. That seems to me to perhaps be also what it's talking about or maybe only that, but that it's confirmed upon Adam as he enters into a covenant with God through baptism.

That's important to recognize as we move into chapter 6 that this is really kind of begun, whether that's what it's like about or not. We do know that Adam is baptized. This begins with Adam entering into a covenant with God. When we read gospel with the capital of G, we think gospel of Jesus Christ, or in other words, the good news of Jesus Christ. This teaches more clearly about Jesus Christ than what we have in Genesis. The book of Moses does. what a blessing to know that Christ was known about and taught about from the beginning. That's exactly what Adam is teaching his children, and we're going to see that in the course

of this chapter, but that's exactly what he's teaching his children is about Christ. I once had a discussion with a rather popular minister here in Utah who said, this seems anachronistic, if this is supposed to be Old Testament stuff, that they know so much about Christ. My response to him was basically, well, if you don't believe Joseph Smith, myth was inspired, then it is anachronistic. But if you do, then to me, this is a duh. Of course God wants his children to know about Christ from the very beginning. I feel better about thinking of a God who taught his children from the very beginning about Christ instead of saying, well, I'm going to keep Christ hidden for the first three quarters of history. And then maybe we'll start to teach people

about Christ. That makes no sense to me. Of course he wants to from the very beginning teach about Christ. Carrie, I love what you said, that families are messy. These situations we're reading about up to this point are messy and the gospel was preached, which is, you know, synonym for the good news. But I see the messes. There is good news, though. There's hope, there's healing. All of that is ahead because of Christ. So the gospel is preached that it should be there until the end of the world. I mean, that that is good news. I agree. And as we start going, I mean, I would love to read every single verse in this chapter, but it's such a long and beautiful chapter. We won't be able to.

So if we're skipping something you guys want to talk about, please jump in. But I think you're right. The good news is about Christ. But there's another kind of form of good news coming for Adam and Eve here, because if we'll remember chapter 5, they started to teach their children about Christ. Then Satan came and said, don't believe it. And their children decided to follow Satan. They were devastated. Then they had Cain.

We only know from this restoration version that Cain's not the first child. And they had Cain and they were like, okay, good. We have a child who will follow God. Cain makes a covenant with Satan and becomes kind of his chief apostle almost, as it were. He kills his brother. That's a heartbreak for them. We are now finally going to get a child who is going to follow God. All of Adam and Eve's children have decided not to follow God.

and it's here at the beginning of chapter six that we get a child who will follow God. Let's not forget verse one, Adam harkened into the voice of God and called upon his people to repent. He'd been told that he should, and he does call on them to repent. We shouldn't pass that by lightly, but we're going to come back to what that means to repent later in the chapter, if that's okay. Let's note it here, but he's going to talk about repentance a few times, unsurprisingly. Then we get Adam knowing his wife, she has a son, and calls his name, Seth. Adam glorified the name of God, for he said, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Kane slew, because after Kane, they got Abel and they thought, well, he was following God, but

he was killed. God revealed himself unto Seth, and he rebelled not, but offered an acceptable sacrifice, like unto his brother Abel, and to him also was born a son, and he called his name, Inos. So now we're going to get this line of people who follow God. It's really only one family. and their descendants that are following God, well, all the rest of the world is following Satan. And that's the story of the gospel in the world is God works through families. That's the primary vehicle of our transportation through the plan of salvation as the family. God works with the family as that vehicle.

Some families choose not to follow God, and we typically are getting one family that will, and we try to get everyone to be part of that family then. As we do that, let's look at verse 4, and then began these men. So we've got Adam, Abel, and Enos so far. I'm sure they have other children, but these are the ones that we've been told about.

These men call upon the name of the Lord, and the Lord blesses them. And a book of remembrance was kept in the which was recorded in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration. Well, let's read one more verse. And by them, their children were taught to read and write,

having a language which was pure and undefiled. There's so many fantastic things to unpack in there. They're calling on God, and this somehow is part of a book of remembrance. I was just reading today. I wanted to get a quote that we'll read in just a second from Joseph Smith, and it was in a letter to W.W. Phelps in 1832, and in this letter, Joseph is talking about, well, we need to write down the names of people who are doing these things

because that's how their name is remembered in the Lamb's Book of Life, right? this idea of remembering and writing down the good things, our official relationship with God, our good relationship with God, what's happening, that this becomes really important. And somehow, this language that is undefiled inspires Joseph. He will want to get back to the Pura Damic language again and again in his life. He and W.W. Phelps are playing around with it from time to time. And this is the quote that I was looking up,

because this is Joseph in that letter, he says, O Lord God, deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison, almost as it were, of total darkness of paper and pen and ink, and a crooked, broken, scattered, and imperfect language. They can't convey the purity and truth of the gospel, the way they feel it and understand it, but somehow there is a language that can. And one day, I guess if we all talk telepathically or how this exactly works,

but at some point, we are able to communicate the truths of the gospel, the way they deserve to be communicated, rather than in our crooked, broken, scattered language that is at prison. That's great, Carrie. I know Joseph Smith, but I find that same thing in my life. When I want to express my feelings, it's just, it's difficult. I almost find myself wanting to use more symbols, like the ancient. ancient Jewish writers to express feelings rather than descriptor words. It just doesn't seem to fit. You know, when you say the gospel's awesome, well, that movie was awesome, and those aren't the same thing.

That's right. I'm with you. It is one of the reasons for symbols and how powerful and beautiful they are. But I'll tell you, so I try to be a really good journaler, sometimes and better than others, but I try to be a really good journaler, but I often find it to be a frustrating exercise. Because as I write about the experiences or the feelings I have that are of a spiritual, nature. I just keep using the same word. It was great. It was wonderful. Like, nothing captures what I feel when I had the experience or when I'm trying to write it. I'm feeling at least a portion of that again, and I just can't capture it. I feel like, this is kind of a stupid thing. That's a dumb journal. What am I going to do with it? Because I can't capture it. Yeah. John, do you have anything there? I had just underlined it when you started talking about it. The children were taught to read and write. The idea of reading and writing, I remember in English class, my English teacher is just going crazy about the whole idea of language and that it could be recorded and stuff and that little symbols could talk to us and communicate to us and it went in this ear and it went out that air and it gained speed on the trip. It took me years to really go, yeah, this is pretty incredible that you can record things that so early they taught them to read and write.

that's huge we take literacy for granted sometimes but it is this early that it mentions it that's pretty impressive there's a power in studying the scriptures and the things of the gospel that creates literacy and then the literacy enables us to get more out of our study of the scriptures and the gospel and there's a wonderful spiral upwards there that i think sometimes we underestimate the power of gathering our families together to study the word together. It is a bigger thing than I think we recognize. Yeah. I assume that we all got an email yesterday that actually encouraged us in podcasts and things

like this to point out that there are other translations. There aren't other translations of the Book of Moses. In English, there are other translations that sometimes I love the King James Version. I think there's a power in teaching my children to read the King James Version. that it allows them to be more masterful with language and so on, but that there are other versions of the Bible that help convey different things. And that's all wrapped up in this idea of the power of language, but also being trapped in a broken, crooked, scattered, imperfect language.

Sometimes we look at those other translations, and it can kind of help us, and you can look at tools like netbibble.org or blue Bible. There are all sorts of online things that can help you with different translations of the Bible and look up what the Hebrew was or when we get to New Testament, the Greek, and so on. We live in a day where resources abound, and that's fantastic.

Hopefully it can help us overcome that broken prison of a language. But the real key to overcoming the prison of English, Spanish, Portuguese, whatever it is you're speaking, is the spirit. That's what overcomes the broken, crooked language. And I think we learned that in Section 50, especially, but this idea, it doesn't matter how well said it is, it's not well said enough to convey a truth of the gospel. The person who's speaking it needs to have the spirit with them

and then when you hear it or read it or whatever you need to have this, and that's how you overcome and understand it in truth despite the flawed nature of our communication process. I sometimes wonder if when prophets have had visions that cannot be written, it's not because, no, this is a secret, don't tell anybody. It's because there's no language to describe what I just saw. Maybe that's part of it too. I think so. Like when you think of 3Nephi 17 and the blessing of the children and it says that they can't write some of the things. My guess is a lot of it is like we just felt things that there's no way to describe. And Christ taught us things that we just can't. I mean, what we felt and understood as he taught us, we can't figure out how to write down. And notice the symbolism that he used when he said that. Again, we're doing our best to try and convey that truth that he was trying to convey there. Symbolism helps, but you still need the spirit to really get it.

Well, let's look at the next verse. I find this really intriguing. There's a missing antecedent here somewhere. Verse seven. Remember, the last thing is that they're teaching them to write in this pure language, and then it says, now this same priesthood, which was in the beginning, shall be at the end of the world also. Okay, I get that it's saying that what was in the beginning and will be at the end,

but where was it talking about priesthood? It has to come back to this idea we were talking about earlier when it's talking about an ordinance that's confirmed to Adam. him. I mean, implied in there that this is done by the priesthood. So whatever priesthood is present as they are experiencing this ordinance, he wants us to know that that was there at the very beginning and it's going to last throughout the entire history of the earth, just like some of the other things he's talking about. These are eternal things. They're going to be around. It's, as we said, not God was hiding them for the first three quarters of history. God has made these things available to his children from

the beginning and they will be there till the end. Everybody knows this, but Melchazidic priested, well, Melchazidic hadn't been born yet. So, yeah. And we learn, you know, from the doctrine of covenants and things that the long name for the priest is the holy priest is the holy priesthood after the order of the son of God. So it goes way back and later on we'll have some other ways of describing it. And it goes back from even before the world's created. Yeah, it has to. It's the power by which the world's created. It has to. What a grand thing to be part of.

That power delegated to man. That's going to be what God governs his kingdom by from the beginning to the end. I've probably mentioned this before, Hank, but I bought a Reader's Digest, who's Who in the Bible. I was intrigued to see what they would say about Melchizedek because without the JST, he's kind of a strange,

wait, he's without mother or father, without beginning of days or end of years? And the JST says his priesthood was without mother or father without beginning of days. That makes sense there. Priesthood has always been around, always existed, it had to to create the world in the first place. Yeah. Well, and that's where verse 8, we won't read the whole thing, but it's a prophecy. It doesn't tell us exactly what the prophecy is, but it must have to do with Christ and the priesthood.

Maybe it's referring all the way back to that. prophecy at the beginning of chapter 5, where he was filled and began to prophesy concerned all the families of the earth and so on. Maybe that's what it's referring to, but in any case, he prophesies as he's moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and a genealogy is kept of the children of God. This is going to be a different definition of children of God than the one we usually use. It's one that we'll get at the very end of this chapter. We're all children of God, but you become children of God in a different way, and we'll get more into this, as you're begotten of Him as you make covenants with Him.

That's what it has to mean here. At least that's how I read it when it talks about the children of God. And it's the book of the generations of Adam and so on. All of this priesthood, covenant, Christ, and keeping track or record of things are somehow all tied together and language. It's all wrapped together. And we saw that same thing. At this point, it's only a few months ago that we were reading in the doctrine and covenants about baptisms for the dead and the need to have a recorder and make sure you keep track of these things so that when they're recorded here they're recorded in heaven and so on every time we get priests of power ordinances ceilings and eternity somehow language and recording and writing gets involved with it i am convinced i'm just seeing a

little tip of some important iceberg there that i'm not getting everything that's important there i suspect that you guys know though so i'd love to hear with the answers in the back. That's right. That wouldn't be nice if we could have a set of scriptures, the answers are in the back, well? Yeah, just go to the back. I frequently tell my students,

I have the same one, I have the same scriptures you do, except for mine have the date of the second coming. Other than that, they're the exact same ones. Okay, I know where your office is. I'm going to sneak in there and read those. Yeah.

Anyway, now we get back into these created male and female and blessed them and called their name Adam. So Adam is both the name, but it's also a word that means like humankind. I think that's probably what's being referred to here, the humankind, their name Adam. We keep going on. The next thing that we get, starting in verse 10, is a list that's very similar to chapter 5 of Genesis of these great preachers of righteousness. And we'll even get that phrase in here in just a second. and it's recording who is the child of whom they're not giving us all of their children just the ones who seem to end up being in some kind of presiding function or preaching function or something along those lines and it's giving us how long they live and it's these great big long age spans and i don't know if that's literal or if that's a way of saying we're in a different era or something right and that's another thing that's worth thinking about as we talk about keys to understanding the bible we talked about how it's often very

symbolic. And I don't think we should use that as a way to say, okay, well, this didn't happen and dismiss the historicity of the Bible. I think that's a problem. But we should recognize that sometimes we hold them to a standard of literality that we don't hold ourselves to. In fact, I'm going to say it this way. I have said a thousand times that we shouldn't take their numbers too literally. And you see what I did there. I probably have said it more than a thousand times, But that's our way of saying a bunch, right? Or even sillier than that is if we say, I've said it a ton of times. Well, a ton is a weight measurement.

If someone 100 years from now is reading what I said, like, what does he mean? A ton. How does he say a ton? Right? Yeah. It makes no sense. I think we sometimes miss because we just have different idiomatic expressions.

We sometimes miss what they're saying. So maybe these are literally the years in one of his version. of this Joseph Smith translation, Joseph actually changed Adam's age to a thousand. Does that mean it was really a thousand? Or is this just Joseph saying, yeah, these are a big chunk of time. And it may be that by the time whoever's writing this, writes this, that they don't know exactly how long. So they're just saying numbers that mean that was a ton of time, right? A ton of time. Yeah. Yeah. Kerry, one time President Oakes was asked, do Latter-day Saints take the Bible figuratively or literally? And he said, somewhere in between.

I really love that. Somewhere in between. I'd say both. Yeah, both. Right. Some things are both literal and figurative, often. And some things are one and some of the other. And you're right, somewhere in between.

I like that. I'm going to use that. That's good. I'm going to use that a ton. Yeah, that's right. We would use that a ton. Oh, he's not a ton. As we go through, we get these lists of great preachers.

Most of them we know very, very little about. In some ways, this is emphasizing the importance of keeping record and a family. But we have this period that we call the patriarchal order. And if it's all right, I'd like to talk about that a little bit because I think that title and that phrase is a little problematic. It's used because it was a phrase that was used a long time ago when that was less problematic, but it's really coming from kind of a Roman society

and Western society drawing on Roman society kind of a thing where the father, and that's what patri, mean, it comes from Potter, the father. It is about fathers and sons, but I'll tell you this, this is an exercise I do in my classes, and it's interesting to me to see it. shift a bit over the last few years in what I think is a positive way because I started, it was actually 1995 the first time I taught at BYU, a Pearl of Great Prize class. And I started

doing this then. I would say, what is the patriarchal order? The most common answer I would get is, well, this is governance from father to son. I try and gently correct things and I'd say, okay, I like that, but maybe can we expand it a little bit? This is at least my take. This is my definition. It's the governance of the kingdom of God through the family. So it's not just father and son. And after I'd been teaching for about 10 years, we got this marvelous talk by President Oakes about the difference between the patriarchal and the hierarchical orders, where he is clear that patriarchal order is a full and equal partnership. This really is about families. It's not just fathers and sons.

But because we use the word patriarchal, it's got Latin root carries this notion of only, men, and that's not accurate. We have a broken, crooked, and scattered language that's imprisoning us here. We have a term that doesn't do justice to what was really happening. And it may have happened for them culturally somewhat different than what it happens here, but we know the principle is that this should be full and equal partnership, even if it's different responsibilities, and they probably had different ways of dividing it than they did in Joseph Smith's Day and they had different ways of dividing it than we do. It may have looked different, but it's a partnership in one way or another. And I have found in the last several years that as I asked that question, I get, instead of always

having to guide students towards the whole family thing, I'm actually getting students that come up with that on their own. I think that the teachings of President Oakes and President Nelson and others who have taught us this so well that we're moving a little bit in our understanding of what it means to be patriarchal or family oriented. And it's landmark. President Oakes has done more to teach us about aspects of the priesthood. It's like every couple of years he gives a talk that is, if we assembled them all together, it would be this fantastic handbook on the priesthood. But he has done more to help us understand how the priesthood works in our lives and as families than anyone I can think of. That particular one, like since he gave that talk, I can't teach Genesis or the Book of Moses without

out using that talk. He explains so well what this order in this era that we call the patriarchal era and is wonderful. At times, I would like to see more of the husband-wife partnership laid out in scripture. Maybe it's not listed there. Here's what I know. I know that when I'm filled with the Holy Ghost, I love my wife more purely. And when we both have the Holy Ghost, we are equal. partners. I think it's safe to assume that these people that we're talking about had the fullness of the Holy Ghost and that they also acted, that the Holy Ghost brought that same love and equality. Would that be fair to say? Absolutely. I can't give you exact quotes, but I remember President Hinkley talking about that a little bit in his interview in 60 minutes when he was pressed a little bit

on this and he just said, so does that mean that the husband is the boss? And he said, and say, you know that's not how it works. Anyone who's been in a good marriage knows that's not how it works. I would agree with you so much, the more I feel the spirit, the more I am in a teamwork mentality and relationship with my wife. And the more I'm in a teamwork mentality and relationship, the more I feel the spirit. And the more we love each other. That's how it works.

And culturally, it was a little different in different eras and so on. But that truth has to always have been part of life. You can't have the spirit with you if you are not treating your spouse the right way. That's for men or women. Yeah. The story we often tell in the translation of the book Mormon where Joseph couldn't translate, couldn't get the revelation, and he realized he had a argument with Emma or a disagreement of some kind, and one had to go reconcile that before he could move on.

Think of all the ways we can apply that to our day. and it actually kind of helps make our marriage a priority. If I want to do anything, I can't perform my calling, whatever it is, and maybe she can't perform hers very well either unless we're working on us. I think there's some safe assumptions we can make about the Holy Ghost that if these people have the Holy Ghost, they are going to have the equality that we're all hoping that they have and that we hope we have. they're going to have love and repentance in their marriages. When they make mistakes in their marriages, there won't be perfect spouses,

but they're going to be repenting to each other and helping each other. And it's not just marriages. One of the things we're coming to realize as a people, well, probably church leaders have realized this for a long time, but as a people we're trying to get it better, is that it's about relationship in general, relationship with God, relationship with each other. I would say if you have problems in important relationships, it's going to be hard to have the spirit with you, whether that's with a spouse, whether that's with other family members, whether that's with someone in the ward, with your next door neighbor.

Peacemakers are wanted, is what I would say in all relationships. And the Holy Ghost can help you with that. Yes, absolutely. Quite a bit. And you're probably listening to this and thinking you need to get someone else to read this. That's the thing. We hear, oh, relationship, yeah, these other people. are hard to get along with. What's wrong with you? President Nelson did such a great job of calling

us on that. I'll tell you the phrase that I prefer, well, patriarchal order is great in some ways. This chapter actually gives us a phrase that we can use that I think is a little less tricky. And it's in verse 23. We've got some stuff to cover before that, but in verse 23, it calls them the preachers of righteousness. That's a great phrase. This is a great phrase. This is a, the era of the preachers of righteousness. We could say it's the era of the patriarchal order, and preachers of righteousness doesn't automatically carry family language with it, and so it's not quite perfect, but if we can say it's preachers of righteousness within a family order and the kingdom of God is being governed in a family order, which, by the way, is our

future as well. At some point, the kingdom of God is governed only through the family as it was during this time period. We're in a weird hiatus where we've got this split that President Oakes talked about in that talk, where we've got both a hierarchical. and a patriarchal order, but the future of the kingdom of God is family. It's going to happen through families as we all get sealed together, and that's part of the point of sealing us all together. Joseph Smith gave us the most beautiful, complete gospel, didn't he? If we jump back in, we have Seth living and having children. One of the key things we have to look at is in verse 15. And the children of men were numerous upon all the face of the land, and in those days Satan had

great dominion among men and raged in their hearts and from thenceforth came wars and bloodshed and a man's hand was against his own brother in administering death because of secret works seeking for power. That is unfortunately the story of the history of the world. We get here what we'll use a word to make ourselves sound smart because that's really what this whole shows. We're trying to sound smart. We're going to use the word bifurcation, which means to divide into two parts. The human race is continually being bifurcated. You get those who choose to follow Satan and those who choose to follow God. For a while, there are times where you can kind of try and exist in the middle, but you can never stay there very long. We've had different brethren teach us about that in

different ways. President Ballard talked about staying on the good ship Zion, and if you get off, it's moving faster, you may not be able to get back on. Neelay Maxwell used the analogy of a train, that this train is picking up speed and if you get off it's going to be harder to get back on. We're in one of these periods where we're becoming more and more bifurcated. You're either going to be part of following Satan with Satan raging in our hearts and wars and bloodshed or you're going to be part of the kingdom of God. And that's exactly what we're going to see here in Moses chapter 6 is this split between Zion and all those who follow Satan.

But I think we're seeing it in our own day. that's not just my idea. I'm getting that from reading leaders of our church, that we need to be very aware that it's time to get solidly in with Zion. Because if you're trying to live, well, the way Elder Maxwell put it sometimes is to live in Zion but to maintain a summer cottage in Babylon, at some point, you're not going to be able to keep going. The border's going to get closed and you're going to get caught in the wrong place. We can't spend time on all the verses, so let's jump into talking about Enic, and we'll have to just skip some of these verses about Mahaliyal and Canaan. There is one thing that's worth noting, because sometimes people get confused. If we get in verse 17, Enis lived 90 years and begat Canaan. Now, this is Canaan spelled C-A-I-N-A-N. Sometimes people confuse that with Cain.

That's not Cain. And with the land of Canaan that we get in Genesis and Exodus, which is spelled with two. two A's. It's not spelled A-I. This is a different place and we don't want to get confused with it. But there does end up, this Canaan, who we hear very little about, but we end up with the land being called after him. Enoch will refer to his people as the people that are descended from Canaan. So he's a more significant figure than we hear about. He is one of these preachers of righteousness that seems to have a real effect on the family. But we're going to jump forward to Enoch just because Enoch is really what most of this chapter is about. such a powerful story. As you said at the beginning, we get this little line, and we're going to get

the rest of chapter 6 and chapter 7 about Enoch, and it's just incredible stuff. In verse 25, Enoch lived 65 years, and he begat Methuselah, and it came to pass that Enoch journeyed in the land among the people, as he journeyed the spirit of God descended out of heaven and abode upon him, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, Enoch, my son, prophesy unto this people. Now, that's interesting. He's not just telling him what to prophesy, but it's nice that he's telling him to prophesy. We think prophesy means tell people what's going to happen in the future. Often it's not that. And here, that's not what he's told. This is what he's told. Prophesy into this people and say to them, repent, for thus sayeth the Lord, I am angry with this people, and my fierce anger is kindled against

them. So this is something that's happening for them right then. Now, this idea of repenting. This is what Adam was told to tell people, and then he's told again to tell people this, and this is what Enoch is being told to tell people. We've been told preached nothing but repentant, so we need to make sure we understand that. But right now, I'd like to focus on this idea that God is angry with this people, and he tells us why. This is another tool for studying the scriptures, to look for causal words. Any of those words that tells you, this is related to that. So it's because thus therefore for those kinds of words and we get one here god is anger with this people and my fierce anger is kindled against them for their hearts have waxed hard and their ears are dull

of hearing and their eyes cannot see afar off now i have to tell you that the last line of that is a little confusing to me i get why god would be mad that our our hearts have waxed hard that that implies we just don't want to let the word of god come into our hearts and our ears are delaf hearing. That means that we could hear, but we're choosing not to hear. I'm sitting here as a guy who is wearing thick glasses. My eyesight is not that great, and he's upset that people can't see afar off. My inclination is to say, well, that's not in the human ability to see far off. That's just not what we're capable of. If it's all right, let's turn to another verse that I found is strikingly similar to this. So let's go to the

book of Jerram. We'll go to the first chapter, if that's okay, of the book of Jerram, since it's the only chapter. Since it's the only one, yeah. Let's look at the book of Jerram. We're going to start in verse three. So you remember that triplet, that their hearts were hard, their ears were dull, and they couldn't see afar off. Verse three, behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people because of the hardness of their hearts and the deafness of their ears. Now he's going to add another one in here, but the next thing is the blindness of their minds. That seems a lot like the not seeing afar off. And then he says, and the stiffness of their necks. So he adds another one in there. And he says, God is exceedingly merciful under them and has not as yet

swept them off from the face of the land. So we get this anger again. Let's read verse four. I think it's so interesting. There are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiff-necked as many as are not stiff-necked and have communion with the Holy Spirit which makeeth manifest under the children of man according to their faith. Jerem has just told us the key to not being blind of mind or in other words to seeing afar off. And that's revelation. I was right. I'm not capable of seeing a far off, not physically and not spiritually. But God is. So if I'm not hard-hearted, if I'm not stiff-naked, if I'm not dull of hearing, then I will have the spirit which makes it so I can see afar off. Kind of reminds me of President Nelson telling us that we better have the Holy Ghost with this.

If we're not having revelation, we're not going to survive spiritually in the last days. I think we need to be able to see afar off. I don't know if you have any thoughts along those lines. And we're going to get into this whole seer business. This is the preparation for Enoch being a seer, right? But I don't know if you have any thoughts to God being upset with people. who are, if we were to keep going in Jerem, you read in verse 5 that these were people who kept the law of Moses really well. So they keep the law of Moses. They're very obedient, but he's still really

upset with them and thinking of sweeping them off the land, because despite their obedience, they're hard of heart, dull of hearing, blind-minded, or they can't see afar off. It seems to me God is pretty serious about us having inspiration or revelation regularly. Carrie, I'm sitting right in front of an Isaiah scholar, and I'm going, this, hearts, ears, and eyes remind me of the calling of Isaiah, make the heart of this people fat. Their ears are dull of hearing, their eyes have they closed? It struck me that that call of Isaiah was repeated in all of the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Here it is again, hearts, ears, and eyes.

And it's such a nice description of taking the gospel. a heart has to be open to it. Got to be able to hear, see far off, or listen to the seers who can't see far off. I don't know. Have you ever connected that with Isaiah's call, that verse? Yeah, and I think you're dead on. And Jerem, it was kind of a for some, but there's a triplet that goes all over the place with your eyes, your hearts, and your mind. Next do get added in lots of places, but the heart, the ears, and the eyes.

That interestingly for Isaiah, God is basically saying, you're going to have to talk to these people in a way that only those, and Christ is the one who explains this well to us, only those who are willing to put in the effort are going to not have hard, heart, blind eyes and dull ears, that there's something about having to work to have the spirit with you. Maybe I'll put it this way. I know there was one time, this was in a gathering of state presidents and mission president, so I can't verify this. There's no footnote, but my mission president was at this gathering and came back and reported this to us. President Packer was there and there was a question and answer session and he kept saying, okay, well on this, you're going to have to have the spirit

guide you. And another one, you're going to have to have the spirit guide you. And then finally, someone asks, okay, so how do we make sure we have the spirit with us to guide us? And my mission president said, his answer was two words. Burn it. We all know what we need to do. It's the primary answers. We all know what we need to do to have this spirit with us. We just have to actually do it. that verse about God being angry. John, you'll know where this is. Alma quotes, I think it's Xenek. Thou art angry with this people, O Lord,

because thou hast not understood. It's Alma 33, 16, I think. Nice job, John. Because they will not understand thy mercies, which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy son. Yeah, what do you see there, John? Because I know you love that verse. I love that verse.

When you read Alma 33, you go, oh, I see what Elma's doing. He's showing them that God will have a son by quoting some brass place prophets. But don't miss what else is in the verse. They will not understand thy mercies. It's not that they cannot. They just refuse. They refuse to understand how merciful God is, which is, whoa, a really cool thing to ponder. That's Stephen Robinson, believe Christ.

Don't just believe in him. Believe him when he said he forgives. You're angry because you refuse to understand how mercifully. That's the other reason I like that verse, not just because it makes out on this point that God will have a son. Yeah. And that word angry is interesting. It's almost frustrated, disappointed.

You move to do something to correct the situation. Right. Sad at where this is leading. Sometimes when we meet people who are going off the path, you're not angry, you're just, you're thinking, I know how this movie ends. I've seen this one. It's frustrating. You think, oh, don't do this. I, the Lord, forgive sins. What's that? Section 63. He says it over and over again. So understand his mercies. He's a forgiver. But one of the things I think we'll see, this is another tool for understanding of the Old Testament.

We will see that God's anger is usually, well, we even get this phrase in Jeremiah, where he has, mercy and he does anger. It's something he has to do to correct a situation that is a problem. And so the anger becomes humbling. He humbles, scatter, sweeps, whatever, sweeps off the face of it, whatever. He has to do something to get this to change because they are at the point where they aren't changing by pleading. I think in our day and age, we think of angry as he loses his temper. Losing control. Yeah, God doesn't lose control. He doesn't grab the earth and kick it across the universe. He's frustrated, angry, saddened. Those are all very valid emotions to have. For my podcast, we've been doing a couple little roundtable discussions, and there's one we did on the

anger of God, and it was interesting that all three of us that were in that had come to the same conclusion independently, which is, I read about God's anger in the scripture. As a fallen being, I'm not capable of the kind of anger we're reading about in the scripture. My anger always goes wrong. God, as a fallen being, I'm not capable of the kind of anger. I'm not capable of the kind of as an exalted being has a different ability than I do. I think there were times in my life where I, well, I know there were times in my life where I'd read about the anger of God, I think, okay, so though I'm justified in this,

and I've come to realize, no, because I don't do it the way God does it. I'm just not capable. I've tried, and I'm not capable. That's interesting where I'd say, well, I can be angry. I can be angry, God's angry. And you're saying, it's not the same thing. Not the same thing. I gave it a whirl and it didn't work.

Yeah. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. I think it means what you think it means. That's good. That's good. Carrie, this has been fantastic so far. I've got my scriptures covered in notes. Let's keep going. Sounds good. Let's jump down to when Enoch has a chance to respond to God. So God tells him he needs to call people to repent and so on. Verse 31. When Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord and spake before the Lord saying, why is it that I have found faith? favor in thy sight and am but a lad and all the people hate me i think he should add for i'm going to go eat worms in there somewhere for i am slow of speech wherefore am i thy servant this is enic feeling so unworthy i have no idea if slow of speech some people who say that means he stutters it may just mean he feels like i just can't think well on my feet or whatever else but what i really think this is is what all of us would feel if god

called us to go and tell the world to repent. He really feels inadequate, completely inadequate, as I think have most of us at one point or another. The fascinating thing is God's answer to him. And the Lord said unto Enoch, go forth and do as I have commanded thee. And no man shall pierce thee, open thy mouth, and it should be filled. So this is the answer to his problem, right? I'm slow speech. Just start talking. I'll take care of it is what God says. I will give the utterance for all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good. This is God reminding Enoch, and by extension, us. Every time you get a calling that you don't feel up to, the least of which will be like the calling is apparent.

No one's up for that. But whatever your calling is, we won't fill up for it. And God says that is not the point. The point is, will you go and do? You get moving. You open your mouth. you just start moving your feet and I'll take care of it. I think I heard it on your show the first time this phrase like,

God can't steer a parked car, right? You have to just get going and all do the rest. And that's so scary, but it's exactly what God asks of us. Yeah, get moving. I love it when Nephi gets commanded to build the boat. He's like, well, I don't know how to do that. But I do know how to make tools. I'll start with what I know how to do.

Yeah, exactly. This idea of open your mouth and it'll be filled sometimes, you've probably all had this experience where someone asks you a question and you know this is an important question and you know you need the answer and you don't know what the answer is, but as you're praying in your heart, help me with this one. That's about all you have time for you. I need some help here. But as you start, something comes that is beyond what you thought or understood. it just comes. God works with us that way. This is what Elder Maxwell said once that in the way only he can. He said, God doesn't ask about your ability, but about your availability. Then as you prove your dependability, he increases your capability.

That's exactly right. He's asking, are you available? Yeah. If you start moving your feet, I'll get you where you can't go on your own. I'll give you in the very moment what you shall say. Isn't that a doctrine of covenants first? I'll give you in the very moment what you shall say. Not two hours beforehand, but in the moment. Yeah, and that's the exercising faith part. In the end, this is the story of salvation. I can't get saved on my own, even with my wonderful wife's help,

and even with Hank and John helping me, I can't get saved. If I'll just keep coming to Christ, Christ can take me where I can't go. He's got it covered. we just need a partner with him that's what enic does and of course this becomes an incredible incredible partnership one of the most incredible and partnerships in the history of the world we have to read verse 34 behold my spirit is upon you wherefore all thy words will i justify man now that's a promise and the mountains shall flee before you and the river shall turn from their course and thou shalt abide in me and I and you, therefore, walk with me.

Isn't that the theme for youth this next year? Yeah, that's it. Look at what he's saying. If we're going to talk about relationships and partnerships, this is God, Jehovah, Christ, saying to Enoch, let's have this partnership. If you'll just walk with me, then I'll be with you and you'll be with me

and the places will go to throw Dr. Seuss in, I guess. I mean, really think of what he's just telling Enoch. he can do. And then he immediately goes to teaching Enoch and by extension us through a symbolic action, the kind of things we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast, where he says unto Enoch, anoint thine eyes with clay and wash them, and thou shalt see and he did so. There's fantastic symbolism in there. If you put a bunch of mud on your eyes, you can't see. That seems to be symbolizing what Enoch was like before this and what we are all like. This is that we can't see a far off thing. But if we wash them, and towards the end of this chapter, we're going to get more about

washing. If we wash them with God, in the end, it's really if we let God wash them. And this reminds me of the story of the man who was born blind where Christ and President Holland just spoke about this, where Christ puts the clay on his eyes and then tells him to go wash. But in the washing, Enoch will see. Look at what he sees when we get to verse 36, the next verse. And he beheld the spirits that God had created. And he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye. And from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land, a seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people. And we'll see this expanded in the next chapter. And you'll cover this more next week. But when he sees this vision where he has Satan standing and veiling the earth with chain and laughing with his devils. I haven't ever seen that. Have you guys ever seen that? It's apparently a reality that Enac can see. but I don't have the ability to see it. Enoch is a seer. I can't read this without thinking about how I think sometimes we undervalue the fact that we have 15 people whom we sustain as prophet seers and revelators.

They see things we don't, and then sometimes we ignore them. That's just ridiculous. In the Book of Mormon War chapters, when they describe the fortification, we're going to make a ditch, we're going to put something on the inner side of the ditch, and then we're going to put a work of timbers, and then we're going to put a frame of pickets, and then we're going to put towers, and they were going to put someone in the tower. It's fun to demonstrate the absurdity of what if you're on frame of picket maintenance, and somebody in the tower goes, behold, danger approaches, two o'clock,

and we look up and say, I don't see any danger. That's right, because you're on frame of picket maintenance. I'm the seer. I'm up here. I can see you far off. I have broader views than you do. And it's a love that seer came from seer and that idea that can we trust that people can see farther than we can. And we can and we can trust them that they can see afar off. There are so many fantastic symbols that could be used for that. We've got, as you see, men in the watchtower, prophets are often compared to that. I've done a lot of boating in my life. And there are times where you can tell you're in an area with rock. You get someone who can get a little higher up looking down. You may be piloting, but you trust that person's vision to see that you're safe or you're not safe and so on. Yet, sometimes we ignore seers.

We can trust them on a boat, but not in life? Well, I mean, what's up with that? Yeah. Enick becomes one of the great seers of all time. We get some funny descriptions. Some of them you made reference to at the beginning, Hank, when you were talking about John and I, that Enick does what God asked him to do. He starts going up into hills and high places,

and he cries with a loud voice. So there's some symbolism there as well. He's in the high places. He's in the places that are closer to God and where you can see from. Think of this. Well, let's read verse 37. It came to pass that Enoch went forth in the land

among the people standing upon the hills and the high places and cried with a loud voice, testifying against their works, and all men were offended because of him. all men were offended because of him. That's going to happen to all of us. If we stand up for what's true, if we talk about repentance and we talk about what's right, people will be offended. That's a hard place to live. I once had someone talk to me about how he took a job in the computer industry where he could work from home most of the time and he grew to fear any of the times he had to go

into the office because he was always afraid someone would have found out he was a member of the church and would be upset about our position on marriage or different things like that. He just lived his life in fear about the people who would be offended about what he believed. And I can understand that. Like, I've had plenty of people who've been offended by what I believe, even though they shouldn't be offended. They're just offended by the truth. That's a tough place where a lot of our youth and our young adults find themselves right now. They live in fear of the anger and vitriol that is aimed at anyone who stands for the truth. And I hope they can identify with Enick a little. Yeah, this is a hard thing. This is a hard saying, and it's fun to explore that question. So today, what are some of the

hard sayings? Yeah. The list seems to be growing. Yes, it does. But of course, Of course, the follow-up question to what you're referring to, like, so are you also going to go away? Yeah. And where else are you going to go? It's tough. It's worth recognizing that God is asking something hard of us because Satan is arrayed against the truth. And if you are going to believe in and stand up for the truth, Satan and the world will come after you. The lesson is God backs Enick up.

the world does come after anic they want to take him down but god backs him up and he can move rivers and what mountains and whatever else he needs to god's got his back that's a good place to be it is scary to have the world against you but i would rather have the world against me and god have my back than have god against me and have the world have my back one one's a lot more reliable than the other that's a good point i think it was brigham young who said if joseph smith were a criminal and a liar, then the criminals and liars would have accepted him. You know who he's from because the world rejects him. This creates an interesting situation for Enoch. Verse 38, they came forth to hear him. So even though people are offended, they're coming to hear him. The idea doesn't tell you, but it becomes

clear, Enoch takes seriously his charge, and he is out there preaching, and people can't ignore him. He's creating a stir in the land. Everybody knows that there's something going on. You get people, that are going up to him in the high places and they're getting people who have watched their tents. They say, we will go yonder to behold the seer for he prophesieth and there is a strange thing in the land

a wild man hath come among us. People have taken that a couple of different ways, but I think at least one of the ways that should be taken. We've got this tradition and maybe it starts with Enoch, I don't know, but there's this tradition of the world is in one place and

the God sends prophets in from outside of the world to call the world to repentance. They're coming from the wilderness. They're coming from outside establishment. They're coming from outside cities or whatever. You know, John the Baptist, Elijah, they fit these. And in some ways, Joseph Smith, they fit this wild man. They're coming from outside of the institution that the world has set up.

And it seems wild and it seems crazy. But these are the people that have to crash down the walls of the world to get the world to listen and come out of of the world to God. I like that. Like coming out of the wilderness, the wilderness. That's the same word. That's exactly right. Yeah, John the Baptist-esque.

Right. And I think that's footnoted there. It says Matthew 3. And he was really following in the tradition of Elijah with a leather girdle and hairy man in the wilderness and so on. Frankly, Elijah was probably following in the tradition of Enick. We don't know how long we've had wild men if they were before, Inich. But this has been going on for a while.

while. Well, you're in good company when Hank calls you a wild man and a strange thing in the land. Verse 39 is where we get some of this idea that God backs him up. And it came to pass when they heard him. No man laid hands on him, for fear came on all them that heard him for he walked with God. But notice how if we just had God's invitation to say, walk with me. He is walking with him. and because he's walking with him, despite the fact that everyone would like to stop Enoch, they can't. God's God is back. Verse 40 isn't that important except for there's a funny little thing in here, and there came a man unto him whose name was Mahijah. Now, everyone else in this chapter is named somewhere in the Bible.

But Mahidja's not named in the Bible, but he is in the Dead Sea Scrolls book about Enoch. What? Either Mahjja or Mahujah. Joseph Smith is either the luckiest guesser in the world or he's inspired. But it's actually a lot harder to defend the lucky guesser position on that than it is that he's inspired. That just makes more sense. You get people asking him questions.

That's going to lead us to one of the greatest sermons in scriptures. Coming up in part two. People will hate me and say bad things about me. me and our family for the rest of our lives. They'll attack my ability as a professor. They'll attack my ability as an Egyptologist. They'll say things about our family. People get so contentious about the book of Abraham.

As soon as we push, send, I'll be attacked on every element of our life that we can imagine. Do we still want to do this?