followHIM - How do we connect to the Old Testament? : follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from Exodus 14-17Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm the host of a podcast called Follow Him, and I am here with my wonderful, beautiful, fantastic co-host, John, by the way, one of the greatest people ever. Yeah, that guy just behind you there, John. Who's he talking about? Now, for this year, John, for Follow Him Favorites, we've been answering a question from each lesson. The question this week for Exodus 14 through 17 is basically, how do I connect with the Old Testament? Because this stuff is really old. We're talking the parting of the Red Sea and bread falling from heaven. This isn't something that happens to me every day. How do I connect with something that is so long ago?

Here's what I like to say. It's not just their story. It's our story. I had a girl in one of my classes, Hank. She had a Jewish background. I had asked just throughout the question, somebody tell us about Passover. What is that? What happened? And her answer, all she said was, it was so brief, but it changed my life. She said, oh, that is when we were saved from the plague by marking the doorposts with blood. She didn't say that is when they were saved. This is us. She said, that is when we were saved from one of the plagues by the blood being over. And she referred to these people as us. And I will never forget that. Identified with them. And so that helped me to say, this is our story. This is the people of God. We are trying to be the people of God. So how do we connect with them? Well, this is our story. And we can

even look at this and look at our patriarchal blessings and say, yeah, these are my people because I came from one of these tribes. And yeah, it's different culture, background, names, everything. But we see so many of the things that we do in what they do because we murmur, we complain, but we're delivered. Yeah. Let's talk about this murmuring and complaining idea. Because when I say, oh, I can't connect, and then I see all this murmuring, I'm like, wait, is this my journal? Yeah, I can connect here. Because things get difficult for them in different ways, of course, than perhaps they do for us. But when things get

difficult, they murmur, which is this idea of kind of complain, be angry, look at God and kind of shake your fist at heaven. Like, why do you do this to me? How have you learned about complaining from these people? If you've gotten better than that, I don't hear you complain much, John. So something must happen along the way. We edit that part, but it was a blessing for me and the Lord inspires every mission call, but it was a blessing for me to go where I did because it kind of helped me to realize, today we call it first world problems, right? My diamond earrings scratched my iPhone. So we call it first world problems. But for me, I realized that I had spent a lot of time as a teenager complaining about my blessings. My dad had this old 64 Dodge Polaro that was

swamp green. And that was one of our high school cars, me and my siblings. Swamp green. Oh, it was horrible, Hank. I have pictures, I'll show you. But if my friends in the Philippines would have said, your family has a car? And I would have had to say, well, we have three, but they're old. You know? And I realized I have been complaining not about my problems. I've been complaining about my blessings.

I'm looking like at Exodus 16, 4. I, the Lord, will rain bread from heaven for you. What? Food is just going to fall out of the sky, right? But pretty soon they're like, is this all there is? We're getting sick of manna, right? Just like that old thing, that plaque that you see. I complained about having no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet. And so there's always a perspective in, and that's helped me a lot. Sometimes I realize I am complaining about my blessings, not my problems.

Yeah. And maybe that's why the Lord put it in here for us is we can see how obviously they're being blessed and yet they're still complaining. And the Lord might be going, okay, pick up on that idea. Pick up on that idea that it's pretty obvious that they're getting all these blessings and yet they're still complaining. You know, I've had students ask before, these huge miracles, crossing of the Red Sea, right? It's hard to connect with that when I don't see that in my day.

And I've often compared the crossing of the Red Sea to the atonement of the Savior, which is very much a part of our day. It's very much a part of our daily talk, things we focus on in church, in seminary, in our families. Here we are, we're backed up against the Red Sea, the celestial kingdom's on the other side, and here comes the Egyptian army. I would call it the law of justice. It's coming for you, and you've got no way out, right? Justice is coming and you are standing there staring at it and heaven's on the far side of the Red Sea. There's just no way you're going to get there. The law of justice is going to catch you.

And what happens? The way is made, right? The Lord makes the way for you to cross, get away from the law of justice, go through the water, kind of like a baptism, and get to the promised land on the other side. So in my mind, when I think of the crossing of the Red Sea and these huge miracles, I keep coming back to, we have the same God. This is the same person who's dealing with us, who provides a way for us. He provides a road, provides a path for us. He provides a road, provides a path for us to be with our families forever. So for me, I try to not say, oh, the big miracles are of the past because the biggest miracle of all is the Savior's atonement. And it's

very much a part of my day. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of the Old Testament is just big and observable and big physical miracles that are huge that you can see. And then there are these miracles that are inside that a miracle that God can forgive. We're so thankful that just what you said, He can forgive and open up the way for me to live with Him again. And so that's miraculous. The resurrection, miraculous. And that he can make that happen for all of us is miraculous. Yeah, maybe it was more big.

I mean, I think of the Book of Mormon and the darkness for three days. Well, we can sometimes have darkness emotionally in our lives or whatever. And the Lord can change it from dark to light. And so it's a miracle inside sometimes. I mean, think about it, John. If you were to share these people our day, they would be saying, those are huge miracles, right? They can cross the earth in a day, right?

I can fly from Salt Lake to Israel. I can get there in one day. That would be a miracle. What's that thing called? A microwave? Wow. Right. You have all the scrolls of the prophets on a tiny little device. Are you kidding? That's a miracle, right?

So we look at their day and think, oh, I'll never see those kinds of miracles. And they might look at our day and say the exact same thing. Those are huge miracles. You're just living with and you just think they're normal, their everyday life. I remember it was Elder Maxwell who said, everyone is shocked when Jesus turns water into wine, but we're not so shocked when he uses water and makes grapes every day. It's not so shocking because it just happens right in front of us. We're used to those miracles. Well, we hope that you are connecting to the Old Testament. We hope that this year has been something for you where you're starting to see yourself and connect with these people. Like John said, you're seeing that this is a we story. This is our family. This is our history.

If you want more of that, come join us on our podcast. It's called Follow Him. You can look it up wherever you get your podcasts. But if not, that's okay. Come join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites.