followHIM - "Why does the gospel have so many rules?" : followHIM Favorites

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from the Come, Follow Me study from Exodus 18-20.Show 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, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with the incredible John, by the way. And this year for Follow Him Favorites, we're answering a single question. The question for Exodus 18, 19, and 20, John, I get from my teenagers. You've probably got it from your children as well. I've had it from students is, my goodness, why does the gospel have so many rules? And this is where we get the Ten Commandments, right? The thou shouts in Exodus 20. The big rules.

How would you address this idea of, oh, rules is where happiness goes to die, right? And yet God wants to give us all these rules. And how are they supposed to make me happy? Oh, this is such a good question. And I've heard so many different beautiful ways to answer. One of my favorites is President Boyd K. Packer. I'm going to paraphrase a little bit, but he said, don't think of the gospel as the rules, the commandments, a fence around love that says keep out. Actually, they are the guardrails on the highway to love and happiness.

With guideposts along the way, he said that's sort of a thing. I love to tell, how does Heavenly Father say I love you? Sometimes he says it like this, I love you. Sometimes he says it like this, thou shalt not. I'm going to save you from so much hurt, heartache, and sorrow. I'll save you from so many problems and so many consequences. I just think the commandments are, in a way, the easiest way to live. If somebody, oh, they're not easy at all.

No, but it's easier than going through the consequences of not living them, I like to say. So if you only see the gospel as a list of rules, it's like looking at a library as a place where you can't talk and forgetting all of the knowledge and wisdom that's inside. Actually, the gospel is the pathway to maximum joy and happiness, right? Adam felt that men might be, men are that they might have joy. It's all about joy and happiness and rejoicing. Here's a way to keep you safe. Some rules, right? If you want to have a happy life, you want to have happy relationships.

Well, the commandments seem to me to be all about the first ones, my relationship with God, thou shalt another gods before me, not any make any graven image. And then the rest of the commandments have to do with my relationships with my family and my neighbors. And God wants me to have healthy, happy relationships so I can have a healthy, happy life. And that's really what the rest of the commandments are all about, right? Having good relationships. And then the last one, thou shalt not covet, helps me have a good relationship with myself and my own life. I see the commandments as kind of ways to have happy, healthy relationships, which in turn equals a happy and healthy life. A happy life. And it's interesting, too, that when Jesus was asked, well, what's the great commandment in the law?

And there's, what is it, Hank? 613 separate commandments in the Old Testament. Laws, yeah. But Jesus answered, love God and love your neighbor, and kind of compressed all of them into those two. And those two sounds like those relationships, too, you just mentioned. Our relationship with God and with our neighbors. And actually, it's a pathway to happiness, not a bunch of restrictions. Sounds like those relationships too you just mentioned, our relationship with God and with our neighbors. And actually, it's a pathway to happiness, not a bunch of restrictions.

Absolutely. David O. McKay used to tell a story, maybe you've heard me tell this before, about a horse named Dandy. He said the horse was amazing under the saddle. He could do things other horses couldn't do. But he said Dandy resented restraint. He hated ropes, fences, and gates. He said just any time someone put a rope on him or put a fence around him or closed a gate, he would do anything he could to get out of that rope, to get out of that gate, or to push that fence over.

He said we just couldn't keep that horse contained, and finally it ended up Dandy getting hit by a car. He said, I hope that would cure him, but it didn't. I think the car got hit by the horse actually. But he said at one point Dandy got out and he took another horse with him and they got into a feed house, but it was baited with rat poison. Oh no. They ended up both dying. And David O. McKay just with tears in his eyes says that horse couldn't understand that that fence wasn't there to restrain it. That fence was there to protect it. And that's the same thing with commandments. They're not there to restrain you. They are there to protect you.

And they're there because God loves you. I like how you said that, John. Commandments are a way of God telling us he loves us and wants us to have a happy life. For those who are listening, ponder the meaning when Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. What does that mean? One of the meanings could be free from a lot of bad consequences that you will never have to worry about because you've kept the commandments. And that's a blessing. God says in Exodus 19, I want to make you a peculiar people.

And that's another reason for the commandments is I'm going to make you different. People will look and say, what is it about you? How come you have all these good consequences in your life? And you can say, it's because of the God I serve. And it's because of the commandments he has given me. Well, we hope you'll join us for our full podcast with Dr. Dan Belknap this week. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. It's called Follow Him. Join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites.