John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to part two of this week’s podcast.

Hank Smith: 00:07 Matt, are we ready to move on? Because I’m just interested in this idea of… We’ve had this incredible experience and you might have a tendency to think nothing’s ever going to be hard again, right. Never doubt.

John Bytheway: 00:21 And then you take a drink of water and you go, this is bitter.

Hank Smith: 00:24 Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 00:25 Do you remember how you felt when you were baptized? After I was baptized, even when I was eight, I felt really, really good. We’ve really repented. And we feel the holy ghost. We just don’t ever want to do a bad thing in our lives ever again. But then 10 minutes later, or something happens, you get mad at your sister or your roommate or you have a misunderstanding with your spouse and then the balloon’s popped and you’re brought back down to reality. I was just thinking here, Star Wars, the episode four ends on just this tremendous high note.

Hank Smith: 00:57 Right.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 00:57 And then movie Empire Strikes Back, shows that they’re right back in it. And it’s kind of like that in our lives. The opposition is going to be with us in one way or another, till the end of our lives.

John Bytheway: 01:09 You have this wonderful, wonderful moment in the waters of Mormon with Alma, but then Amulon is out there circling in the wilderness. And pretty soon he is going to find you, put you in bondage.

Hank Smith: 01:22 I think life has its verse 22’s. Moses brought the children of Israel from the Red Sea. They went out into the wilderness and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Life has all of a sudden things go, blah. And it’s not so fun.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 01:38 By the way, since you brought up Amulon, talks about Amulon in the task masters, Mosiah 23 or 24, that language is specifically taken from the Exodus.

John Bytheway: 01:49 Yeah. It sounds like the Egyptian task master.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 01:51 It is. And-

John Bytheway: 01:52 Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 01:53 Mormon is deliberately trying to draw that comparison so that the redemption of Alma the Elder and his people is like…

John Bytheway: 02:01 Right.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 02:01 It’s a replication of history. For ancient Israel, history wasn’t just one linear thing. It was circular.

John Bytheway: 02:12 Like a cycle. Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 02:13 Like one eternal rep playing out again. In Mosiah 23 and 24 with the redemption of Alma the Elder and his people.

Hank Smith: 02:22 Oh, it absolutely is, Matt. I’m dying. This is not fair.

John Bytheway: 02:28 This is a new redemption story. That’s what I like about this is because when the rising generation has trouble, the angel doesn’t have to say arise and remember Moses, he says arise and remember the captivity of thy fathers, all of a sudden, it is very recent for them. And that’s why I like that. They have a new… In the book of Mormon, their own deliverance story. It’s great to remember back to Moses, but now they have their own. And remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helaman.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 02:58 We talk about the new and everlasting covenant being new and everlasting, but we have to connect to the most recent stories too. We were just talking about the experiences of the pioneers.

John Bytheway: 03:09 Brigham Young. Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 03:10 That they were in a captivity of sorts. They were in circumstances that they definitely hadn’t chosen and that they needed to be delivered from.

Hank Smith: 03:22 This is Mosiah 24:17. The Lord said to Alma, thou shalt go before this people and I will go with thee and deliver this people out of bondage. That’s Moses language.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 03:34 It’s all from the Exodus.

Hank Smith: 03:36 It says, when they get out in the valley of Alma, they poured out their thanks to God, just like Exodus 15.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 03:44 Songs of redeeming love.

Hank Smith: 03:45 Their men and all their women and their children lifted up their voices in praises of God. There’s your Exodus 14 and 15 right there.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 03:52 And I think that’s what Alma, the younger, is asking the members of the church in Zarahemla to remember because some of them had been there. Some of them, this was still living memory for them. That can you remember, even in our own history, the saints got out to the valley and they tilled the desert and made it bloom and all of that. But you read some of the stories in church history, Brigham Young was really worried that the saints… His greatest worry was that they would get rich and kick themselves out of the church.

John Bytheway: 04:22 Right. I love that. These people will stand robbing, mobbing, persecution and remain true but my greater fear’s that they cannot stand wealth. I share that in my class and say, how many of you woke up in the middle of the night with this horrible nightmare that you became rich? Oh, I’m so glad I woke up. That was awful. Suddenly I had all the money I needed. That was terrible.

Hank Smith: 04:42 That’s when I’m like President Kimball, Lord, give me this mountain, right. Lord, give me this difficulty. I’ll take on that trial of-

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 04:51 If I were a rich man.

Hank Smith: 04:53 Yeah. So far we’ve channeled Fiddler on the Roof and Star Wars. We’re doing pretty well here. So they’ve had this incredible experience and now they’re pretty thirsty. They go to drink the waters of what is it? Mara.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 05:08 Mara. Yep.

John Bytheway: 05:09 Uh-huh (affirmative).

Hank Smith: 05:10 And they’re bitter

John Bytheway: 05:11 Verse 23.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 05:12 And that becomes the basis for the naming of the place. Mara.

Hank Smith: 05:15 And the people murmured, what shall we drink?

John Bytheway: 05:18 Is there a Hebrew meaning to that word?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 05:21 Yeah. Mara means bitterness. And you remember Naomi, and book of Ruth, Naomi is a name that means pleasant or sweet. And then she says, with what’s happened to her, she says, call me Mara, bitter.

Hank Smith: 05:37 The opposite.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 05:38 Then in verse 25, when it says, and he cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him. The word in Hebrew there is actually like… And it’s the same word where you get the word Torah or Yara, it means to teach by pointing the finger. The Lord pointed him to… It’s either a tree or a piece of wood. It might not be an entire tree because he has to throw it in the water, cast it into the waters and the waters were made sweet. And it’s interesting because it points the episode will explain the meanings behind the names of these different places where they’ll travel in their journey. We should go to the manna. And so again, we got murmuring again.

Hank Smith: 06:21 That’s got to be the Lord. Oh, here we got murmuring again. We got murmuring again.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 06:26 Murmuring again. The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against the Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and the children of Israel said unto them, here we go again, would to God, we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt and here’s the misremembering right? When we sat by the flesh pots and when we did eat bread to the fall, when the circumstances aren’t ideal or even when we’re immersed in sin, we can sometimes remember the past. I think Joe Spencer’s talked about this, that sin misremembers the past. So they’re misremembering this whole thing. We did eat bread to the fall.

John Bytheway: 07:03 Wait, weren’t you guys in bondage? Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 07:05 This wasn’t a trip down to the cafeteria at Helaman Halls, where they could eat anything they wanted. I mean, they’re misremembering the past. And so I think it’s interesting that the Lord proposes here is going to teach them. Then the Lord said unto Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And note, there’s a Christological type there that the Savior himself and John 6 and that wonderful bread of life sermon that he’s really tapped into. And the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day and that I may prove them or test them whether they will walk in my law or no. I’ll skip to verse six. And Moses said unto all the children of Israel, at even then shall you know that the Lord hath brought you out of the land of Egypt. They need to be reminded of that.

John Bytheway: 07:54 Yeah, already.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 07:55 Already. There’s not a huge time that’s elapsed here. It helps us appreciate that miracles, even big miracles can have a short shelf life, in terms of our memory. We’ll connect this to the sacrament, right? That’s one of the reasons people in other faiths wonder why we have the sacrament so often, weekly.

John Bytheway: 08:13 Oh gosh, I’m so thankful we do.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 08:15 I am too, because we have to be put in remembrance, at least that often. When we remember Christ and we covenant our willingness to remember him, we’re not just remembering him and his atoning sacrifice. We’re also remembering all the other acts of deliverance, great and small and all of the other miracles in our lives. And we need to be put in remembrance of that constantly and this would’ve been putting them in remembrance of that every day.

Hank Smith: 08:46 Yeah, daily

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 08:47 And twice on Fridays before the Sabbath.

Hank Smith: 08:51 This is great stuff. It’s difficult to become converted to daily scripture study or daily prayer. But once you are, and you realize the blessings of that daily habit or that daily reminder, it really is quite a wonderful experience.

John Bytheway: 09:06 And Hank, I love how the Lord connects this to food. Just yesterday I was teaching blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness and I thought, have you ever in your life said, I don’t think I’ve had a thing to eat since Thursday. You don’t forget to eat for four or five days, but you might forget to take in some spiritual food for that long. That’s why I love the daily part of this.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 09:30 I’ll ask my students that, how many of you have ever fasted for a day and everybody’s hands up. Then you say, how many of you fasted for two days or three? And then the hands drop down pretty quickly. Then I’ll say, how many of you’ve gone for more than a week without reading your scriptures? I don’t tell them to put their hands up, but they get the point. Our bodies remind us really quickly, well feed me, feed me, feed me. But our spirits aren’t quite that way. We have to take thought for their nourishment. There has to be more intentionality and purpose in that nourishment.

John Bytheway: 10:06 How often do hunger and thirst need to be addressed? I like to ask them. Well, pretty much daily. Do you ever get to the point where you’re like, well, I guess I’ve eaten enough in this life. Are you ever done hungering and thirsting? No, never. Spiritually speaking, I love to try to make that connection. I should live up to it myself, but I love that idea of daily manna so you keep murmuring so I’m going to send daily manna.

Hank Smith: 10:33 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 10:34 To remind you that way.

Hank Smith: 10:35 John, my good friend Lynn Bowler, hasn’t missed a day of reading it, the book of Mormon since he was 12.

John Bytheway: 10:42 Wow, that’s awesome.

Hank Smith: 10:42 And he counts that as a large part of his success in life is he says, because I just have that daily habit. I was also thinking of Enos my soul hungered,

John Bytheway: 10:52 My soul hungered, not my body hungered, my soul… Yeah. That’s good.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 10:57 And that connects to the sacrament prayer, that connects to the souls of all those who partake of it, the word nephesh. We talked about that a minute ago. And the nephesh, it had a reference to not only a person’s soul, it was the idea of the entryway, the throat. And it was the word that they had for appetite. And in the sacrament prayer, it’s not talking about our physical appetites because nobody is going to… Except maybe on fast Sunday, nobody’s going to get satisfied by one piece of bread.

Hank Smith: 11:27 Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 11:27 And a cup of water. But we’re talking about our spiritual appetite. We’re really being focused on that in the ordinance.

Hank Smith: 11:37 I’d never made that connection between Enos, my soul hungered and the sacrament to the souls of all those who partake of it. You’re showing me things I’ve never seen before. And I love it.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 11:46 You’re very kind.

Hank Smith: 11:47 John, you probably already made all these connections. You’re like, oh…

John Bytheway: 11:51 No, not at all. I am right there with you. And do you know what I keep thinking of, is when at the end of Jesus’ visit in the new world, when he says and it says, he expounded all the scriptures in one. I thought, how do you get a ticket to that? Because somehow I bet he connected everything they had to everything else they had. And I think that’s kind of what we’re getting a taste of today. Thank you, Matt. You’re connecting the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon in wonderful ways.

Hank Smith: 12:20 Oh, in wonderful ways and the New Testament. I wrote down your quote with the murmuring of chapter 13, here we go again… Because I mean, there’s a lot of murmuring in verses seven, eight and nine. He hears your murmurings against the Lord.

John Bytheway: 12:36 And then there’s more in verse 12, he has to send quail.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 12:41 The quail miracles are… I think they’re [inaudible 00:12:43]. In Utah, you see this because they’re around. The quails are… And you see it in the miracles that kind of come crashing in to the camp. And if you ever watch quails, it takes them so long to react to anything.

Hank Smith: 12:59 To recover.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 13:00 They’re not the swiftest on the uptake at all. And so you can kind of see, how that-

John Bytheway: 13:08 So the Lord made it so easy for them. I won’t send hummingbirds. I’ll send quail.

Hank Smith: 13:15 They do. I’ve never noticed that, but we have a bunch around here and on the road, it’s almost like you’re going to hit them before they run out of the way.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 13:21 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 13:22 You’re going, come on guys, come on, move.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 13:25 I ate quail once and it’s really nothing to write home about. I mean, it’s… that like chicken joke.

Hank Smith: 13:33 It tastes like chicken.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 13:33 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 13:34 It kind of makes me feel grateful. I have heard the murmurings. He even hears that, it doesn’t say I have obtained noise canceling headphones, but he’s even heard the murmurings and he responded, wow.

Hank Smith: 13:49 Now what is the word murmur? I mean, do we know much about that word because obviously, Nephi uses it to describe his brothers.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 13:55 Yeah. I think I’m trying to remember, [inaudible 00:13:58] , I think is one of the verbs that’s used, I think. And I think that there’s another one grumble, complain.

John Bytheway: 14:03 Grumble that’s a good one.

Hank Smith: 14:06 Grumble. He’s like, I’ve heard your stomachs and your mouths. My mouth is murmuring and my stomach is grumbling.

John Bytheway: 14:13 Well, you mentioned John six, can you tie these together for us? Because I think it’s so cool, the way the Lord does it in John six.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 14:21 Says your fathers… ate manna in the wilderness and are dead, but then he connects it. He says, I am that bread from heaven. The type, it’s like this with the brazen serpent miracle and a number of the other types that we read about in the Pentateuch in these stories. It’s not the type itself that’s the thing. From Lehi and their family and the wilderness, it wasn’t the Liahona itself that was the thing. If you don’t get to what the type is pointing to… You remember there’s a couple times where this connection’s made and Jacob makes it in Jacob four, Amulek makes it in Alma 34, that the law was pointing their souls.

Hank Smith: 15:05 Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 15:06 To him. It’s pointing our souls to him, every whits pointing to that great and last sacrifice. The types can get in the way, if the deeper spiritual understanding isn’t understood. And it’s that way even with the sacrament too, when you’re really young as a kid, you’re just excited about the bread and water coming around. You’re not thinking much about what it means. Even there, if we’re not careful, the symbol gets in the way of what is symbolized, if we’re not thinking or we’re not looking to Christ. And that verb is associated with both the miracle of the brazen serpent and the Liahona in the Book of Mormon, the looking to him, seeing him, looking upon him in faith.

John Bytheway: 15:52 Tell us the meaning of the word manna.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 15:56 Yeah. That one’s an interesting. Manna is the spelling that comes out of the Greek Septuagint, that’s the Greek translation that was later made of the Hebrew Bible. In Hebrew, it’s just man and there’s a play on words going, they called it manhu  or… And it can mean two things. It can mean what is it or the statement can mean it is man and there’s an Arabic word actually, man that refers to the Tamarisk manna of the Sinai peninsula. That word means thin or fine. And that’s how the…

John Bytheway: 16:30 The manna was.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 16:31 Yeah. There’s a play on words going on in the story here, what is it? Or it is man. It can either be taken as a question or a statement, but the question might make better sense in the context of the story. And there are other Semitic languages in which man is used as a word asking a question.

John Bytheway: 16:53 For your children, okay, have your bowl of that. Well, what is it, right?

Hank Smith: 16:59 What is it?

John Bytheway: 17:00 Exactly. What is it, mom? Right? Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Hank Smith: 17:04 And the Lord wants them… he says, I want you to do this daily, except for the day before the Sabbath, you’re going to gather twice as much. And it seems like they have a hard time keeping all the instructions… Look at verse 20, not withstanding, they hearken not unto Moses, but some of them left it till the morning and it bred worms and stank and Moses was wroth with them. They seem to figure it out though, that this is how it-

John Bytheway: 17:27 That it’s a daily thing.

Hank Smith: 17:29 It’s a daily thing. This is how it’s going to work.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 17:30 Elder Christofferson. He’s got a series of videos where he talks about the daily bread and what that means for us. I really love him. I recommend them. The Lord is patient with them. He’s giving them bread day to day. And one of the things that Elder Christofferson said was that, because the Lord’s showing such patience with them and with us, we also shouldn’t expect immediate deliverance from problems or just immediate solutions to things. The Lord doesn’t expect immediate perfection from us either, but day by day increment. That’s another thing that the manna can symbolize for us and the sacrament too, daily incremental, gradual improvement. The Lord’s not expecting perfection from us. And we shouldn’t expect instant gratification of our desires from him.

Hank Smith: 18:24 That’s really great. I’m thinking of Matthew 5 in the Lord’s prayer, give us this, our daily bread, this incremental… I understand the idea of my relationship with you is incremental, it’s day by day.

John Bytheway: 18:37 And just that the Lord would use that as a metaphor for himself, as I am that daily bread. I’m the John 6… I’m the manna that came down from heaven. And the manna that they said, are you going to be like Moses? And he’s like, Moses, didn’t give you the manna.

Hank Smith: 18:54 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 18:55 I gave you the manna.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 18:55 Some of them were really grossed out because they thought…

Hank Smith: 19:01 How can this man give us his flesh?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 19:03 They think he’s talking about corpse consumption and things that were just completely against the law of Moses. And they failed to really tune in to what was beyond the symbol.

Hank Smith: 19:16 Right.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 19:16 That was him.

John Bytheway: 19:17 Well, this is a hard saying.

Hank Smith: 19:19 His apostles come up and say, what are you doing? And many leave after that, right? That’s John 6:66, as many from that time forth walked no more with him.

John Bytheway: 19:30 Well, and as Matt said before, where are you going to go? Where else would we go? What else is out there, if you’re trying to convince people against the truth? Well, what have you got to offer?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 19:40 They can offer the… I guess Esau’s bowl of lentil soup, which lentil soup, if you’ve had it. I mean, it’s decent. I don’t think lentil soup is anybody’s favorite food, but in the end, I mean, Esau exchanges the eternal blessings of the Abraham covenant for a bowl of soup, all that the father has, who the father is, his essential life and character for a bowl of soup. Jewish rabbis have drawn attention to that. The exchanging of eternal things for more or less bowls of soup in the world.

Hank Smith: 20:14 I’ve noticed right at the end of 16, that Moses has Aaron make a kind of a memorial bowl… this pot of bread is going to be something to remember. So it’s like an item that is used to remind me.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 20:30 One of three witnesses that will go into the arc of the covenant. Aaron’s rod will be another one of those when we get down the line, the tablets of the commandment, which will be forthcoming also later in Exodus. And then here’s that first witness. It’s the omer of manna from the… what they’re experiencing. Now, it’s the first witness to them.

Hank Smith: 20:55 I got to tell you, this has been fantastic so far. Okay. Let’s go to chapter 17.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 21:01 Again, murmuring, right. Verse two, more for the people that chide with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, why chide ye with me? Wherefore do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted for water and the people murmured against Moses and said, wherefore is that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt. Again, here’s the theme. You’ve brought us out here just to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst. The miracles have a short shelf life. And that was another lesson from the Book of Mormon, right? Laman and Lemuel saw some of these types of miracles. They heard the voice of the Lord. They saw an angel, unless you’re remembering constantly, we’ve been talking about daily bread, weekly partaking of the sacrament, unless you’re being put constantly in remembrance of the Lord. That was the… In fact, that was the goal of the law of Moses.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 21:56 You remember Abinadi talks about this, about the… It kept them in the path of their duty. The law of Moses was designed to do that with its types and rituals and everything so that you would be constantly thinking about the Lord.

John Bytheway: 22:11 And King Benjamin talks about having the law constantly before their eyes.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 22:16 And that was the goal of the phylacteries too. You remember, even putting scriptures in boxes on the forehead and on the wrist so it’s just always there.

John Bytheway: 22:27 Bind the law to your head.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 22:30 And so Moses, I think he’s fearing for his life at this point. It says, and Moses cried under the Lord saying, what shall I do under this people? They be almost ready to stone me.

Hank Smith: 22:39 They’re going to kill me. They crossed through the red sea. I fed them every day and they’re about ready to kill me.

John Bytheway: 22:44 So they’re not singing, we thank thee oh God for a prophet.

Hank Smith: 22:48 For a prophet.

John Bytheway: 22:48 Yeah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 22:50 And the Lord said to Moses, go on before the people and take with thee, of the elders of Israel and thy rod, where with thou smotest the river and take in thine hand and go. And again, we talked about how Nephi would’ve understood what’s happening here in terms of the rod and the word. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb. So this is very near Sinai and thou shall smite the rock and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And then you get an explanation of the naming of the places here. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of Israel and because they tempted the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not? Those places Massah means testing, places of testing or testing ground or something like that. And Meribah means contention. So they’re testing the Lord and they’re contending with the Lord. And so that’ll be memorialized in these place names.

John Bytheway: 24:00 So don’t name your children Meribah.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 24:05 Maher shalal hash bas is probably not going to be on anyone’s short list of baby names. That name-

John Bytheway: 24:12 Destruction is imminent.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 24:13 Yeah. Destruction is imminent. Although you think about it, it is a good, appropriate name for a toddler but…

Hank Smith: 24:22 When Isaiah’s wife heard that, oh no, what type of child is coming?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 24:27 You can imagine her not saying anything, but just raising her eyebrows, looking at him like…

Hank Smith: 24:33 Maher shalal hash bas.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 24:35 Where’s this going?

John Bytheway: 24:36 Can I name the next one? Yeah. What was Shear-Jashub, the other, what was that mean? A remnant shall return, right?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 24:44 Jashub is a remnant shall return. And that one’s… that’s actually connected to the Exodus too, that ties into that passage in Isaiah that we were talking about in Isaiah 51, the redeemed would be able to return to Zion with songs of everlasting joy on their heads. So in the name, there’s the judgment, there’s… remnant implies that there was a… divine justice over to hook them at some point, but then there’s also implied mercy, the remnant then will repent and return or come back.

Hank Smith: 25:16 So he smites the rock and the water comes out. What am I supposed to see here?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 25:22 This is something that I think Isaiah alludes to, that he’d led them to the desert and they thirsted not. For Lehi and his family, I wonder what this would’ve meant, the being led in the more fertile parts of the wilderness, where there was game, where there was food, but also water sources where they could drink. When you think about that, again, typologically, we talked about the way, the journey, it’s not easy. The Lord provides and that’s that same… back to first Nephi 17, he said that he would be their light in the wilderness. And he said, I’ll prepare the way before you. And so I think this is a part of that. This is a part of him giving us a way. In fact, that the meaning of the idiom prepare the way, it means to clear the way, it means to take the obstacles out of the way. Thirst would be an obstacle.

Hank Smith: 26:13 Well, I think about a modern application of this would be life got really hard for me. And I don’t see a way. We’re in the middle of the desert here. I don’t see a way that I’m going to survive this and the Lord’s, you are going to survive, I’m going to provide a way. And it’s going to come from an unlikely place, smite the rock.

John Bytheway: 26:34 Can I bring up another movie?

Hank Smith: 26:37 Please do.

John Bytheway: 26:39 George Bailey. And It’s a Wonderful Life. Show me the way Lord. And he said, I’m not a praying man, but show me the way.

Hank Smith: 26:45 You could probably do an impression. Couldn’t you, John?

John Bytheway: 26:49 I’m not a praying man but I… You don’t happen to have eight thousand dollars, do you? I’ve loved that scene. Show me the way.

Hank Smith: 27:00 I love that, John, that idea of-

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 27:02 I love it.

Hank Smith: 27:02 And I love the answers to prayers come from a place where you just wouldn’t think it would come from, unlikely sources. You get a place you didn’t think was going to be a blessing and it ends up being a blessing.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 27:16 I think most of listeners will have experiences like this when they think about it, people who stepped into their lives at different times, in different ways and helped shape their lives and maybe helped open a door for them where there wasn’t a way forward before. Well, I think Amulek’s a perfect example of that. What you just mentioned for Alma. You remember in Alma eight, he went in there the first time and into Ammonihah had a really rough experience. He’s ready to walk away from the situation. But then… And I’ve always loved this, that the Lord sent him the very angel that had stopped him in the way before. You talk about a tender mercy, in terms of helping Alma know that he was in good standing with the Lord at this point for all of his efforts. And then the angel sends him back and I’m sure it was the same angel who appeared to Amulek.

John Bytheway: 28:14 I’m so glad that Mormon chose to include that sentence, behold, I am He that delivered it unto you. It’s like, that was me, do you remember me? I scared you so bad back then that you’re doing so well now, never heard anybody say this, but I’d love to believe that angel is Abinadi. I just think that would be cool if that was Abinadi.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 28:33 I do too. I do too.

John Bytheway: 28:33 That was watching that family that Alma the Elder defended and now he’s talking to Alma, the younger and saying, you’re doing great ever since I knocked you flat in Mosiah 27.

Hank Smith: 28:50 Maybe we should change the primary song. I know the Lord provides an unlikely way, right? He wants me to obey something that I probably won’t see coming.

John Bytheway: 29:01 I was thinking about this idea of holding up Moses’s arms and thinking about a contrasting, don’t steady the arc, but here is a help Moses by holding up his arms when they were fighting with Amalek, not to be confused with the Amulek we’ve just been talking about in the Book of Mormon.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 29:20 This is sustaining in the most literal sense of the word. Sustain comes from a Latin word that means to hold, tenere and sub from below.

Hank Smith: 29:33 To hold from below.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 29:34 Yeah, I mean, that’s what they’re doing. This is, I think, crucial to Joshua’s growth and his role later that he’ll fill, with the Lord when he is Moses’ successor, but him and Hur being there on the right and the left of Moses… Anybody who served in the church and a capacity as a bishop or a quorum president, or a relief society president or primary president, you’re incredibly grateful for counselors, especially counselors when they step in and they sometimes really do this. And in the same token, if you’re in that kind of position and you have counselors who jump ship and don’t help very much, it can leave the bishop or the president… It can feel pretty lonely if they don’t have the support.

Hank Smith: 30:30 The footnote has grew heavy with wariness. That sounds kind of, yeah. If you’re alone, you grow heavy.

John Bytheway: 30:38 It’s a great application for that. When I was called to be Bishop and had, I don’t know, a week or two to find counselors. When those counselors accepted, oh, this the heaviness and wariness was decreased. I knew I had counselors now that had agreed to do this. And okay, maybe with these two guys, I can do this.

Hank Smith: 31:00 And it’s not just counselors as well. We all sustain.

John Bytheway: 31:04 We all sustain.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 31:06 Sustain. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 31:06 I heard it called once the covenant of common consent. And that was my favorite way to hear it called, that it wasn’t just… that this isn’t sustaining, that is signifying that you will sustain, which is an ongoing covenant.

Hank Smith: 31:20 The covenant hand, right. There’s our right again.

John Bytheway: 31:22 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 31:24 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 31:24 Yep.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 31:25 We sustained President Nelson and the first presidency and the 12, when we support their prophetic initiatives, that if we are pulling a children of Israel on them and we’re…

Hank Smith: 31:40 Almost ready to stone me.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 31:42 Yeah. And if we’re mentally, if not literally stoning the prophets. I’ve been amazed in, if I can speak plainly here, at social media over the course of the last few years. People who profess to be active members of the church are willing to say about the prophet and the first presidency and the 12, kinds of things that they’re willing to say and I’ve even seen people say that they, to the effect that they wish that the President of the church would die or that they wouldn’t shed a tear. And you cannot say that you are sustaining the prophet in any meaningful sense, if you harbor those types of attitudes. Know that one of the best things that we can do for ourselves spiritually is to get a testimony of the Savior and that he calls living prophets, and that we can get a testimony that they are guided from the Lord.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 32:41 And I do not say that to imply infallibility. That’s not a word that we use in connection with mortal human beings, other than the Savior himself. He’s the one we would say is infallible, but we do receive his word with patience, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself. And if we can learn to do that, I think we… Because when we murmur and complain, like we’ve been reading about in these chapters, the ones that we’re really hurting is first ourselves and we can also damage the faith of our children and their ability to receive the word of the Lord through the prophet in patience and faith.

John Bytheway: 33:23 Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave this talk two years ago called A Prayer for the Children, I think. And he said that we can’t flirt with cynicism and skepticism, and then not expect our children to turn that flirtation into full blown romance.

Hank Smith: 33:41 Exactly right.

John Bytheway: 33:42 Amazing talk “Prayer for the Children”.

Hank Smith: 33:45 That verse 17, for the people be almost ready to stone me. I think we have seen a little bit of that.

John Bytheway: 33:52 I just wrote in my margin, people who are attacked on social media going, look what they’re doing, stoning you on social media.

Hank Smith: 34:00 And then this idea of sustain or holds you up from below. So sustaining isn’t just not stoning Moses, right. I sustain him, I haven’t thrown any stones. I haven’t complained.

John Bytheway: 34:14 I haven’t posted anything.

Hank Smith: 34:16 Are you actively upholding him up?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 34:18 I think President Nelson, I hope I’m right on this. He said, it’s also upholding their prophetic priorities. We’re willing to honor, not only them, but honor what they counseled and they’ve decided on behalf of where the saints need to go, that we uphold that and not dig in our heels, the chiding there, that’s the contending. That’s not going to facilitate having the presence of the holy ghost in our lives so that we have that voice behind us saying, this is the way, walk in it, way Isaiah describes. We can’t have that kind of revelation that we need, if we’re digging in our heels at this, that whatever comes from the prophet at every term.

Hank Smith: 35:03 Man, Matt, that’s beautiful. And I like how the Lord is preparing Joshua here. Write this in the book and make sure Joshua writes this down, because he’s going to need this. He’s going to need this.

John Bytheway: 35:15 Elder Maxwell gave a talk called “Murmur Not” in October of 1989. And he said, murmurs have short memories. Israel arrived in Sinai then journeyed onto the holy land, though they were sometimes hungry and thirsty, but the Lord rescued them whether by the miraculous appearance by quail or by water struck from a rock. Strange, isn’t it brothers and sisters, how those with the shortest memories, have the longest lists of demands. However, with no remembrance of past blessings, there’s no perspective about what is really going on. This powerful verse in the Old Testament reminds us of what is really going on. And then he quotes Deuteronomy 8:2, and thou shalt remember all the way, which the Lord thy God led thee, these 40 years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove thee and to know what was in thine heart, whether they would keep his commandments or no. That’s good stuff.

Hank Smith: 36:10 Murmurs have short memories, but a long list of demands.

John Bytheway: 36:14 A long list of demands.

Hank Smith: 36:17 Wow.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 36:17 That ties together a lot of things that we’ve been talking about today.

Hank Smith: 36:20 It does.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 36:21 Very nice. So we’ve got the commandment to get it in writing. Then there’s that last bit about the Amalekites that they’ll come back very famously in 1 Samuel 15. You remember with Saul, this kind of leads to the end of his kingship and the Lord’s rejection of him. So maybe not too much more to say there. That name of the altar that’s built Jehovah Nissi, that word nes is a word that means… it can mean Ensign or standard or banner. It’s the word that we’re going to see later with the brazen serpent in Numbers 21, when Moses puts a serpent on the pole. It’s also the same word that Isaiah uses when he talks about lifting up an Ensign to the nations and the standard. That’s a really important word for Isaiah.

John Bytheway: 37:15 Is that Isaiah two?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 37:17 Yeah. In fact, he uses a theme. If you ever want a fun exercise, go through every instance where Isaiah uses the words, Ensign, standard or banner and it’s kind of fun.

Hank Smith: 37:30 I did not realize how heavily Isaiah leans on the books of Moses.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 37:35 There’s a lot of Exodus imagery in Isaiah.

Hank Smith: 37:39 So great. Matt, this has been fantastic today, really just a whole lot of fun. I feel like I’ve just opened up new rooms in my own house. Where, how long has that been there? And I’ve never seen it. I think our listeners one, are grateful for you and then two, I think they’d love to hear a little bit of your journey as a Bible scholar and a Latter-day Saint. How do those come together for you?

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 38:00 I’m going to share some weird stuff that I don’t think I’ve ever shared publicly. My mom will remember this. I was just really into the scriptures at a very young age. In fact, I would even write my own. I would write them… This is at five or six, just imitating biblical language.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 38:20 So I guess that should have been a sign that this was all on the way. My mother did something that just really has served me well, set me up for good things. She read the Book of Mormon with me, around the time of my baptism. She read through it with me twice. There’s a tradition in Judaism of taking Torah scroll or parchment and putting honey on it, letting the children put that on their tongue. And it helps them. It’s the idea of making the word of the Lord sweet unto them. You’ll remember that passage in Jeremiah, my words were found and I did eat them, joy and rejoicing of my heart, eating the word and having it be sweet. I went through a period of time where I really struggled as a teenager in terms of activity and faith. And I just… I had a testimony that the church was true, but I just kind of lost my orientation to the gospel in a lot of ways.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 39:25 And I didn’t really find it until I was 18, almost 19 and really coming into mission age and then some really awesome things happened during that period of time in my life that really kind of… I had experiences that showed me that the Lord really knew who I was and I mean, unmistakably knew who I was and what direction he wanted me to go. In fact, I’ll never forget. I’d been praying about whether to serve a mission and how that answer came and when it came and it was one of the most distinct answers to prayer I’ve ever received. And it was not something I conjured for myself because I didn’t want to serve a mission at first. But when the answer came and it came… It was like my body was filled with light from the crown of my head, and then working down to the soles of my feet.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 40:21 And I comprehended with every aspect of who I am, what I needed to do and it helped make the decision to go serve. And I went and served in the California Roseville mission and had experiences there that gave me the first inklings that I would need to study some ancient languages. And I let somebody talk me out of it when I got home, because they said, you can’t make any money doing that. But eventually the Lord brought me right back around to that. I was the… I think the late bloomer. I was 26 by the time I graduated from BYU in Provo and I was 31 by the time I got into the graduate program that I wanted to be at, at the Catholic University of America. By the way, no pun intended, I met my wife, Susie. This was six weeks maybe after I got out to Washington DC. How you escape Utah Valley as single after being there most of my life, I managed to do it, but I met Susie right after that.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 41:26 And then we started our family and the blessings just came. I think that’s a big part of my testimony, is I saw the miracles along the way, unmistakable that helped me. The open doors helped me get to where I needed to go. And even when disaster struck, I mean, my wife, after our second son Nathan was born, he was born by a placenta abruption about 15 weeks early almost, not quite 25 weeks. And he lived 33 days. And even then, there wasn’t a miraculous healing and in giving us the outcome that we all hoped for and wanted. But even in that, we saw so many miracles from the very beginning to the very end and afterwards. We saw miracles, things I could talk and go into a lot greater depth that those miracles showed us proof positive that the Lord knew our family.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 42:31 He knew us individually. He knew what we needed. He helped us get to Hawaii, helped me finish writing a lengthy dissertation of 500 plus pages. You know what that’s like? And it’s just miracle after miracle and then the miracle that I mentioned earlier today of being able to stay here in Hawaii and raise our family here. Even in the great blessings and even in the trials, has just been one testimony after another, to me of the goodness of God. I know that he knows me. I only get really disappointed when I know that my performance could better measure up to the blessings that he has given me. But even then, I know, like Nephi, I know in whom I’ve trusted and I know I’m just going to pick myself back up and keep trying and keep fighting and keep moving forward and a world today like we’re all experiencing. We’ve all been through a lot with COVID. We’re seeing a lot now happening with the world being in commotion with what’s going on in Ukraine.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 43:42 And I just know that through it all, it is all in his hands. Our time here is going to be not that long in the grand scheme of things. But I think we really will be grateful for all of the relationships that we’ve developed. The Lord’s goodness has been really manifested to me there in wonderful ways. And I couldn’t have done anything that I’ve done without the help of a lot of people in helping me and shaping me in ways great and small and being instruments and empowering me to do the things that I’ve done. That’s something I’m grateful for every day, those types of blessings. I would just close with a testimony of Jesus that I know that he lives. And I know that he atoned for me, that he atoned for all humankind and that he is the way, the truth and the life. He can show us the way because he is the way, that atonement is real. And one day we’re going to know it even better than we know now.

Dr. Matthew Bowen: 44:52 And the proofs will be unmistakable. We will realize then how much we love him, but even more, how much he loved us. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hank Smith: 45:04 Amen. What a great day. John Bytheway, what a great day. Thank you. Doctor Matt Bowen, thank you for your time and your expertise. It’s been wonderful. Thank you all of you for listening today. Thank you for being with us. We’re grateful for your support. We want to thank by name, our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And we hope all of you will join us on our next episode of FollowHIM.