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

John Hilton III: 00:07 We’ve been focusing on the Lord and his conversation with Moses. Let’s go back to Aaron and the people. I think there’s some really interesting things that come up. So in Chapter 32, Verses 1 and 2, we’ve read verse 1, so Aaron said to the people, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. And notice Verse 4, he, Aaron, took the gold from them, formed it in a mold and cast an image of a calf. And they said, “These are your gods.” So stay on that, that’s the storyline of what happens. But then when we come to Moses, as he’s talking to Aaron about it, Verse 21, Moses says to Aaron, “What is going on? What happened?” Verse 22, Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my Lord burn hot. You know the people, they are bent on evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall come before us. For as this man, Moses, we don’t know what happened to him.”

John Hilton III: 01:03 Verse 24. So I said to them, “Whoever has gold, take it off.” So they gave it to me. I threw it in the fire and out came the calf. And that phrase, “Out came the calf,” I didn’t do anything with it, it’s just like boom, poof, it appeared. And I love Aaron. I’m not trying to be too critical on him because boy, I do this all the time. But doesn’t that highlight a human tendency to shift responsibility? Well the people, they’re pretty naughty and they did this and well just this happened.

John Bytheway: 01:31 The translation you’re reading, is that what it says? “Out came the calf?”

John Hilton III: 01:35 Yeah. “Out came this calf.” That’s the New Revised Standard Version. What does the King James say?

John Bytheway: 01:40 It says, “There came out this calf.”

John Hilton III: 01:42 Yeah. Same idea, right? Boom, poof.

Hank Smith: 01:47 What’s interesting. We have what really happened and then we have Aaron’s version of what happened. This happens to me as a father all the time.

John Hilton III: 01:55 I can see in your eyes, Hank, you’re thinking of some stories when the twins have said, “Oh, out came the refrigerator and it fell on the ground?” Who knows?

Hank Smith: 02:03 So all of a sudden I hear one of my children start crying. I walk in. “What happened?”

Hank Smith: 02:07 “Nothing. I did nothing. It just started crying all by itself.” And that is a human tendency. You’re right. We all do this in some way. We come up with a different version of events that shifts blame off of us. It’s this people, right? These people, they made me do this.

John Hilton III: 02:25 A common phrase we use all the time today. She makes me mad. Oh really? I’m shifting the responsibility. One time I was a missionary and I knocked on the door and a little girl answered. She’s probably four or five years old. I said, “Is your mom home”? And she said, “My mom told me to tell you that she’s not home right now.” And I said, “Oh, okay. Could you go ask your mom when she’ll be back?” And the girl turned around and she goes, “Hey Mom, when will you be home?”

John Bytheway: 02:49 That’s awesome.

John Hilton III: 02:50 Shifting the responsibility. I think it feels good in the short run because then I’m not to blame. I’m shifting it to someone else. But I remember as a young missionary, Elder Lindsey Robbins came to my mission and he talked to us about the importance of not making excuses and taking responsibility. He later gave a BYU devotional on a similar topic called A Hundred Percent Responsibility. In his book that applies this to marriage, Love is a Choice, is really powerful. If the problem is somewhere else, if it’s the people who are doing it, then I can’t change it. But if it’s me, then I can change it. So the principle of agency and accountability is so huge and can help us, I think, when we’re trying to shift the blame to others to remind myself, no, I am an agent. There’s power within me. And yes, that means that I might have to take some uncomfortable responsibility, but it also means I can change the situation.

John Bytheway: 03:42 When Lehi is talking to his son, Jacob in 2 Nephi 2, he speaks of things that God created both to act and things to be acted upon. And I know Elder Bednar has talked about that and maybe Lynn Robbins, too, Elder Robbins about that idea of saying, when you say this made me do it or that made me do it, or she makes me mad, you are being acted upon instead of being someone who’s been given agency and acting. I thought it was such a great way to describe all of creation, things that act should be us and things that are acted upon.

John Hilton III: 04:14 And like we said in the beginning, all of these things tie to Jesus Christ. Remember in Doctrine and Covenants Section 1, verse 38, he said, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken and I excuse not myself.” So Jesus Christ doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t shift the blame. He didn’t say walking into Gethsemane, oh, maybe this might be too hard. No, he went through the hard things for us. And I just think there’s power in that principle and in seeing Jesus Christ as the ultimate foundation of that principle.

Hank Smith: 04:44 Aaron has an opportunity here to be honest. It’s interesting, because he tells the truth up until the point where it’s like, they told me to make them gods. So I told them to give me their gold. So, so far it’s the truth. Then 24, I threw it into the fire. Okay. We’re still good, Aaron, you’re still telling the truth here. And then there’s and out came this calf.

John Bytheway: 05:10 That’s some fire you built there.

Hank Smith: 05:13 Yeah. I’m withholding some information. He received them at their hand, fashioned it with a graving tool. And after he had made the calf, he made this calf, right? He molded it and made the calf. We have opportunities in life to tell the truth and to just own up to our mistakes. I did it. And I don’t want to say that those are great moments. Those aren’t fun. But there is a power that comes in confession, in owning to one’s mistakes and saying it was me.

John Bytheway: 05:44 You know how it is with your kids. When a child comes and says, dad, I made a mistake. I did this. Your heart is softened so quickly. And Heavenly Father is like that when we get on our knees and say, I really messed up. Because we’ve all had that situation as dads. But if somebody’s willing to own it and say, I did something really stupid, you’re immediately, you’re willing to forgive.

Hank Smith: 06:09 And as leaders, too, we might do this. We might refuse to say I made a mistake. It’s like, oh, the people they were… That made me laugh, John, thanks for that.

John Hilton III: 06:17 While we’re on this topic here, I think a good question is why do the people even want a graven image? And the Come Follow Me manual has some great, insightful questions and thoughts at this point. It says, why do you think the Israelites wanted a golden idol? Why was the Israelites’ sin so serious? These verses might prompt you to ponder ways you might be tempted to put your trust in someone or something other than the Savior. And I’ve got to be honest. I have never desired a golden calf in my life, not once. I am impervious to this temptation, but you think about, what might that represent in my life? So often I’ll feel like, well, yes, the Lord is enough in my life, but I really want the Lord plus a good job. Jesus plus a good marriage is enough. Or Jesus plus my kids doing exactly what I want. That’s enough.

John Hilton III: 07:04 And I think this is a reminder that Jesus is enough, period, the end, that’s all I need. I don’t need the golden calf. I don’t need anything else and well probably none of us are tempted to worship an idol in that sense. I think this is a great point to step back and say, “Am I looking for my security in something other than the Savior?” Because if I am then I’m going to come up short and feel pain because other things will fail me at one time or another.

John Bytheway: 07:31 It’s like the Helaman statement. He’s the only sure foundation and everything else is a bad foundation.

Hank Smith: 07:37 It seems that it’s almost easier to get the people out of Egypt than to get the Egypt out of the people. They brought so much of their old life with them. It looks to me like they’re having a hard time letting that go and fully investing in this new relationship with God that they have. They’re dragging their feet a little bit. The golden calves of my life, we could make lists of things that we often prioritize maybe as the golden calves of our lives in front of. We just talked about the Sabbath Day. I’m not willing to give this up or this up or this up, even though I know I probably should. Those are golden calves. Those are things I don’t want to give up for my relationship with God. And look at verse seven where the Lord tells Moses, “These people have corrupted themselves.” They did this. I don’t want them to be corrupt. I don’t want their life to have this in it, but they chose it.

Hank Smith: 08:34 So if I think about the golden calves of my life, John, I think of anything I prioritize higher than the Lord, or maybe just as high. Do you remember Elder Scott would say, “If you’re living as though the Lord and his commandments are one of your many important priorities, you’re clearly on the road to tragedy.” I remember what? For example, maybe my social media feed might be more important to me than my scripture study. Or a professional basketball team that shouldn’t be named may be more important to me than spending time with my children or attending their events or attending even the temple with my wife, something like that, where I just have these golden calves in my life and they’re corrupting my life. I’m choosing corruption in that way.

John Hilton III: 09:25 And Hank, I love how you’re sharing some real life examples. I think this is a great moment for “Lord is it I?” like at the last supper when Jesus says, “One of you will betray me.” The disciples say, “Is it me?” Some of us, we could probably be listening and think, oh yeah, you know, boy, I hope my husband or I hope that my brother is listening to this podcast right now. Because they’ve got some gold idols they got to get rid of. This is a great chance to think about, okay, so how do I take responsibility? How do I make sure that I’m putting God, not just one of many important priorities, but really first.

Hank Smith: 09:58 Egypt seems to me like a Babylon. Oh Babylon, oh Babylon, we bid thee farewell. These people need to do that with Egypt. They need to bid it farewell and embrace fully this relationship with God. But I think Egypt, like Babylon, doesn’t give exit permits gladly. It hangs on and we have to deliberately shed the traditions of our past.

John Hilton III: 10:25 We started today with a story that’s a little disturbing and you don’t often hear in primary and we have another one that’s coming up right now. In verse 25, when Moses saw that the people were running wild, for Aaron had let them run wild to the derision of their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lords side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And if we ever read this first, we’ll usually stop right there at verse 26. And then we’ll say, okay, awesome. Now who would like to sing Who’s on the Lords Side, Who? And we’ll sing that hymn and that’ll be great. And I hope that we don’t ruin that hymn for you for the rest of your life. 

John Hilton III: 11:00 Because right after this phrase, “Who’s on the Lord’s side?”, verse 27, Moses said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, put your sword on your side, each of you. Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor. The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about 3000 of the people fell on that day.”

John Hilton III: 11:25 This is one of many, and we’ve seen some already, and more are coming in the future, where we read something in the Old Testament or in other books of scripture, and it’s a little disturbing, and we think, “Why would this have happened?”, and I don’t have a rock solid answer on this specific story, but I thought maybe we could just think together about some basic principles and some possibilities to consider when you read something like this that’s disturbing.

John Hilton III: 11:52 This story is more than 3,500 years old, so it’s very possible that some specific details may have been lost. That’s one possibility. Another possibility is this story was written down by someone at some point in time probably several hundred years after it happened. Does this story reflect more the will of God or the will of Moses, or perhaps a later redactor or a viewpoint of someone else? That’s a possibility. Or is it possible that the Israelites, they’ve just witnessed these 10 plagues, they’ve witnessed the crossing of the Red Sea, they’ve had so many witnesses, and they promised three times, “We’re going to keep this covenant,” and now they’re deliberately not coming to Moses’ side. They’re choosing to see another side, and so because of this heightened accountability, there’s a heightened responsibility. That’s a possibility, and there may be other things that we haven’t talked about.

John Hilton III: 12:44 The Come Follow Me manual coming up in just a couple of weeks, it has a little section called The Historical Books of the Old Testament, and I’ll just read a little paragraph from it. It says, “What should we do when we come across passages in the scriptures that seem troubling? First, it might help to consider each passage in a broader context. How does it fit in God’s plan of salvation? How does it fit with what you know about the nature of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ? How does it fit with revealed truths in other scriptures or the teachings of living prophets? and how does it fit with the whisperings of the spirit to your own hearts and mind?” This doesn’t fully solve the issue of, “Wow. What happened that day? Why was that the case?”, but I hope that those are some principles that can help us keep not only this story, but other stories that we’ll encounter in the future, in a perspective.

Hank Smith: 13:35 I like that, John. This is the idea where you hit something like this and you say, “I don’t know,” and then you kind of move on and you let it sit there for a little while, and maybe later one day, you come back and it makes more sense to you at a certain time. Yeah, you’re right. Just acknowledging that things are tough, that this is disturbing and it’s okay. That it’s disturbing. I would hate if anyone said, “This is my favorite part.” Don’t throw everything away because you’ve hit this disturbing part. Let it just sit for a while and see if maybe later on, you understand it a different time.

John Bytheway: 14:06 It’s weird that they’re all the sons of Levi, just, “We’ll do it.” Who’s on the Lord’s side? Did anyone else say we’re on the Lord’s side, or was it just the sons of Levi? There’s got to be a lot more people. When you’ve read it, the people are running wild, I think our listeners would prefer that to the King James in verse 25.

John Hilton III: 14:26 I think the footnote in the King James uses the word “naked”, but the footnote says…

John Bytheway: 14:31 Riotous? Or let loose.

John Hilton III: 14:31 Something like riotous. Yeah, exactly.

Hank Smith: 14:35 One thing, Johns, as I read difficult passages like this, I try to remember that death is so different to the Lord than it is for us. For us, it seems so final, and there’s a retribution here, but to the Lord, remember that death is moving to a different classroom. Latter Day Saint doctrine, we believe that people, in the next life, they know the dead who repent will be redeemed. So perhaps try to see it as one of the many possibilities we’ve talked about. Try to see this as the Lord moving them to a different classroom to be taught, instead of staying here where they may do even more damage if this type of behavior continues. It’s crucial for Israel that they leave Egypt behind, both physically and spiritually.

John Hilton III: 15:20 Going back to the list of possibilities, sometimes we just come to Isaiah 55:8-9, where the Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” So there may be some things that we just don’t understand, and perhaps when we’re sitting with the Lord in the next life, and he gives us some added perspective or some details in the story that aren’t recorded here, all of sudden, we say, “Oh, okay. That makes sense.”

Hank Smith: 15:41 Yeah. I’ve often thought that.

Hank Smith: 15:43 Before we move on to chapter 33, I wanted to make a note of Exodus 32 verse 20. These are interesting verses. These are interesting stories where Moses takes the golden calf, grinds it to powder, mixes it with water, so we’ve got our first protein powder here, and he made them drink of it, and I thought, “Man, that is such an interesting…” He’s saying, “Listen, if you love it so much, then why don’t you go ahead and internalize it?”

Hank Smith: 16:15 So maybe it’s a physical representation of what they spiritually are doing. They’re internalizing this idolatry, and he says, “Well, let me show you how sick this will make you.” I’ve often wondered if I go to the bishop and I tell him I struggle with, “Hey, here’s my phone, and I’m struggling with pornography or something,” and he had a big blender in his office and he mixed the phone with some water and blended it up, and he said, “Okay, now drink this.” I would say, “I would never do that!” Well, why are you internalizing, spiritually, these things? If you wouldn’t let them into your body, why are you letting it into your mind and heart? So maybe there’s an interesting lesson there, but I thought, “Wow, you love it that much? Fine. You drink it.”

John Bytheway: 16:59 I think it was Elder Bruce C. Haven that we’ve had on the podcast who said that as we partake of the sacrament, we assimilate the Atonement. I think those are the words he used. We put it inside, and it’s a positive way of looking at it. Take the bread, the emblems of the sacrament.

John Hilton III: 17:16 So we’ve talked about types of Christs, this could be like an anti type of Christ, in a sense.

Hank Smith: 17:21 That also would be a good object lesson for parents. If your kids love TV and won’t give it up, just…

John Bytheway: 17:26 Put it in a blender.

John Hilton III: 17:27 Grind it to powder.

Hank Smith: 17:28 Grind it to powder, and we’ll all drink it. That’s the family night treat. All right, John, we want to move on to 33.

John Hilton III: 17:34 So the Lord is going to have a conversation with Moses, and basically, we’re kind of going back to where we were in Exodus 24. Moses is going to go back up to the mountain, he’s going to receive more knowledge and inspiration from the Lord. Maybe we can highlight a really powerful couple of phrases. In verse 11, we see that, “The Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.” That’s a powerful verse on so many levels. Number one, it tells us something about the nature of God, that he’s a personage. It also tells us about the type of communion that we can have.

John Hilton III: 18:10 I remember fairly recently, Elder M. Russell Ballard said something to the effect of, “Every member of the church can have an apostolic-like relationship with the Lord.” To really raise the bar of, “Okay, I can really develop a close relationship with the Lord,” and maybe verse 11 is another one of those, although it’s clear throughout the text that Moses has a special relationship with God that’s different from others, that I can strive towards having this ability in my prayers to speak with the Lord as a man speaketh to his friend, to really know him, to really connect with the Lord in prayer, and then right after that in verse 12 is one of my all time favorite one-liners. I know that you both enjoy finding these short, powerful scriptural phrases, and in verse 12, Moses says, “You have said I know you by name,” and I love that, that the Lord says, “I know you by name.” To me, those two passages together really give a sense for the type of relationship we can have with the Lord. He knows us by name and cares about us, and so when we put that extra time and effort to develop a relationship with him, that is not time wasted.

Hank Smith: 19:22 Beautiful. That’s the first word of the first vision, Joseph, right? In that very first word, Joseph learns. ” He knows who I am. He knows my name.” The Lord didn’t say, “Hey kid,” or, “You,” or, “Hey, farm boy.” One of them spake unto me calling me by name. “I know your name.” That’s beautiful, John.

John Hilton III: 19:45 Now, while we’re here, wrapping up 33 briefly, if you look later, there seems to be a verse that contradicts verse 11, in verse 20. This idea of, “No one can look on my face.” Some people have wondered what’s happening with this contradiction here. So again, there’s lots of possibilities. One is that maybe a later editor doesn’t like the idea of face to face or has a different understanding of it, and so is maybe putting a counterpoint there, but I think what’s most helpful maybe for Latter-day Saints is the Joseph Smith translation of Exodus 33:20, which says, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Thou cans’t not see my face at this time, for no man shall see me at this time and live, they are exceedingly sinful.'” So again, there’s many possibilities. From the first vision, we see that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have physical bodies, so there’s no doubt that Moses could speak to them face to face.

Hank Smith: 20:41 What I see in 33 John is the Lord saying, “Look, I want to give you this land flowing with milk and honey,” that’s 33 verse three, “But this is a stiff-necked people,” and everything we’ve discussed today, it seems like the Lord is ready to give them blessings, and their own choices are what’s holding them back. Maybe the story of my life, right? That the Lord is saying, “Here’s all of these blessings. I’m ready to give them to you. Are you ready to choose them? The promised land is ready for you, but you’ve got to get yourself ready for it.”

John Hilton III: 21:15 That’s beautiful. I love that.

John Hilton III: 21:17 So if we go into Exodus, chapter 34, the Lord tells Moses to cut two additional tablets of stone. So he broke the first two tablets, and we’re about to see more revelation being given to Moses. There’s a couple of beautiful passages that we probably want to highlight, starting in verse six. “The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed the Lord the Lord a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” I think these are some verses… We’ve read a few challenging things in our chapters today, 

John Hilton III: 22:00 but it’s important to remember that these verses are describing the Lord and then Moses in verse nine says, “If now I have found favor in your sight, oh Lord, I pray. Let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for your inheritance.” And we talked earlier about praying like a prophet. I think this is a beautiful way. Moses doesn’t say, “Hey, you owe us Lord.” He says, “Look, I get it. We’re not a lot to work with, but can you please have patience with us and do what you can with us, Lord.” I think that’s a great way also to approach the Lord in prayer.

Hank Smith: 22:35 It’s interesting that Moses even takes it on himself, our pardon and our iniquity and our sin, where at least at the golden calf, he wasn’t part of that.

John Bytheway: 22:46 Yeah, but he identifies with his people. That’s another advocate idea that you pointed out, John, where I’m an advocate for my people. I really love the insight about don’t just notice that prophets pray, but notice what they say.

John Hilton III: 23:00 If we go over to verse 11, the Lord gives some interesting commandments and I wanted to maybe brainstorm a little bit about what does this look like for us today? So to Moses, the Lord says, “Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Ammorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you. You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their sacred polls for you shall worship no other God.”

John Hilton III: 23:31 It’s really clear that the Lord is calling His people to be separate and distinct from the other peoples in the world. And I think this is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for living prophets. God isn’t telling us today through living prophets to isolate ourselves, we’re supposed to be in the world, but not of the world. And so I think the principle here is, you got to be separate and distinct and I’d love your insights on what do you think the general principle looks like for us in our society today, where we are living in a secular society?

Hank Smith: 24:04 He said back in 33, verse 16. So shall we be separated. It’s distinctive. I’m looking at the footnote verse 33, 16, distinctive. And accepting the fact that when you are in a relationship with the Lord, you are going to be different than most people. Last year, we talked about the word of wisdom. Yes, being a health code, but more importantly, being something that makes you different. Garments are another thing where people would say, “Oh, that’s weird. That’s odd, how peculiar.” And you would say, “Well, this is part of me accepting the fact that I’m different. My relationship with the Lord makes me different.” And I think it was Elaine Dalton who said, “If you want to make a difference, you’ve got to be willing to be different.” To me, that’s the Lord saying you’re not going to take part in anything else in this land, because I want you to remain different from everyone else.

John Bytheway: 25:00 I wonder if when they were in Egypt and maybe John, you know about this, did they accept some of the Egyptian gods? And is the Lord telling him don’t do that this time. It’s all me. And don’t start absorbing the culture around you. Did they accept some of the Egyptian gods? And maybe one of the reasons for the plagues was to discount every one of those gods for the Egyptians and for the house of Israel?

John Hilton III: 25:25 I’m honestly not clear on that. The idea of the 10 plagues and combating the 10 Egyptian gods, I think that’s pretty clear, but I don’t know that we have scriptural evidence that the Israelites were…it’s certainly possible.

Hank Smith: 25:38 Oh yeah. You would think that would be something that eventually becomes….I mean, you’re building these temples. You’re building these statues. Yeah.

John Hilton III: 25:43 You’re living the culture.

John Bytheway: 25:46 I’ve wondered if after so long in Egypt, maybe they had adopted some of the culture, maybe even some of the gods of Egypt and that maybe the Lord just wants to take that dry erase board and just erase everything. And don’t partake of that culture. I’m Jehovah. You’re supposed to worship me. Boy, talk about a clean slate. Go through and start all over again. I mean that phrase in verse 15, what a strong statement. They go a whoring after other gods, wow. Don’t make a covenant with them. Start all over.

John Hilton III: 26:20 I also think that we need to remember that God isn’t telling us this because he needs us to be constantly worshiping him to build his self-esteem or anything like that. This is because we find happiness and joy as we’re connected to Christ. And we find sorrow as we lose that connection. If we were to go back to verse 10, the Lord says “Hereby, I make a covenant. Before all your people, I will perform marvels such as not have been performed in all the earth.”

John Hilton III: 26:50 And again, God wants to make something amazing out of us. And he is wanting us to connect with him, not for his own purpose, but so that he can make more of us than we can make of ourselves and look at the end of verse 10, another great one liner. The very last line, in the King James, it uses the word terrible, but in alternate translation it’s awesome. So the Lord says, “For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.” And I love that. God is saying, “I want to make you awesome.” I’m asking you, be with me, so I can do that for you.

Hank Smith: 27:24 Right, and clean all these other things out of your life. I don’t want other gods there to taint our relationship. I want to give you this fully.

John Hilton III: 27:33 So our chapters for today don’t really have a satisfying conclusion because the Lord is going to give Moses some additional revelation and then all that revelation’s going to be unfolded to us in our next week Come Follow Me chapters, and it’s going to be acted upon as they build the tabernacle. But I thought maybe a nice way for us to conclude today might be to step back and think about all of the different ways where Moses is a type of Jesus Christ. And there’s probably way more than we’ll be able to list right now.

John Hilton III: 28:01 But just think of some that have come up in the verses we’ve looked at today. Moses is fasting for 40 days and 40 nights just like Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses receives the law on the mountainside, whereas Jesus gives the new law on the Mount with the Sermon on the Mount. There’re other connections like Moses as the mediator saying he’s going to make an atonement pleading for his people. Jesus, truly making an atonement pleading for us. There’s the blood of the old covenant. There’s the blood of the new covenant. I think Moses is a great example of the scriptural phrase that all things testify of Christ and Moses as a person testified directly of Christ, but also Moses the person testifies of Christ.

Hank Smith: 28:50 And John, you started today with Exodus 24 with Moses sprinkling the blood and we might go, “Oh, what’s going on here?” But we can see the Savior’s death, the Savior on the cross offering up his own blood in sacrifice.

John Hilton III: 29:04 In Colossians, the apostle Paul talks about the blood of the cross. And Jesus talked about the blood of his New Testament, so that’s another powerful connection.

Hank Smith: 29:13 I like this. Looking for the Savior in these chapters.

John Bytheway: 29:18 John, you’ve just outlined some of the ways in these chapters, but what are some of the other ways outside of these chapters that Moses is such a strong type of Christ?

John Hilton III: 29:26 Just a couple of examples that come to mind. Early on, they both have near death experiences as a baby. You’ve got Pharaoh trying to kill baby boys, Herod trying to kill baby boys. Moses is going in and out of Egypt just as Jesus is going in and out of Egypt. Recently, we talked about water flowing from a rock as Moses gets water for the people. Water flows from Jesus’ side on the cross. And Jesus had earlier said, “If anyone is thirsty, let them come unto me for out of my belly shall flow forth living waters.” I think this will just be a theme. Manna and Jesus as the bread of life. But in so many ways, the story of the Exodus and Moses in particular is the story of Jesus. And that’s just true with every other passage of scripture that we’ll see. The story of David and Goliath is about someone who is weak defeating the strong for us, Jesus in that same way. And so I love what we talked about at the very beginning of finding all the ways we can to identify Jesus in these old Testament passages.

John Bytheway: 30:33 You know, there’s another one that’s just fun, because it’s not scriptural, but it’s in Josephus. And if you’ve seen the movie, the 10 Commandments, which is where kind of where I learned about Moses the first time, was watching that movie. At the very beginning, they’re talking to the Pharaoh, Setti the first and the Pharaoh’s priests are saying there’s word among the Hebrews of a deliverer. And one of them says a star proclaims his birth. And that’s from Josephus, said that there was a new star when Moses was born. And I’ve always thought, “That’s why that’s in the movie.” Because Josephus said there was a new star. In so many ways, it’s so easy to see a lot of things that Moses did that the Savior did. I always just think of leading us out of bondage into the promise land as Moses did. And Jesus leads us out of spiritual bondage through his Atonement to be with him again. So I love that we can draw so much of Christ from the Old Testament.

Hank Smith: 31:29 This has just been a fantastic day. I’m looking at all the things we’ve talked about from learning that the Sabbath is a delight, talking about those who were blessed to work on the details of the temple with their gifts. We talked about the delays sometimes in life and coming to testimony of the commandments, that sometimes we corrupt ourselves or sometimes we blame others like Aaron. I didn’t do it. It was somebody else that we find out in life we talked about. Moses says, “Lord, you know me, you know me by name.” All of this is beautiful. Oh, and the Lord says, “I want to do awesome things for you. I want to give you a land that flows with milk and honey.” All of this seems very real to 2022 and we can learn these same lessons. So let me ask both of you, when have you experienced some of these same things?

John Hilton III: 32:25 Could we have a part three of this episode because as you were talking, I’m like, “Wow, I have stories that I could share on all of these,” but one that came to mind as you were talking about was the delay and it connects with a couple of the other principles. An experience from my life back in 2007, I started feeling that I should start a PhD program. So I applied a year and a half in advance, got accepted to a PhD program. And at the time I was working for the seminary and institute program in Florida. And I made an application that a year and a half from now, I want to be able to move. And I thought that was very reasonable giving them enough time, but this was also the middle of a housing crisis. 

John Hilton III: 33:00 And so for a variety of reasons, the church put a hold on moves. It was just very expensive to move employees around and so they said, “We can’t move you.”

John Hilton III: 33:09 I prayed and I felt really confident that we should sell our house and move to Utah and start this PhD program. And I specifically felt the Lord say, “Don’t worry. Everything will work out.”

John Hilton III: 33:19 But over the next few months, nothing worked out. My employer said, “If you move, you’ll lose your job.”

John Hilton III: 33:24 And I thought, “Okay, they’re probably just joking.”

John Hilton III: 33:27 But they weren’t joking. I lost my job. And selling our house in the midst of a housing crisis was terrible. It was a miracle that our house even sold at all. But like, along the way in these months when everything looked like it was falling apart and some things actually didn’t look like they fell apart, they did fall apart. I was constantly stressed and nervous. And even though the Lord had said, “Everything’s going to work out, don’t worry,” I worried all the time.

John Hilton III: 33:53 And to me, it’s a minor example maybe, but I think it’s a real example of delay. Even though like I didn’t leave the church or break my covenants, I felt so beat up inside. And I kind of can see the Lord crying a little bit for me saying like, “John, you didn’t have to do that. Those nine months when your life was just full of constant stress. I told you everything was going to work out. You could have enjoyed those nine months. They didn’t have to be nine months of stress. I wish you would’ve let me in.”

John Hilton III: 34:23 The happy part of the story is that in the long run, things did work out. Eventually I was able to get a PhD. I got hired for my dream job, teaching religion at BYU. And now looking back, I feel like this whole episode was part of the Lord doing an awesome thing in my life, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful at the time. And going back to one of the principles we talked about earlier, the golden calf. I think for me, my golden calf was knowing exactly how everything was going to work out. That’s still one of the idols that I have today. I don’t like uncertainty. I don’t like surprises. I want to know exactly what’s going to happen and how things are going to work out. And in this case, I didn’t know that. And it was so painful. I was basically saying, “Yes, Jesus is enough.”

John Hilton III: 35:06 But really what I meant was Jesus plus knowing everything’s going to work out, that’s enough. And being able to see every detail. That’s one experience from my life where I’ve seen some of the principles we’ve been talking about at a personal level.

John Bytheway: 35:18 I think a lot of our young adult listeners are thinking of how topsy turvy things would be. You got your mission call to here, but then you didn’t actually go there. You learned a language here, but you didn’t even use that language or maybe you didn’t. And then you were called home and then you never even saw the MTC. And we had a kid in our ward. Oh, it was so good. He got up and he said, “I had the privilege of serving during a world wide pandemic.”

John Bytheway: 35:45 And I immediately knew, oh, good. Listen to the way the Lord has helped him think of this. And he talked about being called to South Africa and then being called home. And then getting a job because he didn’t know what was going to happen. It was such a delay. And worked as an EMT or something, and then got called to New Mexico. And how all of a sudden, the things he learned, he used in New Mexico. And then back to South Africa.

John Bytheway: 36:09 Elder Forsyth said, his closing line as I recall was, “My mission did not turn out the way that I expected, but it happened more beautifully than I had planned.”

John Bytheway: 36:19 And I was just so gratified to hear his perspective of trusting the Lord enough to say, “Oh, there may be a delay. It may not be what I thought, but it worked out beautifully.” And all of it was, kept his faith in the Lord.

Hank Smith: 36:36 That’s excellent. You know that phrase, Exodus 33:12, that John showed us here. Moses says, “You have said, ‘I know thee by name and thou hast also found grace in my sight.'”

Hank Smith: 36:49 Moses is trusting the idea that the Lord knows who he is and that the Lord knows each individual. Way back in 2005, Elder David Bednar gave a talk called The Tender Mercies of the Lord. It was his very first full talk in General Conference. He had been called six months before and bore his testimony at conference. He talked about the moment he was called and sustained as a member of the 12. And he said, “I want to describe and discuss the spiritual oppression I received a few moments before I stepped to this pulpit during the Sunday morning session of General Conference last October.”

Hank Smith: 37:28 He talks about Elder Uchtdorf, who had been called at the same time as him had born his testimony. “We all stood and sang together. The intermediate hymn, Redeemer of Israel.” He says quote, “Now the music for the various conference sessions had been determined many weeks before, and obviously long before my new call to serve. If however, I had been invited to suggest an intermediate hymn for that particular session of the conference, a hymn that would’ve been both edifying and spiritually soothing for me and for the congregation before my first address in this conference center, I would’ve selected my favorite hymn, Redeemer of Israel.” It was the same hymn. “Tears filled my eyes as I stood with you to sing that stirring hymn of the restoration.”

Hank Smith: 38:14 He goes on a little bit later and says, “A loving Savior was sending me a most personal and timely message of comfort and reassurance through a hymn selected weeks previously. Some may count this experience as simply a nice coincidence, but I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real. They do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence.”

Hank Smith: 38:40 And I’ve heard Elder Bednar talk about this at other times where he says, “The Lord knows us, each one of us, one by one, name by name.”

Hank Smith: 38:49 Since that talk, I tried to find and record and pay attention to those experiences where I see that the Lord knows me and knows my name, knows who I am. And as I write those down and testify of them, I find that I get more of them. I find that the Lord sees that I’m taking them seriously. And to me, that’s one of the awesome things the Lord has done for me, has been to show me, “Hey, I know you. I know who you are. I know what you’re going through. I’m aware of you.”

Hank Smith: 39:22 Our friend, John Hilton III, he’s so great. They made three of him. It has been a privilege to have you with us today. And this won’t be the last time we have you. So before we let you go and say goodbye just for now, because I’m sure we’ll have you back soon, what are your parting thoughts for our listeners?

John Hilton III: 39:42 Is that we were just concluding, Hank, you shared some beautiful thoughts on tender mercies and John and I talked about a few stories where there’s delays, but in the end things worked out. I just want to take a moment and talk directly to the people who aren’t seeing tender mercies right now, who you’re in a delay and things don’t look like they’re going to work out. I think some of the most painful examples of this are with physical challenges and also with challenges that we have no control over. Maybe there’s a child who’s gone astray or making bad choices. And maybe that child is not going to make a dramatic change like Alma the younger did.

John Hilton III: 40:18 But to everyone who’s in the middle of this divine delay, I want to testify that Jesus Christ is real. He does know you by name. He cares about you. And as we’ve seen throughout these scripture accounts and will see as we continue to go through Exodus and beyond, Jesus Christ lives, he loves us. And even though it’s painful, when we are able to stay in those difficult moments with Jesus, we’re always better off than when we leave him. And I know that’s true.

Hank Smith: 40:51 I love that, John. John, thank you so, so much. No wonder the course that you created, it’s called Seeking Jesus. Sounds like you do that daily. Just as a reminder to everybody, you can find that wherever you get your podcasts.

Hank Smith: 41:04 John Bytheway, we’ve had a great day.

John Bytheway: 41:06 Really great.

Hank Smith: 41:07 I feel like I understand these chapters more than ever before. I’ve got notes that I’m going to use in my classes. We hope that all of you have enjoyed being with us today and that you have your scriptures out and you’re taking notes and you’re sharing this with other people so they can have these same experiences. So from my two Johns, my two friends, John Hilton, and John Bytheway, we want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen; our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. Thank you for being here, and we hope all of you will join us on our next episode of FollowHIM.