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

Hank Smith: 00:00:07 Krystal, let’s move on to the next story here. What happens next?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:00:10 We just had this huge miracle from Elisha, one of his big ones. This basically heals and saves an entire city, the entire city of Jericho. We kind of get this idea that people who saw this miracle are like, “Okay. He is really the next prophet and he’s taking Elijah’s place.” And then he goes to Bethel. There’s a problem in just a few, three verses here. We have almost the exact opposite of what he did at Jericho reversing the curse happen here. So let’s talk about it. So he goes to Bethel and it says that there are little children from the city mocking his bald head. Very interesting here. Elisha ends up cursing them in the name of the Lord and then bears come and eat 42 children.

Hank Smith: 00:00:59 This is why you love the Old Testament.

John Bytheway: 00:01:02 You just around every corner, you have no idea what’s coming.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:01:08 So there’s a lot to unpack here too, even in just these three verses. We can start with the age of the mockers. Let’s talk a little bit about that because we’re actually given two different descriptions here. So in verse 23, there’s a noun and an adjective that’s used that typically refers to older children. More like we would say tweens, pre-pubescent children. But then when we get to verse 24, there’s a different word that’s used here for the ones that the bears end up tearing apart. And the word used here across the Old Testament refers to, at some points, babies, babes in arms, all the way up to later in 2 Kings, 40 year old men.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:01:50 So we’re not exactly sure. I know it’s translated as little children, but we’re not exactly sure the age of the mockers at this point at all. Let’s go to the bald head thing. Because it seems a petty thing for Elisha to get so upset about that they end up being cursed and eaten by bears. But when you hear about Elisha lacking hair, what do you think of? Who is hairy.

Hank Smith: 00:02:23 Oh, okay. So that’s maybe a reference to the hairiness of Elijah.

John Bytheway: 00:02:26 And you’re not like him.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:02:29 Exactly. So they’re not commenting necessarily on how we might look down at a lack of hair baldness. They’re commenting on his ability as a prophet and as the new prophet. They’re saying, “You are no Elijah, you’re not even a replacement for Elijah.” This is what they’re commenting on. His ability to receive revelation and prophecy from God. And Elijah’s, his main thing was he was hairy. And this is what they’re actually commenting on. And that’s why the Lord almost immediately is going to show that Elisha is the prophet and he is just as good as Elijah even if he doesn’t have as much hair. They should believe that not only can he bless entire cities like Jericho, but that there will be consequences for sin and for speaking against the prophet and his ability.

John Bytheway: 00:03:24 That is great. I had never connected him as a successor of Elijah who was called hairy and now Elisha is bald. I have a statement from Brother Fred E. Woods who wrote in BYU studies in the summer of 1992 an article called Elisha and the children. He said, evidence suggests that the mocking youths in the Elisha story were not simply calling him a baldheaded man when they called him, help me out, Krystal, qereah. That’s maybe the Hebrew for it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:03:58 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:03:59 Rather they were speaking to Elisha figuratively. Certainly they were not simply teasing Elisha by calling him baldie as some interpreters have suggested. Instead they were accusing him of being a usurper of authority, an act that warranted serious consequences for speaking evil against the Lord’s prophet. As a result, they incurred the vengeance of God who had previously warned, “If you walk contrary to me, I will send wild beast among you, which shall rob you of your children.” That’s from Leviticus 26:21 and 22. Anyway, I thought that was one way to help try to make sense of it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:04:35 That fits perfectly with it.

Hank Smith: 00:04:37 I have one other note here from one commentator who says, if you want to understand a Bible story, pay careful attention to geography. This story takes place at Bethel. At the time Bethel had become one of two main worship centers for the Northern kingdom, not worship, but rebellious covenant breaking idolatrous worship. Is that the case Krystal?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:04:57 Yes. Some of these kings, it says they didn’t worship Baal anymore, but they still were worshiping false gods at Bethel. And they still believed the calves at Bethel, these golden statues, represented Jehovah and the Lord and they were worshiping these statues. And so it wasn’t even necessarily who they were worshiping, but how they were worshiping. And they just could not let go of these idols and this type of worship and Bethel and Dan, where these huge places, where this happened. It’s related.

Hank Smith: 00:05:29 Krystal, I think you’ve shown us here a good scripture study skill. When you read a story that you’re like, “Well that’s terrible. And petty and awful.” You might not understand, one, the geography. Two, the Hebrew because we have a translation here. So just maybe look a little closer, consult scholars.

John Bytheway: 00:05:49 And the connection to Elijah. The light went on for me. I’d never thought of that Krystal, but Elijah was hairy, you’re bald. And that may be what Fred Wood said about, “You can’t be the successor. You don’t even look like him.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:06:02 They’re saying you’re no Elijah. Just like Fred said, they’re like, “You didn’t come from the company of the prophets, the sons of the prophets. He found you out in a field farming. We don’t accept you as a prophet of God.” And it’s interesting because I think when consequences or punishments come in the form of natural disasters like famine or storms or war, things like that we’re okay. But we do forget. And I think you had mentioned that sometimes it’s in the form of wild animals, lions, wild beasts, bears. These are just a symbol of the consequences of sin, these bears that come.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:06:40 And now Elisha is shown as a full blown prophet. Not only can he bring blessings and good things like he did with Jericho, but part of the prophet too is also to warn and warn about destruction and what can happen. And I love that he’s shown as he can bring life and he can bring death and it’s all representative of the Lord and how he works.

Hank Smith: 00:07:04 So Krystal, I wrote next to this verse, “This is a display of open public rejection of this prophet.” Does that fit?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:07:12 Definitely. And we’re talking about a big group here. It mentions 42. But I’m guessing it was a group of different ages all come from the city and who knows, maybe even some of the sons of the prophets were there and were mocking him. Showing that they don’t accept him as the prophet. And that’s why the Lord immediately is like, “We need to show that he is the prophet and I have chosen him.”

John Bytheway: 00:07:35 Here’s another comment from Craig Keener who’s the author of the New King James Version Cultural Background Study Bible. He said the age of the mockers is uncertain. The Hebrew can refer to pre-pubescent children, but can also refer to the younger generation. The same Hebrew word describes Rehoboam’s peers in 1 Kings 12:8 as young men and they are over 40. This is probably a group of young teens, but whatever it is, the age is uncertain. And that’s helpful to know because if they’re below the age of accountability, this doesn’t make any sense to us at all.

Hank Smith: 00:08:12 They’re like five.

John Bytheway: 00:08:14 Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:08:16 I know. And it says little children. It doesn’t even say children. It says little. So you’re saying these toddlers get eaten by a bear. And you’re like, what is going on?

John Bytheway: 00:08:25 Now let’s have family prayer now. Okay. The missing verse 26 says, “And it came to pass. No one ever commented on his hairless condition for the rest of his life.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:08:39 I feel bad for Elisha. He struggles with this. The people accepting him. And even today, I think, if you were to ask someone who their favorite prophet is in the Old Testament, nobody says Elisha. And if they did, you’d probably say, “You mean, Elijah? did you say Elijah?” It seems like we just don’t talk about him as much. So the rest of the chapters that we’re going to talk about today are a series of miracles that Elisha performed. Some of them huge miracles like we see in chapter three with the Moabite war. And then we’ll also get to some more specific miracles that he performed for individuals as well.

Hank Smith: 00:09:17 Okay.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:09:19 So when we get to chapter three, we kind of can return back to chapter one, verse one, where it talks about this war with Moab. In verse one of chapter three, now we’re with king Jehoram. So if you remember Ahaziah died as Elijah prophesied. Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. And we find out that Jehoram did evil, it says, in the sight of the Lord, but not like his parents, but he also had problems. Now when we get to verses four and five, we’re introduced to the king of Moab. His name is Mesha. So Moab is east of The Dead Sea. So Jerusalem is Northwest, Moab is east. And so modern Jordan about today. And we find out that Moab had been a vessel of Israel under King David. He conquered this land. They were paying massive amounts of tribute. In fact, it says in verses four and five, hundreds of thousands of animals were being given in tribute to Israel.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:10:22 But after Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against Israel and this started a war. Now, what’s really great about Mesha is we have information about him outside of the Bible actually. We have this inscription of his that we call the Mesha Stele or the Moabite stone. This is a four foot high stone where he talks about being under Israel’s control and rebelling against Israel. And it actually celebrates his rebellion. And so it’s great that we have here evidence of this outside of the Bible that talks about this rebellion and this war that comes because of it.

Hank Smith: 00:11:03 Krystal, I think many people are surprised when they find out that before King David there’s not a lot of evidence for what we read. And that’s okay.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:11:12 Yeah. I always want to talk about when we find things like this outside extra biblical information or archeology, that it’s not meant to make us more faithful. Because of course, faith doesn’t come from provable facts. Faith comes from just belief, believing even though we don’t have the facts. So it’s very exciting when we find things like this, archeologically that support what the Bible is telling us and what it’s saying. So the king of Israel decides, “I’m going to join up with the king of the Southern kingdom, Jehoshaphat, who has one of the greatest names I think among these Kings.

John Bytheway: 00:11:47 Oh, isn’t he great?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:11:50 And he says, “Okay, let’s go. We’re going to go and we’re going to go after Moab.” And instead of going straight south to get to Moab, we’re going to actually go around, completely around The Dead Sea and come up from the south. Because there was another kingdom there that supported Israel and Judah. Now, the problem with this, there aren’t a lot of water sources. The army, it says in verses nine through 12, they went seven days without water. And so, Jehoram starts to think, “Well, maybe the Lord is actually punishing us. What do we do?”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:12:19 Jehoshaphat says, “Well, why don’t we ask the prophet of the Lord?” We know that the prophets traveled with the armies. They were there to be a representative of the Lord and help give information and advice. The servant says, “Well, we can ask Elisha.” But Elijah was the one who in verse 11, he says poured water on the hands of Elijah. Kind of commenting he was a servant, right? He washed the hands and the feet of Elijah as opposed to, “This is this great prophet who can actually give us information.” He comments on him just being, “Well, he was his servant.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:12:57 We see again, this issue of him always being in the shadow of Elijah, always. If we want to take something from this, I think we’ve all been at positions in our lives where we feel under the shadow of someone else. Or we feel like we’re not living up to someone else’s expectations. They expected him to be Elijah. He’s saying, “I’m my own person. I am my own prophet.” And I love the way he responds to Jehoram when he asks him for help. He says, “If you don’t believe I’m a prophet, then why are you asking me? Go ask the prophets of Baal and Asherah, the prophets of your parents.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:13:35 To me, this has always been the sign of what do you do when you feel like you have this imposter syndrome or people expect certain things of you and you’re not living up to what they think you should do. Elisha stands his ground and he says, “I am representing the Lord and I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for him supporting, especially Jehoshaphat.” And that’s what he says.

Hank Smith: 00:14:03 He has some serious confidence. He knows who he is

John Bytheway: 00:14:05 And notice the oath, “As the Lord of hosts liveth,” verse 14.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:14:10 He’s telling them, “I am a prophet of the Lord.” I think this is something we can take from this. Sometimes it’s not up to the opinions of others. In fact, very rarely is it up to the opinions of others. And Elisha says, “I know who I am. I know who I represent. You just are going to have to change your ideas about it.” And I love this, that he does this.

Hank Smith: 00:14:29 So Jehoshaphat believes. It’s Jehoram who’s like, hmm.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:14:33 Yeah, that kind of goes back to what we talked about at the beginning that the Northern kingdom kings seem to support the prophets a little bit less than the southern kingdom. Elisha goes on to say, “This is what the Lord says. If you dig ditches in this valley, water will come and your armies that you’ve been marching around the dead sea without any water, the water will come and will fill this valley, but you won’t see any rain.” So this is probably a reference to, there are a lot of wadis in this area. So a wadi is a valley that fills up with seasonal runoff water from up above, flash floods, things like that. He’s saying, “This water’s going to come. Dig ditches so you can capture the water.” He says, “Not only that, but the Lord is going to deliver the Moabites to you.” This ends up happening after this. At this point, the Moabites are delivered and they’re able to take back control of this area. A little bit of accepting Elisha more comes into play because of this and because of what happens here.

Hank Smith: 00:15:34 Krystal, what’s the next miracle you want to look at?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:15:37 So if we turn to chapter four, we find out that one of the wives of the sons of the prophet, so from this group, tells Elisha, her husband is dead and the creditor has come to take away her children as bond men. So we can talk a little bit about debt, slavery, and servitude here. If you did go into debt in ancient Israel and you sold off all your land and your belongings and your wealth, and you had nothing left, you could actually sell yourself or your family members into servitude to pay off the debt. And this happened a lot to farmers because of the fragile nature of farming with good years and bad years and famines and things like that.

Hank Smith: 00:16:19 Can you go back? You said that you could sell your children, isn’t it more that they take your children?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:16:25 Yes. I think it was either you all get put in prison, debt prison, or you could sell your children. There were laws about it.

Hank Smith: 00:16:35 Sounds like this woman doesn’t want this to happen.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:16:38 Yeah. The creditor deserved to be paid back, but also the one who had mortgaged or sold themself or their family into servitude, there was a time limit, right? They could only serve for so many years and it didn’t matter how big the debt was, they were done. But the problem is by that point you had lost everything. And so, a lot of people, it led to a life of servitude. There was no way to come back from that. But if you were able to serve and pay off your debt, it was called redeeming yourself. You were able to redeem yourself from this life of servitude. And this is where we get the concept of the Kinsman Redeemer as well.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:17:16 If you couldn’t do it yourself, redeem yourself, a member of your family could come in and pay off your debt, redeem you from your debt. We’re definitely meant when this debt slavery issue comes up, to think of the Lord as our Kinsman Redeemer. He’s the one who comes in. He redeems us from our sin, from our debt, right? He’s the one who paid it off. He saves us. I love this because we’re going to see this through every miracle Elisha performs after this. We’re meant to see him as a representative, as symbolic of the Savior and what he does for us.

Hank Smith: 00:17:54 Didn’t we mention that a little bit with Boaz, the Kinsman Redeemer.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:17:59 It’s the same thing. Boaz is able to redeem Ruth and be able to save her from debt and servitude. And so, this is what Elisha’s trying to do. So he tells the woman, he says, “What do you have?” And she says, “I just have a little bit of oil.” He says, “Go get all the vessels from your neighbors. Start pouring the oil and it’ll fill up every single one of those vessels.” And she’s able to sell the oil to pay off the debts and live on the remainder. And what’s perfect about this is the word for oil here is shemen, which is a reference to olive oil specifically. Where we get Gethsemane from, right? The oil press, the olive oil press.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:18:39 And how perfect is it that it’s oil? We’re meant to think of the Lord and the Atonement. And Gethsemane, it all comes together and he’s our kinsman Redeemer. And that he saves us in the same way that Elisha’s able to save this woman through oil. And it’s this beautiful miracle. And this is to show that the Lord cares about everyone, whole cities, one woman, everybody. The oil, the Atonement, the blood covers everyone.

John Bytheway: 00:19:11 And it’s like everything in between. A whole city in one story, a mother and child in another and everything in between. It reminds me of, you’ve got the Luke account of Christ’s birth. You’ve got the Matthew account from kings to shepherds and everybody in between. It’s glad tidings of great joy type of thing.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:19:31 I love this, how he clearly represents the Savior in so many of these. In saving this woman and her children in the same way that we are saved from our debt and servitude to sin and the consequences and punishments.

John Bytheway: 00:19:45 Which we can’t pay ourselves. Yeah,

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:19:47 Exactly.

Hank Smith: 00:19:49 If I wanted to see myself in this, I could see myself as this woman saying, “I’m going to lose my family. If I’m not redeemed.” And here comes the Savior saying, “I can give you more than enough, as much as you need. I can give you to save you and your family.” Oh man. That’s great, Krystal.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:20:08 Yeah, I love this. And this continues on in chapter four. Elisha goes to a new place called Shunem and this is in the Galilee. It’s actually not too far from the site where I excavate at. So I love talking about Shunem. And I’ll be there in two or three days, in fact.

John Bytheway: 00:20:24 Whoa.

Hank Smith: 00:20:25 Yeah. When this comes out, you’ll be there.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:20:29 I will be there. So he travels through this area a lot. It’s in the Galilee area. And so the woman invites him to her house and she says that he’s a holy man. And she says, “Let’s make him his own little room because he comes through so often.” And Elisha says, “Well, I want to repay you.” So he tells this servant, “Ask her what she would like. Does she want a good word with the king or the commander?” And I love her response in verse 13. She says, “No, I kind of just like to stay home. So I’m good.”

John Bytheway: 00:21:00 I dwell among my known people. Is that what you mean? Is that’s the phrase? Yeah, I’m good. I’m good.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:21:04 She says, “I want to stay here. I want to stay here among my own people. I don’t need the king and the commander in these things.” His servant Gehazi does tell Elisha, “She doesn’t have a child and her husband is old.” So we get this idea that they were past the child bearing years. So Elijah says to her, you will have a son in one year. Her response is interesting because she says in verse 16, “Nay, my Lord, thou man of God. Do not lie unto thine handmaid.” And it’s interesting because she clearly believes…

Hank Smith: 00:21:38 Too good to be true.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:21:39 … he’s a prophet and a man of God yet when it came to this miracle, she struggled believing it was going to happen. And I’m sure she had heard about the oil or Jericho or the Moabite war, but when it came to her own personal miracle, she struggled. And I think sometimes we are so ready to accept others’ miracles, big miracles of healing or getting exactly what they need. And sometimes when it comes to us, we’re like, “That would never happen to me. I don’t have big miracles in my life.” And in reality, it’s just, I think, sometimes believing in our own miracles and recognizing our own miracles in our life.

Hank Smith: 00:22:23 I love that. My friend, Tony Sweat, likes to say faith is when you believe God can help everyone. Hope is when you believe God can help you, when it becomes specific. And I can almost hear this woman saying, “Don’t do that to me. Don’t give me hope. Don’t lie to me because I’ve been hurt before.” This is a very touching story.

John Bytheway: 00:22:43 Yeah. I think that people might have a problem with, you’re saying to the prophet, “Don’t lie to me. But I do think it’s kind of a, “Oh, I don’t even know if I want to entertain that thought because it would hurt so bad if it went the other way.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:22:56 Definitely. And it kind of ends up going the other way for her.

John Bytheway: 00:22:59 Oh, no.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:23:02 Because she does have the child and as the child’s growing, it says, one day the child goes out to the father in the field and says that his head hurts. They bring the child to the mother and then he dies. The child ends up dying, this miracle child. So, of course, she goes looking for Elisha. Of course she finds him on a mountain where Elisha always is, like Elijah. And he’s at Mount Carmel. And when she gets there, she grabs his feet, which is a sign of distress. The servant tries to stop her but Elisha says, “It’s okay. Let’s find out what happened.” When we get to verse 28, she says, “Did I desire a son? Did I not say, do not deceive me?” Kind of saying like, “Now it’s as if I never even had this miracle child. That he’s been taken away from me.”

Hank Smith: 00:23:49 So brutal.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:23:50 It would be hard. This woman definitely went through some things and you see her develop and grow as time goes on, as she has these things happen to her. Elisha says, “We’re going to heal this child.” Not only heal him, bring him back from the dead. It’s an interesting way that he does this. And this is definitely meant to remind us of Elijah also raising a child from the dead. So let’s look at these verses because I think sometimes there are a lot of questions about what’s going on here.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:24:25 So in verse 34, he goes and he lays upon the child and it says, “Eyes to eyes, hands to hands.” And this is something that Elijah does too. Now, they believed in healing touch like we do. If healing hands on the head and a blessing and consecrated oil, things like this. But for them, you could not only heal through your hands, but you could also heal body part to body part. And so in order to raise this child from the dead, it was a full body healing that needed to take place. And that’s why he’s eyes to eyes, hands to hands, legs to legs because this child had died. And this was the way of healing the whole body of this child. And that’s why he does it in this way and that’s why Elijah does it this way as well.

Hank Smith: 00:25:22 This is one of those times you don’t want to be ethnocentric and say, “Other people’s cultures are wrong or weird.”

John Bytheway: 00:25:28 Right.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:25:30 We believe in healing through touch too and that’s the way the Savior healed. And so for them, it was just, if you needed to heal a head, you could touch the head or do head to head because they believed that this transfer could happen. But if it’s a whole body and raising from the dead, they sort of believed that you needed this full sort of healing. And that explains why he does this. And then we read that the child sneezes seven times.

Hank Smith: 00:25:56 I love this.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:25:58 And this seems like a really specific thing to put in here. What does this mean? So we get the number seven again. So completion. And the word that’s translated as sneezed is what we call a hapax. This is the only place in the entire Old Testament where this word shows up. Let me tell you what the word is. The word is Zara.

Hank Smith: 00:26:15 Zara.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:26:17 People think it’s onomatopoeic, right? So it’s a noise or a sound or something that the child made. So onomatopoeic, of course, means that the word sounds like what the word is. So it’s our word for B, right? Is onomatopoeic because it sounds like the noise a B makes. And so that’s why people think he sneezed or he groaned or he yelled. Zara, whatever that is.

John Bytheway: 00:26:44 Now, my dad might, let’s see, Zara. Some people it’s achoo.

Hank Smith: 00:26:48 The King James translators don’t know what to do, right Krystal? You got this one time. They’re like, “How about sneezed? Sneeze sounds good to me.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:26:56 It’s important, it’s seven. So he’s completely healed.

John Bytheway: 00:26:59 Right.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:26:59 He’s completely over whatever it was and he’s brought back to life. We can, again, bring the Savior into this, healing, raising from the dead. But not only that, saving us from death, from physical death through resurrection, from spiritual death through the Atonement and our repentance. So we already have the Savior as Kinsman Redeemer through Elisha. Now we get the Savior as literally the Savior saving us from death.

Hank Smith: 00:27:31 It sounds a lot like comparison to Lazarus. “You can’t do this. It’s way past the time.” “No, I can bring him back.”

John Bytheway: 00:27:39 He deliberately waits for four days. Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:27:42 We never should put limits on the Lord, ever. And sometimes when we say, “Oh, this miracle can’t happen to me or it’s too hard.” If we actually step back and think about it, what are we saying? Things are too hard for God? Too hard for the Lord? They never are. And so it’s us, right? And it’s our faith. And it’s our understanding that needs to be worked on. And I think this woman goes through a few things with this child in order to learn that for herself.

John Bytheway: 00:28:11 And it’s great she still had the faith to go back to the prophet.

Hank Smith: 00:28:14 Do you think Matthew 8:9 where Matthew hits the Savior’s miracles over and over and over and over, do you think he’s trying to replicate this?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:28:22 I think he’s definitely trying to tie the Savior to the prophets of the Old Testament and to the Jehovah for us and our interpretation, the Jehovah of the Old Testament as well. Absolutely. That he is following all of these prophets, Elijah, Elisha, every single one who performed a miracle. It was a type for the Savior who was going to come. I think so.

John Bytheway: 00:28:46 Well, that’s the conventional wisdom as Matthew was writing to the Jews and saying, “Look, this is the one. This is the one that prophecies are talking about.”

Hank Smith: 00:28:54 It just feels very Matthew 8:9 to me, this section, like one after another. Here we go.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:29:00 And it’s perfect because the next miracles are about feeding people with either not enough food or poisoned food and fixing it. So our next miracles are about food. So Elisha goes back to Gilgal. Again, there’s a dearth, a famine in the land. The sons of the prophets are there and Elisha tells his servant to make a stew for them. So he goes out to gather herbs and gourds, it says, for the stew. The men start eating and they say there’s death in the pot. And so, this is a reference to there’s something poisonous in here. And people have actually researched this and look at this and think that this is a reference to these special type of gourds that they call bitter apples. These are found wild in Israel. They have chemicals in them that burn mucus membranes. So your mouth, your throat, your stomach, your intestine, and it would happen immediately. So they’ve used the wrong kind of gourd.

John Bytheway: 00:29:57 You think jalapenos are bad.

Hank Smith: 00:30:00 What kind of apple is that?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:30:02 It’s called a bitter apple. When they’re not ripe, they look like watermelons, like little round watermelons. So don’t eat those. If you’re in Israel and you feel like you want to make stew…

John Bytheway: 00:30:14 There’s death in this pot. It sounds like it’s dad’s night to cook.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:30:17 I love the way they describe it.

Hank Smith: 00:30:19 Yeah. There’s death in this pot.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:30:21 Sounds like something one of the kids would say.

Hank Smith: 00:30:24 I remember one time I scooped my wife’s, a big plate of casserole or whatever my wife had made. And I turned and my two-year-old son said, “Dad, you throw up?” And I was like, “No, it’s dinner.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:30:41 He’s trying to feed them. And instead there’s this poison in here. So he asks them to bring him some flour, some meal. Flour was believed, in the ancient near east, to be able to combat or remove evil and poison and things like this. Many times Elisha is using things that people believed in. And he is showing that every miracle that you’re believing, whether it’s flour or salt in the water or whatever, this is coming from Jehovah, this is coming from the Lord. Even if you think it’s been coming from other gods.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:31:13 And so he uses things they believed would work and he’s showing that this comes from the Lord. So he puts the flour in and it overpowers the poison. And he is able to feed this starving group of the sons of the prophets here. And show them that the Lord has the power to also heal people and feed people and save people. It’s perfect.

Hank Smith: 00:31:39 I love that. Every other miracle we think is coming from other sources or other places, it’s all coming from the same source.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:31:46 Yeah, absolutely. And so I love that he uses some of these objects or things that people believed other gods were performing magic or things with. And he’s showing no, it’s the Lord who has the power and control over everything. Even using this flour to heal the poison in the pot. So we have another feeding miracle towards the end of chapter four. A man brings Elisha, it says the bread of the first fruits. And so this is the bread made out of the first part of the harvest. It was meant to be dedicated to the sanctuary through the prophet. So he is bringing it to the prophet so he can take it to the sanctuary, it can be offered. Sort of a harvest type festival to give thanks to the Lord.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:32:31 And we read that there are 20 small loaves. These are not the loaves we’re thinking of like a French loaf. These are probably rolls, very small, very tiny rolls. He says, “Give it to the people to eat.” Because again, they said, there’s a famine at this point in time. And the servant says, “How are we going to feed a hundred people with these 20 small rolls of bread?” And Elisha says, “Well, it’s going to work because the Lord says, not only will there be enough to feed everyone, but there will be leftovers afterwards.” And this ends up coming true. And of course, this can remind us a lot of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with the bread and the fish. And again, is meant us to see Elisha as representative of the Lord of the future and what he would do.

Hank Smith: 00:33:22 There’s that great question in John 6:9 when they have the five Barley loaves and the two fishes, “What are they among so many?” Without Jesus, it’s a couple of tuna fish sandwiches, but with Jesus, it’s more than enough.

John Bytheway: 00:33:35 Yeah, “Bring what you have, I will multiply it.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:33:38 So we’ve had Kinsman Redeemer with the oil. We’ve had the Savior with the child being raised from the dead. And now we have the nourisher, the bread of life. So all of these different aspects of Jehovah. And then we can go to chapter five where we have the miracle with Naaman.

Hank Smith: 00:33:58 Naaman. This is where his parents said, “What should we name in?” And then it was they’re like, “That’s good.”

John Bytheway: 00:34:04 That’s fine. Well, let’s name him Bob.” “Nay, man.”

Hank Smith: 00:34:10 Nay, man. Nay. Sorry. Okay, Krystal. Thanks for putting up with us.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:34:17 Okay. So Naaman, we hear that he’s a Syrian army captain. And so Syria, this is actually Aram where we get Aramea from, from the land of Aram, Damascus. And in Greek, they called it Syria. So it’s the same place. And it says he was a great man. The Lord actually used him to deliver Syria, but he has a problem. He’s a leper, it says. Now, at this point in time, it’s not the same clinical contagious leprosy that we know of today. That doesn’t show up until Alexander the great in about 500 years…

John Bytheway: 00:34:47 Interesting.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:34:47 … after this. Okay.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:34:50 But definitely a horrible skin disease because it’s described as having lesions and scales and swelling, weeping, flaking, right? I don’t want to lessen what this horrible thing is. And it’s some combination or form of psoriasis, eczema, dermatitis, fungal infections, something like this. People who had these skin diseases were seen as outcasts. They were made to quarantine because they saw it as a punishment from God. People definitely wanted to stay away from those who had leprosy. Naaman’s wife has this servant and it says she’s a captive Israelite, so somebody they had actually captured in war.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:28 This servant says to Naaman’s wife, “Hey, he should visit the prophet in Samaria because he would cure him.” Naaman goes to the Syrian king. He says, “This is what she said.” The king says, “Go. We’re going to send this letter and we’re going to send a ton of money with you.” This money. Of course, we read this 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shackles of gold. We have no clue what that means off the bat. But this amount is meant to shock us. This would be almost a billion dollars today, almost a billion. It is definitely meant to show us that the king of Syria and Naaman are serious about paying for this cure that they’re going to receive.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:36:14 Sometimes I think we kind of move past this quickly, but I do want to take a moment and talk about who is the one here who sets the miracle in motion? Who is the one who took the opportunity to bring up this idea of the process?

John Bytheway: 00:36:30 It’s this girl. I love it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:36:32 Yeah. She’s young. She’s female. She’s a captive. She’s a prisoner of war. She’s a servant. Yet, she takes this moment to talk about her belief in the prophet and that he can heal this man that she works for. Reminds me a lot of Abish. At the moment she felt like she could do something, she could change something, she does it. To me, it shows that it doesn’t matter what’s your age, your gender, your status, your wealth, you always can have these opportunities come up where you can share your beliefs or talk about the prophet or say, “You know what, you can be healed from whatever problem you have,” whether it’s physical or spiritual or any of these things. I love this part of the story that sometimes we kind of skip over quickly.

John Bytheway: 00:37:21 Yeah, that’s a great thing. Verse two, a little maid. Any idea of her age? She a teenager? Any idea?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:37:28 Probably like a teenager is what I’m going to guess. I didn’t look at the word in Hebrew, but she was young and she was a servant, even a prisoner of war. And she still took that opportunity to say, “Hey, there’s this prophet and he can cure you.” You never know the effect you have on others. The influence, anything.

John Bytheway: 00:37:48 Story pivots on her.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:37:50 Yeah. She’s the one who sets it in motion. So Naaman does end up going to the king of Israel, probably Jehoram. He’s not named here. He reads this letter from the king of Syria. He tears his robes in response to this letter. And he says, “I can’t cure him. I am not God. Now we’re going to have a war with Syria because of this.” Not even thinking, probably thinking of the prophet. And the tearing robes of course, is this sign of distress. Earlier Elisha to his robes after Elijah was gone. It’s distress at anything. Distress because someone’s gone and has died, so mourning. Distress because of sin. Sometimes it was part of the process of repentance. And when the king does it, this signals a national crisis and emergency.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:38:40 And Elisha hears about it and is like, “Why didn’t you just send him to me?” And so we still see that there are some issues here with the king and…

Hank Smith: 00:38:50 They don’t trust.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:38:52 … thinking. Yeah. And trust.

Hank Smith: 00:38:52 They just don’t believe.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:38:55 This issue with faith. And even the king says, “Yeah, Elisha’s a prophet,” but yet he doesn’t turn to him when he needs help and when he knows Elisha could talk to the Lord and receive information,

Hank Smith: 00:39:10 And this is great. When Naaman shows up, Elisha doesn’t even come out of the house. He’s like, “Yeah, yeah.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:39:15 No. He sends his messenger and he says, “Tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan river seven times.” Seven, again, this idea of completion, “and he’ll be cured of this skin disease.”

John Bytheway: 00:39:27 It’s like, “What’s his contact info? I’ll just text him just go do this.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:39:33 And so I think we can understand why Naaman sort of reacts. He’s angry. He’s angry at this. Not only would the prophet not come to talk to him, but he thought and he says this, “I thought the prophet would strike his hand over the place and cure it.” The prophet would come out and heal his leprosy using his hands. And now he just wants me to go and dip in the Jordan. And he says, I know of better rivers, cleaner, purer, nicer rivers than the Jordan river. I know you guys have been to the Jordan river, probably a few different places.

Hank Smith: 00:40:08 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:40:09 Up by Caesarea or Philippi, the headwaters, it’s pretty beautiful and clean. But when you’re down at the traditional baptismal site, it’s pretty muddy, isn’t it?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:40:17 Yeah. There are springs, natural springs and rivers in Israel that do have healing properties for skin. Think of the Dead Sea and Dead Sea mud and things like that. And so Naaman’s kind of saying, “Well, I can’t go dip in a river.”

Hank Smith: 00:40:31 That’s not amazing.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:40:32 He’s saying, “Didn’t even tell me to go to the good river.” But it’s great because the servants turn back to Naaman and say, “Hey, if the prophet had asked you to do something more difficult, would you do it then?” They say, “He just told you to do something really simple. So why won’t you just do it?” So Naaman does end up going and washing in the Jordan and is healed. So it’s perfect to see here, he thought it was too easy.

John Bytheway: 00:40:58 Yeah. Hank, didn’t you mention this in a talk about, “I love my friends.”

Hank Smith: 00:41:04 Yes, John. You’re so nice to bring it up. I really love this story because when I was out speaking to a group of teenagers, I had them write in their scriptures, “This is what a good friend does. A good friend will stand between you and a terrible choice and will say something.” It took some courage for this friend to come up and say, “You’re about to make a terrible decision. Do you want to rethink this?” And it changes Naaman’s life. If you really love your friends, I think that’s what you’ll do. Thanks, John.

John Bytheway: 00:41:39 Yeah. Hank, and I’ve heard you say, that I also love, is, “Don’t mix up your friends with your enemies. That’s what they did with Abinadi. That’s what Lahonti did with the Amalekiah. A friend will tell you, “Hey, wait a minute,” because they have your best interest in mind as this one did. “No, this is good. He gave you something easy, go do it.”

Hank Smith: 00:41:58 You don’t have to be condemning, right? A friend doesn’t have to come up and say, “Repent, swine.” You don’t have to do that. But if you see a friend… Naaman’s about to make a terrible decision. He’s just going to go home.

John Bytheway: 00:42:10 Well, I love what it says. He turned and went away in a rage. How many times have we gone away in a rage from good advice because it hurt our pride or our sense or something. Hopefully, we turn around and think about it or have a friend that helps us turn around and think about it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:42:27 This really seems like this servant is just reminding Naaman of his faith. You believed you could be healed. You believed this prophet could heal you, this holy man. So just because he’s doing it in a different way than you expected, still believe. Maybe you just have to change your perspective. And I think Naaman either thought the prophet himself was going to come out and do this big healing. Or maybe he thought that he was going to ask him personally to do something very, very difficult. And instead it was simple, “Go wash in the river.” And I think at times we do this too. We want things to be complicated and difficult and hard. So many times it’s not like that. The Lord wants us, he’s got these simple things he wants us to do. And if we do them, we can be healed.

Hank Smith: 00:43:14 Krystal, that’s so good. Sometimes we sit at general conference and we go, “Okay, President Nelson, what have you got for us?” And he says, “Go to the temple.”

John Bytheway: 00:43:24 Well don’t you have something else?

Hank Smith: 00:43:25 Isn’t it bigger? Don’t you have something?

John Bytheway: 00:43:27 Well, and I’m thinking of Jesus. “Peter cast your net on the other side.” “Listen, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.”

Hank Smith: 00:43:36 And we have tried that.

John Bytheway: 00:43:37 And then there’s this long pause, “Nevertheless, at the word. Okay, fine.” And then it works.

Hank Smith: 00:43:44 Wow. What a great story.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:43:47 It reminds me a lot too, of the brass serpent with Moses and the children of Israel when the snakes are biting them and the Lord says, “Make this serpent, put it on the pole. All people have to do is look.” And Alma and Helaman and others talk about it. A lot of them wouldn’t look. They just wouldn’t look. And I love the way Alma says when he is teaching the Zoramites. And he says, “If you knew that just looking could save you, wouldn’t you break your neck to look so quickly to save yourself?” And instead we want it to be difficult. It’s a faith thing here, right? And I love the servant reminds Naaman, “Hey, you believe. You believe in this. So keep believing. Remember you believe and follow through with what the prophet has asked you to do.”

John Bytheway: 00:44:32 Isn’t it wonderful here that these pivotal moments in the story are coming from a little maid and some servants saying to the kingly people. Where’s the wisdom coming from? It’s coming from little maid and from servants right here. I think one of the things I love about these stories is there are a little more focused on miracles than just on words. In the first page of the manual, page 121, it says a prophet’s main mission is to teach and testify of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Our record of the Prophet Elisha however, doesn’t include much of his teaching or testifying. What the record does include is the miracles Elisha performed. Including raising a child from the dead, feeding a multitude with a small quantity of food, and healing a leper.

John Bytheway: 00:45:17 So while we don’t have Elisha’s words, bearing witness of Christ, we do have throughout Elisha’s ministry, powerful manifestations of the Lord’s life-giving, nourishing, and healing power. Such manifestations are more plentiful in our lives than we sometimes realize. To see them we need to seek the miracle Elisha sought when he prayed on behalf of his fearful young servant. “Lord, I pray thee. Open his eyes that he may see.” That’s actually coming up in the next chapter. But I thought about this. I think it’s Matthew four, about verse 23, 28. Where it says Jesus went forth teaching and preaching and healing.

John Bytheway: 00:45:56 And I’m not exactly sure sometimes what the difference between teaching and preaching is, if it’s audience size or whatever. But this Elisha, I love that it was kind of leaning towards the last part. There were healings and miracles that people were seeing as he was taking over from Elijah, which makes this just a fun chapter. Because one after another, these kind of amazing things happen.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:46:21 Yeah. And that Naaman is, oh, he’s not an Israelite.

John Bytheway: 00:46:24 Yeah. He’s a Syrian.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:46:24 He’s from Syria. He’s from a completely different place. And so it’s this perfect example of the Lord is going to heal and the Atonement covers everyone, no matter where you are, your age, gender, wealth, any of that. And also that the Lord is going to put his message through as many people as possible. A little maid, a servant, a king, a prophet. And it’s perfect.

John Bytheway: 00:46:49 And I can even use the Jordan river to wash you.

Hank Smith: 00:46:52 Yeah. I love this. I don’t know why, but I’m feeling the power of these young missionaries who send people to a prophet. Who just go out on the streets of Chicago and say, “There’s a prophet in Israel. You can go to him and be healed.” And then look at verse 15. Naaman says, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.” The maid bore her testimony, which led Naaman to getting his own testimony. To the Natalie Bytheways out there, the Juliet Swanson’s out there, keep going you wonderful missionaries.

John Bytheway: 00:47:27 And that promise is we’re not sending out scholars, we’re sending out, what is section 35? “I call upon the weak and simple things of the world to thresh the nations by the power of my spirit. And their arm shall be my arm.” And it’s this amazing promise. So I love this. A little maid and some servants pivot the whole chapter.

Hank Smith: 00:47:49 I can’t imagine when Victoria Pierce goes on a mission. She’ll be like, “So when I did this dig, here’s what I found.”

John Bytheway: 00:47:56 Like, “Wait, what? You did?”

Hank Smith: 00:48:00 “I was with my parents.”

John Bytheway: 00:48:02 “You know how they are.”

Hank Smith: 00:48:03 “Here’s what we did for fun.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:48:05 Yeah. They like the dig now, but we’ll see in a few years how much they want to go and spend their entire summers digging. We’ll see.

Hank Smith: 00:48:14 All right, Krystal. What miracle do you want to do next? Let’s not slow down.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:48:17 All right. So when we get to chapter six, we have another miracle at the beginning. And Elisha is with the sons of the prophets. And they tell him that the place… It says, it’s translated as where they live is too narrow or small. So they need to go to Jordan, to the forest, cut down some trees and make it bigger. Now this is a good sign because we know the sons of the prophets have been having a hard time accepting Elisha. Now we hear that the place where they’re going to listen to him is too small. So he’s amassed this group of followers at this point who are accepting him, that they even need to make the place where they go to listen to him, where he teaches them, bigger.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:48:59 And so they go to Jordan and they start cutting down the trees. One of the men loses his ax head, his iron ax head in the water. He says, we do get this comment. He’s worried because it was borrowed. And so this iron ax head, he borrowed from someone and probably paid to rent it or something because the iron was very, very valuable and expensive at this point in time. And honestly, I think why we’re told it’s borrowed is because this loss of an ax head probably would’ve put this man and his family into debt, incredible amount of debt because of this. And might have led to this eventually debt servitude or slavery.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:49:41 And that’s why Elijah does this. Because sometimes I think we look at this as a man lost something and the prophet helps him find it. But there’s a lot more going on here. We are in the Iron Age, but it was very difficult to make iron and it was expensive. Elisha’s not just helping someone find a lost thing, but he’s saving him and his family probably from this debt. So he asks where it fell. Elisha cuts down a stick, throws it in the water. And the iron ax head comes up floating because of this.

Hank Smith: 00:50:13 The iron did swim.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:50:15 Yeah. And it’s amazing because, once again, Elisha is using different things they believed in. And they believed that properties could be transferred from one thing to another thing. We’ve already talked about transfer healing. We already talked about the salt curing the poison in the water, the flour curing the poison in the pot. Now we have the properties of this stick flotation properties is transferred to the iron and that’s why it floats. This is the way they would’ve understood it happening. They would’ve seen this as clearly a sign from God that Elijah was a prophet and that Jehovah was doing this miracle and not some other deity or magic.

Hank Smith: 00:50:57 Wow. So transferring, what did you call, the properties?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:51:02 Yeah, or the characteristics of…

Hank Smith: 00:51:04 Characteristics of the stick.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:51:05 Yeah. In the same way of the salt and the water and the flour and the stew. They believe that this is how it would work and it would definitely be a sign that Elisha is a prophet and the Lord has the power to help people and save people.

Hank Smith: 00:51:22 Man. I am writing so much in my scriptures today. I look like a real scriptorian here.

John Bytheway: 00:51:27 I know. And I need to go back and write it neater because I’m scribbling too fast to try to get it all.

Hank Smith: 00:51:32 Now we’re getting to the…

John Bytheway: 00:51:32 … the biggie.

Hank Smith: 00:51:32 … they that be with us. Yeah, the big one.

John Bytheway: 00:51:32 Everybody’s, “And now, the verse you’ve all been waiting for.”

Hank Smith: 00:51:32 When are they going to get to it?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:51:47 Oh, I know. I love this part. Oh, it’s so good. Let’s get to our last huge lesson or miracle that Elisha performs in these chapters. We read starting in chapter six, verse eight, that the king of Syria is warring against Israel. Elisha is warning the king of Israel every time the army moves. And I love the king’s response is, “We must have a spy because how do they always know where we’re going and what we’re doing?” And the officers, again, somebody we wouldn’t expect to say, “Actually, there’s a prophet who’s probably telling them where we are.” And so the king of Syria wants to seek out Elisha. He says, he’s in Dothan. And we know where Dothan is. It’s this huge site. It has a teller, a mound, 200 feet tall. So once again, Elisha and Elijah like going up to these tall places. And the horses and the chariots, a whole king’s army of Syria comes and surrounds Dothan, surrounds the city. And the servant asks Elisha, “What are we going to do?”

Hank Smith: 00:52:56 Can you imagine coming out that morning? He got up early and he looks up, oh wow. He runs back in, “What are we going to do?”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:53:05 And I love that Elisha’s sleeping, right? He’s not too concerned about it.

John Bytheway: 00:53:09 I can sleep when the wind blows.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:53:10 And then he has to be woken up. Elisha says to him, “Don’t be afraid.” And then we get this amazing verse 16 where Elisha says, “Fear not. For they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” The servant doesn’t see it. So he prays for the servant to see. The servant’s eyes are opened and he sees a mountain full of chariots and horses of fire surrounding Elisha and this area.

Hank Smith: 00:53:43 I like to think that Elijah was there. That’s just me though. The horses and chariots of fire, right? Elijah’s back.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:53:49 One of those chariots definitely had Elijah on it, for sure. So of course, again, we have the hosts of heaven, the armies of the Lord. We’re meant to be reminded that his armies and his support and his angels are way more than any army or enemy or anything that is coming at us. And sometimes we may feel we’re surrounded and that there’s nothing we can do. And so we need to pray to be able to recognize all of the help and support and love that the Lord gives to us. Now, as our protector, he’s going to fight for us. These chariots and horses are meant to show us that the Lord will fight for us. And that he’s there for us. This goes right along with all these characteristics that we’ve been talking about of the Lord that we see through Elisha.

Hank Smith: 00:54:41 I can’t believe how much when I teach in Matthew 8:9, how much I’ve been missing that Matthew was borrowing from these stories. He wants his Jewish reader to go, “Wow, this sounds awfully familiar.”

John Bytheway: 00:54:53 I think this is one of those stories that lets us know that we are part of a work. Oh, how did Sheri Dew say it once? That stretches across the street, across the world, and across the veil. And the way that we have articulated the new mission of the church in President Kimball’s day, it was proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints, redeem the dead. Now it is, “Live the gospel of Jesus Christ, care for those in need, invite all to come unto Christ and unite families for eternity.” And so President Nelson has said, “We’re gathering Israel on both sides of the veil.” And this sounds just so big, what we’re a part of right here. That they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

John Bytheway: 00:55:43 And I love verse 17, “Open his eyes.” So a lot of times, see the scriptures say, “Woe to the blind.” And you think, “Well, that’s rude.” But then it says, “That will not see.” It’s not the kind of blindness of physical, but they’re refusing to see. And I don’t think he was a bad person, but Elisha was so excited to say, “Lord, open his eyes that he can see what’s going on.” All of us, I guess, that’s a testimony. Do you know what this big thing is that you’re a part of? Hank, you mentioned the June 2018, President Nelson talking, I think you did. The greatest work you could be involved in is the gathering of Israel, right? That’s why you were sent to earth. That’s why you were sent to earth now. And this gives a real big picture to me. They that be with us are more than they that be with them. So I love this.

Hank Smith: 00:56:39 Yeah. John, you have a quote on your wall, don’t you, from Elder Holland, about your family?

John Bytheway: 00:56:45 Yeah, I do.

Hank Smith: 00:56:46 On the other side?

John Bytheway: 00:56:47 It’s right there. Don’t underestimate your family on the other side of the veil. Got mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, different periods of their life. And my mom and dad are gone now. They’re on the other side and they are also part of this work. I sometimes jokingly say, “My mom and dad are now the office couple in the hell spirit prison mission.” But we have felt their influence and it’s exciting.

Hank Smith: 00:57:23 For any of our listeners who are struggling in any way, I want to encourage you to go read a talk called For Times of Trouble, where Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, way back in, this is 1980 at BYU, it’s in the January of 1982 Ensign. There’s something about Elder Holland, where he can take a scripture story and make it sing. I’m going to read a pretty long quote here, if you guys don’t mind. He’s talking about the moment where the servant looks up and the city is surrounded that they’re in. And Elder Holland says this, I’m going to read the last couple paragraphs of this talk. “If Elisha was looking for a good time to be depressed, this is it. His only ally is a boy who in modern times might be the President of the local teacher’s quorum. It is one prophet and one lad against the world.

Hank Smith: 00:58:16 And the boy is petrified. He sees enemies everywhere, difficulty, despair, problems, burdens everywhere. He cannot leave. And all he can see is an evil and merciless city. With faltering faith, the boy cries, “How shall we do?” And Elisha’s reply? Fear, not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. In the gospel of Jesus Christ you have help from both sides of the veil, and you must never forget that. When disappointment and discouragement strike, and they will, you must remember, and never forget that if our eyes could be opened, we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection. They will always be there, these armies of heaven in defense of Abraham’s seed.”

Hank Smith: 00:59:14 And Elder Holland goes on, “I close with this promise. Verily, verily I say unto you, you are little children and you have not as yet understood how great blessings the father hath in his own hands and prepared for you. The kingdom is yours. The blessings thereof are yours and the riches of eternity are yours.” “Oh yes,” Elder Holland says, “we’ll find the place, which God, for us, prepared. On the way we’ll make the air with music, ring, shout praises to our God and king. Above the rest, these words will tell all is well, all is well.” Man, you guys, is that not the pen of heaven right there?

John Bytheway: 01:00:00 Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:00:01 Some of this I feel like is we need to pray and ask for our eyes to be open too, in the same way that this servant’s eyes are opened. In the same way that the woman with the child, her eyes became opened. And she was a believer. We’re not talking about unbeliever. Sometimes we just need that extra push, that extra little help. Or like Naaman, washing in the river. Just a little reminder, every once in a while, that we’re not alone. That the Lord is there and his armies are there and on both sides of the veil and our eyes just need to be opened to these miracles, I think.

Hank Smith: 01:00:39 Krystal, I’m going to do that. I’m going to add that to my prayers. God open my eyes. Please help me. I want to see. Please open my eyes. I think that’s beautiful. And the eyes of those we love. John, what were you going to say?

John Bytheway: 01:00:55 I have a President John Taylor quotation, August 6th 1882, Journal of Discourses volume 23, page 221.

Hank Smith: 01:01:05 Thank you for all of that detail.

John Bytheway: 01:01:06 I love this statement. God lives and his eyes are over us and his angels are around and about us. And they are more interested in us than we are in ourselves, 10,000 times, but we do not know it. And that’s just an amazing verse to me that they’ve always been there and they’re 10,000 times more interested in us than we are in ourselves.

Hank Smith: 01:01:47 Krystal, why don’t you take it from there?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:01:52 I love this aspect of the Savior that we get here. If we go back through some of these miracles and we talk about how Elisha represents the Savior, we talked about the Kinsman Redeemer with the oil. Saving us from servitude to sin, saving us from debt. We talked about him as the Savior overpowering death for us. We talked about him feeding and nourishing us. He’s the bread of life. But we get here, he’s a fighter. He’s going to fight for us. He wants us to win in the battle against sin, in the battle against every horrible thing that happens to us. He wants us to win. And all we have to do is ask him for help. Help opening our eyes, realizing our full, true potential. Ask for help, realizing that we’re not alone. That there are way more who are helping us than are against us.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:02:51 And every single one of these aspects of the Savior, we see later in the New Testament and in the Book of Mormon, when he teaches the people. He’s on our side and he wants us to win and he wants us to go out there and make sure everybody knows it. This is part of the gathering, making sure everybody understands their true identity as children of God and their true potential. And this is part of why I love Elijah and Elisha. Because they’re meant to show us this.

Hank Smith: 01:03:22 There’s a confidence in 2 Kings 6:16 that can really only come when you know God. You’re surrounded, “What are we going to do?” Fear not. Fear not, we’re fine. We’re okay. I remember when President Hinckley was interviewed by Mike Wallace for 60 minutes. Mike Wallace asked President Monson and President Faust who were his counselors at the time. He said, “How is he so positive? How is he so upbeat?” And President Monson said, “Oh, I think he knows how it all works out.” There’s a confidence that comes when you know how it’s going to work out. Fear not, we’re fine. And we want for that for each of our listeners. We want you to have that confidence in the Lord that you can see something as scary as this and say, “Fear not.”

John Bytheway: 01:04:17 It’ll all work out. In fact, Sheri Dew and her biography of President Hinckley had mentioned that if you’re around him, you will hear him say things will work out. And he always had that kind of faith. “The Lord is on our side.” I love what you’ve done here, Krystal. He’s a finder, he’s a healer, he’s a feeder, he’s a fighter. With all of these miracles you can put a role to each one of those that is foreshadowing the Savior. Thank you for that.

Hank Smith: 01:04:48 Absolutely. Krystal, this has been fantastic today. If anybody wants to hear about your journey of faith and scholarship, they can go back to your previous episode with us that we did on Noah, earlier this year. And anyone who has not heard that, please take the time and go back and listen to that episode. It was fantastic in every way. Krystal, so to finish this episode, I think our listeners would be interested in your major takeaways from this section. What would you say to our listeners who are like our listener, Amy Ry who are mowing the lawn or doing the gardening? What do you hope they take away from this week’s lesson?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:05:24 I especially want to focus on this word, hope, that you said. What do I hope for? I hope that this brings hope to everybody who’s listening. I hope that you realize that miracles can be any size, shape, form. And it’s just about us recognizing them. From losing an ax head, to being healed from leprosy, to curing the water in the well. That miracles are for entire cities, but also for individuals. And that God cares about every single one of his children. And part of it is opening our eyes, seeing the miracles in our own life. And realizing our true potential and that God loves every single one of us and finding hope in these chapters. I think that’s definitely the final takeaway from these chapters.

Hank Smith: 01:06:15 Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. We want to thank Dr. Krystal Pierce for being with us today. She is just brilliant and wonderful. And we’ve shared her with all of you. Thank you so much for being here, Krystal. It’s a joy. It really is.

John Bytheway: 01:06:31 Yeah. What a fun day.

Hank Smith: 01:06:33 We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, whom we love. And our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And we hope all of you, please come back next week, because we’re going to have another episode of followHIM. We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.