Hank Smith:                      00:03                   Hey, welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s Come, Follow Me lesson. John, Exodus one through six. You have a story and I’m ready to hear it.

John Bytheway:               00:15                   Yeah. We remember that both Moses and Enoch said something similar in the Pearl of Great Price, that I’m slow of speech, I’m of a slow tongue, I can’t talk. Well, in Exodus 4:12, the Lord says, “Now therefore go and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say.” Interesting phrase, “I’ll be with thy mouth.” I thought what is that gift of tongues? He helped him. I do have kind of a gift of tongue story. You know, Hank, that I am intrigued by World War II history.

                                           00:45                   I have a book called A Distant Prayer, and it’s by Joseph Banks and Jerry Borrowman. Elder Ben Banks was Joseph Banks’, I believe, youngest brother. When I read this book, I thought, okay, this is not like Hogan’s heroes. He was on a B-17 crew, shot down, spent time in a German prisoner of war camp. Towards the end of the war, the Germans say the Russians are coming, we’re gonna evacuate the camp and march you out of here. They march for like six weeks and then the Germans were ordered to the Russian front. So now these prisoners are on their own, they’re alone, if I remember right. They have a big white PW on the front and the back and on their pants that means prisoner of war. Well, this story’s so cool. They’re marching through these towns. They don’t have a map of Germany.

                                           01:33                   He said he tried to remember one the best he could. We crept along slowly and deliberately, these group of prisoners of war. Hardly making a sound maintaining 10 feet between each member of our team. Roland was a great leader at times like this because he never got excited or panicked. Suddenly, I was startled by a voice in the darkness as I instinctively turned to look, a door opened from my house on my left. The light from inside shone on me, and it was such an unexpected contrast from the darkness that temporarily blinded me. I stood there like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car unable to move. Suddenly, a German soldier came striding out of the house straight for me, followed by a woman. Fortunately, the field of light was restricted enough so they could only see me giving my three partners a chance to take cover.

                                           02:21                   As the soldier got closer, his shadow shielded my eyes enough for me to see a huge German tank parked next to the house. I could see the excited look in his eyes. I stood there transfixed, unable to move or make a sound. I didn’t know whether to run, put my hands up, fall to my knees, beg for mercy, so I just stood there. When he reached me, he shouted something unintelligible in German. Before I could think of what to do, I was startled to hear myself respond with a calm, confident German phrase that was obviously appropriate to what he’d asked me. He then replied to whatever I’d said with an almost cheerful ja, ja, ja. Then he put his arm around the woman, turned his back on me, and went back into the house and closed the door. I was so astonished and frightened, I simply stood there with my mouth open.

                                           03:07                   My buddies had seen and heard the whole thing. And when I didn’t move, they came out and grabbed me and pulled me behind a nearby outbuilding where we could hide. The whole encounter took only a few seconds. The first thing my buddy said was, “What on earth did he say to you? And what did you say back when you talked to him?” I told them I had no idea either what he said or I said. I couldn’t speak German. I knew that I didn’t use any of the few German words I learned in the POW camp like hello, yes or no, sir. Even if I had, my accent would have been terrible. A German would have recognized me as a foreigner immediately. Whatever I said had satisfied him, and all of us stood there marveling in disbelief of what had just happened. Considering I was standing fully in plain sight of this soldier with my straggly beard, tattered clothes, no coat, bright white letters painted on my trousers and shirt.

                                           03:56                   It was impossible he didn’t recognize me as an escaped prisoner. Instead of shooting me or calling for help though, he looked straight at me, spoke in his native tongue, listened to my response in a foreign tongue I had never spoken before, and he accepted my answer as legitimate. Even if the guards hadn’t figured it out, there was the woman who also stared at me and heard the words that passed between us. Why didn’t either of them figure out what was going on? As all of this settled in my mind, I felt a burning in my heart that told me I had been blessed once again and that the Holy Ghost had interpreted what the German had said to me and put the appropriate words in my mouth to respond. I’d been blessed with the gift of tongues. I don’t know what those two Germans saw, but obviously they didn’t see any letters on my clothing, though they should have stood out like a neon sign in the bright light that shown through the door.

                                           04:46                   The Spirit may also have changed what they saw. I think in some way, my appearance had been transformed so they didn’t recognize me. I’ve heard it said that for something to be a miracle, there can be no logical or earthly way to explain it. If that’s true, then I was clearly the beneficiary of a miracle, and it thrilled me to know that God was still watching out for me and that he cared for me. Wow. I will be with thy mouth. And that’s exactly what he did.

Hank Smith:                      05:17                   Oh my word. That’s amazing. What does the Lord say to Moses when Moses says, I won’t be able to say anything. Who made man’s mouth?

John Bytheway:               05:26                   Who made man’s mouth?

Hank Smith:                      05:28                   Have not I, the Lord?

John Bytheway:               05:31                   Yeah, that’s right.

Hank Smith:                      05:33                   That is awesome. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with Dr. Krystal Pierce this week. She’s awesome. She walks through these first chapters of Exodus. She has such an expertise that it’s really fun. You’ll see things you’ve never seen. Then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.