Exodus 1-6 Part 2 • Dr. Krystal Pierce • Mar. 23-29 • Come, Follow Me

Welcome to Part 2 with Dr. Crystal Pierce, Exodus 1 through 6.

This was a great plan until now.

I'm coming.

I'm going to deliver my people to a land of milk and honey.

Moses is like, this is a great plan.

I love it.

I agree with all of this.

That's why in verse 11, what does he say?

He says, who am I?

His identity, who am I?

An Egyptian who's going to go in there and change things in my Hebrew and I'm going

to go in there and save them in my midia night?

Why me?

I don't even know who I am at this point.

How can I do anything?

I've been gone for many years.

You don't want me.

I promise I'm not your guy.

I love God's answer to him.

I'll be with you.

You know who you are?

You're my son.

You're my prophet.

That's who you are.

It's translated as certainly in this word, God is saying, you can't fail because I'm

with you.

I'm going to give you a sign and the sign is someday you'll come back to this mountain

with all of those people and you'll be able to build a sanctuary here and worship

me.

He says, that's your sign.

Someday you'll come back.

I really like in verse 12.

He says, when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, it's not if.

And John, I love it when you say, when he says, who am I?

He doesn't say, come on, Moses, let's work on your self-esteem.

Let's have a self-esteem class.

Let's tell you how awesome you are.

He just says, I'll be with you.

And that's the promise that we hear every week at this argument table that we can have

his spirit to be with us.

Love that.

How often we hear that.

You're never, ever alone.

And we get some hints here that the reason why Moses failed before is because he just

charged in in his own strength.

Now at this point, God's like, no, I'm with you.

You're going in the strength of the Lord now, which changes everything.

It's interesting because we look at Moses as a great prophet.

You know, the Jewish community looks at him as the best prophet.

If the prophets need help from God, like how much do I need help from God?

John, it reminds me of B.A.

Roberts.

I don't know how to read.

My favorite stories, Truman Madison wrote a biography of B.A. Roberts.

Have you heard this, Crystal?

He saw a newspaper blow by.

He was on a begging tour with some people that his mother had already gone to American,

left him with a convert couple, the Tovis whose conversion was marginal.

He sees a newspaper blow by and he just thinks it's so magical that these little marks can

speak to people.

And it is pretty cool.

He says out loud, will these marks ever speak to me?

Will I ever read books?

He said he heard a soul voice that said, I, like A.Y.E., I, and you'll write them, too.

It's the best story.

He said, I sat in silence for a long time until Mother Tovi woke up and we resumed our

begging tour.

Finally when he got to Utah, a teacher named Hannah Holbrook.

There's an elementary school named after her up in Bountiful Utah.

Tought him to cipher is what Truman Madison said and he learned to read.

He finally wrote a comprehensive history of the church.

The cool thing Truman Madison said is, B.A. Roberts had to take over if I'm getting the

facts right when his mission president was ill.

He became the acting mission president there and I think in the southern states, he would

send copies of his comprehensive history to his former missionaries and he would put

his name and then underneath his name he would put, I, and you'll write them, too.

What a great story.

I love that.

And it's the same Lord doing this.

I will be with you and you should see your future.

It looks really good.

We're going to come back to this moment.

He knows our true potential.

He just has to convince us.

Yeah.

Moses has an interesting question here, Crystal.

He says, okay.

When I go to the children of Israel and say, yes, who it is, I'm here to save you.

They are going to say, okay, who sent you?

What do you want me to say?

Moses keeps it real.

He's, I need to be able to tell them exactly who sent me.

This is where we get the meaning behind the name Jehovah.

He says, this is what you're going to tell him.

I am that I am.

What better way to explain who God is than that he exists.

He's there.

That's the most basic foundational testimony.

I believe God exists.

I believe in God.

This is important to Moses if we want to do like a little bit of context here because

the Egyptians had over 2,000 gods.

Each one has a name.

You can think Moses is, they're going to want to know which God this is.

Jehovah answers and says, I am the God, the only God above all of these other Egyptian

deities.

This is the meaning of my name.

And then he clarifies.

He says, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This is who you're going to tell them that I am.

People translate this in different ways.

Some people say, oh, well, it's a present.

I am.

Some people translate it as I will be in the future.

Then he mentions Abraham as well.

I have existed.

I now exist and I will exist.

Basically saying, I'm infinity.

I'm eternity.

I'm God.

I'm everything.

Which is perfect.

Perfect description of God.

Oh, so good.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm reading into Moses, but he's got to be thinking, do you realize what they're

going to say to me when I tell them I'm here to answer their prayers?

They haven't had a prophet in a while.

All of a sudden he's going to show up and say, God speaking to me.

First of all, who are you?

Second of all, who is God?

These are a legit questions he wants to be prepared when he goes back.

He says, first thing you're doing is going to gather the elders.

These are probably the heads of the families, the households, the patriarchs.

They still had some hierarchy, even among them, even while they're in Egypt, and he says,

you need to go talk to them first.

He basically says, you're going to give them these code words.

I have surely visited you.

Now these were the same words prophesied by Joseph in Genesis 50, and they'll believe

you.

He tells them they're going to believe you.

They're going to listen to you, and then you're going to go with them to the king, and

you're going to ask the king for something very specific.

This is in verse 18.

He says, you're going to ask him to let you go and worship your God.

He says, you're going to ask them to let you go out into the wilderness to a holy space,

build an altar, sacrifice an animal, and worship your God.

The small request.

He's not asking for them to leave yet.

Ask if we can worship.

We want to extend it weekend.

Let us go.

We're going to go for three days, which is exactly how the Pharaoh takes it when he hears

it.

He's like, you want time off?

No.

That's not going to happen.

Crystal, here they're calling in King of Egypt, but it's still the Pharaoh.

Doesn't Pharaoh mean something about a house?

Pharaoh in Egyptian is par-a-a, which means the great house.

Originally, it referred to actually the palace in the same way we would call the White House

we all know what that means.

They called it the great house, and then eventually it becomes an actual title much later for

the King of Egypt.

Crystal, I've never seen this.

Moses quotes Joseph of Egypt, and I wonder if is this something that the elders visual

might go, how do you know that?

Maybe, yeah.

Yeah, it would be a sign, for sure.

It had been 40 years.

Maybe some of them, if they're the elders, the older ones, then they did know who Moses

was, or his story, or things like that, but maybe some of them didn't, too.

It would definitely be interesting that Moses all of a sudden is quoting this.

He's quoting Joseph, I like moments like that, where they don't believe him.

They don't believe him.

He says, well, here's what he sold me to tell you, wait.

He said, what?

It's right out of Genesis, but of course, who knows?

He tells them, you get together with the elders, then all of you are going to go to the

Pharaoh and ask him for a three-day weekend.

He's going to say no.

He tries to make it very clear to Moses that, verse 19, he's not going to let you go.

He says this over and over again.

It's not going to happen.

I think Moses is thinking of other things at this point, because he seems to forget this.

The Lord warned him, and even when the Pharaoh was like, okay, you can go, but now I'm going

to chase after you.

He never really fully let them go.

He says in verse 20, I'll stretch out my hand and smite Egypt.

He's using an Egyptian symbol here against the Egyptians, because we have this thing in

Egyptian art called the smiting scene.

The Pharaoh shows himself with his hand raised above his head, with prisoners or captives

or foreigners, and he's got a mace or some sort of weapon, and he's smiting.

This is definitely meant to be, the Pharaoh is not going to be doing the smiting anymore.

The true power comes from God.

He's the one that is going to be dealing out justice, basically.

He's the one who has power and strength, and he gives this prophecy.

He says, and actually, by the time you need to leave, you'll have favor in the side of

the Egyptians.

You won't even leave empty handed.

The Egyptians are going to give you all of this stuff when you leave.

There's some bad translations here, so this word borrow, the word in Hebrew is just ask.

They didn't borrow, they didn't steal, they didn't take, they asked the Egyptians.

Will you give us stuff, and some of the Egyptians were friendly with them, and probably

were like, you're leaving, we love you actually, take this stuff and go on your journey on your

way.

Some of the other Egyptians, probably more of them, were like, get out, we will pay you

to leave.

We will pay you so the plagues never happen again, please.

Not only will they let you go, they'll pay you to leave when you're like, what?

Look my gold as long as you never come back and take those plagues and things with you.

Crystal, John, I noticed that even though Moses has had this reassurance from God, he

still is not super convinced.

This is chapter 4 verse 1, Moses answered and said, but behold, they will believe me.

They will not believe me, and they're not going to obey me, because I know what they're

going to say.

They're going to say, the Lord has not appeared to you.

First God reassuring him, and Moses is very human.

Everybody needs faith.

Everybody, the prophets, us, everybody doubts themselves sometimes, and God's trying to help

us feel strong and confident.

He has our back.

No wonder I think in chapter 4 the Lord gets a little frustrated finally and says, done

with the self-doubt, go and do what I've told you to do.

He does try to work with Moses, where Moses is at.

Then he says, okay, Moses, I'm going to give you three miracles you can perform.

If you perform these three miracles for the elders, they'll know that these are divine

miracles, and God is speaking to you, and God is instructing you.

Moses says, they're not going to blame me on this, and the Lord asked him a question.

He responds, what's in your hand?

Moses looks down, and he's a shepherd.

He turned off from the sheep and everything, and he's like, it's a rod, but it's a shepherd's

crook.

Jehovah says, throw it on the ground.

So he does it.

He throws it on the ground.

It becomes a serpent, and Moses runs away.

Moses is so real.

He's the one who just did this, and he runs away.

He's like, a snake.

I hope that made the Lord smile, Crystal.

I hope the Lord is by running away from it.

The Lord, he has a sense of humor.

We see it.

Sometimes it's lost on us because of translation and culture and things.

There might have been a little giggle.

There had to be a laugh there.

It's interesting, because then he says, pick up the snake by the tail, which is not how

you pick up a snake.

If you've ever seen snake wranglers go for the head, you secure the head, you secure

the fangs, you secure the venom.

To me, this shows progression and faith, because Moses does it.

First he's running away, and now he's back picking it up by the tail, and it becomes a

rod back in his hand.

There's so much symbolism here in terms of ancient Egypt.

These signs are for people who are Egyptian or who have lived in Egypt for hundreds of

years.

The shepherd's crook is a symbol of kingship, power, and authority.

The Pharaohs hold him.

Exactly.

He has the crook in the flail.

The shepherd's crook is the mercy, so he uses it to pull the people in.

The flail, which is sort of like a whip, is justice.

That's to beat the people when they're bad, and the king's supposed to be this balance

of justice and mercy.

This sign of authority, strength, mercy is now being saying, who carries the rod now?

Who carries the authority now?

Who has the power now?

And it's the same thing with the serpent.

Of course, there are serpent deities in Egypt, and there was one specifically tied to

the king.

Her name is Wajit, she is on the crown.

So even if we go back to King Tut, the Eureus, the cobra, that's Wajit.

Wajit protected the king by spitting fire.

She's described as spitting fire venom at the king's enemies and protecting the king.

It's a symbol of a deity has your back.

So what is this a symbol of?

Who has the divine power now?

Who has God's blessing now?

Who has the authority, kingship?

This specific one would have sent a message, a strong message.

That's so fascinating.

John, do you love having an expert here?

To sign the symbol of the snake here belongs to Jehovah, belongs to Jesus Christ.

It's interesting because we never think snake and Jesus Christ together.

Crystal, this is a discussion for a later time, but is that similar to why Moses describes

Satan as trying to be a serpent in the garden.

He's trying to be divine.

Yeah.

And that word for serpent in the garden means to trick someone, to try and be crafty and

trick somebody and make them think something that's not true.

So it fits.

This is the stuff that I just get excited about.

Your worlds are coming together here.

Your scripture, you're using God and your Egyptian, your love of Egypt.

All my favorite things all together.

That's what happened in ether when we did ether one through five, I remember.

Got a new word today, wadjet.

Yes, wadjet.

Last time was Deshret.

Now it's wadjet.

Yeah.

Manna is what is it?

This is wadjet.

Yeah.

Wadjet.

These are signs that aren't supposed to produce faith.

These are signs that Jehovah is giving to Moses to let the elders of Israel know he's

a prophet, a true messenger, Moses anticipating the elders saying, if you're not a prophet

of Jehovah.

So he's saying, all right, here's a couple of things you can use to let them know that

I did.

Yeah.

You know, if snakes represent this deity, it also shows that Jehovah and Moses have

power over this Egyptian goddess too.

That's really what the plagues are about.

All of these Egyptian gods are represented by each plague.

They're nothing compared to Jehovah and his power.

The battle of the gods.

The plagues are against the gods of Egypt.

They're not just random.

Manna, let's try frogs.

Each plague represents an Egyptian deity and most of them are creator deities.

I hold Kermit the plague here and they are everywhere.

They're in the oven, they're in the chamber, they're in the oven, they're everywhere.

You're hip, deep in frogs.

Crystal, what's the next miracle?

What's the next sign?

Okay.

So the next sign, he says, put your hand into your robe and when he pulls it out, he sees

that it is leprous as snow.

This word leprous, we think of Hanson's disease, a very specific form of skin disease when

we think of leprousy, but this covered all types of skin diseases.

Some of them, when they get really bad, the skin would turn white and flake off.

That's what's this whitest snow.

It's the worst type of skin disease you can get.

What's interesting about this is they believed at this time that when you had some sort

of typically a physical ailment, it's because God gave it to you as a punishment.

They believed this in Egypt all over the ancient Near East.

The only way you would get rid of it is if God took it away.

This is definitely supposed to send a message that this is divine.

This sign, giving leprousy, healing leprousy, instantly God is involved.

God is giving Moses this power.

Only God could do something like this.

I'm looking in the other translations and quite a few don't use leprous, they use diseased.

That makes a little more sense.

It shall come to pass if they will not believe the, neither harken to the voice of the first

sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

Here's two.

Just in case the whole snake thing doesn't impress them, try the hand trick.

They're progressively supposed to be more miraculous.

When we get to verse 9, he says, so the last sign, the biggest sign is taking water from

the Nile and pouring it on the land and then it becomes blood upon the land.

Kind of hinting at future plagues.

Forshaddling.

This again is control over nature.

Of course, the Nile was represented by an Egyptian God.

His name was Hoppy.

This is saying, and Hoppy is blue, so it's this idea of Hoppy doesn't control the Nile.

Egyptian gods, Pharaoh doesn't, Jehovah does, and Jehovah is in charge of what happens

with nature and creation.

So to us these are miracles, but to them they'd speak even louder, given their environment

being in Egypt.

Exactly.

These are meant for people who are Egyptian or have lived in Egypt for hundreds of years.

They would recognize all of these as a different type of power than they had ever seen before.

Yeah.

Crystal, is it okay if I laugh at the next part where he's given him these three miracles?

And then Moses says, I don't think this is going to work.

The Lord finally gets frustrated, it seems.

He really does.

It's almost like Moses is like, all that's great in everything, but I'm not good at speaking.

It doesn't matter if I can do miracles, I'm not eloquent, I'm slow of speech, I have

a slow tongue in the Joseph Smith translation, he tells us, because Moses keeps saying this

over and over and over again, that he puts in stammering lips and some people believe

that Moses had an actual speech impediment, some sort of speech impediment.

What he's asking here is possibly cure my speech impediment, heal me, cure me.

You just gave me leprosy and cured it, let's do this, because I am not confident in

the way I speak.

Now some people do think that maybe this is more of, I haven't been in Egypt for 40 years.

My Egyptian is rusty, my Hebrew is a little rusty too, because we do think the Midianites

spoke their own dialect, their own Semitic language.

How am I supposed to talk to Pharaoh in Egyptian or Hebrew to the children of Israel?

He sounds like he's not confident about his speech at all.

I love the Lord just says, well, you just go very well, he's like, I'm done.

He says, who made your mouth?

Who's the creator?

You're speaking to the creator.

I'll be with your mouth.

I'll tell you what to say, you don't have to worry about that, don't worry about that.

Just go and do it.

Listen to the contemporary English version, does this not sound like almost anyone who

has to speak?

I've never been a good speaker.

I wasn't one before you spoke to me and I'm not one now.

I can never think of what to say.

I think we've all felt that at some point.

Every time I stand up in front of my students, please, Lord, help me know what to say and not

have stammering lips and be eloquent and know what they need.

I worry about it too.

We're probably projecting onto the Lord here, but I just like the idea that Moses keeps

coming up with reasons why this isn't going to work.

And I do think this is kind of the height of this identity thing because by telling him

in verse 12, I will be with thy mouth and teach me what to say.

He's saying, you are a prophet.

This is how we define prophets in the Old Testament.

They speak the words of God.

They speak on behalf of God.

So Moses says, I can't do it.

I'm not eloquent.

I don't know Egyptian.

I don't know Hebrew.

I can't speak.

Who am I?

Who am I doing?

And God says, you're a prophet.

And I'm with you and you're a child of God and you're a child of the covenant.

You can do it and all those other things.

Those are secondary.

We'll figure those out.

All that matters is that I'm with you.

Crystal, I don't know exactly how to read the next verse.

Is Zim saying still objecting?

Yes, this is a bad translation.

He basically says, I'll go if you make me, but if there's anyone else you can send, please

send them.

That's basically what he's saying.

Please send someone else, but if you can't find any other person on the earth to send,

then I'll go.

And that's why verse 14 says, the anger of the Lord was kindled.

He's like, I literally just told you I'll be with you and I'll tell you what to say.

And you're still doubting yourself.

It's interesting because this word anger here in Hebrew.

It actually is the same word as nose or face.

It means rapid breathing.

You're trying to stay calm and patient.

You're trying to not lose it.

I think of God as he's being patient.

And he gives him an act of mercy.

He says, what about Aaron?

Aaron is confident in his speech.

He'll be happy to see you.

I love this.

They haven't seen each other for 40 years.

He's like, okay, it's great though because he doesn't say, so I'll tell Aaron what to

say.

He doesn't say that.

He says, what we're going to do is I'm going to tell you what to say.

And then you're going to tell Aaron what to say.

And then Aaron's going to tell the children of Israel.

Sending Aaron is so merciful.

It's almost training Moses to become confident and a prophet himself.

Because eventually God goes straight through Moses.

God tells Moses and Moses tells the children.

He doesn't need Aaron anymore as the intermediary, the sort of in between.

He knows at this point, this is what Moses needs.

Moses didn't need his speech, whether it was an impediment or language, healed, cured.

He knew Moses needed some support, some help through Aaron.

That would get him to the point where he felt like he was good enough to be able to do

it.

Man, I'm following this exchange.

It seems so human.

I see this miraculous burning bush.

I come over.

This you're my son.

I don't think so.

I don't think I'm your guy.

I will be with you.

I'm going to help you.

What am I supposed to say?

Here's this cool thing that Joseph of Egypt said.

Give them that.

And then they're not going to believe me.

All right.

Here's some miracles.

Let's give you that.

I don't think I can talk very well.

What do you think made man's mouth?

Please send someone else.

This is an exchange that a lot of us have had with the Lord.

Is there anyone else that can do it?

Yeah.

There's a line in the come follow me lesson manual that says, God gives power to people

he calls to do his work.

President Benson used to say whom God calls God qualifies.

So the Lord is telling him over and over and finally says, we'll take your brother

with you.

Yeah.

The Lord knows he can do it.

Moses doesn't believe he can do it.

To me, this is such an active mercy.

Sometimes God answers our prayers not through taking away the hardship or directly answering

it, but he sends people to answer our prayers.

He works through people.

This is the way God speaks to me.

This is the way God answers my prayers.

This resonates with me that he sends people.

The strangest thing happened 10 years ago in my life.

I know it was 10 years ago because my son was a newborn and now he's 10.

I was going through a major transition in my life at that point, having to choose between

two paths.

Both paths were good because one of those ones were making choices about my career and

my future and I felt God telling me to go down one path to make one choice and he was

being very clear about it.

But I felt other people and society, my friends, had other advice and had thought maybe this

other path was the proper way to go.

I was struggling taking that leap of faith, going against what everybody else was saying

into what I felt like God was telling me to do.

In the middle of all of this, we were up late one night.

It was like one or two in the morning as parents are when they have a newborn in the house

pretty late and we heard a knock on the door.

George goes down, he looks, I'm like, who is it?

What is it?

He says, there's a girl out there crying and he's like, what do we do?

I was like, let her in, open the door, get her inside because that's my instincts right

or immediately like crying girl.

Open the door and there's this young girl there and she's like 19 or 20.

She's sobbing, never seen her before, had no idea who she was.

We invited her in, it came and sat with her on the couch.

She said that she had graduated from high school and she had met this guy, fallen in love

with him and he had convinced her to run away with him, move out of her house and he had promised

her all these things.

We'll get married.

We're going to do all these things and in the process, she had kind of had a falling

out with her family because they felt like she was making the wrong decision.

She had been with him for a few months and had realized she had made the wrong decision.

They would never get married, he wasn't going to keep these promises and she felt lost

and hopeless and she didn't know what to do.

She felt like she couldn't reach out to her family because they wouldn't accept her

back.

She said she was driving around that night, just sobbing, crying, trying to decide what

to do and she heard a voice say, go to that house right now, knock on the door, ask for help

and it was our house.

I sat with her for quite a while talking and saying, call your mom, call your mom, call

your parents.

You never know what will happen if you don't try and eventually I asked her to do a blessing

and she said yes.

Called George, George called the bishop.

I'm sure he was like, who, what is going on but he comes over straight over.

They give her a blessing.

She didn't really want us to know her name or specifics about her.

After the blessing, she looked up and she said, I know what I need to do.

I'm going to call my mom and she was gone out the door.

Thank you.

Bye.

Never saw her again.

Sometimes even when I think back on it, I'm like, was she an angel or a real person?

Like who was that?

The thing is, later when I was thinking about this, I started to realize that she was

sent to me not necessarily for her and her situation, but for me to show me what a leap

of faith is.

If this young girl who was 19 and felt like she wasn't keeping her covenants could listen

to God and immediately stop and knock on a stranger's door at two in the morning, I could

take it a leap of faith.

I could see what God wanted for me and do what he said, do what he told me to do and

make that decision and block out what everybody else was saying.

Now in hindsight, it looked back and it was the right decision and it was incredible.

I don't know what happened to her, but I know what happened to me.

This is one of those examples to me, just like Moses and Aaron, where God sent somebody

because I didn't have the confidence to make that decision, to take that leap, but that

girl who came out of nowhere and disappeared taught me that.

It changed everything for me.

This just reminded me of it.

Wow.

President Kimball might say, God does notice us and he watches over us, but it is usually

through another person that he meets our needs.

That's a cool story, Crystal.

I know.

I thought if she can do it, I can do it.

I know who you are, Crystal, that's so cool.

He had been sending me this message and this happens to me so often.

He tells me what to do and I doubt myself.

I'm not sure.

And then somebody else comes along and makes it very clear what I'm supposed to do.

In our day, we could have likened this to a mission companion.

I can't do this.

Well, that's why I'm going to give you a companion.

Yeah, and that's Aaron.

You do the thinking, Aaron, I'll do the talking.

All right.

You guys go together.

I think every parent has reached this point that the Lord gets to, which is, all right.

What do you need to go?

If you're that scared here, I'll give you Aaron.

He'll help you get underway.

Let's just get going.

And it gives Moses enough confidence to go because he goes right back to Jethro and he

says, I got to get back to my brothers.

He uses the term brothers again.

He's getting back into this.

I got to get back to my people.

I'm going to save my people.

And I got to get back to my brother because he's going to be the one to really help me.

He packs up his wife and his sons and they head towards Egypt.

It's funny because the Lord reminds him again in verse 21.

He says, by the way, I've already mentioned this.

But when you ask Pharaoh, he's not going to let you go.

It's interesting because it says, I will harden his heart.

I think we immediately are like, whoa, wait a minute, whoa.

God doesn't go around hardening people's hearts.

The commentaries grapple with this and they try all kinds of language gymnastics to make

this work.

And what do we have?

We have the Joseph Smith translation.

JST, he says, Pharaoh will harden his heart.

He makes it very clear we're talking about Pharaoh.

Thank you to Joseph Smith.

Thank you to that prophet who is teaching us about this prophet here.

It's incredible.

Now what a blessing to not have to grapple with that.

It makes sense.

He does this so many times throughout all of these.

He clarifies.

He adds some of that's from his own hard work and knowledge and studying of Hebrew.

And a lot of that is from revelation from God.

Having God help him better understand these passages.

It's incredible.

Crystal, you're reminding us of that because you said Moses is going to seem to forget

this part.

Yeah, he forgets.

He says, this is exactly what you're going to say to Pharaoh.

And this is in verse 22.

We get the thus saith the Lord, which is a mark of a prophet.

When a prophet says thus saith the Lord, it's almost like God says quote, Israel is my

son, even my firstborn.

Let my son go that he may serve worship sacrifice for me.

And if thou refuse, then your son, your firstborn will be killed.

That went intense pretty quickly.

Yeah.

You don't let him go.

If you look at this, it says firstborn, then he says son and then firstborn.

This means there's a covenantal relationship here.

When we covenant with Heavenly Father, we covenant with the Savior, there's a relationship.

That means we have promises and they have promises.

When the covenant is broken, which is what he's saying here, if you don't let them worship,

the covenant is broken, there's justice coming and they're not going to die.

You might think, well, the Lord's being a little over the top here, well, he made a covenant

with Abraham.

Right?

He made a promise to Abraham that this family was going to bless all the families of the

earth, not doing this would be God not fulfilling his part of the covenant.

There's covenantal mercy and there's covenantal justice.

The justice is going to fall on the Pharaoh because he's the one who is affecting all of

these covenantal promises, posterity, prosperity, priesthood.

They're not allowed to worship.

They're not allowed to sacrifice.

They're not allowed to go to Canaan.

He says, you go warn the Pharaoh.

This is a problem.

Yeah, it reminds me, John, I bet you can reference this.

The Lord says, you might as well stretch forth your puny arm and stop the Missouri River,

Missouri, and it's a great course, then to the revelations coming down on the heads of

the Latter-day Saints to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon

the heads of the Latter-day Saints.

He's like, don't try to stop this.

What happens?

Is he going to do it?

Is he actually going to do this?

Okay, you want me to walk into Pharaoh like, okay.

And it's interesting because there's this is a heavy moment.

He's like, this is what you're going to say.

And all of a sudden, we get verse 24 where it says Moses is traveling, the Lord met him

and sought to kill him, and you're like, no, wait, what?

We don't think of the Lord hardening hearts or killing people.

We tend not to think of it in that way.

The Joseph Smith translation makes it clear.

It says his hand was about to fall upon him to kill him, but it gives us a reason.

So the Joseph Smith translation, it says because he had not circumcised his son.

We are meant to tie this situation with exactly what Jehovah just said, covenantal bonds,

keeping the commandments.

And of course, under the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision was a token of the covenant.

Moses for some reason hadn't circumcised his son.

He had broken the covenantal bond.

We see it's actually that's what this word, the word kill here.

In Hebrew, it usually signifies a covenantal breach or a sin.

So he's basically saying, Moses, how can we expect you to go and talk about the covenant

and say, justice is coming when you haven't kept your covenant?

You've got to take care of yourself first before you can start to help other people.

You've got to live the covenant before you can teach it.

Exactly.

Putting it this way is really hard, but it's interesting because this idea of circumcision,

it's related to the word the Hebrew word to make a covenant.

The word is to cut, to cut a covenant.

Formally it's to cut in stone, what's formal, binding, legal, cut in stone.

That's why we see every token of the covenant has something to do with cutting or bleeding,

cut or blood.

Even this word to kill, this is another cut word.

You didn't keep your cut, covenants by cutting circumcision, you'll be cut.

There's all of this symbolism here.

That's why we have animal sacrifice, this is why we have circumcision.

This is why we have some people when they keep or fulfill a covenant, we'll see this

in the Old Testament, they cut their hair.

There's all kinds of cutting, that's why we have the Passover with the blood.

Even when Jesus says the law of animal sacrifice is fulfilled, He says there's a new law of sacrifice.

It's still cutting.

Think about a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

It's still a cut heart and a cut spirit.

It still continues.

So there's so much symbolism here.

He says if you cut this covenant, but you're not following the covenant, there's justice.

There's a cutting, there's a justice here.

Of course, all of it is covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ, all of it.

All the cuttings, the blood, the sacrifice, everything was meant to point to him, always.

His sacrifice, his cutting, being cut, his bleeding from every poor,

him being on the cross, all of those things, covered all of these other cuttings,

all of these other things.

It's beautiful how it just all ties together like that.

They probably learned this from Jethro.

Do you think?

Yeah.

And he wasn't living it.

Yeah, he didn't, for some reason, and we're not sure why.

He didn't circumcise one of his sons.

There are different theories like he was preoccupied with other things,

like speaking to God in the fiery bush and traveling to Egypt and becoming a prophet,

that he kind of forgot about his most basic covenants he had already made.

Sometimes we get distracted, preoccupied,

and we forget our very basic foundational covenants, you know, that we've made

commandments and things like that.

Wow.

I don't know if I'm going to teach this part to the 12 and 13-year-olds when I get there.

I hope it's the other teacher that week.

Gospel God.

We're not under the law of circumcision anymore.

But the principle is still there, that you have to live the gospel before you can

teach the gospel, and that his wife helps him lift the gospel.

Supporters like, let me take the reins here or the knife.

It's fascinating because Moses could have just done it.

Moses could have been like, I'm the prophet, I'm the father, I'm doing this.

But it's a poor who sticks in.

She takes a flint.

This is a flint knife.

These were much more hygienic, sharper, more readily available.

She uses that to circumcise her son.

She steps in.

It's the same reason when they said that when they make a covenant, he says,

put your hand under my thigh.

The idea is like posterity.

Yeah, but goes back to creation.

You know, and this is why she calls him a bloody husband, which sounds

awful or like you're swearing or something in another country.

It's basically she's saying your covenant is restored.

Your covenantal relationship is restored through Sephora,

through the actions of this woman.

Then verse 26, it says, so he let him go.

This is so Jehovah let Moses go.

Joseph Smith gives us that too in the translation.

He makes it very clear.

Because of Sephora's quick thinking, quick action,

she is able to basically save Moses, restore that covenantal relationship for him.

So he becomes, once again, a husband of the cutting, a husband of blood.

The footnote says there is some covenant significance in this also verse 26, like you just said.

Crystal, so he let him go.

That's going to be the same language they use with Pharaoh.

If you keep the covenant, you'll be delivered.

That's the promise.

If you don't, then justice comes.

Yeah, it's a lesson here of live this privately.

And you'll be let go.

Okay, now go do that same thing publicly.

You're going to go talk to Pharaoh, keep your covenants.

Maybe the Lord really wasn't trying to kill him, but teach him.

Yeah, it's justice.

When we sin, we spiritually die.

We're spiritually killed when we sin.

We are separated from God even more and more.

And the only way to overcome that is to restore that relationship through repentance,

through the atonement.

I think this is the lesson here.

And I love it.

The support is the one who steps in and helps him.

Moses has all of this support, so much support as he goes through this.

I think that this is an absolutely true principle.

One, we have to live what we teach.

There's no power in trying to teach principles.

You don't live.

And two, your spouse can help you live what you teach.

No one would know the intimate parts of your life like your spouse.

I can say that in my life.

I try to teach the gospel and I try to live what I teach and my wonderful wife Sarah

helps me live what I teach.

There's a great story here, even though it's a little bit told in an odd way.

Yeah, and I love that support.

His name means little bird, but she is not a little bird.

I think in her mind, she's like, I'm going to save my husband.

I'm going to save my child and I will do whatever it takes to help my family and step in and save them.

You brought that up about spouses because I know it's the same for me with George.

We're so different from each other that we fill in the gaps for each other.

We're puzzle pieces that he's laid back and he's chill and he takes giant leaps of faith.

So giant.

I'm like scared for him.

You know, and he believes it's going to work out.

And it does.

And for me, I'm like, it'll work out if I have a spreadsheet and a 20-step plan,

but we work together.

We balance each other out in that way.

I love that Moses and Zapura, they balance each other out too.

I think it was Elder Maxwell that talked about Mary someone with compensating competencies.

That's good.

You're strong where I'm weak in vice versa.

And if your wife has a sharp flint,

Moses fled.

And Moses fled.

She just acts.

I love it.

Moses is he's the one who wants the instructions and

confidence and she's just jumps into it.

Let's do it.

That's so great.

I usually say if I'm doing something wrong, the Lord will tell me,

or he'll tell my wife.

That's usually how it goes.

Usually I'm not going to tell someone in my ward.

He's usually going to tell me, or he's going to tell my wife.

Something needs to change.

Now he's ready, Crystal.

Man, this has been a lot of tutoring and a lot of mentoring.

Yeah, a lot of training.

Back and forth with God, yeah.

If Moses is the best and this is what he goes through,

we got to go through some things too to get to where our full potential is.

And we kind of think at this point in support, and the kids go back.

It's time for them to go back.

Babies just been circumcised.

They need to take care of that.

But Moses goes on.

Aaron is told to go and meet him.

And I love it.

It says when they meet together,

they're so excited.

It's been 40 years since these brothers have seen each other.

And maybe even Aaron is like, is Moses dead?

And Moses is like, is Aaron still alive?

They see each other and it says they kiss.

And this kiss, many times when we see this in Hebrew,

it signals a restored relationship.

Esau and Jacob kiss when they see each other.

David and Absalom kiss when they see each other.

It's a like, we're back together.

We're inseparable.

We are going to do this together.

Almost representative again of a covenantal relationship.

Moses tells Aaron.

I wonder if Aaron's like, what?

Can you imagine telling this story?

And then he said this and I said that.

And then he said, throw the serpent on the ground.

Aaron's going.

I think Aaron's like, last time I saw you,

you had killed an Egyptian and left.

Now he's like, you're a prophet?

What happened?

What's going on?

But he believes him.

He accepts him.

He says, let's go.

Verse 29, it says they go to the elders.

And they do the signs.

And in verse 31, it says the people believed.

The people believed.

Moses is probably like success.

Finally, finally, my people believe me.

They accept me.

This is going to work out great.

That takes us into chapter five.

They get to Pharaoh.

They do the thus saith.

He's saying, here, we're going to tell you.

The Lord God of Israel says,

let my people go so that they can hold a feast,

a sacrifice, worship in the wilderness.

Exactly what the Lord told him to say.

And Pharaoh's answer, who?

Who's Jehovah?

You just said Jehovah.

Who?

Why would I obey him?

I don't know who Jehovah is.

You can imagine Moses is like, oh, no.

Yeah.

But for Pharaoh, it's a legitimate question.

He's like, I know 2000 Egyptian gods.

And I just went through them.

I don't recognize that name.

Jehovah, who is that?

But the Pharaoh is eventually going to regret asking that.

His Jehovah is like, you want to know who I am?

I will show you exactly who I am.

They try to explain to him.

He's the God of the Hebrews.

He met with us.

He's like, I just told you he's the God of Israel.

He is the God of the Hebrews.

Please let us go.

We need to fulfill our covenantal obligations

through worship and sacrifice.

Or justice is coming.

He warns the Pharaoh.

Justice is coming because

if you're keeping us from these things,

pestilence, the sword,

all sorts of things could happen.

Which Pharaoh should understand,

because they also believed if you didn't keep your gods happy,

they would send wars and diseases and all sorts of things.

But Pharaoh's still like,

I don't know who you're talking about.

Who is this?

Because the Egyptians also believed that the Pharaoh was part divine.

The Pharaoh is probably thinking,

no, no, no, I'm a God.

Typically, throughout Egyptian history,

the Pharaoh represented the God Horus on earth.

And then after the Pharaoh died,

he became deified, fully divine.

They would build temples to these kings,

to these pharaohs and they'd go in them and worship them.

But some Egyptian kings,

in a great example of this is Ramsey's The Second,

decided they wanted to be worshiped in life.

So they deified themselves fully into gods while they're alive.

Ramsey's liked himself so much.

He built so many temples where people could worship him.

He even built a temple and there are scenes in the temple

of himself worshipping himself as a God.

This is how strongly they felt.

He liked himself a lot.

So I can see the Pharaoh is also like,

no, no, no, no, no.

There's no God stronger than me.

There's no God stronger than the Egyptian God of Pharaoh.

And that's why he's saying, who is this?

He has no power.

And he tells them to get back to work.

He basically accuses Moses and Aaron of trying to ask for a time off

for the children of Israel.

He's like, you're just lazy.

And there are so many of them.

Can you imagine how that would affect our workforce?

If I just let them go and take three days into the wilderness,

all the sacrifices and then three days, but that's a weak off.

I'm not going to do that.

This is an excuse, he says.

And so Pharaoh says, you know what?

If you have so much time to ask for time off,

you feel so far ahead of your work.

Well, we're going to give you some more work.

We're going to actually double your work.

He goes to the taskmasters and the taskmasters are the Egyptians

who are in charge of the work crews.

In verse six, they're officers.

And the officers are actually some of the Hebrew people.

The word here for officer, it's related to the word for scribe.

And so these are the ones of the children of Israel

who are recording what's being accomplished in terms of the work.

They're keeping track of how many bricks are made, how many days.

And he says, okay, then we'll just tell the officers and the taskmasters.

They don't get straw deliveries anymore.

They have to go find their own straw, their own binding agents.

If they have so much time to ask for a vacation,

we'll give them more work to do.

I'll give you something to cry about.

It's in this verse eight.

It says the tale of the bricks.

This is an odd translation for saying the quota.

He says, the quota won't change.

Even though now you have to go find all your own straw,

which means going to the fields,

cutting the straw, chopping it up,

taking it back to the brick making site,

and then starting the brick making process.

But doubles their time.

But he says, you should make the same amount.

And then in verse nine, he says, maybe then they will not regard vain words.

Saying, Moses and Aaron, maybe they won't believe Moses and Aaron anymore.

If we make life even worse for them.

They'll think Moses is a liar and a fraud.

Because God told him to do this and he wasn't successful.

So how could Moses not be a liar?

He's definitely trying to sew some discord among the people, for sure.

Moses a little like Nephi.

Okay, that did not go.

That did not go as planned.

Poor Moses.

I don't know.

The poor guy has his ups and downs.

Even though God told him, this isn't going to work.

Pharaoh will never let you go.

Moses seems to have forgotten that completely.

So the Pharaoh ends up doing it.

He says to the people in verse 10, it's interesting.

So the taskmasters and the officers,

they say, thus say it's Pharaoh.

This is mocking Moses.

Thus say it's our God, Pharaoh.

They're not able to keep up clearly and they get beaten for it.

The officers end up going back to the Pharaoh and say,

why are you beating us?

Somebody hasn't delivered the straw.

Your people aren't delivering the straw.

And the Pharaoh says, actually,

somebody came in here and asked if you could have some time off.

So you could go and do these sacrifices.

And since you have all this extra time,

then we're going to give you extra work.

Then they know, oh, it was Moses and Aaron who came in.

And what do they do?

They go to confront them.

Verse 20.

They go to confront Aaron and Moses.

They're upset.

They are really upset.

They say, the Lord look upon you and judge.

Like that.

Calling down judgment on them.

This word, saver, this is stink.

He's like, you have made us stinky in the eyes of the Pharaoh.

We are the worst smell to them ever.

You can think of Moses probably being like, wait,

didn't the Lord tell me that by the time we leave,

the Egyptians will have favor and give us stuff?

Now this is the opposite.

Here's the contemporary English version of verse 21.

Then the men said, we hope the Lord will punish both of you

for making the king and his officials hate us.

Now they even have an excuse to kill us.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks for the help.

Man, that backfired.

Now everything's worse, even worse than it was.

That's like 22 and 23.

Moses returned to the Lord and said, wherefore,

hast thou so evil and treated this people?

Why is it that that has sent me since I came to Pharaoh to speak in my name?

He's done evil to this people.

He either hast thou delivered thy people at all.

Moses is like, I told you it wouldn't work.

Yeah, he's like, things are way worse than they ever were before.

This word evil here is sometimes translated as breaking.

It's almost like Moses is accusing

Jehovah of breaking the covenant, of not keeping the covenant.

You're not keeping up your side here.

You promised all of these different things.

There's no delivery.

Things are even worse than before.

How many times have we felt that way?

Yeah.

God just seems to wait till the last minute.

Lord had told him this several times.

This was going to happen.

It's the same for us.

God says, I want you to do this.

And you're like, hey, I think I can do it.

And he's like, it's going to be really hard and awful.

You might fail four times along the way.

Okay, got it.

And then the first time you fail, well, what happened?

You promised me this would work.

I think we do the same thing.

We forget sometimes.

I don't think everybody listening can probably identify a moment in their life

where they said, I did what you said my life got worse.

Yeah, definitely.

And sometimes over and over and over.

And it kind of makes you question, did I hear it right?

Am I doing what I'm supposed to?

And I think that's Satan kind of creeping in,

making you doubt yourself, making you doubt what you're hearing.

I think this is why in the Scriptures,

it says, remember, remember, remember, remember, remember.

Because we need to remember that he warns us.

That's going to be hard.

You will fail.

That's okay.

Keep going.

I think we could all sit in our Exodus 523 moments.

And notice the Lord doesn't get mad at him.

He seems pretty patient with him.

Yeah, the Lord's like, it's time.

It is time for Pharaoh to truly learn

who Jehovah is.

And it's interesting because he says,

it's sort of hard with the translation here.

But the first strong hand is from Jehovah.

He'll see.

It's that smiting again.

The smiting is going to be from Jehovah.

The second strong hand is this idea.

He's like, Pharaoh's going to want you to go so badly.

He's going to push you out with a strong hand.

That's how this is actually going to work.

And the swities trying to tell Moses is going to happen.

And he says, I am Jehovah.

I love it.

He keeps telling him.

This is who I am.

This is what I do.

Then we get a confusing verse in verse 3.

He says, Abraham Isaac Jacob, they didn't know me by Jehovah.

Once again, the commentaries go nuts over this

because the name Jehovah shows up twice in Genesis.

People are like trying to, oh, what is this?

Of course they knew the name or they didn't know the name.

They knew him by this title, but not his name.

They knew the name.

They didn't know what it meant.

Again, if we turn to the Jehovah's Smith translation,

clears it up.

It's sort of like a rhetorical question.

It actually says, didn't they know me by that name?

And was not my name known unto them in the footnote?

Yeah, exactly.

And with the question work.

President Oaks has said, oh, they knew the name of God.

They absolutely knew.

For sure.

I love it.

It's cleared up again.

We don't have to fight with this.

It makes sense to us.

He says, I established my covenant with them.

I have heard.

Is this the same place?

Crystal, I have heard.

I have seen.

Yeah, we get the, I remember the covenant.

I've heard.

I remember.

I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

This is actually the word deliver.

It's the same word we've been seeing.

You would be helpful if it actually said delivered.

Yeah, the footnote says Hebrew deliver.

Footnote 6C.

This is the whole point.

We are meant to get from this that this physical

deliverance from bondage and captivity is meant to teach us

about spiritual deliverance from sin and spiritual death.

It's about redemption.

I circled all of the eye pronouns and it's just red polka dots everywhere.

The Lord's going to do this.

He's going to use Moses and Aaron, but I'm going to do it.

Yeah, I love it.

He's like, it's time.

It's time to get you out.

Pharaoh was given a chance to use his agency.

Now what Jehovah does next is just.

Yep.

Yeah, here it comes.

And he was warned so many times, which is what the Lord does.

Moses asks, I think I counted like six times for them just to go worship,

not even to let him go.

Just let us go worship.

He asked six times and he says, if you don't, just as enjudgment is coming.

The Pharaoh's been warned.

It's not like he had never heard this.

He's aware.

Yeah, and not only does he not let him go, he makes it harder for them.

So they'll never be able to worship.

Jehovah, you're exactly right.

Christly asked the question, who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?

Like you're about to find out.

We're getting towards the end and it gets a little bit weird here in a minute.

Okay.

Maybe not weirder than before, but there are some beautiful verses here in seven and eight.

He says, I will take you to me for a people.

I love this.

You are my people.

I am your God.

This is a covenantal relationship.

And this is sort of preemptive of this mosaic covenant that they're going to enter into

in the future.

And these were things that were promised to Abraham.

Right?

He will be your God.

You will be his people.

You will be together.

There's this subtext here.

Jehovah is also saying that I'm going to be your leader, your ruler, your guide,

your instructor, your law giver, the Pharaoh, you are not his people.

You don't belong to the Pharaoh.

You belong to me from now on.

If we can get you out and you're going to build that sanctuary, that tabernacle,

I'm going to give you new laws to follow.

I'm going to protect you.

I'm going to help you.

And it's this beautiful promise of what a covenantal relationship is.

You covenant with him, you're his people.

I love in verse 8.

It says that he swore that like God swore.

And in Hebrew, this is lifted up the hand.

Like God takes an oath here.

He makes a promise.

It's a binding promise.

I made this promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And it's your heritage.

Then Joseph Smith tells us at the end here, it's not I am the Lord, but I the Lord will do it.

I promise when the Lord says he's going to do something.

He does it.

It's beautiful these verses.

When we get to verse 9, it's so sad because he goes to the children of Israel.

They didn't listen because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.

They've given up hope.

I don't even think that they look at Moses and say, we don't believe you.

I think they've given up.

They're not sure anything good is going to happen.

Anguish of spirit.

And Hebrew, it's literally shortness of breath.

They can't breathe.

They're being crushed by their burden so much that they can barely breathe.

Almost like they're barely alive.

So it makes sense sometimes when we see this in their reaction.

We get to points in our life too when we feel like we can't breathe.

And we feel like nothing can pull us out.

Nothing can deliver us and help us.

This is the moment where things change.

They're at their lowest really at this point.

Everything can only look up from there.

I think of the enabling power of the atonement.

The elder Bednar has talked about.

We focus so much on the redeeming but the enabling power gives us the strength from God

to be able to not maybe even pull ourselves out of these things but to survive them.

Isn't crushed the same as contrite?

It means crushed like pottery that's been trampled and turned into dust.

The broken heart is a shattered heart and the contrite spirit.

It shows up in Psalms so we can actually look at the Hebrew and learn more about the Book of Mormon.

The crushed spirit means crushed into dust.

And it basically means there's no way to take that thing that's been broken and crushed

and put it back together.

There's no way any human being can take those things and put it back together.

So what do we do?

We give it to him.

We give it to the Savior.

That's the sacrifice.

We hand it to him and we say put me back together.

Please rebuild me so I'm stronger than I was before.

Here's all my broken parts.

Help me come back.

You're at a point where he's the only one who can do it.

I'm sure both of you remember October 2013 Elder Holland's talk like a broken vessel.

Elder Holland says the Apostle Peter wrote that the disciples of Jesus Christ are to have compassion

one of another.

In that spirit I wish to speak to those who suffer from some form of mental illness or emotional disorder.

He then started to talk about depression, major depressive disorder.

He says it's an affliction so severe that it significantly restricts a person's ability to function.

That sounds like verse 9.

He says this dark night of the mind and spirit is more than just discouragement.

I've seen it come to an absolutely angelic man when his beloved spouse of 50 years passed away.

I've seen it in new mothers with what is euphemistically labeled as after baby blues.

Postpartum depression.

I've seen it strike anxious students, military veterans and grandmothers worried about the well-being

of their grown. Children, he says, I have seen it in young fathers trying to provide for their

families. In that regard, I once terrifyingly saw it in myself.

At one point in our married life, when financial fears collided with staggering fatigue,

I took a psychic blow that was as unanticipated as it was real.

With the grace of God and the love of my family, I kept functioning and kept even after all these

years, I continued to feel a deep sympathy for others more chronically or deeply afflicted with

such gloom than I was. Then he finished. Whatever your struggle, my brothers and sisters,

mental or emotional or physical or otherwise, do not vote against the preciousness of life by

ending it. Trust in God. Hold on in his love. Know that one day the dawn will break brightly

and all shadows of mortality will flee. Though we may feel we are like a broken vessel,

as the Psalmist says, we must remember that vessel is in the hands of the divine potter.

Moses has lost some hope here too. We can see that in the next verses. He says, they won't listen to

me. Why would Pharaoh listen? And then he calls himself as having uncircumcised lips. Basically,

lips that are covered, lips that can't perform their function, lips that are not able to speak.

This is used sometimes for ears that can't hear as well. It's hard. They're at this point

where this is a turning. This is a change. This is where Jehovah can come in and deliver them and

save them. And that's the message here. Only through Jesus Christ can we be saved.

Crystal, lead us into next week. What's about to happen? Sounds like the tension's building.

It's funny because all of a sudden it just breaks off here. And we get a long list of names.

Of course. But this is meant to set us up. Huge things are coming. Covenants are going to be

fulfilled. Deliverance is nigh. This is meant to remind all of the people and all of us

it's happening now. It's time. It's happening. It's meant to tell us there's four generations.

They trace the Levites because they are showing authority of Moses and Aaron.

They're setting up the Levite priesthood here. That's kind of like the purpose of all of this.

And then the last three verses are like, okay, now back to the story. Here's the story.

It's just a cliffhanger. The children of Israel at their lowest. Moses is kind of at his lowest.

What's going to happen next? We know that deliverance is coming. Covenantal promises are coming.

And everything changes in the next few chapters. We have people who feel that

anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. So if we have somebody listening, what should we say to them?

It's coming. Next week on Follow Him. Stay tuned. There's hope smiling brightly before us,

and we know that deliverance is nigh. Boy, the Lord waits until the last minute sometimes.

If we go all the way back to our four themes, all of those themes can be tied into this idea of hope.

Hope for the future. Our first theme was who is Jehovah? What does he do? What does he care about?

Well, clearly we've been told he cares about us. He loves us. He sees you. He knows you. He hears you.

He works on a different time frame than we do. And we've gone through six chapters of posterity

and oppression. Those are our lives too. The second was covenants. Does he keep covenants?

Absolutely. We see this 100%. And a huge part of that is don't give up hope. Don't give up.

It's coming. Those promises, those blessings, they are coming. It just might take some time.

And then we have deliverance from bondage. That's perfect. You will be delivered someday. Redemption

is coming. And that last one about identity, we saw Moses struggle with all of these things.

And if the only thing you take away from these chapters is that you are a child of God,

you're a child of the covenant and you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, that's the foundation of

everything that can keep us going and keep trying. Yeah, I love it. I hope anyone's sitting in

their Exodus chapters one through six if you'll just keep turning the page. Yeah, hold on the red

sea parts. Yeah, the Exodus, it's the story of our life. And we're trying to get to the promised land.

We're trying to get back home to Heavenly Father in Jesus Christ. Exodus teaches us we're going to

have ups and downs, but we'll make it. And he sends prophets who don't think they can be prophets.

He's sending help. He sends help. I love it. Crystal, thank you so much for your time today.

Just so everybody knows who's listening out there, I get to talk to Crystal just on a one-on-one

basis in the hallway and she's as good as you think she is. That's so kind. Thank you.

Well, with that, we want to thank Dr. Crystal Pierce for joining us again on follow him. We want

to thank our executive producer, Shannon Swanson, our sponsors David and Verla Swanson.

In every episode, we remember our founder, Steve Swanson. We hope you'll join us next week

because we know that deliverance is nigh on follow him. As a thank you to our wonderful

listeners, we'd love to gift you the digital version of our book, Finding Jesus Christ in

the Old Testament. It offers short, meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes.

Visit followhim.co. That's followhim.co to download your free copy today and you'll also find

the link to purchase the print edition. Thank you for being part of our follow him family.

Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry,

Lisa Spice, Will Stoked It, Crystal Roberts, Arielle Kuwadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika,

Sydney Smith and Annabelle Swanson. Whatever questions or problems you have, the answers

always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to Him. Follow Him.