3.005 He Saw God Face to Face

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

We're typically used to starting off the Old Testament with something like 'in the beginning'. But is that really where it begins? Welcome to a new week as we dive into, officially, the Old Testament in a lot of different ways.

The Old Testament through the traditional lens as well as the Old Testament with the components added through the Pearl of Great Price as I've talked about earlier in this season. Just a reminder as well that we have also decided to kind of jump in the Instagram world a little bit, and you can find us at Savory Salt Podcast. If you'd like to kind of see the daily updates that we have there, daily quotes that we throw out there, those types of things.

We are reading this week Moses chapter 1 and Abraham chapter 3, which kind of helps preface this 'in the beginning' concept that is found in Genesis chapter 1. And again, just as a reminder for where these books come from: the Book of Moses is a direct translation from Joseph Smith as he sat down to translate the Bible and realized that the first six chapters of Genesis were missing key components from Moses' own records. And so we have eight chapters in the Book of Moses.

We'll kind of bounce back and forth in between the Genesis chapters with that. And then we also get the text of Abraham, which comes into Joseph Smith's possession at the time through some Egyptian papyrus that was translated as well. As we look at the Book of Moses, I can't overstate what I believe the power is of the Book of Moses, especially when it comes into understanding the Old Testament better.

And perhaps the reason for that is really just in the first few verses of Moses chapter 1: we get some powerful spiritual truths that are still debated in the Christian community today that just wouldn't be debated if this was commonly accepted as scripture amongst Christian denominations. We find out the nature of God. We find out the nature of human beings.

We find out the nature of Satan. We find out the nature of the Savior. All inside of Moses chapter 1.

And you, sitting here, thinking, 'Gosh, if we were to go straight to Genesis and just read "in the beginning," we see that there's a creation of a world, but we don't understand the purpose around it.' God is a God of purpose. He acts with purpose and with intent. So what is that purpose?

And what's our purpose as human beings here on the earth? These are key components that we find out inside of the Book of Moses. So please enjoy your reading of Moses chapter one this week.

Our verse for today is going to be Moses chapter 1 verse 2. One of these key vital pieces of truth that is lost in Old Testament text that we get inside of Moses here. In verse 1, we find out that these are going to be the words of God as Moses is talking to God on an exceedingly high mountain.

So that's kind of the preface of what's happening here. And then verse 2 says this: 'And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses. Therefore Moses could endure his presence.' Now what did we gain inside of there that we don't otherwise have context from the Old Testament?

We gain an understanding, first of all, that Moses is talking with God face to face. That can happen with a God that is, you know, he of the ether and of spirit and of body, and of, like, 'he here but he not here, but he present but he not present'—but he all upon Moses so that he can endure his presence. My friends, you and I, as we have spiritual experiences, we also have the opportunity to have the glory of God transform us so that we can have the Spirit in our lives.

Those opportunities are opportunities that absolutely transform us and give us an opportunity to endure his presence as well. I love that we see here that the heavens are open. They're open to a God that talks with men face to face.

These are key components we're going to see here that help us better understand what's coming along throughout the Old Testament. So excited! Much more to come as we dive into Moses 1 and Abraham 3 this week.

That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We'll be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.