Face to Face - Moses 7:1-12

7:1 - With all the talk about God and Adam, it’s easy to forget that these are the words of Enoch as he’s teaching people the gospel. Enoch continues that after Adam was baptized, he “taught these things,” and those who believed “become the sons of God,” and the ones who did not believe “have perished in their sins, and are looking forth with fear, in torment, for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God to be poured out upon them.” I don’t know how it was anciently, whether every single person had the opportunity to know and accept the gospel, but I would imagine that if the world was more wicked then than it is today, it’s most likely similar to us, that some have the opportunity to accept or reject the gospel, but probably most do not. Because the people were so much closer to the time of Adam, maybe more people knew about it, I don’t know, but people’s positions in life might have played a bigger part of their ability to learn about and accept the gospel, just like we have today. 7:2-4 - Enoch then begins to tell all the people he preached to about his experience of when he was commanded to go to Mount Simeon, where he was “clothes upon with glory,” which the footnotes say means that he was translated, like Peter, James, and John were. We know from previous study that Peter, James, and John received their endowment while translated on the mount with Jesus, and when it said “clothed upon with glory” here, I wondered if Enoch had received his endowment here at this time as well. On this mount, Enoch testifies “I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me, even as a man talketh with another, face to face.” This is important because I assume that this was Jesus talking to Enoch here, but if Jesus hadn’t been born yet, how could Enoch see him and speak with him? In Ether 3:16, Jesus answers this question after showing himself to the brother of Jared saying, “Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.” 7:5-8 - God shows Enoch “the world for the space of many generations,” beginning with the valley of Shum, where people lived in tents. Then he showed Enoch the land of Canaan, who also had people living in tents. Interestingly, instead of just telling Enoch about the people, God tells Enoch to “prophesy,” kind of like “say what I want to tell you by the Spirit,” which is a lot to think about and I wonder if this is similar to “praying by the Spirit,” where God tells you to say what he wants you to know. This creates and strengthens a firm relationship with the Spirit, and I wonder about the significance of having that kind of power in my own life. Enoch prophesies of a battle between the people of Shum and Canaan where Shum is beaten and Canaan takes over their land. I don’t know why that’s significant but it must have meant something significant to Enoch at the time. But all the extra land that the people of Canaan gain with their victory won’t do them any good, because “the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever.” I just remembered that Enoch is recounting his interaction with God to the people around him trying to convince them to repent, so him telling them about a battle between these two people and the subsequent famine of the victor might be God’s way of warning the people of what will come if they don’t repent, just like Lehi told the people of Jerusalem that they would be destroyed if they didn’t repent. 7:9-12 - Next comes God’s commandment to Enoch to go to the cities of Sharon, Enoch, Omner, Heni, Shem, Haner, and Hanannihah and command them, “Repent, lest I come out and smite them with a curse, and they die.” So not only are the people told to repent, but Enoch even tells them how to do it, saying that he was commanded “that I should baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, which is full of grace and truth, and of the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of the Father and the Son.” Presumably those who repented left their cities and went to live in a congregated place, and Enoch continued preaching repentance to everywhere “save it were the people of Canaan,” which is interesting because I would think that the people would need to be told to repent before they invaded another land and was cursed, but it seems that they were already too wicked.