followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 10-11 : Dr. J.B. Haws : Part I

Episode Date: January 31, 2021

A year after the loss of the 116 pages and Doctrine and Covenants, Section 10 shows us that God's wisdom is greater than the Adversary's cunning. Join Dr. J.B. Haws, Hank Smith, and John Bythway as they discuss how our poor choices are turned to victory through the Savior and how the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason," is bad theology. We also learn how to pray so that we spiritually "come off conqueror."Show notes available at followhim.co 

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith. And I'm John, by the way. We love to learn. We love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow Him. My friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him, a podcast designed intended to help you with your Come Follow Me studies. I'm here with my co-host, John, by the way. Hello, John. Hi, Hank. How are you? Yeah, well, I am excited to be at it again. I can't believe we're like on episode six. It's so much fun to just sit and learn from these incredible minds.

So every week, John and I bring on what we would say is an expert in church history this year. And we have another expert with us this week. His name is J.B. Hawes. I am so excited to have J.B. here because we were in our master's program together, and we had so much fun back in those days. We would have class two and a half, three hours long and just learn so much. And it was tough. It was intimidating because I just thought, I can't do this. It was amazing.

But we had a wonderful time. And so it's so good to see JB again. Here's his bio from religious education at BYU. It says, JB Hawes is an associate professor of church history and doctrine at BYU. Currently serves as associate dean of religious education. He has a PhD from the University of Utah in American history. He's also interested in interfaith dialogue. Before coming to BYU, he taught seminary in northern Utah, Salt Lake, Weber counties. As for his interest in history generally, he asks, how could you not be interested in history when you come from a

place that in pioneer times was known as Muskrat Springs, which is now Hooper. Not Hooper, right? But Hooper. John, thank you for bringing that up right from the outset. It's always awkward when I have to try to like work it into the conversation. So the fact that you just brought it up just warms my heart. Let see he's married to uh the beautiful lara favero which he submits yet another evidence miracles have not ceased he has three boys and a daughter they love living in provo and cheering sometimes too fanatically for the cougars i love this part he served a spanish-speaking mission in raleigh north carolina so he speaks Spanish with a Southern accent. Can we hear some of that, JB? Buenos dias, y'all.

John, didn't your favorite show take place in North Carolina? Gee, how nice of you to mention, Hank. Yes. Not just my favorite show, but the world-renowned Andy Griffith show was supposed to have taken place in Mayberry, North Carolina. That's right. Right. And we might as well bring it out. We haven't had a Barney Fife impression on the podcast yet. Yeah. This is my one request, my one request to be, to join you today. Why don't you do our introduction to follow him as Barney Fife? I think we want to stay on the air, don't we? Yeah. Well, I'll just do a little Barney Fife. And please, if you don't know who this is, don't be alarmed.

I'm not having some sort of medical issue. All right, everybody, get ready. We're going to do Come Follow Him. That's how Barney Fife talks. Now cut that out. He talked like that. Not at all like me. No.

There's teenagers listening right now going, is he okay? Is he having a problem? Yeah. Parents are like, we'll show you later. It was the show. You can see why none of us ever complained about going to class with John, by the way.

That was something I look forward to every week. We'll bring more impressions, John. I know most of the impressions you can do. So I think I'll bring them on one at a time throughout. So people will keep listening. They'll say, what's he going to do this week? I want to jump in here to the Doctrine and Covenants sections that were on this week, but I'll just say one, I just want to add one thing to JB's bio. If you know JB Hawes, or if you know someone who knows Dr. JB Hawes, they will say the exact same thing every time.

That is one of the best men that walks the planet. He is such a nice guy, such a great guy. My brother-in-law teaches seminary in Harriman, and he, on the group text of our extended family, said, hey, you've got to hear this BYU devotional that I just heard. And it was J.B. Haas. And it blessed a whole lot of people. Tell us the title of that one again, JB. It was a wrestling with comparisons. Yeah. And, and I, there's, there's a treasure trove at speeches.byu.edu. I mean, there's a ton of stuff on there, but go find a brother Haas talk on there. It'll bless your life.

Yeah, it will. Absolutely. I hope everyone will go look that up after, after they finished this whole episode. Not right now. JB, you are a church history expert. And so we, this week, are going to be in sections 10 and 11. Now, we've hit before in previous episodes the loss of the 116 pages. Well, as Dr. Dirtmont would say, the stolen 116 pages. He was pretty adamant about that, that I don't know why we call them lost. If someone stole my car, I wouldn't say

I lost it. I'd say someone stole it. Can you review for us, just for those maybe who are just listening for the first time, or maybe just getting a good review? It's good to review. Tell us who Martin Harris is and lead us up to the loss of the manuscript. This is such a pivotal episode in Joseph Smith's life, Martin Harris's life. I mean, the fact that they just kind of come back to this so often, and it comes up in so many narratives, I think shows just how impactful this was. So many lessons learned, so much a part of the history that coming forth of the Book of Mormon. And let me say, I think this has come up in previous episodes of your podcast, but I don't think we can give enough of an underlining of the resources on the church's website and the gospel library app.

So I just want to say, and I'll probably mention this a couple of times, if you go into the Come Follow Me resources, there's a big tab that says Doctrine and Covenants Historical Resources. Everyone should make that, bookmark that and make that a first place to go. It's a one-stop shop. You can click on all the people that are mentioned in every section. You can see historical background, a lot of great images, some video clips. So it's the place to start. There's a great biography, biographical sketch of Martin Harris there. The thing that I think probably most of us sense is that Martin Harris was a generation older than Joseph Smith just over 20 years older than Joseph Smith and he was a well established and respected community member and sort of the first who had

that kind of community standing who believed in Joseph Smith and gave credence to what he was saying I'm so sure that meant the world to Joseph Smith they have someone of Martin Harris's stature and means to provide backing and to jump in so enthusiastically to even serve as scribe. And Martin serves as Joseph's scribe from April 1828 to June 1828. And together they produced this sheaf of the 116 pages of translated materials. And you can just feel Martin's excitement for what's going on. The fact that he is so enthusiastic about showing this to his skeptical wife and to other family

members. He's just convinced that this material is good enough that it will allay their doubts and suspicions. And I think that speaks to his excitement, but also the quality of, of the, of what the material that they had produced that he's convinced this will be the missing piece. And that's why I think he pushes so hard to let him take him. Yeah. And, and, and then Joseph understandably feeling, you know, the, the respect he has for Martin and his esteem. I think that's, that's what pushes him to continually, uh, importune the Lord to let him do it. I've heard people say before, oh, you know, why did Joseph give in to Martin? And as a junior faculty member at BYU, I have felt the idea of a senior faculty member wanting me to do something.

And of course I want to do something because I, I have that respect for them and I know how much they've done for me. I think, uh, Joseph probably feels that same way. You've done so much for me. Um, I really want to do this for you. Yeah. Well said. I think that's so relatable. I think there's just a human relatability in this relationship that it makes sense. I'm glad you used that word, JB, of just relatable, because the more we've thought about this, the more I've thought, yeah. And the other thing was Joseph just did not have the resources to publish this thing. Here's a guy who is willing, who has this huge farm, and who's willing to help. And maybe, could he even have thought maybe the

Lord provided Martin? And I think he did, you know, to financially fund the printing of the book, which he eventually does, you know. And it was fun last time to bring in President Dallin H. Oaks' talk about Martin Harris and how he needs, what did he say, Hank, come out from under the shadow of that event. And we all remember that he did. He did fund it, became one of the three witnesses. And JB, I want to ask you a question, and you can follow up with your response to John there. But as a church, what do you think our general feeling toward Martin Harris should be? Sometimes I think he's known for this mistake, but if I know you, you're going to say, no, no, no, he should be known much differently. Amen. I think we're all sort of feeling that same thing. And I think John pointed that out well too, that all of us, I think, have been in this situation where we don't want our lives to be defined by our worst mistake. And I don't think Martin Harris should be defined that way either. One sort of window into his soul is the fact that these revelations call Martin Harris,

a wicked man. And, and he stayed, I think that says something to me. So he stays, becomes one of the three witnesses, finances the printing of the book of Mormon, even after that pretty stern rebuke from the Lord. And let's put that in print and send it to the world. Yeah. That says something that he was willing to accept that. The same thing could be said about Joseph, that he was willing to accept the Lord's rebuke and print it. I also think that speaks to what Martin must have sensed about the authenticity of Joseph's revelations, that this was not something coming from Joseph.

This was something coming from the Lord. And so he was willing to accept it, to repent, to move forward and to stay with the movement and become a vital piece of the movement, indispensable. So I think that's a great window into his soul. Something that I find remarkable. And Hank, what is it that they do up in, is it Smithfield that they have a kind of a festival every year? I think I went to it when I was a kid.

Yeah, I think in Clarkston where Martin Harris is buried. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I don't want to it when I was a kid. Yeah, I think in Clarkston, where Martin Harris is buried. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I don't want to get that wrong. Yeah, they have some sort of remembrance, and I think his headstone, it's more of a monument, isn't it? Right, yes. I seem to remember going up there as a kid. So my only pioneer ancestors, I think only ones, also settled up in Cache Valley.

So yeah, he was buried with a Book of Mormon in his hand. Wow. That I didn't know. Yeah. You can't love the Book of Mormon, I guess, without loving Martin Harris. Maybe one of our hopes on this podcast is to just for our listeners to really get a positive view of Martin and his role in Joseph Smith's life, his crucial role in Joseph Smith's life. Reminds me of Peter, right? When the Lord turned to him and said, get behind me, Satan, right? But

Peter stuck around. He kept going. That's a good comparison. I think that not only with Martin, but with everybody in church history. I always come back to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's statement, all the Lord has ever had to work with is imperfect people. It must be incredibly frustrating to him, but he deals with it and so should we. I mean, just a great statement. Who else has he got except for some imperfect folks to try to move the work forward? And then we find out that the Lord had planned on this mistake 2,000 years ago, right? Like, I know how to work with these people. I just make up for their mistakes millennia in advance. We've read through what the Lord told Joseph and Martin in section three. We did that before. JB, what is section 10? Three and 10 are kind of right next to each other, even chronologically, at least part of section 10. How does that change in tone and what does it add? Yeah, that's such a great way to look at these is how do we read these two together? And I think if we've all felt the anguish of section three, I mean,

just the anguish that Joseph Smith was feeling and how soothing that must have been to learn that the work of God cannot be frustrated and that he had not destroyed everything, that all was not lost. The full resolution of it doesn't come until section 10. As you said, John, the timing of this is important because section 10 is one of those that's hard to date. We don't have an existing manuscript copy that's missing from the earliest manuscript collection of the Revelation book. So there's some trickiness to the date, but currently the Joseph Smith Papers editors have dated it to April 1829, which seems to make a lot of sense. So we're talking about almost a full year after the loss of the 116 pages when section 10 comes that instructs Joseph how to resolve the loss of these pages. So I think that's instructive in and

of itself that the resolution wasn't immediate. And Joseph moves forward in faith. He and Oliver start translating it. It seems like in the midst of that translating work, that's when section 10 comes, at least in its fullest form. There's some evidence that it might be a composite revelation, as you said, John, with pieces maybe from 1828 and then the full revelation put together in the spring of 1829. And now Joseph figures out this is how we're going to solve this missing pages problem. And there's so much to be said there. JB, in my old scriptures that I have in front of me, my paper copy, which is about 20

years old, it says the summer of 1828. Is that now changed? Right. Yeah. Good catch, Hank. That's really important for all of our listeners to know that the church in 2013 published a new printed edition and the vast majority of changes in that printed edition were in section headings of the Doctrine and Covenants. Because of the Joseph Smith papers research, because of new access to the Revelation manuscript books, a lot of dating issues were tweaked and there were better dates put in. And so you're right. This is why I think it is important for all of our listeners to access the church's website and those historical resources can give you the full layout of why the dating has been

changed. April 1829 is the best current date now. Yeah. And I love it. I love it that it's being updated. And the revelation becomes so much richer, I think, when we think of that timing that Joseph is waiting for several months to figure out how do we get this resolved? How do we fix this? So JB, when I get into section 10, I mean, I've got two teenagers and three elementary

age kids. What do I do with section 10 to make it come to life, right? To help them go, this is how this matters to me. Yeah, great. I love one of your podcasts with Tony Sweat. And I love Tony's approach of setting the historical context first. And this is one of those places where the historical context, I think, just makes it come alive because the story of the anguish and the loss, everyone can relate to that feeling where you just think, I've ruined everything. Can I even come back from this? Is there any chance for me to be part of the Lord's work? And so I think I would always start with that to remind everybody, you can relate to this. This is where Joseph Smith is. And then the thing that I think just matters to all of us is the Lord's declaration in section 10, his wisdom is

greater than the cunning of the devil. And that's verse 43. Yeah, that is something that we can build our faith on is that God's wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil and what a reassuring promise. And so I think as we see, one of the things I think section 10 can do for us is it shows a real life historical case of how God's foreknowledge, his infinite wisdom and goodness works together with our agency, doesn't compromise our agency, but yet still can help us when we've misused our agency, when we've made mistakes, how we can come back and he can make it right.

And I'm glad that verse 43 that you mentioned, something that says right in the Come Follow Me manual for individuals and families, My wisdom, the Lord said, that Joseph is greater than the cunning of the devil. And then it adds, that's a reassuring message in a day like ours, when the adversary's ongoing efforts are to weaken faith and intensifying. Like Joseph, we can be faithful and continue on in the work the Lord has called us to do. And I wanted to mention something that I can't, I mean, I'm reading 3 Nephi 21, which kind of alludes to Joseph Smith, right?

And it is verbatim. It is exactly the phrase that we're talking about in verse 43. I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil. That is the exact text in 3 Nephi 21.10. And I'm just wondering, which came first? When was Joseph Smith translating and did he go, whoa, I've heard that before? Yeah. And it's talking about him too, you know? Yeah, John, as usual, you're spot on. These third Nephi parallels in section 10 are one of the reasons why I think careful editors are dating

this to the spring of 1829. Really? So that what seems to be happening is that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, they're encountering in the Book of Mormon translation these phrases that are also speaking to Joseph in his current circumstances. I think you're right in the sense that these two are coming virtually simultaneously, that the Lord is speaking to Joseph Smith through the translation that he's having in the Book of Mormon, and that's what lends some confidence to dating this to the spring of 1829. Well, it's been fun for me to to be in that section with my students in third nephi 21 and say look at that phrase and say who do you think this servant that's going to be marred and stuff who do you think is talking about and then

to go down the footnotes and see dnc 10 to see a dnc 135 announcing the martyrdom of joseph smith and have them kind of connect um those dots there it's kind of a that's so i'm glad to know they were almost simultaneous that's yeah i think that's that that's another good scripture reading tool you're very good at this and this is worth highlighting is pay attention to those kind of cross-reference connections between the scriptures to see how this interplay is happening that the doctrine doctrine of covenants is coming as Joseph Smith is doing all of these other projects, like the translation of the book of Mormon. There's a lot of book of Mormon language in section 10. You've got the other sheep I have, that's third Nephi. You've got third Nephi with, I will gather them as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings. That's a, what, a third Nephi 10? 3 Nephi 9 or 10. You've got Helaman 5, 12, right? They're

built upon my rock and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. There's the idea of contention from 3 Nephi chapter 11, right? The people are in contention of the points of my doctrine. One thing I think I might do with my children as I look at this section is there's oftentimes in this section, the word hearts comes up. In verse 10, it says, as I look at this section is there's oftentimes in this section, the word hearts comes up in verse 10. It says, Satan hath put it into their hearts to alter the words which you have caused to be written. So he's talking about the manuscript there. You go to verse 13. He hath put it in their hearts to do this through lying, right? For behold, he hath put it into their hearts to tempt thee, to get thee to tempt the Lord thy God. That's 15,

16. They say, and think in their hearts, We will see if God has given him power to translate. Verse 20, Satan has great hold upon their hearts. Verse 21, their hearts are corrupt. Verse 24, their hearts are filled with anger. I think this could be a good thing either with students or with my own children to say, okay, let's talk about hearts and then let's go into this section and look at what the Lord has to say about hearts and maybe talk about what does it feel like to have your heart stirred in anger, your heart to be corrupt. I think there's one later on about the hardness of their hearts in verse 53. So to me, there might be a theme there of the adversary's work is to get to your heart and to change the

way you feel and see the world and see the work of God. Anything else in section 10, John and JB, that you guys are seeing that we could point out? I love this focus on the hearts. Good stuff. And I think what you said right there at the end, Hank, this is something I think section 10 offers us, is a glimpse into how the adversary works. So not only does section 10 have a lot to say about the nature of God, his foreknowledge, his infinite wisdom, his ability to turn all things for our good, even things that we think are disastrously over, but it says something about how the adversary works. And I think this is also

something that I think all of our families can feel. We're all in situations where we can feel this. So something jumps out at me about what the Lord reveals about the plot that's going on. So he tells Joseph, you're not going to retranslate those pages because there's a plot afoot to discredit you. But the interesting thing is to look at the antecedents of what this plot is. So if you look at, for example, verse 25, what's Satan doing? Well, he's saying to these conspirators, to them, deceive and lie in wait to catch that you may destroy. And thus he flatters them. And who is the them? It's the conspirators. And telleth them that it is no sin to lie, that they may catch a man in a lie, that they may destroy him.

So Satan has convinced the conspirators, hey, you're doing a good thing because it's okay to lie to catch this liar in a lie. But then this next verse is so revealing about Satan. And thus he flattereth them and leadeth them along until he drageth their souls down to hell. The them and the there are the conspirators. So Satan is doing all this to drag their souls down to hell. And the thing I think is just so revealing here is that Satan wants everyone to be miserable. And so he may have swayed these conspirators, convinced them that they're doing a good thing, but in reality, what he's really doing is he's

dragging their souls down to hell. And I think where this might hit us, some of us at home, is that sometimes we get caught up in that philosophy that the end justifies the means. And section 10 is this strong reminder, the end doesn't justify the means. Because you may end up feeling your own soul be dragged down. Think about times when we might find ourselves saying in a sporting event, well, if they're going to play dirty, I'm going to play dirty. Right. Or we might say, my boss is underpaying me, so it's okay if I fudge a little on my hours. Someone spreads a rumor about me on social media, so it's only fair play to spread a rumor about them. I mean, if we're going to play hardball, I'm going to play hardball.

And all of a sudden, we hear this Section 10 echoing that Satan's flattering us to say it's okay to catch the lie, to catch someone in a lie. But what he's really doing is dragging our souls down to hell. Yeah. The Lord says it verse 28, woe be unto him that lies to deceive because he supposes that another is lying to deceive. Right? So these conspirators are like, well, this guy, Joseph Smith, he's a terrible person. I've got to lie to take him down and it's okay. It's okay that I'm doing this. Wow. I don't like that verse because it really cuts to my heart because I think there's times where I think, oh, well, they're so awful and

terrible. You know what? They deserve it. And the Lord is saying, whoa, watch out, warning, this is not okay. That's a great insight. I hear you, Hank. I think whenever I find myself wanting to justify- Justify, that's the word, right? Justify my means, because I think I'm somehow ending for a noble end. This is a kind of section that can call me up short to say that I'm playing right into the adversary's game plan. And JB, I love what you're saying about Satan still.

It's not like they're pals with Satan now. He's still going to drag them down to hell. That's right. And it reminds me, I put in my margin, that verse 26 sounds a lot like the very last verse in the Korahor story, Alma 30, 60, and kind of a couple of thus we sees. And also it reminds me of,

isn't it Alma and Amulek that say to Zeezrom, this was the plan of thine adversary? And I've always looked at that word, not the adversary, but he's against you too, Zeezrom. And he's going to take you down too, Zeezrom. And the cool thing about Zeezrom is all of a sudden his gotcha questions, and this whole thing is a gotcha, Zeezrom's gotcha questions become sincere. So it's good for Zeezrom. Another thing I thought was cool is a gotcha, Zeezrom's gotcha questions become sincere. So it's good for Zeezrom. Another thing I thought was cool is in verse 45, here they set up this plot, they stole the manuscript, and it worked, and the final product ends up being better. Look at verse 45. There are many things engraven upon the plates of Nephi. He's telling him,

go get, instead of the book of Lehi, go get Nephi's account, which do throw greater views upon my gospel. And I thought, ah, you try and mess it up, and it ends up being better. And that kind of can go back to how we teach our kids. Hey, listen, his wisdom is greater. And so just make sure your life's okay with God, all the things you'll go through, but God can even turn those things that go badly and make them better for you and for all of us. That's really great, John. And I wonder if Nephi's pretty proud of that moment.

I wrote that. Well, thank you. Yeah, I threw some greater views on the gospel. Nephi and Jacob high five up there. Yeah, that's right that was us i i think this section also i've i've found it really powerful to address what can kind of become like pop theology that that also can be bad theology i think harmful theology sometimes one of the things that i think we hear a lot and sometimes all of us are tempted to say is everything happens for a reason. And I think sometimes that's kind of pop fatalism to say what people sometimes mean is everything happens because God wants it to happen.

And so if we say everything happens for a reason and we mean everything happens because it's part of God's plan, then that's false doctrine. I think that's really potentially harmful doctrine. If we say everything happens for a reason, and sometimes those reasons are because I'm dumb and I sin, I make mistakes, then it works. But we can't miss that part that everything happens because God wants it to happen. That's false doctrine. Yeah. God did not want them to sin and lie and deceive. Bingo.

And God didn't want Martin and Joseph to lose the 116 pages. He warned them against it, but he allows agency. But here's the part that I think can be so redemptive about this section is because if we first of all come to grips with the fact that God did not want this to happen, but that as Hank said, this is a miracle, two and a half millennia in the making, God still can work all things together for our good. He doesn't want us to sin. He doesn't want us to make bad choices. But when we return to him and repent, he still can turn all things to our good and can still make the end result better,

something greater than it would be without God. He's that kind of God, a God of the silver linings. He's that powerful. And something else that the manual says is to look for the I ams and the I wills. And I'm looking now on my ancient paper scriptures at 57, 58, 59. And I am, I am, I am, 60, 61, 62. I've underlined I will, I will, I will. And so we're seeing, here's men's plans, evil plans being frustrated, but we're teaching our children, hey, we can rely on God. Look how he's restating at the end.

Hey, I am Jesus Christ. I am the son of God. I came to my own. I'm the light which shineth in darkness. I am he who said other sheep I have, which Hank mentioned. And then I will show, I will bring, and I will also bring. And this will I do that I may establish my gospel. So it's kind of a, Martin, Joseph, this is my church. I got this and rely on me and listen to what I say. I love that. That's a fun tension tension jb that i think we need to be that's a it's a spiritual

sense of spiritual maturity that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil or your mistakes joseph my wisdom is greater than your mistakes but i don't want you to make these mistakes right there's a difference between god planned on him making this mistake and god wanted yes yeah to make this uh mistake and he tells him i I don't want you to, to, to be, you know, conquered by this. He says, pray always that you may conquer, that you may conquer Satan and escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do his hope is work. They'll pull this work. So the idea is the Lord is saying, I, he, my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the

devil. I want your wisdom to become greater than the cunning of the devil, right? I want you to pray always so you can have that same sense about you. I love the tension there between God knew I was going to make a mistake and he's going to help me make it right versus God wanted me to make that mistake or designed for me to make that mistake. And all of a sudden I'm not, I don't have to do anything. The Lord's saying, no, I want you to pray always. And how do I do that? How do you pray always? Obviously the Lord doesn't mean I'm kneeling by my bedside always. So what does that phrase mean? Well, I can't wait to hear what both of you have to say, but I love an Elder Bednar thought,

probably many of us remember when he suggested about conference, about the way he thinks about his morning and evening prayers working together, that he sort of starts the day in this morning prayer with a plea for help and a commitment to be in tune with the spirit and to be listening. And then he sort of sees his evening prayers as kind of these moments of accountability and reflection on the day. And I think there's something about that attitude that we see are the start and end of our days bookended by prayer in a way that we're cognizant, we're thinking, we're conscious of the fact that we're always looking to God for help and for wisdom, that we see that as both a plea for help and then a reporting reflection and a plea to do better the next day. Yeah. There's a temple theme there of of I'm going to spiritually prepare my day.

Yeah. And that are, you know, spiritually planet, spiritually see it. Then I'm going to go out and physically do it. Then I'm going to come back and return and report, right? On how close the spiritual plan and the actual doings lined up together. And I like that idea that then every prayer is connected and it's a pray always. By definition, I'm praying always because my prayers are a constant part of my day. I was just thinking of the idea of having always a prayer in your heart.

Yeah, we're not talking about kneeling down all day, but I'm thinking of Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof that was having this constant dialogue with the Lord. And I think we all do that. I think we see things or, boy, I'm grateful for that. And you see something else. And the Lord is the only one who knows your thoughts. I feel like you are praying all the time in a way. I was going to add one other thing from section 10.

The word destroy comes up a lot. I look for these little patterns, and you can see it in verse 6. They have sought to destroy you. They sought to destroy your gift, Joseph, in verse 7. Verse 19, we will destroy him. They lie in wait to destroy your gift. Joseph in verse seven, verse 19, we will destroy him. They lie in wait to destroy. I think, John, you've taught me this. There's a poem about it's so much easier to destroy something than it is to build something.

Do you remember that? Yeah, the builder and the wrecker. It's not original with me, but let's see. I passed one day through little town and saw men tearing a building down with a ho-heave-ho and a husky yell. They swung a beam and a sidewall fell. I asked the foreman, are these men skilled, the kind they'd hire if they had to build? Oh no, he chuckled, no indeed. The common labor is all I need. Why, I can destroy in a day or two what builders have taken weeks to do. I said to myself as I went on my way, which of these roles have I tried to play? Am I a builder who works with care, strengthening lives

by rule and square, shaping my peers to a well-made plan, helping them do the best they can, or am I a wrecker who walks around content with the labor of tearing down? Wow. I did not know if you would have that memorized. It was like the first talk I ever gave in the 90s. The 1900s, that's probably. No, it was 1890s. Destroying something is not a sign of intellect, right? Being able to criticize someone or take them down or point out flaws in people. We often see that online as, wow, I'm so smart. Look at all the ways I or point out flaws in people. We often see that, you know, online as,

wow, I'm so smart. Look at all the ways I can point out the problems, right? Where the Lord is so busy building and doing the careful, difficult work of building where Satan is doing the easy work of destroying. And I just wanted to say this and I'll hand it over to you too. Verse 33, the Lord tells Joseph Smith, Satan thinketh to overpower your testimony. He's still doing it today. I would say to my teenage friends, don't be overly concerned when someone's trying to destroy Joseph Smith because it's going to happen until the Lord comes again. Satan is going to try to destroy Joseph's gifts, his work, everything he's about to do. And we got to be, I don't want to say we got to be okay with that,

but that's got to be something we go, oh yeah, that's prophecy fulfilled. I've used that verse. Our kids have heard about the war in heaven. I love to ask, well, what were our weapons? Did we have a spiritual F-16? What did we fight with? You're usually a little puzzled because you can't kill a spirit. We're immortal beings. So how does this work?

We eventually come up, you know, get to the book of Revelation. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, which is amazing since the Savior hadn't sacrificed his life yet, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Oh, our testimony of Christ was the weapon. And that's what Satan will seek to overpower in Joseph and in all of us. J.B. pointed out the pronouns when we're talking about them the enemies look in verse uh 48 this was their faith he's talking about the nephites who produced the record that my gospel which i give unto them uh that they might preach in their days might come unto their brethren the lamanites and also that all that had become lamanites because of their dissensions. Now, this is not all their faith.

In their prayers was that this gospel should be made known also, if it were possible, that other nations should possess this land. And I was reminded of Enos's prayer. I always make my students look at the order of the things that Enos prayed for. Do you remember what the first thing he prayed for was himself himself right next was his own family my brethren the nephites and the lord doesn't really tell him the lord's like i'll do with them what i promised and and then he prays for who the lamanites and the lord is more positive yeah i'm gonna take who? The Lamanites. Lamanites. And the Lord is more positive.

Yeah, I'm going to take care of the Lamanites. And then he prays for the records. And I just put Enos in the footnote here because I thought this is, he's answering the prayer of Enos. That I'm going to preserve that record and it is going to go forth to the Lamanites. And to anybody that possesses this land. I thought, oh thought that's the an answer to enos there so i love that john i can almost hear the lord saying i made a promise yeah i intend to keep it and i'm sure enos wasn't the only one but that's just kind of stuck out

amen i think that's such a great thing i think you both underscored that so well i mean it's just a reminder that that section one proclamation would i the lord have Lord have spoken, I've spoken, and it shall all be fulfilled. You know, these prophecies and promises will be fulfilled. And I think that attention to the promises with the records. So yeah, well said to both of you. Yeah, and I'm grateful God keeps his promises. This verse 21 is really interesting to me. This might go back to, Hank, your thought about how do we pray always.

This is again talking about the conspirators that are having this plot. Their hearts are corrupt and full of wickedness and abominations, and they love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Therefore, they will not ask of me. And I'm not even quite sure how to articulate this, but has just been this one's just been jumping off the page at me that i think sometimes again we we if we're not careful we we might we might say that the conspirators are them uh rather than us but sometimes i wonder if this is also us that does do i find myself resistant about asking the lord because I don't want the answer or that I don't really want to humble myself and face that perhaps there are some things I need to change.

And that's such an interesting phrase, they will not ask of me. The problem with the conspirators, they just refuse to find out. Could it be possible that Joseph Smith really is a prophet? They wouldn't even find out. They wouldn't even ask. And so this idea of asking myself, do I love light and darkness?

And am I willing to humble myself to pray? I wonder if that's part of this praying always attitude that I'm willing to humble myself that way. Oh, I hate to admit this, but there are times where I've thought to myself, I don't want to go into that spiritual place because I know what I'm going to hear and it's going to hurt. And so I'll just avoid it. I'll go distract myself with a good season of Netflix or something, you know, because

I, I'm like, I know what the Lord's going to say. Uh, and I don't, I, it's going to hurt. Right. I've told, I've told the youth that I've spoken to before. How many of you have felt guilty and felt that sting? And I have, how many of you have tried to avoid that and get away from that? And I, sometimes I do this with my own self and I'd say, encourage you all of our listeners to do this is just let it sting for a moment, right? Just let it just sit in it for a moment. Instead of avoiding it, let it sting, let that guilt hit you.

Because then if you'll just let that sit for a minute, you'll hear the end of the section. I am Jesus Christ. I am the light which shines in the dark. I am and I will, I will, I will. That comfort could come, but you got to face the music, right? That's verse 21. It's beautiful. That's another way that praying always can help us come off conqueror, to conquer that

tendency. That's beautiful. The church has not been formally organized in Fayette. I know that Carl Anderson would say that largely the church was organized in Kirtland, but verse 67, behold, this is my doctrine, whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. That is a large definition of church. And there are a lot of people who love Jesus and are trying to follow him throughout the world. I wondered if you could respond to what's the definition of a church at this time or throughout the scriptures, JB? I think you're right.

I think this should expand our idea, or maybe another way of saying it is it should give us a sense that church can have multiple meanings. And so this is pre-formal organization of the Church of Christ, April 6th, 1830. And I wonder if this also has some resonance for 1 Nephi 13 and 14 as the way we think about there are two churches only. Stephen Robinson's great comment that this is not about membership records. This is about who has your heart. Not about who has your records, but who has your heart. Yeah, let's give the reference. Find the article called Warring Against the Saints of God by Stephen Robinson, and it's a commentary on 1 Nephi 13 and 14, which is Nephi's vision of Lehi's dream in greater detail, and it's such a great resource. Such a great reference. And that

was impressive again, John. Not only memorizing poems, but just have that off the top of your head. Well, in my class, I do it. So don't be impressed, please. No, I still am impressed. It makes me think of the Orson Whitney quote that Ezra Taft Benson also quoted, that the work of God is bigger than just we as a Latter-day Saint people can do and that he is using good people all over the earth and they are our partners in this sense. And I think that expansive definition of church and that God's working with all good people fits really well with where section 10 is. And I think it fits really well with a Latter-day Saint cosmology, the way we think of the universe

and the way we think of post-mortal preaching in the spirit world, and that all good people who are working toward God can be used by God and can be influenced by him and are part of his work, his church. One last thing in section 10, in verse 63, it says, the Lord says, they do rest the scriptures and do not understand them. As a reader of scripture, I might not know what that means. They do rest the scriptures. Yeah, I think there's maybe a couple examples that we could think about. Maybe this comes back to our idea of justification against self-justifying. If we use the scriptures, we twist them, we manipulate them to fit a definition that makes us feel better about ourselves or that contradicts some aspect of God's gospel

that introduces confusion. An example that maybe comes to mind is how Jacob really rebuked the men of his time who were using David and Solomon as justification for committing whoredoms. And he rebuked them for resting the scriptures that way, that they were twisting, justifying, manipulating the scriptures. Another good example might be Doctrine and Covenants 74, when the Lord helps clarify a first Corinthians passage that had for a long time been used to justify infant baptism. This was read wrong. It was rested in a way to change an ordinance of practice and to justify it as people were reading too much into it. Okay. So if I were to define this term, it's using the scriptures to justify

behaviors that I know, probably deep down, I know are not, they're out of the strength of Satan pamphlet. I should not be doing this, but I can find it in the scriptures right right yeah manipulate them and justify what i'm doing it might be done by being ripping it out of context or to um reading something into it sometimes i think they could even be done in a in a well-meaning way but where you're forgetting the whole of the scriptures you're you're focusing too much on one verse in isolation and not seeing how this could work in the overall tapestry of what the gospel is. In some ways, that might be the more tendency for us. I think for people listening, they might hear the word rest and not know this has a W in front of it. This is wrestle. This is wrestling. And I have a son who's wrestling in his high school right now,

and he attacks me daily and tries to twist me and bend me in places I just don't want to go. So when I think of, when I see rest, I think that's the first syllable of wrestle. I'm going to wrestle with the scriptures and make them conform and pin them down to what I want them to mean. Wow. That's a very, very good. That's a great analogy. That is a perfect analogy. wrestle with the scriptures and make them conform and pin them down to what I want to want them to mean. Wow. That's a very, very good. That's a great analogy. That is a perfect analogy. Take down. This is from February of 1978. This is a first presidency statement. Beautiful. Says the great religious leaders of the world, such as Muhammad, Confucius, and the reformers, as well as philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God

to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals. Now, listen to this last piece. It almost sounds like an article of faith. We believe that God has given and will church who receive inspiration from God to help others on their way to eternal life. I love this idea. Yes, outside of our formal church organization that could also be in the Lord's church. I mean, section 18 is at verse 20 that says, contend against no church, save it be the church of the devil, which tells us what? Don't contend against good.

You know, there is a church of the devil out there and there's a broader church of God. That's a fun one to ponder and wrestle and think about. It is so much. I think we could, and JB, you're part of the religious outreach program at BYU. So the idea that we're all on the same team here is a big part of your message, right? Oh yeah. And I would say also for all of us to pay attention to this, keep this in the back of our heads when we come to section 35, what the Lord says to Sidney Rigdon. Sidney Rigdon, how the Lord really praises him as a John the Baptist sort of figure and preparing the way. And I think there's just something powerful in thinking more broadly about God's working with his children and inspired people who love him and are operating, working with his spirit, following, and trying to bring more and more people to him.

As that great quote you shared, Hank, I mean, they're lifting whole nations. I love that idea. Yeah. And this is a great, I hope gives our listeners something to do when they're confronted with the first Nephi, they're saved two churches only. Church of the Lamb of God, the Church of the Devil. If you're not in the Church of the Lamb of God, you're in the Church of the Devil. And this, that's okay, that's one verse, but let's look at all the verses that refer to a church.

Let's look at that statement of Hank. And I think I like what you said, JB, that there could be multiple meanings, like there are so many times in the scriptures with certain words. And that helps us to have a charitable spirit as we look at what this could all mean. Excellent. Man, I just really like that. We could talk about this forever. It has to be one of the things, as we've heard in previous podcasts, John,

is that one thing that really bothered the Smiths was the idea that people told them because Alvin wasn't part of the right church, he's going to hell forever. Uh, and yet we can kind of get caught up into that. My church is true. Your church is therefore your church is false type. Yeah.

All true. All false. That false dichotomy. It's this or it's this. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Something that I, I'm really grateful that our, our our latter-day saint leaders have been emphasizing recently uh in in some very public

proclamations reminding people what joseph smith said about religious liberty and religious tolerance and the kind of city ordinances they put in place in navoo welcoming people of all all faiths and and and and joseph that he, if it has been proven that he's willing to die for a Latter-day Saint, he's just as willing to die for a Presbyterian or a Catholic. And that kind of generous heart, that fits, I think, with the prophet of the restoration, and it fits with what we are hearing in these revelations about the way God views his children. I love that generous spirit. I think that's part of the arithmetic of the restoration. When I personally think of the church of the devil, I don't think of any church really at all. I think of the pornography industry making more

than Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NFL combined. That's what we contend against. That's what we're fighting against. It's what Stephen Robinson in that article calls it the great and abominable. He uses the definition, and maybe in this chapter it's historical, but in this chapter it's typological. First, Nephi 13 is historical. First, Nephi 14 is more like all disassociated evil united against what God hates. That's, I think, how he defines it there. I listen to Christian radio all the time, and I'm just, so many times I'm driving thinking, I'm so grateful that these folks are there. I'm sorry sometimes they misunderstand what I think, but I'm so glad that there's so many good people like this. Please join us for part two of this podcast.