followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 102-105 : follow HIM Favorites with Dr. Scott Woodward

Episode Date: September 12, 2021

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Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm the host of a podcast called Follow Him. And I am here with my co-host and our wonderful guest this week. My co-host is John, by the way, and our guest is the incredible Dr. Scott Woodward. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thanks, Hank. Yeah. Now, this segment is called Follow Him Favorites. We don't do, we don't go over our full podcast. You can find that wherever you get your podcasts. But for this lesson, for this segment, we just pick one thing from sections 102 through 105. Each of us is going to pick one thing to highlight for Follow Him Favorites. So,

John, let's let you go first, then I'll go, then Scott. So, John, take off. Oh, thank you, Hank. These are always tough because you can't go wrong. So many beautiful verses. But I just kind of highlighted one, section 104, verse 82. That's a long section, 82, towards the end. And this is what it says. Inasmuch as ye are humble and faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory. And a way to apply this to ourselves, I heard somebody say once, I think I was a teenager,

and it's not exactly a scripture, but I think it's true. Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees or upon her knees. And look what the Lord is promising here. Be humble, be faithful, call upon my name. I will give you the victory. I love that he loves us to keep in touch and to call upon his name. And there's a nice little formula there. It doesn't say the victory immediately, but he'll be with us.

He's on our side. And so I like that verse. Okay, John, I'm going to go, John Scott, I'm going to go next section. I'm going to go all the way back to our first section here, section 102, which I hope you'll listen to the full podcast on this because Scott, not only does he tell us really funny stories, he just, he kind of leads in with nothing is so exciting as the minutes of a meeting. And that's what Section 102 is. Pins and needles.

Here we go, ladies and gents. Section 102 is the minutes of a meeting. But what it is, is it tells us about church membership councils. And when someone has done something that the church needs to look at in order to protect the member, protect other members, or to protect their church, that this is the kind of the system the Lord has in place. And I noticed in section 102 verse 17 that the Lord is very concerned about the individual who is coming in. And he calls upon people who are in this meeting to stand up for the accused to prevent insult

and injustice. And I was just thinking about any youth who might hear follow him favorites. Now, this is never going to happen to you. You're never going to be brought in front of, as a youth, you're not going to be brought in front of the stake and the high council. But even when you go to maybe see the bishop to go talk about some things that have gone wrong in your life, I hope you realize that this is going to be a place of love and a place where you're going to feel safe. You're not going to be insulted and injustice is not going to happen there. I would invite both of you to add on to this, that we can feel safe with our bishop, right? And that you're going to be okay in there. Oh, yeah. I'll go first.

I think I loved when a young person would come in to say, look, this isn't – I'm your advocate. I'm your friend. This isn't you versus me or you versus the church or you versus your family. This is Satan against all of us. And we together are going to uh get the lord's help and we're on the same side the same team so i i love this section about that uh that aspect you highlighted hank yeah i think that that's i think you caught the spirit of that section wouldn't

you say scott 102 the spirit of that section amen absolutely All right, Scott, you're up. Follow him favorite. Yeah. All right. Follow him. I'm going to go over to section 105. Let's go versus nine and 10. So section 105, they have come to, so Zion's camp has marched 880 miles. They're now at the border of coming into Jackson County, get their land back. But then they learned that it's not going to happen. Actually, the Lord, again, you have to listen to the whole podcast, I guess, to get the full context. But through a series of events, they found out that they're not going to be able to redeem the land of Zion and have the people that were kicked out of there go back to the land that they own. So the Lord explains in here that it's not time to redeem Zion yet because they still have some things to work on personally. And I think I love verse 9 and 10. He says,

Therefore, in consequence of the transgressions of my people, it is expedient in me that mine elders should wait, and really the rest of the church, should wait for a little season for the redemption of Zion. Well, how long does that little season need to be? He says in verse 10, well, as long as it takes to do this. He says that they themselves may be prepared and that my people may be taught more perfectly and have experience and know more perfectly concerning their duty and the things which I require at their hands. And I think what I love, what makes this one of my favorites is

because I can see the attributes of God in full display here. He is very exacting of what he requires. In order to really live in the Zion community that he's trying to build in Jackson County, Missouri, you've got to live the law of Zion. There's no way around it. You can't get Zion blessings without living the law of Zion. He says in verse five, you got to live the law of the celestial kingdom if you want the kind of blessings that come from that. But what I love about verse 10 is he says, listen, you just need time to work on it. You need to be taught more perfectly. There's more things you need to learn. You need to experience more things and you need to know more perfectly concerning your duty and the things I'm going to require at your hands. And so I love that the patience also in the mercy that's displayed here, right?

Where he's just saying, you're not there yet. So let's take some time. Let's take some time out here to get it right. Let's wait a little season for the redemption of Zion until you are ready to be Zion people. The image that comes to mind, it's a favorite analogy I heard from Brother Brad Wilcox. He was so good. He was the fires that he was giving. And he said, he was talking about this attribute of God. And he used the analogy, we've all experienced this, where it's the sacrament. There's a priest up there.

He's blessing the sacrament. And then he messes up the prayer, right? And then the bishop kind of looks over and gives him a little head shake and holds up his finger, you know, one more time, one more time. And some of us have been in meetings where the priest has just messed up four or five, six times. And the audience, we start to feel kind of awkward for him, right? And the bishop just, again, patiently will look over and say one more time. Sometimes he'll even walk over there and tell him exactly what he needs to. Yeah.

And Brad said, you know, the bishop doesn't have a special switch that he can flip and opens up a trap door underneath the priest and sucks illiterate priest down into the basement, you know, and after, you know, three strikes and you're out. Bones and skeletons down there. Priests have gone by. But the Lord, like, the Lord wants us to get that prayer right, right? He says, yep, try again. Try again. But he'll just give us as many times as it takes. And I think the Lord's patience combined with his seriousness about us getting the law right.

If you have a law that you're struggling to keep, right, a law of God, there are certain blessings you are not going to receive until you learn how to live it. But the Lord's saying, listen, we can wait a little season. We can wait a little season. You've got some things you need to learn to be taught more perfectly, to have more experience, to know more about your duty and what I'm requiring at your hands. And so as long as it takes you to learn it, I'll be here.

I'll be here all day. And so I just love the attributes of God that are displayed here. He's not just a grandpa who's just going to give you a big hug like you're fine give me a little noogie and let's you like come enjoy the blessings of the celestial glory in zion without living the law but he's also not so strict and harsh that you know he's not a three strikes and you're out kind of god he's just he's just saying listen as long as it takes uh one more time right you just picture the bishop looking over you know if you feel like you've you've messed up so many times right just just looking over and say try again i love that verse in mosiah 26 where the lord tells alma that as oft as my people will repent i will forgive them

as often as you as you need to repent like do it that's it's a glorious thing and it's trying to help you learn to live the laws that are going to bring the kind of blessing that God wants to bring into your life. So that's glorious to me. That's a favorite. That is a follow him favorite. Thank you, Dr. Scott Woodward. We hope that you will join us on the full podcast because you can get more of that on the full podcast. You can find it wherever your podcasts are.

But if you don't, that's okay. Come back next week for another follow him favorite. We'll see you then.