followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 133-134 Part 2 : Dr. Derek Sainsbury

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

Dr. Sainsbury continues and discusses how many Second Comings are indicated in Doctrine and Covenants 133, the importance of temples, and the uniting of people from every nation, religion, and people in the cause of Jesus Christ. We discuss the role of governments, slavery in the United States,  and the Saints’ continuing responsibility to serve civically.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/episodes/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive ProducersDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Sponsor/MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Assistant Video EditorAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsKrystal Roberts : French TranscriptsIgor Willians : Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. Okay, and so just quickly, like 36 through 40, we have this idea of, okay, so like I said, this is the reason why I have brought the gospel, and I'm sending missionaries to every nation. Now think, this has received 10 men in a council. There's 600 members of the church total this is like crazy talk right this is i mean it's just absolutely crazy talk i i did the math and so at that time in the world uh not that i'm good at math i used a calculator uh at that time in the world uh as a church we represent a point zero zero zero zero zero zero six of the world, as a church, we represent a 0.0000006 of the world, right? One out of every six million people, right? And so it's just audacious, right? That this is what the church

is. Even today, we represent less than 2.02% of the world's population. And listen to the way, what we proclaim, right? Same, yeah, same language. This is what Stephen Harper, one of our guests, has said about this, because like you said, this is 1831, he said about this revelation, to a fledgling group of fallible Latter-day Saints gathered in a private home, it sets forth an audacious scope of covering the globe Exactly. It's a bunch of guys in Hiram, Ohio. And the Lord is talking about this global reach and Babylon and quoting scriptures from all over the place.

And this is you, 10 guys. Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed with what God has given us to do, but it's His work and He chooses weak and we can do it. With Him, we can do anything. I remember, and I bet you both felt this way. I felt the same way with my patriarchal blessing. It felt audacious. It felt much bigger than I could imagine, right? Like, oh, I don't know. And this feels like a church patriarchal blessing. Section 1, Section 133, this is going to be big. And it's, did you say 600? About 600 total members right here? 600. And of course, spread everywhere, right? Still some in New York, a chunk in Kirtland, and then spread out everywhere else.

Okay, go cover the earth because I'm coming. Yeah, exactly. And that's a good segue into the last of the second comings, this idea that he talks about in 41 to 51. So again, look how he introduces it, bottom of verse 40. That thou wouldest come down, this is the prayer to the Lord, come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. Again, that idea that when you come, all other earthly governments, societies, or whatever, melt away. They're gone. And your presence will be as the melting of fire, as the fire which causeth the waters to boil. And we talk about how his glory is like a fire that cleanses. And again,

I'm not discounting a literal, some kind of glory fire that chemically makes everything pure. I'm not discounting that at all. But I like the, as the melting fire that burneth and as the fire which causeth the waters to boil, this idea that fire is the other, water, blood, and fire are the cleansing agents, right? And so some have been cleansed by water. Here, some are being cleansed by fire, and there's some being cleansed by blood, which we'll get to in just a minute. And that all nations shall tremble at thy presence. So that idea, again, of earthquake is the idea of it's such a shock to the world system, right?

That everything crumbles that's not true. Everything crumbles that isn't following eternal law, whether inside or outside of the church, right? That everything that's not inspired by him trembles. And there you got verse 43, that thou doest terrible things, right? When thou comes down, the mountains will flow. We talked about 44 and 45. Verse 46, he comes in dyed garments. He comes in red, right? And why are you coming in red? And his first answer is, I am he, verse 47, who spake in righteousness, mighty to save. Well, what does that mean? Well, I'm in red because my garments are covered with grape juice from being the only one in the wine vat. So in those days, as you both know, the harvest of the grapes are then put in these big wooden vats.

And the servants, generally in the ancient cultures, would have to go in there and literally squish every single grape by foot. And I've watched videos of people doing it still today. So don't imagine them coming up to your shins. We're talking above the knees, full kind of thing. And you're in there, and you've got to get every grape to get the juice out. And of course, they'd be holding up their robes or whatever, but there's no way you're going to escape getting your clothes dirty and stained, right? This is a stain because this stuff isn't coming out. I don't care how much you wash. So that's him in the Garden of Gethsemane by

himself. Yeah, in verse 50, and this voice shall be heard. I have trod in the winepress alone. I have brought judgment upon all people, and none were with me. That's the Gethsemane, or on the cross even. Well, it says that in Matthew, none were with him, right? And Elder Holland gave that talk, none were with him about that moment. So that does tie it to Gethsemane, doesn't it? And Golgotha.

And both of them, right? And the bloodshed there. How crimson the cloak, Elder Maxwell used to always say, that we really don't show in pictures or we really don't show in our movies just how bloodstained he would have already been, his clothing would have already been coming out of the garden long before this other thing. And so that idea that I'm coming in red because I came mighty to save, my red cloak here shows I'm mighty to save. Every sin I have squashed, right? Every single one of them and taken them upon me and I can save anyone who will choose to be saved because I tread it alone. And then in verse 51, though, it changes.

And I have trampled them in my fury. Now he's talking about the wicked, the Babylon, those that wouldn't choose. And I did tread upon them in my anger, and their blood have I sprinkled on my garments and stained all my raiment, for this was the day of vengeance, which was in my heart. A lot of other saints read that verse, and they're not going to recognize Jesus, although that's really him. They're not going to recognize him. I think sometimes we can make him, I say in my classes, we can make him into a teddy bear and the teddy bear doesn't have power to save, right? And with this idea, because I'm going to see how quickly he shifts the language, but he's being very serious that the other reason blood would get on or that kind of color would

get on clothes in those days were the priests who would offer the sacrifices, right? And the blood of those animals would of necessity get on them. In fact, in some sacrifices, they're sprinkled on them on purpose. And so you can either accept the red cloak of forgiveness and repentance or the red cloak of trampling and vengeance. It's very section 19, right? You can accept my atonement and repent, or you'll have to suffer like I suffered. And that is being just perfect with the same red cloak, he's saying both things. The division, right? Right. Babylon and Zion.

Right. We've got the same division exactly make a choice make a choice i see the the god of mercy and the god of justice and mercy in verse 50 justice in verse 51 and then verse 52 and i think this comes from um revelation again remember Remember that he hears about the Lion of Judah and he turns to look and it's a wounded lamb. It's a wounded, meaning the scars of sacrifice, right? It would have had its throat slit, basically. I think that's chapter five, right? Revelation five. I think so. He's like, John is crying, there's no one to save the earth. And here's the lion.

And he turns and you're right. And there's this lion. He sees a lamb, not a lion. That is wounded, right? Not just a lamb, but a lamb that has been wounded. That is somehow, it has been, you can look at the marks and see he's been slain, but somehow he's alive. And look how quickly it changes.

So 51 is that lion, right? No mercy mercy ripping things apart. And then, and now is the year of my redeemed come, and they shall mention the loving kindness of their Lord, and all that he has bestowed upon them according to his goodness and according to his loving kindness forever and ever. In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of I mean, just like that, the whole feeling switches right away, right? So the justice and the mercy. And as you pointed out, John, the mercy is before that too, right? So it's mercy the mercy, and as you pointed out, John, the mercy's before that too, right? So it's mercy just as mercy.

Yeah, it's sandwiched in there, right. Yeah. Love it. I like to share with my classes when we get to 1 Nephi 19.9 that says, you know, they spit upon him and he suffereth it, they smite him and he suffereth it, they scourge him and he suffereth it. And then it gives a because, which is always wonderful to see. What was Jesus thinking? Well, it's my duty because of his long suffering and his loving kindness. And so when I saw that phrase, it just reminded me of that. His patience and his love for us are part of that God of mercy. And so then we see verse 53, His love.

So I'm making my first Nephi 19, 9 footnote there. Yeah, it fits perfectly. And again, right, pulling from all these scriptures. And we haven't even talked in great detail, which we don't have time for and we don't really need to, of how many of the earlier sections that have already been given are straight word phrases that are mixed in here too. So it's even like the most recent revelations are all being mixed together in this beautiful appendix.

And then after talking about that, he talks about all throughout time, he's been with the people that they will resurrect, they've been resurrecting, and that the graves of the saints will be opened. And again, that idea of being on Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem, being with the Lamb, singing songs forever. And then again, he goes, and so again, let me tell you now the third time, this is the reason that I have restored the fullness of the gospel in plainness and simplicity to prepare the weak for those things that are coming so that you can be in the right place. You can be, more importantly, the idea, right, isn't necessarily the right place, but the

right person. You can be the right person with me and the weak things. I'm going to come back to another thing in 58, but in 59, the weak things of the earth shall. And they've changed this word to thresh because it means the same thing. But thrash has come to mean something. This is a great metal band from the 80s. Let's thrash the nations. I mean, I think that would be like the perfect metal band name for the 80s.

The thrashers. The thrashers. The Thrashers. Oh, that's a good one too. But the idea that they're harvesting, right? The threshing of wheat. They're harvesting these weak, these 600 people, right? They've gone out. And this is the reason I've given these commandments.

And this is the reason they're carrying this book. And again, I'm stopping one more time to say, look, this is the reason, right? This is the reason for what you're doing to answer their specific question. And the reason to the people who read these commandments later down the road, including us, this is the reason to prepare you for the marriage, to prepare you to meet the lamb and not the lion, to prepare you for Zion, not Babylon, however you want to look at that idea. Yeah. That same idea, I call upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised,

to thresh the nations by the power of my spirit, is section 35, verse 13. And it says, and their arms shall be my arm. And I always use that when I teach Ammon, because Ammon takes his arm out and it says, I will show forth my power. And then he modestly says, well, the power that is in me. Because when it's the Lord's arm, that's whose arm he is using. And I love what that said in verse 58, two shall put tens of thousands to flight. Right. Exactly. A little one shall become... We've just been talking about all these nations being knocked down, right? Flowing down like the mountains. And one little one is becoming

a nation, two can put thousands to flight. There's an importance in that, like you mentioned, about how with God our this dichotomy, sometimes we think that you're either a Latter-day Saint that's righteous or everybody else is killed. And that's just not true, right? And we've learned from other revelations and from other prophets that we will still be a very small minority. And here's one case of it, right? We will still be a very small minority of people on the earth when the Lord returns, because, I mean, I'm not a big country music fan, but when Luke Bryan sings, I believe most people are good. I'm on it. That's true. And this is really going to lead into our section 134 talk, because this little one becoming a, we are little among the nations of the world, if you look at Zion as a nation or as a kingdom. But when he comes, that's the kingdom he's coming to, and the world will need to be put back right.

I mean, think of all the natural disasters, think of all the collapse of government. People will be wondering what the heck is going on, right? They saw God descend from heaven. And where is this cadre of people that God could turn to, to go out amongst the world who already understand what's going on and in large part have become what's going on? And I think it's important to emphasize both of those points. One, that there will be all kinds of good people left here on the earth, that it's only the deep that's being moved into the north, that there's good amongst all peoples. But also, there's something important

about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. there's something important about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There's something important about temple covenants that are, in the sense, priests and kings and queens and priestesses. There's something important about what we're being prepared for. We can get really, at least I've noticed, we can get really narrow in our understanding of what the second coming is, but what our role is, like, after, you know, after Adam and Dayaman, after the nice things that happened in the temple in the New Jerusalem, after the destruction of the wicked and all that, it's not just like God never uses a magic wand, right, to do things. There's not a magic wand that puts everything back together again, all the islands coming back together again, right? There will be a government, and it will be him, right? But who's he working with?

I don't know, maybe work with kings and queens and priests and priestesses. And so it's just really, really just this beautiful idea that, yes, you are small. Yes, you're minuscule compared to the rest. Yes, I've given you a big job, but you can do it through me, right? But that job just doesn't end at the second coming. There's more after that, right? We're preparing the world for the second coming. And I just love that idea. I remember our interview with Mike McKay early, early on where he said, think of the church as a thread in a quilt, right? Bringing these big patches of together, these patches of people, these wonderful people together who all love God.

And you've got to have a thread to bind them all together. And that's, you said the Latter-day Saints are the thread, maybe not the big quilt itself, but the thread of going through these nations and getting them all, you know, binding them all together. I just, I love that you used the word dichotomy, and I always tell my students, okay, here comes a college word, dichotomy, just the idea, and the scriptures do that a lot. They, I feel like if the Book of Mormon in particular had a personality, it's a very black and white book. It's this or it's this. And I love what you said just there about there's so many good people. And it's the dichotomy. I remember in 1 Nephi 13 and 14, we've got the great and abominable.

And it's very much a dichotomous thing. It's this or it's this. And then Stephen Robinson wrote an article called Warring Against the Saints of God to kind of expound on 1 Nephi 13 and 14. And one's written in apocalyptic, he would say. But he talked about it's more about being a member of the great and abominable or being a member of the Church of the Lamb of God, he said, was more about who has your heart than who has your records. That's perfect. Yeah, you might remember that phrase. And I thought, oh, thank you for saying it that way.

We all know there's so many good folks out there, and it's going to be so nice to unite together on what's good and right. What is a dichotomy? Let's explain to our listeners, a dichotomy puts everything in two groups, right? Right. Either or. It's one or the other. Yeah. And the scriptures do that a lot, but we all know there's so much good out there that maybe doesn't fit a dichotomy this or that as easily. But the scriptures use those terms to teach us. Is that a fair way to say it? Yeah. And, John, I would say that phrase that you borrowed there, maybe it's just reshifting the dichotomy.

So, in other words, it's not the church of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of the devil. It's who has your heart. And I think that's a better way of looking at it. In fact, does God have your heart? Yeah. Does God have your heart? And there are so many people who are not of our faith and God has their heart. Or just the opposite.

There are those who have our records. If you go back all the way to verse two, the Lord says exactly what you said, John. He says, I come down as judgment upon the nations that forget God and upon all the ungodly among you. If you'll indulge me for a minute to tell a story that just happened to my family this past year. And less than a month later, he had a freak infection that overnight attacked his brain and put him in the hospital, unable to control the right side of his body and only being able to say the word one. One. Everything was one. The first night, we thought we didn't think we'd get him back. The second night, we didn't think we were going to get him back, meaning he could live, but he may never think again, speak again, all this other... I mean, they did an emergency surgery and all that stuff. Lots of prayers, lots of incredible miracles along the way. But the

biggest one for our family, to be honest, was an incredible Methodist speech therapist who came to our home three times, four times a week, sometimes on extra time, not being paid by the company she works for. And he left with full speech ability, full cognitive ability, she took home, she decided, she helped him write his talk, right? His farewell, for lack of a better term. She took home, preached my gospel and read the whole thing in a weekend and then came back and worked with all the terms in there that he, because his brain had to reconnect thoughts to words, right? And so she went through all of the terms that he would be using on a mission, and some which are specifically LDS, but gospel terms, and then she would have him practice teaching her, right? And she would even correct him sometimes. No, that's not what you

believe. I would hide in the next room so that I didn't interfere because she'd ask him and he'd like, I don't know. And I'm like, dude. But it was just an amazing experience. And they're still in contact. We're in contact with her. And she is like the most faithful, awesome Methodist. She's a better Methodist than I am a Latter-day Saint. I can tell you that right now. And there's no way I could see God saying, oh, your records are in the wrong place. You can't be part of this great millennium. And so, yeah. And I just love that idea that, yeah, the scriptures talk in stark terms because it's a sense of urgency. It's easier to understand, but the nuance to it is also there if you're looking for it, right? We just saw it in that verse that... Yes, thank you. Verse two. Yeah.

Yeah, that if... The ungodly. Oh, you're a member of the church? Great. You're ungodly? Well, then no, you're not here. You get transferred and we'll see what we can do with you in the spirit world. So yeah, I think that's important with where we're going because what is that early government in the millennium? What does it look like? How does it operate? I mean, these are esoteric questions we don't know, but we do know a little bit about what the temple is supposed to be preparing us for. And we do know that he's going to come and find a kingdom that's going to spread the gospel and help him rule. That's in ancient and modern scripture, help him rule for a thousand years.

So, yeah, I'm glad that we can come to agreement on, you know, there's great people out there. Great, great people. Yeah. Let's go into 134, which kind of is really helpful because the nation in which the restoration was given and how that's going to work and how it's going to be in the context of this relatively newly formed government. Can we jump into the backdrop of 134? Yeah, absolutely. Let me start with a quote, and you tell me who said it. There is confusion in everything, both political and religious. And notwithstanding all the efforts that are being made to bring about a union,

society remains disunited. And all attempts to unite it are as fruitless as an attempt to unite iron and clay. The feet of the image are the government of these United States. Other nations and kingdoms are looking up to her for an example of union, freedom, and equal rights, although they are beginning to lose confidence in her, seeing the broils and the discords that rise on her political and religious horizon. Wow. Who said that? John Adams.

Martin Luther King. I was going to say George Washington, Joseph Smith. It's Joseph Smith. It's Joseph Smith. Okay. But I mean, that could be pulled right out of our headlines couldn't it I mean it could be yeah particularly the past year a year and a half I mean so well said um and so I use that as a way to to introduce this idea that um you know they were dealing with difficult

things too as far as government and religion like we we are. And often the roots are still the same. And Section 134 helps us a lot with bringing all the islands of the sea back together, using and defending the instruments God has given us to be able to keep what we already have, right? There's no mistake that last general conference that President Oaks chose to talk about the... I mean, he's the perfect one to do it, right? But that's the title, we must defend the constitution, right? And so let's look at where this actually comes from. So our dichotomy, right, of Zion almost like a separate kingdom and Babylon. Well, between that revelation in 1831 and this one in August 17th, it's not necessarily a revelation, but August 17th, 1835, this section of the Doctrine and Covenants, a lot has happened. And early saints may have believed that all would be well, we'd get to Zion, we'd build it up,

missionaries all over the place. The United States hasn't even entered into any of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. There's basically two nations, Zion and Babylon. And then it doesn't work out for us, right? It's because of Zion. Okay, so let me explain what I mean by that. One in heart, one in mind, one dwelt in righteousness, no poor among them. Well, building that on the frontier of a slave state with the Indian nations across the river doesn't work out. So you've got people mostly from New England and the mid-Atlantic states who believe in family, first of all, who believe in communal religion. That's not the case with most of the people that are there. They're there, a lot of them from the upper South, to either get away from the law or get away from their families, right?

And find an opportunity because the frontier is somewhere you can hide. Now, that's not everybody, but that's, I mean, this is kind of the Wild West kind of idea of getting away from society. Then economically, right, we're living the law of consecration. We're trying to build up Zion through communal economic efforts, and we're starting to buy up a lot of land. And that's in conflict with people that are there to make money off of the trade routes that come from Santa Fe or from gambling or getting government commissions and so forth and so on, then you've got this idea that we believe we're Zion, right? And we have this religion that talks about angels and visions and gold plates.

And some of us are unwise to talk about, you know, you're Babylon, you're going to get wiped out, this is our land. And it's not working out really well, right? I don't think that's in How to Win Friends and Influence people. Right, right. How to Win Friends and Influence Settlers, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, in the end, it all comes to a head because of an article in our newspaper there in Independence called Free People of Color. And its idea was to say, look, we're gathering to Zion. I'm just breaking it down in a nutshell. The idea is to come to Zion. If you're a person of color who is free, remember, this is a slave state, right? And so you need to exercise judgment about that. Well, the locals take that as, all right, well, they believe in-

Is that Phelps who wrote that? Yeah, W. W. Phelps. W. W. Phelps. Okay. Yeah. And so the locals are like, yep, see, again, in 1831, back to that first revelation, just a few months prior was the Nat Turner Rebellion, where a slave preacher named Nat Turner led an armed rebellion and they killed 50 whites. And in retaliation, militia mobs murdered hundreds of enslaved people. And all throughout the South, which is now the South

that they're dealing with here in 1835, right? All throughout the South, legislatures changed rules and severely restricted slaves' liberties even more. And everybody was on edge that when's the next Nat Turner revolt, right? And so for the locals there, they could interpret that, they decided to interpret that as, you know, they're going to bring, there's going to be another Nat Turner out here, right? On the frontier where it's easy to get guns and it's easy to have, you know, hide in places because it's less populated or whatever. And so they take the law into their own hands, right? And burn down the printing house and destroy it and say, we have to get out. And we eventually have to because

they take our guns and march us out. And then of Zion's camp, right? The whole idea is to come back. Well, the revelations in Zion's camp bring the United States into the narrative for the first time. I inspired the men who brought about the Constitution and for this reason, that everybody could have rights so they could express their moral agency. And you should look for good people to rule in those offices and so forth. Governor Dunklin, who's the Democratic governor of Missouri at the time, who had first offered to help the saints get reinstated, but then backed down when it looked like it was going

to be civil war, had written some follow-up letters to the leaders of the church in Kirtland saying, what happened was repugnant. I'm going to look at trying to change the laws of the state so that we can redress this problem. And that kind of gave the saints hope that maybe there's another opportunity, right? And so what they did was start a newspaper in Kirtland called, separate from the other newspaper, the church newspaper they had, called the Northern Times. Almost all the newspapers in those days were, guess what, partisan, right? So they were either Democratic newspapers or Whig papers. And the Saints fit more naturally into the Democratic party of that that time um that you know was more for

individual rights and more for local control and and other things anyway um and dunklin's a democrat most of the people in jackson county are democrats and so this paper is very uh has had very democratic leanings um to try and kind of mend fences right uh including going after the hardcore abolitionists um that existed at the time to say this is you know this is tear the country apart right so they're trying to mend fences they're trying to you know they know the only way back in is through the help of government and so they're trying their best to be on the government side, right? And a local, you may have talked about in an earlier podcast, but a local newspaper called the Painesville Telegraph, it's kind of like the Warsaw Signal before the Warsaw Signal, right?

So kind of the enemy of the church in media, in print, says, oh, they've got a newspaper, right? So that must mean that they're a political newspaper. So that means they're going past their bounds. And so maybe we need to stir up something here in Ohio. And so that's the kind of the environment, the back buildup to section 134 is this is the environment that's going on. There's a committee that's like we talked about before, the committee that put together the Book of Commandments. This is the environment that's going on. There's a committee that's like we talked about before, the committee that put together the Book of Commandments.

This is the committee putting together the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which is the follow-up. And Joseph Smith is actually off with another member of the First Presidency, Frederick G. Williams, in Michigan. That's how much he trusts, right, Oliver and Sidney and others, to finalize the process of the Doctrine and Covenants. And this conference led by Sidney and Oliver add two statements unanimously to the Doctrine and Covenants, and one of them is this statement on government, okay? And Joseph does

later endorse it, okay? So even though he wasn't the writer of it it wasn't a received revelation in that sense he does endorse it uh the next year in 1836 um and up through 1842 he's he's using it as his kind of as his own he writes a letter in 1842 where he just replaces we with i you know in a letter about what do you believe in government kind of a thing. And so in the section heading itself, it says that this is, that our belief, so this isn't, you know, it's framed differently than a firsthand from the Lord kind of revelation, that our belief with regard to earthly governments and laws in general might not be misinterpreted or misunderstood.

Think of the context we just shared. We have thought it proper to present at the close of this volume our opinion concerning the same. And so that's where we get this. And it's kind of important that we understand all that's going on in the background to understand what it is specifically they choose to talk about with government and what that means for the Latter-day Saints going forward. I noticed it reads a little bit like the Articles of Faith. Correct. We believe.

We believe. Every verse begins with we believe, except for verse 9, we do not believe. Right. This is the thou shalt not or whatever you want to call it. It's a dichotomy, that we believes and that we don'ts. Right. This is the thou shalt not or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's a dichotomy that we believes and that we don't. Yes. One last point for context. These men and women of the church, vast majority of them are children or grandchildren of the revolution. Can you imagine? And so they take it very personally that those rights are being denied them, right? It's very, you know, my grandpa died too, or my dad bled at Yorktown or whatever.

They're the same right. I am the inheritor of those same rights that you are. Why are you not giving them to me? You know, so there's, and you also also have to, I guess another thing I should say too that I just thought of is that in these, we're only two generations from the revolution and there's still no guarantee that this is going to work out. It's not kind of the rock republic democracy of the past two centuries, there is a real fear that something could bring this whole thing down, right?

That a tyrant could get involved or whatever. And for a lot of Americans at the time, they looked at non-Protestant faith, so Catholics So Catholics and Latter-day Saints, basically, as being suspicious and that their thoughts or ideas could bring down, or their immigration actually, too, could bring down the Republic. And they talked in terms of that, too. And it's not just saying something to whip up the mob. These were feelings that were expressed about the Catholics. They were widespread at that time. Almost the idea that, yeah, freedom of religion is for Protestants, but not so much for Catholics and for these Latter-day Saint people, right? These Mormons, as they would have called them then. And so that's also kind of important to have in the background that those are kind of the

discussions that are happening. Wow. All right, so. Okay, and again, it comes out of order, 1835. Right, yeah. So this is way out of order. So I'm going to break it down. Instead of going verse by verse, I want to do this one a little bit more thematically. What this section

says about governments in general, what it says about the government's role to the governed, and then what are those that are governed, what is their role to the government, then religion and state, and then kind of the very last two verses, redress and slavery. So governments in general. Okay, so in verse 1, it teaches, we believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of men. So government is good. It comes from God.

It is necessary. In verse 6, it says to regulate our interests as individuals and nations between man and man, right? Not everybody agrees on everything. We need a government. Verse 2, that it requires laws, right? And then verse 3, that there can be different kinds of government. So in it, it says that these leaders should be sought by and upheld by the voice of the people, if a republic, or the will of the sovereign, right?

Or the will of the king or whatever kind of other government there is. So it's not just talking about republics or democracy. It's talking about government anywhere. A bad government is better than no government, right? Because if you look in verse 6, in the middle of verse 6, it says, you know, governments are needed because without them, there's anarchy and terror, right? I mean, if everybody can be the government and decide how things go, then things fall apart. So that's kind of like, this is what government is, and this is why God has government on the earth. And then the next one, government's role to the governed,

or what should the government be doing towards citizens, regardless of whether it's a republic or whether it's a sovereign king or something like that. Verse 1, making laws and administering to them for the good and safety of society. That's why a government exists, right? That we can prosper and get along and be protected. Then in verse 2, these will start to sound familiar, right? The free exercise of conscience, right of property, protection of life, right?

And so you think of the Declaration of Independence, right? We hold these truths to be self-evident, right? In fact, self-evident is going to be used, inherent and inalienable rights in verse 5, right? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you know what the original draft that Jefferson wrote had instead? I do. Go for it, John. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.

Correct. Correct. Yeah. But that got edited out. Yeah. But in this, it gets edited back in. Pursuit of real estate. In this, it gets edited back in because it's free exercise of conscience, right, and control of property.

And control of property. And the protection of life. So they actually write it back in when they write this. And I think that, isn't it true that Jefferson got it from, was it George Mason, who in the Virginia Constitution, he had some of these ideas. George Mason is the one that refused to sign the Constitution because it didn't have a Bill of Rights, and he wanted some of these things in there. It's really interesting. I mean, this is written in a time when the saints are getting mobbed, right? Right. Yeah. And so it's like the constitution, it wasn't work. And it was, I love, somebody put it this way,

help me if you know who it was, but it's an aspirational document. We're aspiring to these principles and ideals, you know? And it's kind of like we all are. We have the scriptures, we aspire to live the way they're asking us to, and sometimes we're not there, but that doesn't mean they're not true. And it doesn't mean the constitution isn't valid. It's an aspirational document. We haven't always lived up to it, but that's what we're aspiring to. Absolutely. That's very well said. And let's see. So then in verse 3, to administer the law equally and justly. This is, again, still the government's role. In verse 4, at the end of it, to restrain crime, but never control conscience. Punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul. And I mean, I think today we're starting to see a little bit of that kind of what's called illiberal thought, liberalism, not in the political sense of left and right, but in the sense of pluralism and freedom to think the

way you want to think and act the way you want to act as long as you don't take away those same rights from other people. So it's very interesting that that same conversation we're having now is right there in there. And then verse 5, this is a great statement too, towards the bottom, that governments have the right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to serve the public interest at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience. So there's a balance there, right? That governments have to learn the balance of individual rights and collective needs, right? And we've got to be able to figure out, and governments have to do that, right? And then, let's see, last one is in verse 8. It says that they are to punish crime, that governments are to punish crime according

to the criminality, right? So bad crime needs to be punished severely, and others don't. So those are kind of, here is what we believe as a church from our inheritance of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the republic that we're in, but we feel is important for all governments, that governments are good, they exist for a reason, they come from God, the idea of them, and they are to protect people and their rights, and they're supposed to balance society's needs and be equal before the law and justly regardless of who people are. Now, like you mentioned, John, 1835, slavery is legal. And so obviously that's not doing that, or even following

what the Lord says in section 101 when he's talking about the constitution, that no one should be in bondage to one another. Sometimes we take the Bible as being inerrant and infallible, that every word is exactly there the way God wants it, and every truth is exactly there the way God wants it. Too many times in our adoration of the constitution, we've done the same thing and said every word that's in there is inspired and needs to be in there. Well, sorry, I don't think God inspired the three-fifths compromise over what a slave means, right? Or slavery in the first place. But the protection of life, liberty, the freedom of conscience, rule by the people. These are all things to need to get agency.

Slavery is the exact opposite of that. And we haven't lived up to it. And we paid a huge price for it, right? I think, too, I was looking at this earlier when I was preparing. But George Mason made this really interesting comment about national sins cannot be paid for in the next life. They must be paid for in this. And he was talking about slavery, and we are going to pay for this. And perhaps that was his own way of prophesying the Civil War. Well, and the Civil War, 600,000 soldiers killed. And that doesn't even talk

about civilians or those who died or the nationwide heroin problem and morphine problem after the war that most people don't talk about because of all the amputees. Whoa, talk about it. Talk about it. What's that? I mean, so in the late 1800s, you could order morphine or heroin, even cocaine, off of Sears catalog, right? They were, so during the war, that's kind of the first major war where these drugs are used to take away pain, to do surgery.

And of course we know now, right? Word of wisdom. We know now that these things are addictive and that whole generation of wounded men, so many of them lived the rest of their lives as what we would call today addicted to drugs. And the effects of the Civil War is what I'm trying to say go on and on and on. And you talk about paying a price for national sin, you're talking 600,000, 99% of which are whites, not blacks, who die. And percentage of the population.

Yeah. There's never been anything like it in our history. Yeah. And I don't think it's been totally redeemed yet. I don't believe that either. My hope is that when we talk about the Constitution, we talk about what God actually said himself in 101 about what it's for, and not that the whole document is this revealed scripture from heaven. And certainly our behavior didn't match. Yeah, so when you say 101, let's point out to people, that would be verses like 77 through 80, probably. And again, the shortness of it is so that people can exercise their moral agency.

That's what this place is about, right? Mortality. So speaking of dichotomies of Utes and Cougars, I went to the University of Utah right after my mission. And I remember in political science class hearing, they called it the fist swinging right, which I see kind of articulated here a few times. You have the right to swing your fist as far until it reaches my nose. Correct. That idea. And so, yeah, government can do this, but as soon as it starts to infringe on what individuals can do, and that's articulated a lot in here, where that fist swinging right stops. Correct. And that's, I mean, that's the delicate balance, right? Trying to then what this is talking about as far as we as citizens, how we're supposed to act towards government. So in verse one, right off the bat,'ll be held accountable for our interaction,

or lack thereof, with government. If you look at verse 5, he said that, he says, or excuse me, that this document says, all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside. And if you go down a little bit, that sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected. We're supposed to sustain and work within the government, right? Change policies by electing different people or advocating, redressing, running for office yourself, which the first presidency has said several times leading up to elections, that we're not supposed to be disengaged from government, that we're supposed to be part of it.

And then in verse 6, we believe that every man should be honored in his station, rulers and magistrates being placed for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty, and that to the laws all men should show respect and deference. So we should respect the laws of the land. If we want different laws, we should work to change them. And we should respect the people in their offices for the fact that we need offices

of people that can do these things for us. And again, I mean, and that's all throughout history of the United States, but it's spiked recently in our lifetimes, the disregard towards both people and law is not good. It doesn't lead to a good place. And the saints knew this firsthand. Yeah, it's the anarchy and terror thing. If there's laws that aren't followed at all, then it's why have them? Yeah, we've seen so much of that lately.

The last one is verse 8. At the bottom of verse 8, it says that we should use our ability to bring offenders against good laws to punishment. So in other words, we shouldn't look the other way. We should be helping the government crack down on crime. I remember when I was a kid, the whole neighborhood watch thing, man, was taken really serious. In my childhood, not my teenagers, but in my childhood neighborhood, man, I mean, people made assignments, and you couldn't get away with anything. I mean, it was terrible for a kid, right? I mean, you couldn't toilet paper without

being caught. I mean, there was no crime in that home that I lived in for six years. There was no crime in that area at all. Yeah. And I noticed in verse eight, bringing offenders against good laws to punishment. So there is a moment there where it's like, where that word good is interesting, isn't it? Where I get to decide as a citizen almost, that's not a good law. I'm not going to turn so-and-so in because that's not a good law. It reminds me of, you know, William Tyndale and those smuggling the English Bible into England and trying to catch them. And why aren't you helping us? Well, it's not a good law. Yeah, for us later on in our history, we didn't turn each other in on the polygamy acts, right?

We considered that to be an infringement of our rights and it was still going through the courts. And so we weren't just handing each other over to the federal government. But general stuff that we can all agree on as being crime, we need to support and help government. Okay. And here's the big one, right? Religion and state. What does that mean? Church and government. Because that's the real reason they're writing this, right? It's because people are misunderstanding them, and they don't want to be misunderstood, and it hasn't worked out for them. Their religious rights weren't protected. Their religious neighbors denied them their rights. So as we look at that, it's woven all throughout it from verse 1 to

verse 10. In every single verse, there's something about it. So in verse 1 and in verse 4, it says that both government and religion are both instituted from God. So they have the same source of authority. That's really different from the modern secular idea of separation of church and state, which is much more of a split, right? The separation of church and state has been wonderful for us to get a restoration, to go around the world, right, and do it. But separation of church and state is only 300 years old. For a long time, it was restricted to Protestants in the United States. And we're going back to a monarchy, right? I mean, that's where we're headed eventually in the millennium. So the problem is kind of throw the baby out with

the bathwater, right? The idea that to try and separate the two, we've just totally – too much in Western society, we've totally thrown out God from it when both are supposed to originate from God. And so there's that balance there. Okay. That's really well said. And what's the actual wording of the amendment? Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion is that the actual wording restricting the free exercise and the free exercise thereof or yeah yeah and the free exercise thereof so not uh stopping us from exercising our rights to believe what we want

to believe and and those actions as that follow but also not enforcing on us a state religion, which is the case everywhere else in the world, and actually anywhere else in time. I mean, there's no difference between the Roman emperor as God on earth, or the Sumerian ruler, or the Egyptian ruler, or Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Anglican church. Church and state, yeah. Church and state. And even here in the United States, most of the colonies had an official state religion, right? It changes.

So it's a very new idea that there's this separation. And of course, it's God's hands in it so that we can have what we have and have the ability to go throughout the world and people can believe what they want and all that stuff. But it's not the natural order of things, I guess, as we say. And sometimes when we live in a moment, we look at the rest of time and say, they got it wrong. And I'm not saying they didn't get it wrong. But the idea that separation of church and state forever, and especially the

way it's developed to where there's the state and then God is your thing you do in private. Don't bring that into the public sphere. Don't act in the public sphere. Don't try and influence the public sphere. That's not what's intended. Yeah. Getting to where your opinion isn't valid because you're coming from a religious mindset.

Yeah. The best form of government would be a righteous king, wouldn't it? And we see that with King Benjamin, King Mosiah. It didn't always work out very well. In fact, the Book of Mormon message, surely this leads to captivity you know said uh brother jared and he said don't call me surely i always love to make that joke in class but uh and so they set up the reign of the judges where hey these are these laws

that god gave us and let's appoint judges to judge us according to the laws that God gave. But yeah, when Jesus comes, that will be a righteous king. And like you said, bring it on. Let's look at verse four. Oh, excuse me, three. So your rights, your religious rights can infringe on the rights of someone else, right? Verse four, the government should not dictate what we worship, right? We do not believe that human law has the right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men nor dictate forms of public or private devotion.

So both of those phrases from the First Amendment, right? Free exercise of religion, but also not establishment. They call it the establishment clause, right? Free exercise of religion, but also not establishment. They call it the establishment clause, right? The establishment of a national church or a state church. And then verse 5, that public interest versus freedom of conscience. And that freedom of conscience is usually the term used for the idea of freedom of religion. Verse 6, man is accountable to government for the rules between men and to heaven for the rules between men in heaven, right? And verse 7 is where it gets to be really specific. We believe that rulers, states, and governments have a right

and are bound to enact laws, again, think of their experience, for the protection of all citizens in the free exercise of their religious belief. And we do not believe that they have a right to deprive citizens of this privilege or prescribe them or tell them what their opinion should be. And then verse 8 is not, but then verse 9. Now, we have to read this very carefully or we misunderstand it. We do not believe it is just to mingle religious influence with civil government. So if you stop there, then that makes it sound like the modern

secular argument that there shouldn't be any influence, right? But that's not what the verse says. And I've seen some people come to this verse and use that, right, to say, well, the church shouldn't talk about medical marijuana or whatever, right? They shouldn't have any influence at all. Yeah, we shouldn't. Right. The next word is whereby. You're not allowed to talk. Right, yeah. Whereby one religious society is fostered and another prescribed in its spiritual privileges

and the individual rights of its members as citizens denied. So it's not that we shouldn't bring our religious experience into government. That's not the case at all. It's that they shouldn't be mingled where, let's first say, for example, we elect a president who then says, or a governor or whatever. One is favored over another. Yeah, where they say, okay, we're going to treat this people different from this people, which is not supposed to happen, which is exactly the experience that the Latter-day

Saints have had and are going to have. And then in verse 10, that the religious rules are for religious societies. Religions shouldn't make rules for the rest of the people, the rest of the nation, right? That there is that separation in that way. So verse 11 says, and now you can start to see the clenched fists, right, of what we've experienced. And you can see Oliver digging his pen into the paper. We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, which they have done and been denied at every level of the Missouri government and letters to both the press. So we also sent a letter to Andrew Jackson, who he had his secretary of war respond to us saying this is outside of the national government. rights were actually only federal rights they didn't pertain inside the states and that's why federal governments didn't get involved because the state's rights issue was very

very strong the government can only get involved if there's sedition or rebellion and they didn't see this as being sedition or rebellion, right? Even though- Yeah. So the idea is, yeah, the idea is have your Missouri leaders work it out. And they're saying, that's what we're trying to do. In the first case, some of them were in the mob, right? And then in 1838, later on, the definition of mob and militia are the same thing. So, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same. So, we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends and property and the government from unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency.

I don't know how to say that word. When you've got no other choice, right? People are dropping down on your home. You don't have a choice to go appeal to the judge. Where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws and relief afforded. And so that, again, comes out of the revelations from the sections of Zion's camp, where if they keep coming upon you, then you have the right to return fire, if you will, to protect your homes, to protect your people, which is what's going to happen.

John, it sounds like Cap Moroni wrote that almost. Yeah, we're getting some. This is what I love about this is that King Mosiah, when all of his sons went on missions and he had no one to give the kingdom to, he's like, you know, let's start a new system. And it's fun to read these ideas and principles and kind of equate them with what we're seeing here.

I can see Cap Moroni being excited. You are justified in defending yourself and your friends and your property and your government from unlawful assault. Let me write that on my coat for you. Yeah. So much of the restoration flows from the Book of Mormon. How do you know how to build up a church? What is the doctrine? And so those words would be natural for Oliver, who's read and written more of the Book of Mormon than anybody else, right? And so it's in him. So yeah, I mean, Captain Moroni there.

I was gonna bring up, John, with the experience of going to the reign of the judges, it doesn't work. Within a few years, you have aalekite, I mean, you have the kingmen and you have a civil war. And so, even when it seems like it's a better system, it doesn't always work out. Yeah, the idea is supposed to work, but that's what I tell my classes, you know, who's this Amalekite character and how come as soon as they enact the reign of the judges, there's all these people who want to go back to having a king. And that's seen every since they set it up, there's people who want to keep going back. And that's a good point. Again, a lot of ideals here that we fall short of. Yeah. And then verse 12, this is kind

of one that kind of sticks out as being different. And again, we have to remember the context, everything that we talked about leading up to this. In it, it says, we believe that we're supposed to preach, and it's a good thing to preach to the nations. But we do not believe it is right to interfere with bond servants, so slaves, neither preach the gospel to nor baptize them contrary to the will and wish of their masters, nor to meddle with or influence them in the least to cause them to be dissatisfied with their situations in this life, thereby jeopardizing the lives of men. Again, think of Nat Turner's revolt. Think of they're trying to get back into Missouri, all that.

Such interference we believe to be unlawful and unjust and dangerous to the peace of every government, allowing human beings to be held in servitude. Now, the reason, now that sounds on the top, like it's not an endorsement of slavery, but someone could read it that way. It's not. It's saying that, notice at the end, every government that allows slavery, we work within the government. Because even just, we didn't even say anything wrong. We just said to free blacks, you might want to think about coming here. You know, this is a slave state and everything blew up. Right.

And then there's this great national fear of the South now going on of, you know, when is the next Nat Turner? But the interesting thing is, is that Joseph Smith's presidential campaign is actually just the opposite. He goes for abolition, and he sends missionaries to the South with that message, which I found to be pretty interesting when it came to what I learned about what happened there. So that's where they're at in 1835. That's what they put in to try and mend fences in Missouri and let the people in Ohio know we're not trying to take over Ohio. We're not mingling to make it just be Mormonville or whatever. But that's kind of not where it ends. Our next section of the Doctrine and Covenants is nine years later, kind of picks up from the 1843 that you talked about earlier. But a lot happens in between there and 1844 when Joseph is killed,

including why Joseph is killed, right? What's leading up to that? Please join us for part three of Follow Him.