followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 135-136 Part 2 : Dr. S. Michael Wilcox

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Doctrine & Covenants 135:Dr. S. Michael Wilcox returns to discuss the legacy of Joseph’s life and the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith’s life testifies of a living and active Savior, and we reflect upon the joys that can come from tragedy. What would be your final message?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. I believe it was Bertram Russell. I'm going to get it wrong here. One of those British thinkers said, history is written in three books. The book of deeds, the book of arts, and the Book of Words. And it's always fun to have a discussion with people as to which of those they think is most important. And I don't know that you can have an answer to that and elevate one above the other. So the Book of Deeds, the landing on Normandy, beaches, the Valley Forge, these are deeds that men did.

The Book of Arts, Michelangelo's David, never a greater sermon on the dignity of man was portrayed visually than Michelangelo's David. It's in Florence. Thomas Jefferson's The Book of Words in the Declaration of Independence. So when you start to weigh deeds and arts and words, what have had the most impact? And you'll have different people. Like I say, it'd be fun to have a discussion. Take the 10 greatest deeds in history,

the 10 greatest works of art, and that would be music, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, just whatever, and the greatest words. Now, maybe because I'm an English major and like to read a lot, you know where I'm going to vote. I'm going to cast my vote that it is words that have had the greatest impact and the greatest legacy. The ideas, the minds, the deep things of the soul

transmitted by written word down through the generations. So Joseph did great deeds. Carthage was a deed. He gave his life. But the greatest influence, I think, what he died for, and what John Taylor is going to indicate in section 135, is that Joseph and Hiram died for words, the words they left us. And he begins section 135 with that idea. We go right to verse 1. The reason for the martyrdom,

to seal the testimony of this book, meaning the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Book of Mormon, we announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the prophet, and Hiram Smith, the patriarch. And he tells their last words, the day, the time, how many balls they received, a little history. But he starts with, they died for the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.

And then we go to verse 3. Joseph Smith, the prophet and seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world than any other man that ever lived in it. That's a very strong statement. I don't know that I would want to debate with somebody about that. It is John Taylor. It is typical writing style of the 19th century.

I don't know how literally I want to take it. I don't know if I want to debate with somebody how literally. There's a lot of great people who have done a lot for the salvation of mankind. And Mike, I don't think, I just can't see the Lord having a ranking system. Yeah, I think it is a tribute. It is the way we sometimes talk. But if I were going to put a reason behind it to say, I can agree with this. I would say this, Joseph Smith gave us more scripture than any other man that I can think of.

The Book of Mormon, translation, the Doctrine and Covenants, Revelation, and the Pearl of Great Price. Now, can you think of anybody? Paul gave us a lot of great epistles. Luke. We've got Luke gave us, I think, the most beautiful. We get an ax. Moses gives us the Torah, you know, the first five books.

Isaiah gives us 66 beautiful chapters. We get a lot. Mormon abridges great amounts of scripture. But if I had to say in my world, as I pick up in my hands, even if I include the Buddha or Confucius or Muhammad, other great writers of holy writ, of scripture. I'm not going to find anybody who's going to give us quite as much as Joseph. So I will take verse 3 of that and say, I'll justify that statement based on that. I don't want to rank, and I don't want to—it's a very strong statement.

And then he kind of clarifies it. He gives me permission to think that way. After that first sentence of verse 3, in the short space of 20 years, He has brought forth the Book of Mormon. We're back to words, which he translated by the gift and power of God and has been the means of publishing it on two continents, Europe and North America at the time.

Has sent the fullness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained to the four quarters of the earth. And what does he add to the Book of Mormon? Has brought forth the revelations and commandments, which compose this book of doctrine and covenants and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men. It's words. Pearl of Great Price isn't published yet. I mean, it's been published in various periodicals of the time, but it's not been gathered together. Joseph died and Hiram died for words. And the greatest tribute, the greatest way we can remember them and honor them is to

study and search and read and internalize those words that they gave us. And then he talks about some other things, you know, the gathering of thousands of people and building a city. Joseph always wanted to build a community. One of the great things that he died for also was, and that he lived for, was to create, maybe one of his greatest creations was to create a community, a people, like the Torah creates the Jews. Judaism is, they're a people, the people of the book. They're a religion, but they're also a people. And Latter-day Saints, it's a religion, but it's also a people. Now he comes back in verse 6 after their farewells, after they're teaching us how to die,

he comes back to this idea, what were they dying for? And he includes them with other martyrs of religion. And then he says in the middle of verse 6, the reader, because of course that's how we honor Joseph and Hiram. We read. In fact, I wish he had changed that word. If I could edit the Doctrine and Covenants, I'd change that word to searcher. We never want to read the scriptures. You always want to search them. The reader, the searcher in every nation will be reminded that the Book of Mormon and this Book of Doctrine and Covenants of the Church cost the best blood of the 19th century to bring them forth for the salvation of a ruined world. And he comes back to that same idea of they left us words, wonderful words.

In 1838, one of the greatest American minds in the early half of the 19th century was Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is a brilliant mind. He wrote beautiful things, beautiful prose. He was a deep thinker, influences American thought, American letters, our love of the natural world. A lot of things come from Emerson. And in 1838 in July, I would recommend everybody read it. He gave an address, a speech,

to the Harvard Divinity School, July, I think it was the 15th, 1838. Joseph is in, you know, far west at this time in the middle of his life. And Emerson describes Joseph Smith. He doesn't know he's describing him. He's longing for something. He's predicting something. He's prophesying something. He is telling these future ministers coming out of Harvard, brilliant young men graduating now, what is spiritually wrong with the world and what is needed to fix it?

And I read, it's beautiful in a lot of ways. He's describing what Joseph is going to do in bequeathing to the world beautiful truths and ideas and light and wisdom in words. So let me just give a little, because I wish everybody would go out. You can Google it, Emerson's 1838 Harvard Divinity speech and read it. You will be amazed at the Divinity School address. So here's a little bit. I don't mind sharing Joseph Smith and the Doctrine and Covenants with Emerson. I don't want to share them with Ford and the Higbys and the laws,

but I don't mind sharing with Emerson at this moment of sacrifice and gift of his life. He says, It is my duty to say to you that the need has never been greater of new revelation than now. In how many churches, by how many prophets, tell me, is man made sensible that he is an infinite soul? It's one of the great truths of Joseph Smith. He just expanded the concept of mankind, humanity, to immense heights and depths and breadth, that the earth and the heavens are passing into his mind,

that he is drinking forever of the soul of God, where now sounds the persuasion that by its very melody in paradise is my heart. I love that phrase. There are things in the Pearl of Great Price, in the Book of Mormon, in Doctrine and Covenants. The melody of its words in paradise is my heart. And so affirms its own origin in heaven, that I am an eternal being coming from a higher place.

Where shall I hear words such as in elder ages drew men to leave all and follow? Think about what those early saints did, the Brigham Youngs and the Party P. Prats, because Joseph asked them to do it. To leave father and mother, house and land, wife and child, where shall I hear these august laws of moral being so pronounced as to fill my ear, and I feel ennobled by the offer of my uttermost action and passion, which is what Joseph Smith and God and the Savior and the Restoration ask of us. And we are willing because it ennobles us. What he taught, what we read, ennobles us to the point of our desire to offer,

as they offered in Carthage, our uttermost action and passion. Then I skip a little bit here. I don't know how to honor Joseph and Hiram much better than with Emerson. I have some others I'll honor him with a little bit if you don't mind. A little bit later he says, remember in section one, I'll preface this part with this. Section one, God said, as the Doctrine and Covenants is being formed, I call Joseph Smith because of calamity. That's the word he used.

Remember that? Because of the calamities that were going to come upon the earth. And we ask the question, Lord, what calamity were you talking about? War and destruction? Yeah, maybe. Maybe, but I think Emerson says it greater in this desire for God's voice to be heard powerfully on earth again. What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay. Genius leaves the temple to haunt the Senate or the marketplace.

Literature becomes frivolous. Science is cold. The eye of youth is not lighted. Age is without honor. Society lives to trifles, so that things would not become frivolous, the stationariness of religion, the assumption that the age of inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed, the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man, a human being, indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. Now, this isn't a Latter-day Saint saying this, right?

This is Ralph Waldo Emerson, the greatest thinker, you could argue, that America produced. Assessing his nation at the very time Joseph is teaching. At the very same time. The very same time. Yeah. It is the office, I'm back to Emerson, the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was, that he speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity, a faith like Christ's in the infinitude of man, is lost.

Few believe in the soul of man. All men go in flocks to this saint or to that poet, avoiding the God who seeth in secret. So what did Joseph Smith die for and come to do? He fulfilled the office of a true teacher. He came to show us that God is, not was, that he speaks, not spake. So I know you always sometimes end, you know, what does Joseph Smith, what does he mean to me? Joseph gave the world, he gave me a God that is present, a present God, a God present in history. He gave us a Christ present in history, not one that lived and died, but that lives as he testifies. He lives in my life, in your life.

He gave us a God that is, that not was. And then he says this, We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had in the dreary years of routine and of sin with souls that made our souls wiser. That's what Joseph did for me. That's what he died for. So I could be wiser.

That spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly were. To see the divine in us. Joseph came. His words teach us the divine in all of us. And then he concludes, I look for the hour. The hour was there. For us, it was there. I look for the hour when that supreme beauty which ravished the souls of those

Eastern men and chiefly of those Hebrews, eastern meaning the Middle East, and through their lips spoke oracles to all time shall speak in the West also. The Hebrew and Greek scriptures contain immortal sentences that have been bread of life to millions, but they are fragmentary, are not shown in their order to the intellect. I look for the new teacher. Capital T capitalizes teacher. That is a wonderful tribute. I don't think Emerson knew he was giving a tribute to Joseph, and those words would fit other people. But I can't read the Harvard Divinity Address and not just sit down and say, God knew the calamity that was coming.

And part of that calamity was loss of spiritual power. And without spiritual power, there is no moral power. You lose spiritual power, you will lose moral power. And we see that. And he sent us the new teacher. He sent us Joseph. And the words do everything for Latter-day Saints. And we hope that they'll do in wider and wider circles what they do for us. What an inspired soul for Emerson to have those yearnings, you know?

Yeah, Emerson, I mean, he wrote a lot of beautiful, beautiful things. And I've read quite a bit of Emerson. You know, I'll give you another one. Just, you don't need me to praise Joseph Smith in section 135. I can get it from those who aren't members of the church who were thinkers, brilliant people. So I gave you Emerson. I know he's not specifically talking about Joseph Smith, but he's talking about the need that Joseph Smith will strive to fill, will try to fill.

He'll spend his whole life trying to fill. And for a believing member of the church, what Joseph does fulfill, Joseph does what Emerson yearns for, hopes for, longs for. So now if I were to pick a moderns, the modern Emerson mind, another brilliant, brilliant man, literary scholar, America's preeminent one, it would be Harold Bloom. Harold Bloom wrote one of the greatest books on Shakespeare, for instance. And he wrote a book called The American Religion. And he talks about a number of religions that he says really resonate with America and arose out of the American experience.

The Southern Baptists, he does a lot about them. But he spends a number of chapters on Joseph Smith. So here's a man who studied a lot. He was Jewish. He doesn't join the church, but he objectively is looking at Joseph, having read and studied his life. So here's his assessment.

Again, just a little bit. I do not qualify to pass on the rest of the Mormon creed. I'm not going to talk about what I agree or disagree with with the Mormon beliefs. But I also do not find it possible to doubt that Joseph Smith was an authentic prophet. Where in all of American history can we find this match? The prophet Joseph has proved again

that economic and social forces do not determine human destiny. Religious history, like literary or any cultural history, is made by genius, by the mystery of rare human personality. And Joseph was a rare personality. If you don't want to accept him as a prophet, he certainly doesn't give us the opportunity of accepting him as a fraud or a charismatic or a deceiver. He just doesn't give you that choice with what he wrote.

He was an authentic religious genius. I'm reading from another chapter by Bloom. And surpassed all Americans in religious genius. Before or since in the possession and the expression of what could be called the religion-making imagination. I've always believed that there is a gift. We have talked about the gifts of the Spirit, that one of the gifts of the Spirit, one of the most unique and powerful is the gift of religion. Some people are just gifted.

They've been able to draw on revelation and cultural things and their own soul, and the needs of humanity, and an understanding, and to create through a combination of all those things, the programs, the ordinances, the expressions of doctrine that can define a people. And Jesus had the gift of religion, I would say. Moses had the gift of religion. Muhammad had the gift of religion. The Buddha had the gift of religion. Confucius had the gift of religion.

They just had an ability of giving men words and ideas that changed the world profoundly. I'm back to Bloom. I'll quit with Bloom on this. If one decides that Joseph Smith was no prophet, let alone king of the kingdom of God, then one's dominant emotion towards him must be wonder, not derision. You don't accept him as a prophet. Bloom is saying, I'm not going to join the Mormon church. But my attitude to Joseph Smith is one of absolute wonder. I myself can think of not another American except for Emerson, interesting that he includes Emerson,

who so moves and alters my imagination, lifts my thinking, causes me to ponder. So rich and varied a personality, so vital a spark of divinity, is almost beyond the limits of the human as normally we construe those limits. To one who does not believe in him, in terms of, I'm not going to join the LDS church. He's Jewish, okay? He would make a similar assessment about Jesus, you know, just a very open that he says to one who does not believe in him, but who has studied him intensely.

Smith becomes almost a total mythology in himself. The creator of a whole worldview is what Harold Bloom is saying. I can give my love of Joseph. I love him profoundly, all that he has done for me. For all of us who believe and love him and have read his words. Think of the characters he gave us. Just go through the Book of Mormon, the Nephites, the Lehi'enus praying in the woods, Benjamin on his tower, the stripling warriors, Captain Moroni with his flag,

Alma the younger, Jesus with the children, the brother Jared with his lit stones and his barges, the weeping God of Enoch. Just the characters, the stories, the personalities that he gave us. Think of the phrases that he gave us. Worlds without number have I created. I wrote some down. This is my work and my glory. Men are that they might have joy. Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. When you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are only in the service of your God. Wickedness never was happiness. The glory of God is intelligence. I, the Lord, am bound when you do what I say. Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly. All these things shall give thee experience. There must needs be opposition in all things,

and on and on and on. You can find those kind of phrases on every page, every chapter, pretty much, of the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. When people have a little faith crisis, a little anxiety about Joseph, I usually say to them, go open your triple combination and just read what you once underlined. And I think you'll start to feel faith and a calmness in the words. So if John Taylor believes no man did more than Jesus, which, again, there's a lot of people who've done a lot of things for mankind.

But in the words that he gave us, in the scriptural power of those words, in his insistence that God is a present God, he's a now God, he's not a yesterday God, that he speaks justifies somewhat John Taylor's assessment of Joseph. I have a favorite paragraph in Preach My Gospel. I think it's on page 41, 40 or 41. And it's just a couple of paragraphs. I don't know who wrote these, but they're just beautiful that throughout history, God has had a pattern of reaching out to his children through a prophet. And man has had a pattern of rejecting them. And he even sent his son and incredibly they rejected him. And then the next paragraph says, Consider our evidence that God has once again reached out to a prophet.

The prophet's name is Joseph Smith, and the evidence is the Book of Mormon. What you just talked about, that beautiful list you gave, look at the evidence. Where did these words come from? The phrases that you gave. Well, I'm a lover of words. I'm an English major. I've read a lot. And Joseph, not everything.

You know, there are times I'm an editor in my brain, and there are times I'm reading the Bible. I'm reading all the Book of Mormon, and I'll say, Lord, I could fix this verse for you. But I am amazed. You know, you've taught college students. I've taught college students for four decades. Brilliant, brilliant students.

And Joseph was not educated. He was educated on the Bible, which was a really good education in the 1800s. He didn't go to school. Sometimes we say he had a third-grade education. That doesn't mean he went to three years of school. They were working on the farm. He would maybe go a few winter months. So I've taught brilliant college students.

I don't think I've ever met one who could begin to produce the ideas of which I just crabbed a few, you know, that you can find on page after page. He was not perfect. I probably have squeezed my sponge of love for Section 135 and what Joseph Smith died for and how he taught us how to die, which is what I always think about when I come here. William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet. Difficult, I have to admit. But there was an uprising in Ireland in Easter of 1916 where the Irish were trying to throw off British rule and gain independence, and it failed.

And the leaders of it were executed. And it troubled Yeats somewhat. And so he wrote, I actually wrote a poem called Easter 1916. And the ending and one of the phrases that he uses as a refrain throughout much of that poem always brings me to Carthage too. I thought about it when I was in Carthage this last time. Just these few little lines. Yates wrote, we know their dreams. We know their dreams enough to know they dreamed and are dead. What were Joseph's dreams? How much more would he have liked to say that? We know their dreams enough to know they dreamed and are dead because they dreamed,

because they wanted to try and make the world a better place. And what if excess of love bewildered them till they died, Yates writes. Their dreams were motivated by their love. And then he ends, all changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born. And I feel that way at Carthage. Something changed. All changed.

Changed utterly. And then that oxymoron, that terrible beauty. A terrible beauty is born. It was terrible what happened at Carthage. Two men were murdered brutally, violently, for the most unjust reasons, based on prejudice, hate, bigotry, intolerance. And yet, for you and I, something beautiful also grew out of the terrible tragedy of Carthage. And I think John Taylor is trying to capture that emotion of everything's changed. Joseph changed things. Something beautiful came out of Carthage and something terrible came out of Carthage. And John Taylor would know because he was there. He would know that emotion of the beauty of Carthage and the terribleness of Carthage. We go to Carthage as a spot of pilgrimage.

It is a beautiful place. It's a place of love and sacrifice and devotion. It's warm, wonderful, loving emotions, sad emotions, come to us when we visit Carthage and think of Carthage. Same thing with the cross, with Calvary. A terrible beauty was born on the day Jesus died. A terrible thing, but a beautiful thing. When good men die in the way Jesus Joseph did, Martin Luther King died, Abraham Lincoln,

they were all what John Tedder might call green trees. When he says, if the fire can scathe a green tree, Lincoln's a green tree. Martin Luther King's a green tree. Joseph was a green tree. Jesus, a green tree. I can think of a dozen other green trees living. You take the green trees out and you leave the world to the dead trees, and problems will. But the world has a pretty good record of setting fire to the green trees.

Mike, before we get to your last portion that you have for us, I've noticed that a lot of this is about Joseph, yet Hiram is included. How important in your experience of reading about Joseph and Hiram, how important is Hiram to Joseph? Enough to be included here in his basically a memorial revelation. Yeah, and this great final statement of belief. Our faith is anchored in family. Faith and family for a Latter-day Saint are light and truth. They're just interchangeable. We have elevated, as I said, family and eternal love as the highest ordinance of our faith. And what's so wonderful about that is that when we look at

the first family of the church, we have this example in many ways. God knew Joseph's role would be difficult. And so what did he give him? He gave him this wonderful supportive family, a Lucy Mack Smith, a Joseph Smith Sr., an Alvin in the early days, an Emma. The people, the intimate people that surrounded Joseph Smith were marvelous, wonderful. He had great friends too, you know, the Olivers and the Martin Harrises and the William W. Phelps and the Brigham Youngs and the Heber C. Kimball's. And not all of those stayed quite as true.

You know, Joseph says only Brigham and Heber of the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. But that family were wonderful. And I mean, it's hard to say, well, single out Hiram above Lucy Mack Smith, you know, or Emma. Hiram was, I think, a calming influence on Joseph. He was somebody he could always rely on. I think Hiram was God's gift to Joseph, and Hiram got to go with his brother. You know, there's a moment in history, if we do a little bit of the history, when the bodies of Joseph and Hiram come back to Nauvoo and Lucy Mack sees them,

and she says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family? And God answers her, I've taken them to myself that they might have rest. I think it is Joseph and Hiram and their relationship, not just at Carthage, but all through their lives, is God saying, this is what family should be like. This is what I'm hoping family will be like, that you will support one another the way this family supported one another. Great things come out of family. And we have a foundational family that shows us something by way of example. Certainly Hiram.

Hank, a couple of things. I had been doing some reading and had Oliver Cowdery not left for a time, he might have been there, I guess, as kind of president and co-president of the church. Does that sound right? Yeah. But Hiram, I remember bringing this up before. Joseph's name means, was it he who adds? Someone who adds.

And Hiram means my brother is exalted. Which is an amazing. That's appropriate. Yeah, amazing to think of why Joseph and Hiram there together. Mike, I want to ask you one more question and that's verse six yeah he calls them martyrs of religion and they're classed in this this group uh we would talk about i know you love william tyndale a martyr of religion yeah he they're what we can call and we've've referred to it, the green trees of history, you know, that sometimes are scathed by the fires of intolerance and hate.

And yeah, William Tyndale is one of my most beloved people, certainly a green tree. Green tree means full of life. I think the metaphor, the image of it is a beautiful image that John Taylor is grabbing, full of life, so much to give, fruitful. And the world, you call whatever fire, the fire of hate, the fires of prejudice, intolerance. We've burned a lot of green trees. And if you can burn people that are that good, what's the world going to do when you don't have the green trees to try and make life better? It becomes a tinderbox. It's the green trees that have saved man the greenest tree of all jesus of nazareth right but yeah tindo did you want to ask a specific thing well i'm just you know the uh the the martyrs of the reformation um uh and how you know the lord talks about their blood. He sees their blood, right?

And just being now in that category, they will be classed among the martyrs of religion. I just think of putting them in the category with some pretty incredible people from history. Yeah, they are. You know, I've said, because I get to travel a lot, God's been really kind. He probably felt I needed it to open my mind and my eyes up and periods of history, that God has been speaking to his children all the time, every way he can everywhere he just has lots of different voices that he he speaks with not all prophets and apostles philosophers and sages and and playwrights and poets and uh artists and musicians. He's in the lives of beautiful people who have lived and enriched

and enhanced the very idea of what humanity is. He shows his hand. As I said, Joseph taught us God is a present God, and he's always been present. And having studied and read and thought about all those people, Joseph is very comfortable in their company. a meeting in heaven with, whether you want to put some of the, you know, with the Francis of Assisi's and the Joan of Arc's and the Confucius and the Buddha's and the Moses's and the Paul's and the William Tyndale's and them turning and saying, what are you doing here? Okay, you don't belong in this company. He fits very comfortably in what he gave to man and in his efforts to lift man to a higher state, to be better people.

He's comfortable. I don't think Socrates would say, you don't belong here. Okay, Plato, Aristotle, we could go on. You know, the great conversation of the ages between people who are always asking themselves the question, what is the best way to live? What is the good person? How does that person live? How do they think? How do they interact? And that's a dialogue that's been going on for a long, long time by a lot of wonderful men and women.

Joseph is very comfortable. I don't sense that he doesn't belong in that great dialogue. Flawed? Yes. Things that he did at the end of his life, I'm sure he would have said, I wish I hadn't done. But as he wrote to Emma, I've done the best I could. And God can't ask any more out of anybody than that we do the very best we can. And then when our time comes, the readiness is all. And I think Joseph was ready.

You know, Roosevelt was a remarkable man. And great men always have critics. You said earlier, the greatest man of all, Jesus. People saw enough fault in him to kill him, and in the most painful way. The great men and great women, the great thinkers, the great doers, the movers, the healers of the world, the givers, will always have critics. And so Roosevelt, he was in Paris at the Sorbonne, and he gave a talk. He was after his presidency. One of the most famous people in the world, one of the most admired people in the world. And he said this that I think of, again, not just Joseph, but many people in history, but I'll apply it to Joseph Smith here at the end.

It is not the critic who counts. I think of all the critics of Joseph Smith that you can get online and in 30 seconds, you can access all the critiques of Joseph Smith that you could read in a lifetime. But then you could do that for almost any great person. It is not the critic who counts, Roosevelt said. It is not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust

and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. We really need to remember that when we assess and judge anyone in history who's tried to do good things. We need to remember that about everybody from Joseph Smith to Russell M. Nelson in our own faith. Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions,

who spends himself in a worthy cause. And that's Joseph. That's a description of so many people, but it certainly fits Joseph Smith to a T. He knew great enthusiasm, great devotions. He spent himself in a worthy cause. He came short again and again. We're at the end of the Doctrine and Covenants, and God's forgiven him over and over again. You can't read the Doctrine and Covenants and say Joseph didn't have his shortcomings. But he strove in a noble

and worthy cause, and he left the world a better place. He certainly left me a better person. And I'm grateful to him. And one day I hope I'll die as he did. I hope I'll die calm as a summer morning, innocent, conscience void of offense towards God and all men, wanting to do a little bit more good. And I would say, if I can die that way, I will have a great deal to thank Joseph Smith for my ability to be able to pass from this life to the other life that same way I am who I am I am a whatever good is in me owes in large measure to all that

Joseph and taught me all that Jesus taught me, all that these wonderful scriptures from Esther and Ruth to the stripling warriors and Captain Moroni and all these wonderful people. If I die with a conscience void of offense and calm, it'll be because of those people that I do it. And I'm grateful for. As is written here, he lived great and he died great in the eyes of God and his people. I think it was Elder Maxwell. Didn't Elder Maxwell say he lived his life in crescendo? Does that ring a bell? Yeah, it does ring a bell.

It sounds like Elder Maxwell. Yeah, and I love, too, that all the traits you just listed, I think one of them that I love and I hope is important, I see it in Hank. I try to have it in myself as a native cheery temperament. Right. I love that phrase. I'm a happy guy, you know? Yeah, I'm a pretty happy guy. He did teach us how to live.

He really did. I love section 127. I'm sure you talked about that. And I love section 128 that minimize the negatives, minimize the trials. I don't think Joseph Smith saw himself as a victim. I think victimization is almost a fad in the modern world. Too many people see themselves as victims,

and it belittles those who truly are in that position. Joseph Smith could certainly have seen himself in that light, but what does he say? It's a small thing. Small part of my life was all this opposition. Small part of my life. And the voice we hear in the gospel is one of joy. I think he heard that voice, and he would want us to hear it. And we do hear it.

We hear it in the gospel. We hear it in the words he left us, in the words he died for. It's still going. Mike, it has been such a pleasure, John, to have Dr. Wilcox with us, as this world is going to open up and he's going to start traveling again, and we don't know if we're going to get him back. We hope we will. Well, I'd love to. We'll see. Meanwhile, I have some Emerson to look up.

Yes, that was beautiful. 1838, Harvard Divinity School. I show Google presently. there's a there's a lot and there's other things in it that that he says that matches for me what joseph smith does i just picked the idea that we we need a new teacher beautiful yeah we want to thank uh dr mike wilcox for being with us today it's been um just absolutely wonderful i loved what you did with this section and john and i I, just like we've said before, this section has now changed for us. Totally changed for me. We want to thank all of you for listening and staying with us. We're grateful for your support.

Thank you to our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorenson. We love you both. Uh, and we have an amazing production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nelson, Will Stoughton, and Kyle Nelson. And we hope that you will join us on our next episode of follow him. Thank you.