followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 28 • Dr. Matthew Richardson • March 24 - 30 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

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Stay tuned for part two with Matthew Richardson, Doctrine and Covenants, sections 27 and 28. Section 28. I remember being in high school or maybe in junior high, reading section 28 and being incredibly confused on why Hiram Page was getting revelations from some sort of stone. I thought, well, of course they know it's not. How do they think this is even real? He's getting it from a rock. Now I've gotten older. I thought, oh, this does make sense. I can see why members of the church then would think this is real. This is of God. Walk us through section 28 and let us know what's happening. Pete Well, section 28 is a time period where the church is starting to blossom in numbers and in understanding for a lot of the members. We're looking at 1830 here, and this is shortly after the church was officially organized. When we have that taking place, it's a time

of once again unfolding. I can't help but repeat myself. I know that's dangerous territory, but line upon line, precept upon precept. And so, we see an unfolding going on here. And I think that's important to understand when we look at section 28. One of the highlights of this one is dealing with Hiram Page, as you mentioned. It's important to put a little context on what's happening with him. He was born in the 1800-ish, you know, early 1800s. This is back in the day where a lot of people didn't know when they were actually born, but they had kind of an idea. I'm about 28 years old, give or take a decade or two. I kind of like that. I would like to use that one too. Yeah, I'm right around 28. I can't remember. But in the early 1800s, and he was born in Vermont,

and then he eventually starts to move west for him. And when we see what's taking place, as he eventually gets over into New York, he becomes associated with the Whitmer family. That's where his connections to Joseph Smith are going to come, not only associated with the Whitmer family, but he starts to date, and then he marries Catherine Whitmer, one of the Whitmer's daughters when she's 18 years old. Here they get married and then they move in with the Whitmer family. They're there on site when a lot of these things are transpiring. For example, the final translation of the Book of Mormon.

He's hearing these things, etc. One of the things that's important to put in context, and you mentioned it and hit it on the head, Hank, is for our context today, this is the wildest story ever. When you hear some of the things that were taking place, you're like, who could possibly believe any of this stuff? But yet, back in the day, people are like, oh, that sounds good. Hiram Page was raised in a religious environment and they were seeking revelation and seeking the Word of God in different things. He would divine things. A lot of times people would use, they often call it witching wells,

and they would use ways to be able to divine water, etc. And I've seen that taking place in some communities when I was back East, how they would be able to do that. What we would consider to be weird wasn't quite as weird back in the day. Think that your reaction is normal. But the spiritual climate of those days is you would see a lot of these things which were considered at least to be viable options. But that problem is what could be a viable option could also be a counterfeit and a deceptive tool.

If you just take it lock, stock and barrel without any consideration to what's taking place and the content of what is being delivered, one could be into trouble. So, Hiram Pei's using a stone to be able to or purportedly have revelations wasn't the weird part of this one. And as a matter of fact, that wasn't even what this story was about at all, because of course, Joseph Smith is translating the Book of Mormon through the Urimam Thummim, and he used also a stone as well. Those are the means of revelation, but the principle is the most important part, I think, in section 28 to say, what's really going on here? And why is this important for us to read today? Not just, oh, okay, the rock thing, that was kind of weird. But what was really happening becomes really critical.

Jared Saino Fantastic. Let me throw a little ad out there, John. We have some special episodes this year called Voices of the Restoration. We've had Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat on. We've done three so far and we have more to come. We hope everyone, if you're thinking, I want to know more about that, just come on to the YouTube channel or where you get your podcast and just go through and you'll see the Voices of the Restoration. I think there's going gonna be 12 total. And we've had fun because we're just talking history on those.

Yeah, Dr. Dirkma is delightful. He's so fun. I love listening to him and he knows his stuff too. So yeah, come and listen. That'll be fun. Super bright and he has such a fun personality as well. Yeah. Yeah.

We love Garrett. So come find us over there. So Matt, Hiram Page is a Whitmer. He's been part of things before there's a church. Oh yeah. So he has experience of what's taking place. He understands what's been unfolding, probably a little bit hesitant, it seemed at the very beginning, whether or not he was going to buy into what was taking place here. But when you have Joseph Smith on site where he is living and see the Whitmers are going through that same process where once again, line upon line, precept on precept, they're learning and they're coming along and becoming converted in their own ways,

he's there. He's not like Olson just showed up on a Saturday and said, huh, hey, this is interesting. He has seen the process and Joseph writes in his own writings of how he was converted and he came along until he was a believer as well. And so then when you get to April 6th with the organization of the church, he's there for crying out loud. Hiram Page is one of the eight witnesses. Sometimes we forget about that.

He was one that was selected to be part of the witnesses to see the plates and to handle the plates. It wasn't just like he sort of believed and to his credit, he was a believer to the day that he died, a least of the things that he saw tangibly. He always bore witness that he saw and held and handled the plates. He was amongst that number. A lot of the Whitmers were amongst the eight witnesses as well. They were the people at hand, a locale, if you will. This isn't just some kind of guy that kind of had an outing or a weird experience.

He has seen the revelatory process or at least was seeing it unfold while he was there. Pete And you have to realize everyone is a convert to the church and they've been in a couple of months. One of the benefits of converting to the church today is you get to come into a ward or people have been members of the church, you know, many their entire lives. You can understand the inexperience of, oh, this is not supposed to be this way. Oh, I'm sorry. And there's no doubt about that one is you're bringing up a really important part to this one. Revelation was something that was sought after when the revelatory windows or heavens were open with Joseph Smith in this fashion.

It was exciting news. And so some people say everybody rejected everything Joseph was about. That's not the case, but they did have their bias and they did have their own feelings toward it. So hence in Joseph Smith's history, he talks about how he was persecuted and he goes, isn't it weird that somebody like me, I'm an obscure boy coming down and I had revelations and saying, yeah, that's because you said you had a revelation. That's not really the biggest problem there. It was the mode of

revelation and the content of revelation, etc. Hiram Page would have been a religious folk as far as that goes, looking towards this experience of revelation. But as you mentioned, the experience is going to be really important here. And it's not just Hiram Page because Section 28 is involving Oliver Caldre, many of the Whitmer family, etc. And so, it wasn't just that Hiram Page took an exit on the off-ramp here or got off the rails a little bit. This is why this is so concerning is because you have individuals who have been involved

like Oliver Cowdery. He was a personal witness of visitations of heavenly messengers. It wasn't just he heard about them. He was part of this. He served as the scribe. And yet section 28, you start to see even Oliver Cowdery is getting sucked into this one and needs a course correction. So, in my opinion, section 28 is a reminder of checks and balances, which the Lord does. I love what he's doing here.

He's setting forth patterns. We see this established when you start to get into section 52, where the Lord says, hey, I'm the Lord do whatever He wants? And the answer to that in my opinion is, yeah. But He sets forth patterns and establishes patterns. And then I love when He talks about this, this is in section 52 verse 14, He says, I will establish a pattern in all things. And then the question might be begged, well, why? And then He answers it in verse 14, He says, so that ye may not be in the same place

as I am in the same place. And then He says, I will establish a pattern in all things. And then the question might be begged, well, why? And then he answers it in verse 14, he says, so that ye may not be deceived. I think there's something important. Now, granted section 52 is gonna come down the path, but you can see these experiences from sections, actually two all the way up to where we're at right now, and all the way to 52, where the Lord's saying,

look, I am establishing patterns so that you'll know it's my way. So if you've come to know me, I'm gonna tell you, here's how I do things. Here's the way I do sacrament, for example. There's a part in section 28 that people overlook, which is really important to this as well, because it's the safeguards,

is a thing called common consent. It's mentioned in section 26, and then we see it mentioned in section 26. And then we see it again in section 28. And this all has to do with the greater principle of this one, but he's saying, I'm gonna do things according to a pattern so you can have confidence that's my way.

And yet, isn't it interesting that sometimes the things that we will kick against are the patterns. I don't like the way that this is done. And it's like, but this is the Lord saying He's going to do it this way for our benefit, not to test or try us, but so that we can have confidence in the pattern. And so, section 28, there's a pattern of revelation for a stewardship that's been set forth. And it's not in section 28 that it starts. We've already established this in section 20 and Section 21, but they

kind of forgot what happened in Section 21 and 20. And it was like, oh, we forgot about that one. Oh, well, let's remind you that there is a pattern here of revelation. There's a pattern in how we know who is serving in the church and what their stewardship would be. We call that common consent. And I'll mention that one a little bit because I think it is actually worth mentioning. So what happens here is, I hope this will be okay, is we kind of set a foundation on this one. So what's really the problem here? It's not the peepstone or the stone for revelation. And it's not that they can receive revelation. That's not the problem at all here. It's the pattern which is taking us in a place where we can be deceived. And that's

what happened here in section 28 is you have Hiram being deceived, Oliver Cowdery being deceived, many of the Whitmer family and others. And Joseph was actually, I love the wording here, he was perplexed over the situation. He's like, what? What is going on here? And how is this taking place? What, how could this be Lord? I don't think it's naivete on Joseph's part is just like, the Lord already kind of told us about this, but this is the reality I think, is we are progressing creatures. And so we learn something and then we apply it and then we start to learn it better. And then we have an experience and then we learn it more. For me, so many of the things are kind of like what you're talking about in the

beginning, Hank, where it was like, well, that's weird. And then it's like, oh, that's not so weird after all. So, we have experience and all of a sudden we can see things differently. We can understand things in a different way. Sometimes it's like, oh, so that's why that's so important to Heavenly Father. And this is one of those cases where Joseph was perplexed and saying, what's going on here? I can't believe Oliver's involved in this. That'd be crazy frustrating. But as I mentioned is one of the things I love

about this one is this was not a moment or shouldn't be a total moment of alarm. And for those that were saying Joseph was just trying to rein people in and say, you have no part in this. I'm in charge. Do not usurp my authority. This was already established long before this took place, as mentioned in section 20, which was considered to be the constitution of the new church, establishing the order of revelation

and stewardship for the church and section 21. And Joseph was sustained at that time period as being the prophet, seer, and revelator, the president of the church or the first elder. And so that was established. So this wasn't like, oh, I'm coming up with a new revelation so everyone fits with me. It's like, no, here's a reminder what the Lord has already established. We need to get back on track. That's what taking place. But here's a foundational challenge here, and this is actually addressed once again, I already did this, sorry. But in the first section of the DNC, which was the preference for all of these, and you

mentioned that I served as a mission leader, we never called rules rules in our mission. And it wasn't just a matter of semantics or trying to make it a little more palatable or fancy, you know, kind of a thing. But we call them standards. So here are the standards. And where do you find the standards? In the publication, there's a little booklet. We call it the White Bible when I was a missionary in the million old days because the cover

was white. But the booklet is called Missionary Standards for Disciples of Jesus Christ. And so we said, well, wait a second, if they're calling these the standards, this is the standard of what missionaries are. Now, I'm going to totally steal this one, but I think that this is true, and to illustrate the point, I think the Doctrine and Covenants,

this is the Disciples Standards for Disciples of Jesus Christ. This is a booklet that tells us how we can be better disciples of Jesus Christ. Pupils, you know, discipulus in Latin is a pupil. And it's also from the same core root word of discipline. So it teaches us how to be a disciplined pupil of Jesus Christ and to come unto Him and for Him to come unto us in unique ways through covenants, etc. The doctrine of covenants takes us through this journey of a disciple's life and no wonder they're learning. But one of the great challenges, as D&C Section 1 points out, is it says that they have left the

prophets, and they left the covenants. And I'm like, wait a second, we're talking about members that are leaving the words of the prophets and their covenants. And why is that? And it starts to talk about they're trying to become gods in their own right and they follow after their own way. And this is what we learn in the Book of Mormon so well, which is in King Benjamin's talk is natural man. The natural man is an enemy to God. And what is natural man? It's the fallen man. And that's all of us, by the way. And we're on a fallen world and there's a gravitational pull, it seems like, that is pulling us and keeping us tight

to the fall. And we're trying to get away from it and pull away, but that gravity keeps on sucking us back. And we see this evident in these revelations here as individuals are learning something, they're pulling away and then they get pulled back. They pull away and they get pulled back. And Benjamin points out one of the most important things we can do is learn to yield, not to be natural, put off natural man by yielding to the enticings of the spirit and to be submissive, to be meek. Meek is different because the next word is humble, but I think there's a difference obviously there. Some of us, we are humble because we are lacking. Meekness sometimes is manifest by those who are not lacking and

have great skill and great knowledge or stuff, but choose to be disciplined in the way they apply it. They show a unique humility, but it's called meekness. I think Jesus Christ is the epitome of meekness. He was the Son of God. He had all power. He worked in through His grace to have knowledge as far as that goes. You want to talk about Him being humble? Humility was not thrust upon him. It was a choice with having all that he had, but yet still always speaking of the Father in great reverence and trying to align. So what is our quest? Well, we're trying to yield. I don't know about you all, but yielding is not easy sometimes for me. You hear about road rage and so much of it's dealing with

people who won't yield on the road and it brings out the worst in people. I think I'm pretty good at not having road rage, but I do have road frustration and a little bit like on really, I find myself like even driving here this morning, the weather wasn't very good and people were like, not yielding and it's not rage, but it's like, really? And I thought, we all have problems or challenges with yielding. And that's what section 28 is really about. All of a sudden, these great manifestations are taking place. Oliver, he knows about Revelation, section six, section eight, section nine, talk about Revelation with Oliver, he's experienced it. And as you recall, the Lord's saying,

Oliver, come, you can be part of this. You want to translate? Okay, let's work through this. But then he teaches the greater lessons of overcoming our natural propensity of not yielding, learning to be submissive in this process, being able to be full of love, willing to submit as a child would submit to their father, and anything that the Lord seeth fit. And I think that this is an important foundation to understand what's happening in section 28. You have these young individuals inexperienced in so many ways, been exposed to amazing things, and now it's a battle of yielding. Oliver, by the way, during this time period is starting to correct Joseph Smith,

even if time is demanding. You need to change this word, Joseph. And Joseph was like, wait, wait, you're telling me that I have to change who are you to tell me to do this? And it wasn't a personal experience in my opinion. This is Joseph trying to be obedient to revelation from section 2021 that says, Joseph, you are the man and you will receive Revelation for the church. And Joseph's like, wait, Oliver, you are like Aaron to Moses, as far as that goes, we need to get back on pattern here. And so I think Joseph was trying to protect the pattern more than being offended that someone was trying to tell him what to do. I hope that makes sense. Did I do okay with trying to communicate that?

Yeah. And don't you think he's also trying to help people balance? Can I receive revelation? Yes, you can. Like you? Sort of. He doesn't want to cut off someone's personal revelation, say, I'm the only one who can receive revelation, but there has to be some order on who can

receive revelation for whom. No doubt about it. As a matter of fact, you're hitting on a principle that's been everlasting. Let's go back to the Old Testament. So you have Moses up in the mountain. When he's coming down, he runs into Joshua who came up and he says, oh my gosh, you will not believe what's going on in that camp. There are people down there who are prophesying.

And Joshua was panicked about it and Moses, it was almost likely he said, they're eating this for breakfast. He's like, oh, okay. He's like, oh, super. Would God, that all would prophesy in the name of God, would that be great? So what you brought up, Hank, is really an important principle here. This isn't about receiving revelation. And it's not even about receiving important revelation. It's receiving revelation for a stewardship or within a stewardship. We all have rights, and I think that that still holds true to this day what Moses said. Wouldn't it be great if we were all prophets to our own stewardship and that we were receiving those things in the name of God? It would be super. But you're right. That doesn't mean that I have the right and the

ability to receive revelation for others. This is kind of a challenge we all could go through as I found this as a parent is what is my role as a parent? We use the term matriarch and patriarch and so is my job to go through and confirm or tell my children, I've received a revelation for you, you're supposed to do this for a living and you should marry this person. There's a time where I thought, yeah, that would be convenient. Right. If I could do that. But I started to realize, and this is just my own personal experience in this one is, it seems my role is to help my children of whom I have a stewardship,

to help them to receive and know how to receive personal revelation, to guide them in the process. Yes, I have the right as a patriarch, as does my wife as a matriarch to receive revelation for our family because that's our stewardship, but I still need to help them to receive personal revelation. This isn't about receiving revelation. It's about receiving revelation for the church. And the Lord designated in the early days of this one, when we started to see the unfolding of this one, that there is one who receives revelation for the church. And that is the prophecy and revelator, he who holds the keys. And that's Joseph Smith. Yeah. It's just fascinating to watch him say, yes, you can receive revelation. No, not for this. How do I balance this?

I don't want to be the only one receiving revelation as if Joseph, tell me what to do. The Lord talks only to you, but, oh, we have to have some order here. I picked up Steve Harper's book, uh, on texts that he talked about the other day. I love this line in here. He says, Hiram Page's seer stone was not the problem. Joseph's revelations and personal teachings encouraged others to use their spiritual gifts, including when those gifts involved seeric objects like Oliver Cowdery's rod.

If Hiram had received real revelation through his stone about how to be a better husband, there would have been no problem. And there would have been no section 28. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what this is about. I think honestly, the Lord's not trying to control his children. He's not trying to oppress them and remind them, look who's in charge here. He's trying to put them in a position to receive the greatest blessings and all freedom that he possibly can, but it's according to the pattern so they will not be deceived.

My experience has been, and it seems the older I get, I see this pattern the Satan tries to use and he is the master counterfeiter. It seems that he doesn't just always go from light to total blackness, positive to 100% negative. He will try to get us close to the real thing and counterfeit with the intent to beguile or to deceive us. The Lord's saying, look, I'm going to give you the pattern here so you will not be deceived because Satan will try to counterfeit everything.

And in my opinion, that's exactly what's taking place in this section is Hiram Page professes to receive revelation for the church. And it's almost like it's a cheap counterfeit of what has already been going on. That's why you see in verse two, but behold, verily, verily, I say unto thee, no one shall be appointed to receive commandments

and revelations in this church, excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jr. for he receiveth them even as Moses." Now, that's one of the reasons I brought up Moses and Joshua is Joseph was like unto Moses saying, I wish everybody would be receiving revelation. But he was not saying I wish everybody would be the prophet for the entire church here of Israel. He was saying, no, we need to have revelation because we are built on the foundation. And even Joseph said, what foundation is that? Joseph Smith would say, it's revelation, it's revelation. But there is an element here, like Moses was that the leader or the prophet of Israel at the time, Joseph is the prophet for the children of the church or the restoration.

With that in mind, it says verse three, and thou shalt be obedient unto the things which I shall give unto him, even as Aaron to declare faithfully the commandments and the revelations with power and authority unto the church. So he's not removing even Oliver Cowdery's power and authority. He's saying, remember your place, or I'm using the term again, stewardship. This is your job. You know, one of the great blessings that comes like a relief society president or counselor who has a stewardship is to help sisters in that society to know how

to receive revelation for them and recognize revelation that's given according to the other stewardship. And that's where prophets, seers, and revelators come in. Whether you're male or female, if you're old or you're young, there's a pattern here. All can benefit from revelation and in my opinion, should benefit from revelation, but also recognize how that fits in with this wonderful pattern of stewardship. So they all fit nicely together. I love this one. Verse four is, if thou art led at any time by the comforter to speak or teach, or at all times by the way of commandment under the church, thou mayest do it. So this isn't like no more revelation. This is stay within your stewardship. Not writing in verse five, by way of commandment, but by wisdom. And then it says, by the way, Oliver, don't forget,

you shall not command him who is at the head, at the head of the church. There's the stewardship. It's not Joseph personally, it's the sustained calling of Joseph as the head of the church at that time. And then, this is an interesting line. Look at verse 7, for I have given Joseph the keys of the mysteries and the revelations which are sealed until I appoint unto them another in his stead. So Joseph won't be the only one in this position. There will be another appointed in his stead.

And so, we're looking at succession here in 1830, Elise is preparing the way, which I'm grateful to see that that was part of the plan because we are the recipients today of another in his stead who holds the keys for the great mysteries. Because as you know, this is 1830, there's a lot more to come. There's a lot more to come. And the Lord's priming is saying, let's set this forth. And some people will say, what in the world is going on here in verse 9 where it says, it's not revealed that no man knoweth, because no man knoweth where the city of Zion shall be built. One of the important things for context on this one is to understand that there was a

lot of talk about establishing Zion. This was a passion of Joseph. One of the things, this is my personal opinion, I loved about Joseph Smith was he wasn't just a prophet who talked about Zion. We've had prophets talk about Zion from the Old Testament to present day, but Joseph talked about it like it was going to happen in his lifetime. It was like, roll up your sleeves. We're building Zion. This isn't a someday folks. We're going to go to Zion. And I think that that was infectious and people would hear about this. Zion, Zion, let's go to Zion. And yet what happens here is the Lord is teaching once again, line upon line, precept upon precept. He says, we're going to go to Zion and we know where Zion is. And of course, the question the saints had at that time was where? Where's Zion? Tell me where Zion is. Tell me where Zion is. And then if you step back and you look at these

revelations, now we can do this because we're doing it with hindsight, but the Lord is revealing it little by little, line upon line. This was a topic of conversation. Where is Zion? Because people in their mind, like probably us, I want to go there because if Zion is that great of a place, let's get there. But the Lord knew that if people went to the place Zion, that would not be Zion because Zion is the statement of heart and disposition who we are. It's not just crossing a border. I often used to tell my children when we talk about this is, get in a wagon, let's go to Missouri,

you know, kind of a thing to Zion. And all the way you're complaining and I'm gonna have to say, hey, kids, stop doing that back there. I have to come back and sit in the covered wagon with you. I will turn this wagon around. Exactly, exactly. You're breathing my air.

Yeah. And then you see somebody cruising past you and you're like, oh, that's Zeke Johnson. Ah, man, if he's going to Zion, I don't know if I want to go to Zion. And then we expect that when we cross the border into Zion, it's like, brother Zeke, come give me a hug, thou art the man, you know, and the kids are in the back, with their arms around, swinging, singing kumbaya. And the reason for that is because we came to Zion. And I think that that's part of our natural rationale. But yet the Lord in His wisdom is constantly teaching us it's not where we are,

and it's not always just what we do, but it's who we are and what we're trying to become. Here He says, Zion's a real thing and Joseph is teaching and people are buying into this and they feel the spirit of Zion, which is not hard. I even feel the spirit of Zion when Joseph writes about it and teaches it. I'm going, yes, this is so exciting. And yet here's the interesting thing is out of the blue, all of a sudden says, hey, look, it has not been revealed where Zion is, the city of Zion, because it's a conversation of the time. That's not part of this revelation.

It's a conversation. And apparently part of the revelations that Hiram Page professed to have for the church was revealing the location of Zion. So put that into context. He's not just receiving professed revelations for the church. He's hitting professed revelations for the church. He's hitting professed revelations for the church on hot topics of the day. Now think about that in context of our day to day. As some people, they're saying, well, the prophet didn't speak on it, so I'm going to speak on it. Or he's not

a prophet because he's not saying A, B, or C. Or why is he talking about that when this is all the rage? And then other people will be more than happy to fill in the blank, whether it's a talk show host or whether it's a social media post or I hope this will make sense, maybe even a well-meaning individual who wants to help. And I think that that happens quite a bit. I don't think it's always with nefarious

motives, but sometimes it gets in the way. And so what do we do with that one? Well, if we're not careful, we could be deceived. So how do you protect yourself from being deceived? Go read section 28. Here's a case study is when it comes down to it. And that's why I like this. I don't think it's like, Oh, this is the scolding of Hiram Page to put them in his place. It's for the church to say, hey, get ready, this is going to be taking place. And for me, that's one of those little contextual things of one of the hot topics was where is the city of Zion? Let's go there.

Let's hurry and get there. And the Lord's saying, in my opinion, you're not ready to go there yet. We still have things to do. You have things to learn. They're coming in these revelations line upon line. Be patient, we're going to get there. This is almost President Nelson for me in a way. It says, verse 9, it is not revealed, no man knoweth where the city of Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. In other words, this isn't a secret and I can't tell you,

it's coming, but not yet. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites. Do you see what just happened there? I'm not going to tell you where the city is, but it's in this general vicinity. It's over here. It's in the West on the borders. Now that's a 1500 mile stretch of where we looked at the edge of the United States, where it went into the quote, what they called in those days, the Indian territory, but we called it the borders of the Lamanites.

And so it's like, hey, I know what I'm talking about here and the Lord knows and so it's kind of in this area, but hang on for the ride and then you'll notice when you review, he does that. He goes, okay, here's the big picture. Okay, and so it comes down and says here's the bigger picture and then he narrows a little bit and we need some work to do. And now I'm going to narrow a little bit more. There's more work to do. In other words, he's helping his children become Zion. And he says, don't get impatient with yourself. Now, what a practical lessons that you could draw from them. Only a million. Like I said before, I'm not a very patient person. It's a weakness, but I want to be more patient. And I found with the Lord's help, I am becoming better as far as that goes. But I want it yesterday. How's that for impatience? But the Lord says, yeah, I'll help you a little bit at a time here.

And here we come. Now, Matt, be patient, but I need it now. I want all things. I want to be married yesterday. And here's the list of the qualifications of who I want to marry. Be patient on this one is become you need a little work on your list a little bit. It seems like The application of this is really quite amazing. So it's sad to me sometimes when we say, okay, don't get revelation through stones. That's not what this is about. Don't get revelation. You're not supposed to have revelation.

That's not what this is about either. It's about learn to recognize stewardship and see that the Lord is more than willing to reveal His sacred secrets to His children, but He does it in a pattern and in an order. We should probably be concerned. I have my hands full personally with managing my own life and finding solutions to my own personal challenges right now, but I just don't have the bandwidth. I understand I'm kind of weak, but the bandwidth to run the church. So for me to be receiving revelations for the church is kind of like, holy cow, it's not my job. I don't have the bandwidth, but I do have the ability, and I'm a manly man, but I get a little

emotional about this a lot of times is I'm the first to admit that revelation has saved me time and time again from the revelator for the church. And it saved me because I'm a member of that church and I'm trying to align with what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and have that discipline. There are times where the revelation for the church has saved me. That's an important thing. And I remember one time Elder Oaks was talking about a talk about being saved through prophetic utterance in the stories of the past, et cetera. And it's really a great talk and it was given back in 1992. He says, I pray for that same type of

deliverance in the Bible stories of the past. And I pray that I will be guided. And then he says, and be protected from, this is the interesting line to me, my own worst impulses. I can resonate with that one. And sometimes my natural man comes out. I find that I pray in my morning prayers a lot of times, Heavenly Father, please protect me today from me and help me to become a better me. And I am not ashamed to say this.

I will look to those who have a stewardship that is in the larger realm of what I'm at. And I fit in this one with my own personal working, but it's giving me broader context that has helped me in my personal revelation to be fine tuned. Does that make sense? Rick Allen Absolutely. I remember two general conference talks. Does that make sense? Absolutely. I remember two general conference talks. 2010, you both will probably remember President Oaks talking about the priesthood line and the personal line and how you need them both.

And then John, I bet you remember Elder Renlund's talk because he started it by talking about airplanes. I'm guessing you sat up. He said, well-trained airline pilots fly within the capacity of their aircraft and follow the direction from air traffic controllers. So, yes, they're doing their own thing, but they are doing their own thing within a framework. And then he told this story. I remember being like, oh wow. He said, Years ago, I received a phone call from an individual who had been arrested for trespassing.

He told me it had been revealed to him that additional scripture was buried under the ground floor of the building he tried to enter. He claimed that once he obtained the additional scripture, he would receive the gift of translation, bring forth new scripture, and shape the doctrine and direction of the Church. I told him that he was mistaken. He had implored me to pray about it. And this is the part I remember, because I think on that phone call I'll be like, Okay, thanks a lot. I'll pray about it. He said, I told him I would not. He became verbally abusive and ended the phone call. I did not need to pray about this request for one simple but profound reason. Only the prophet receives

revelation for the church. It would be contrary to the economy of God for others to receive such revelation which belongs on the prophet's runway. Then he goes through and says, yes, personal revelation is your right. You can receive revelation, for example, about where to live, what career path to follow, or whom to marry. Church leaders may teach doctrine and shape-inspired counsel, but the responsibility for those decisions rests with you. That is your revelation to receive. That is your runway. It's just a great analogy. Yes, receive revelation. And yes, receive direction.

John, do you remember that talk? Yeah, I dug under the same building and I couldn't find anything. No, I should probably include that. You need a better shovel. Yeah. This is where I love what Matt has taught us. No, you should probably include that. You need a better shovel. Yeah.

Yeah. This is where I love what Matt has taught about this pattern. There's something in you that goes, wait a minute, because we're kind of used to a pattern. So the Savior teaches about the straight and narrow path. There's definitely guard rails on this and there is a path. And it is straight, or sometimes that might be considered to be a little more smoother, S-T-R-A-I-T, and it has a narrow and there's some reasons for that one. But what takes place is there's still room between the guard rails. There's still lanes within the path. So there's movement in between that.

I think that in some ways, here's the pattern again, is I'm setting forth the patterns of revelation and there will be guardrails. But you still are going to have to be moving within those and having personal revelation to direct you. And hopefully you'll keep your covenants, which are under the direction of the keys of he who holds all the keys or the priesthood, covenants and ordinances, etc. Guardrails are set. But you're still going

to have to navigate how you go within these experiences and it is not just important, it is critical to be able to direct that experience and hopefully we would stay within that. So, there's so many great lessons in this section, but the pattern is critical. And then, here's another great lesson that I think that comes in a side note, it shouldn't be considered to be side in a way. And that's when you get down into verse 10 and 11, it says, Thou shalt not leave this place until after the conference, and my servant Joseph shall be appointed to preside over the conference by the voice of it. Now, by the voice of it is what we're going to be calling common consent.

We're going to hit this in just a minute when you get over to verse 13. And what he saith to thee, thou shalt tell. So Oliver, Revelation's coming, the conference coming, and you reflect the voice of the prophet who is going to be sustained again as such. But then look at verse 11. Here's a great little lesson. And again, thou shalt take thy brother Hiram page between him and thee alone and tell him that those things which he hath written from the stone are not of me and the Satan to thieveth him.

So then he comes back to the point verse 12, these things have not been appointed unto him neither shall anything be appointed unto any of this church contrary to the church's covenants for the order that has been established. So here's a, I think it's a great little principle. We've got a problem going on here and Oliver, you got sucked into it. So Hyrum's over here giving these revelations for the church and you should have known, you're the second elder for crying out loud and you've been through the sustenance in April, now we're in September. Here I am talking to you and the Lord is talking to you, Oliver. Now, Oliver, you need to go and talk to Hiram. We were just teaching the missionaries in the MTC about using their devices. And they

say, if you see something on your device, your phone, from your companion, who should you tell? And guess what the missionaries always say the first thing is? Your mission president. You should go talk to your mission president. And actually what we say is, no, you should go talk to your mission president. And actually, what we say is, no, you should go talk to your companion whose phone it is. Go there first. And then we will spread out as is supposed to. And don't you think that's a wonderful pattern that's established? And we see it exemplified this one. So here's a challenge. It's not, as we already said, it's not the stone. It's not the revelation. It's the pattern that's going on here. And it's contrary. We just got outside of the guardrails. Also, here's a pattern by which we solve problems. Go talk to those that were offended first,

and then work outside and bring in as is necessary. Go back, talk to the Lord. If you need help, go talk to your bishop or trusted counselor, those who have a stewardship to be able to help you in that process. I think that's a wonderful little side note on this that shouldn't necessarily be side, but it's part of this process of teaching us patterns and well, the title for the come follow me part is, is the order, is teaching us the order the way the Lord works. This same principle is found in the community discourse.

Matthew 18, Jesus says, look, in our community, you're going to offend each other. This is how I want you to deal with it. I want you to between him and the alone. So this is a little vulnerable, but I'll share it. I have a good friend who we had seen each other at a big gathering on a Saturday night. There's a lot of people there. Then I think on Monday or Tuesday morning, I get a text from him. It says, Hey, can I talk to you later today? I said, well, yeah, I'm in a lot of meetings today if you want to just text.

And he said, no, I'd rather do this over the phone. I thought, okay, yeah, I'm in a lot of meetings today if you want to just text. And he said, no, I'd rather do this over the phone. I thought, OK, this is different. So I had a little break and I called him and he started this way. He said, Hank, this is going to be awkward for both of us. I went, OK. Yeah, I said, OK. And he told me about how the previous few nights ago at that gathering, how I had deeply offended him. Of course, I said, I meant nothing by that, right? I,

I, John, you know me, my mouth is never going to get me into trouble, right? And, and he said, I know that he said, I know you. I know that you didn't mean to do that. And I just, I wanted to talk it through. And I said, well, thank you. Even though it was a little awkward, I said, thank you. And then he said something that I just loved. He said, Hank, I want you to know that you are the only person I will talk to about this. I'm not gonna tell my wife, I'm not gonna talk to my kids, I'm not gonna talk to anyone about this, but you. Cause I figured, well, now it's gonna be awkward

for the rest of our lives that we have this. And it hasn't been. I will, between him and the alone. He actually taught me, not only did we, I think in Matthew 18, the Savior says, if you hear each other, you have gained a brother. But He also taught me that the Lord's pattern actually works if we have the courage to do it. Pete That's a great story. I love it. As a matter of fact, let's go back to what we talked about a little bit earlier. That's a great illustration of yielding because that's not an easy thing to do is usually

when we're in a situation like that, we go automatic to the defensive, you know, well, no, you misunderstood this one, or we go to the accusatory. That's a beautiful story, Hank. I'm glad that you shared that one because it demonstrates yielding on all sides is this concept of, I'm going to yield to the entices of the Spirit. I'm going to be submissive to the greater good. I'm going to be in a position where I want to be able to exhibit the love, etc. And that's what this is all about. And I found that we do the exact opposite. We talk to everyone except for the person who offended us, right? The Lord said, that's not what I wanted.

And especially in the climate for which we live our day today with social media, isn't that interesting? I was offended by this talk. And so we'll put comments on the social media feed or something like that, or the articles below. And sometimes I don't even like to read the comments because most of them are vitriol for it's just caustic versus saying, oh, I didn't like this talk. Maybe I had to like write to that person or seek a better understanding. It's almost like we don't seek for understanding. It's we seek to accuse, we're easily offended, et cetera.

And here's a simple pattern when it comes down to it is the Lord saying, let's work this out. Let's reason together, Isaiah would say. Let's reason together. Let's come to the understanding of yielding so that we cannot be our natural man and we can be able to become more like our Father, for there is complete understanding and peace, which is great. Nat. How does Hiram Page respond? Well, you know, it's a process. It depends on which articles you read. In the end, they come along, as does Oliver Caldre and all the Whitmers. And those that were impacted by this during that conference time, because this was at a conference time in September, this wasn't like it was in an isolated box that was taking place. People knew

it was taking place and that's why it kind of caused a stir. Joseph, of all people, was probably the only one that was taken a little bit by surprise when it started to unfold. At the end of the day, when you read through the accounts, is they all come together, they all sustain, and they actually destroy the revelations, et cetera, And he confesses and says, this was not, this was not for the church and I was wrong. We have that quote repentance or changing or maybe adjusting back in within the narrow and the straight and accepted it.

Then the sustaining took place, like it said, and Joseph was sustained again as the order would state or the pattern as the prophet, seer, and revelator is the first elder of the church to receive the keys of the mysteries of revelation. That kind of leads us to this next part of this section. It says in verse 13, all things must be done in order. There's that order. And by common consent in the church, order, and by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith." It says, and this is the way that you shall assist me in being able to steer the kingdom. I mentioned before that this word common consent actually comes up in section 26.

Now it's mentioned again, it's almost like here is another application of why we do this. Common consent, which by the way is the term which we don't use that term very much in common language in the church. That's what we call sustaining. But the word I like it, the principle is common consent, not sustaining, because common consent, common is in common or amongst a large whole. Consent in English is not approval or giving permission. I think that we kind of mistake this principle, sadly, because we use it differently in our normal speech. Like, for example, I revert back to my children or when I was in elementary school and I had

to have parent consent to go on a field trip and they'd pin a little piece of paper on my shirt and I'd go home and then my mom would sign it and pin it back on my shirt. That was my parental consent to go on the field trip to a farm. We think that it's like, okay, I'm giving my approval or my permission. But the very term consent in English comes from the Latin and the Latin term actually means alike or feel alike, think alike, not just to prove, but to say, I am alike in this measure. I align with this measure. That's what common consent is designed to do is, okay, so it's proposed that Joseph

Smith is the one who has the stewardship to receive revelation for the church. All in favor. And you'll notice when we do common consent, we don't go like this, hold our thumb up and say, thumbs up. And we don't give them the okay sign. It's okay with me or yeah. We don't count the votes. We call them votes. I think that's out of tradition. We don't count those people that raise their hand and we don't count those who raise in the negative as far as that goes, because what we're doing here is we're saying, are you in? I'm in. And we raise our hands. In the early days of the church, common consent in Missouri, far west, they would actually vote by standing up. They didn't raise their hand, they stood up. So,

all in favor. And common consent in the far west minutes, you can see it took the whole meeting because they would have great discussions. I don't know if I can sustain Edward Partridge. He didn't lend me his horses to plow my fields. So it's a learning curve of what are we sustaining? I don't like their style. It's not about that. It's saying, this is the stewardship, are you in? And we raise our hand to say, I am in. Once again, this seems to be a pattern to help us, I think in the bigger picture, to overcome our natural tendencies of fallen man and to align, to put off natural man,

to yield to the enticings of the spirit and saying, okay, I mean, there's times I think every person, even the person being called to a calling has said, I'm not seeing this one. I'm not seeing this one. I know people who have been called to be a pianist, who do not, they don't play the piano. What's up with that one? Well, I think that the Lord has in mind

that there's something to be done here. And he says, here's what I'm thinking. Is anybody else in? And we get the chance to be able to go by common consent. It will require the prayer of faith. And in section 26, it says, similarly, all things shall be done by common consent in the church." So there it is again, there's the pattern. By much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith. Amen. That's section 26 and now we see it reiterated here in section 28 that all things will be done and we're going to do this according to the covenants of the church.

I came across a quote once and it's an oldie but goodie. I mean, it was J. Reuben Clark back in 1940, and he said, it is clear that the sustaining vote by the people is not to be regarded as a mere matter of form, but on the contrary, a matter of the last gravity. That's a pretty good quote. And if my experience has been is it's easy for this to become a matter of form because we do it as a part of business. And so at the beginning of a meeting, we'll say, okay, now we'll take care of some of our ward business and it is proposed that, and we go through this common consent or sustaining. And this is embarrassing to admit, and I don't think my children will be offended, but our kids and our family, especially my children are small, they were like Pavlov's dog, ring the bell and they'll salivate. All in favor by the

usual sign, they'd raise their hand. They knew to raise their hand. Any opposed by the usual sign, usual sign, raise my hand, and they'd raise their hand. So we were voting for and against. It was a matter of form. I remember being a bishop in a YSA ward. The reason I bring that up is because at the beginning of each semester or the school year, you reorganize an entire ward in two weeks. Most of your sacrament meeting is common consent because you're sustaining on week two. I used to be tempted as a bishop, I'm going to put together a matching quiz at the end of sacrament meeting and hand it out and put

all the names on one side and all the callings on the other and see if people knew what they just sustained, knowing that it would be tough. But the principle here is almost a checks and balances, part of the order of the church, so that you'll know who's in the church. And more importantly, though, it gives you a chance to exercise your agency, not to approve what has taken place, but to say, I'm in. And so you'll see statements that'll come down and say, this is a covenant not with the person you are sustaining. This is a covenant with the Savior Jesus Christ. Sometimes you'll say that this is the token when we raise our hand saying, I am entering

into a covenant with the Savior to sustain His kingdom. And then what we do in turn is I coven with the Savior, then we turn to the person, for example, in a calling and say, now I pledge to you that I will sustain you in the best way that I possibly can. But this isn't about Sally Brown per se. I mean, she's definitely part of this one because she's the activities co-chair person or whatever the calling may be. This is about my relationship with the Savior to say, I'm in, I align. I may not understand completely, but I'm going to go, and I love the wording in the revelations, with much prayer of faith and much prayer, I'm in, and I'm going to have to figure out how I could sustain. You talked about becoming Zion.

It feels like this is Zion. Not that you're never going to disagree, but it's how you disagree. It's how you deal with conflict. I remember once I had an experience dealing with common consent where somebody couldn't sustain the new bishop. And it was because if he can't control his dog, he can't control a ward because they were neighbors and the dog was always coming over to his house and digging up or doing whatever. That's something that you should go between you and him and work out

your dog situation. What does this do? It brings us to an understanding, as you were saying, to be able to come together in a Zionistic fashion, working together to be coming together. We are aligning one with another. Sure, we have our differences and we handle things differently, but we align. I remember one time I was sustained as a YSA bishop by people who are not going to be in the ward. It was done during the summertime and they were going to be a transition. So, I would take over with the new ward when the school's year started.

But they put me in the last week and I'm thinking, I'm not going to be any of these people's bishop and they don't know who I am. They've never even seen me. I just walked in from the street essentially and the state president says, here's the going to be the bishop of this ward. It was a spiritual experience for me in the sense that it was affirming the fact that they were not sustaining Matt Richardson. They were entering into a covenant, I am sustaining the Lord's kingdom and I am in. It reminds me of, you remember the old story in the Old Testament where you have Moses up there and they were having these battles. And when he would raise his staff in the air,

then what would happen is, you know, he'd put his arms up with his staff and Israel would prevail against the foe. And then his arms, obviously the blood would rush out of his fingers and he's, oh man, so he put his arms down and the enemy would start to prevail against Israel. And then he put them back up and the enemy would start to prevail against Israel. And then he put him back up and then Israel would prevail. And I used to read that story, I'm thinking, this is the reason I wasn't the prophet. I couldn't handle it because I raised one hand. What happens if I put one in there? And then the next day I can say, what's this? You know, kind of a thing. And of course, that's not the point, right? But I love the story. And you

remember how this works is what happens is you have members of the children, they run up and they hold his arms up and they sustain him by doing what? Not pushing him out of the way and saying, you're too old, you can't do this job. Let me show you how it's done. I'll take the staff, give me the staff, I'll be in charge. I love this imagery. They take his arms and they help him to succeed and to fulfill his stewardship. His arms are where they should be and you have the membership, if you will, sustaining. And I think that that is a beautiful part of this experience. And so how do we sustain youth leaders and relief society leaders or name the leader, it doesn't matter. How do we sustain the prophet? And how do we sustain prophet seers and revelators? And when I say wrestle with this,

I'm trying to be better at this one and figure this one out is how can I help them in their calling figure this one out is how can I help them in their calling and sustain them and hold their arms up because it is a burden if any of us have had a calling. We all know what that's like and thank goodness for those people who will come in the dead of night or come to your ward activity when no one else does and hold your arms up. That's Zion. That's the feeling. You can't help but love them as a brother or a sister and you're grateful. I'm thankful for those who have come to give a priesthood blessing in the middle of the night or those who have prayed for me unbeknownst to me as I have prayed for them. This is common consent or common alignment. And if you think about it, one of the best examples of this was none other than the Savior Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane

where He comes before and He expresses His feelings. Is there another cup? I know I'm in, and I said I would do this, but now you have sinless man experiencing sin from others for the first time. And it had to be beyond what he could have imagined. And so he's saying, I'm just wondering, is there another way? And then comes the best word in scriptures and circumstances. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And that is a yielding. That is the exemplary experience of being in this world, the learning to overcome the world, yielding to the enticings of the spirit, being humble and meek.

And yet he had all power. That is the model of Zion is nevertheless, okay, I might've done this differently and I might've called someone else to be in this position. Nevertheless, what can I do to bring forth and establish the kingdom of Zion? That's pretty cool stuff. That is. You know that we had a house fire and that was while I was bishop. It felt like the whole ward came over to help to go have my stake president grab me and say, a person who wishes to remain anonymous just covered the rest of your daughter's mission.

That's Zion and you don't know who to thank. And so you just love them all. Oh, I love that, John. Say that one again. You love them all. Isn't that what this does? It gives us means to love everyone and put it into action. I agree.

That's a sweet story. You said earlier as hard as it was to get the children of Israel out of Egypt, the harder part was getting Egypt out of the children of man. Hank, I've heard you note the differences in the scriptures between the city of Israel out of Egypt, the harder part was getting Egypt out of the children of men. Hank, I've heard you note the differences in the scriptures between the city of Zion and the cause of Zion. I like that idea of harder than getting to Zion is getting Zion in here. And how does that come? Little by little, time after time. In some ways, if I go back, you know, section 28 is in verse 15, and it shall be given thee from the time thou shalt go until the time thou shalt return what thou shalt do. I'll sustain you in this one. Yeah, in other words, he's going to sustain us and I'll sustain you in the ways that you need

and no matter whether it's a mission or it's a parenting role or a single role, it doesn't matter where the branding of this is so different, but yet the experience is so much the same. This is the best part for me. And there is a God in heaven who has all power and knows all things. And he knows, therefore, all of us, and he has the power to help. And he will help us to become what we must. He wants to help us, but he will stay the course. He has an order and a pattern. And don't forget what he's trying to do with us. He wants us to prevail. He wants us to become like him where we will have everything he has.

I get a little sad sometimes when we view God as being a disciplinarian or a policeman, things like that. Oh, he will hold the line so that he may bless us more. I'm grateful he sustains us. The question is, how do we sustain him? That's one thing I'm always working on. How do I sustain better? Matt, this has been so fun. I can tell for me personally when I'm feeling the Holy Ghost is I just, I don't want to dent. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. But I would like to ask you a last question, and I didn't prep you for this, so

I think it'll be fun to see where you go. We have wonderful listeners who are still just a little on the fence about Joseph Smith and the restoration and they're getting pressure from friends and family members. No, Joseph's not a prophet. He's not who you think he is. You know, he's an evil person. You can just go online and you'll find out how evil Joseph Smith is and how good he is. It's almost like Murrow and I was right in that prophecy. But you've studied the life of Joseph Smith. You've been a mission leader. You've been in the general auxiliary presidency. So you've had

some experience with the church and then as a church history and doctrine professor, you've had a chance to study. So what would you say to someone, is Joseph Smith who we hope he is? Is he really the prophet we believe he is? Boy, that's a great question. And it's a very real question. The depth of that, my experience has been, it depends on the person. So just to give a quick answer doesn't mean that it's necessarily the

best answer for everyone because it becomes personal. It's a personal experience. You said, is Joseph Smith who we hope he is? It depends on what you're hoping for. Jesus Christ had the exact same challenge, as far as that goes. People were hoping for him to be the Redeemer. But what was it that they wanted to be redeemed from? They were looking forward to the Savior. But what is it that they conceived to be need of saving? What is it he will save them from? I'm not trying to make this hard. I'm just trying to be, I'm sorting through this one as accurate as possible. Is Joseph who we hope he be?

For me, yes, he is. But that's for me. But that took a long time to be able to sort it through. What is it that I thought he was supposed to be? And is he what I hoped he would be? And actually, I'm not glad that he had faults because he did, like I do, and like. And actually, I'm not glad that he had faults because he did, like I do and like, no offense, folks, but like you do, we all do. But for me, that was actually

a good thing for me personally because I learned from the Old Testament in prophets. They had no problem in pointing out all the warts and the failings of their prophets in the Old Testament. I mean, sometimes you read through that and you're like, oh, seriously, who would ever believe in this stuff? And you read these stories and it's just kind of hard to process. But then I started to understand what was going on. The concept in Hebrew of a prophet is a spokesperson. That's literally what it's Nabi in Hebrew, closer to the Akkadian probably, but it's not just one who prognosticates or one who is perfect or who is the only example of this, et cetera. There's only one person that fits that bill for me and I'm grateful for that,

and that's Jesus Christ. He is everything I hope for and he is everything that I hoped he would be. And then here's the weird part. And I've discovered he's more. He's more than my expectations and he's more than what I imagined. But he alone feels that bill. So what do you do with these prophets, these spokespersons? Deborah was a spokeswoman, not just a spokesman. I love this concept is he who represents. What they did is they didn't have so much of a problem if they had personal flaws or made personal errors because that was not their power. The power was what they represented because they were spokespersons. So that's why when you hear a false prophet, what they were saying was they were not speaking

for God. They weren't representing God because the power was God. And I fear sometimes what happens is when we look at these experiences, we're so worried when we find out that maybe that they had a flaw or two or 10 or 20. But for me, coming from the heritage of starting to understand Old Testament and like, oh, there is power in spokesmanship. For me, Joseph is what I hoped. He is an individual like Old Testament prophets. I believe he's a spokesman and the power comes from the words that he spoke and the truth that he revealed because that was his responsibility to do so. I still have a lot to learn. I hope I

can meet Joseph. I hope I'm good enough to meet him on the same playground because I have questions I'd love to ask. How did you handle this?" The personal English that he went through, he was pretty amazing in his own right. And so were so many of the saints during that time period and so many of the saints today, like we said before. I don't pretend to know what people are going through, but I still marvel of those who come back. Every day they come, partake of the sacrament, week in and week out. I do not know all the burdens that they bear, but they're bearing them,

which is in my opinion, a testimony that there is a God in heaven and Jesus is the Christ and the sainthood can come and it comes little by little day in and day out through our covenants and our ordinances. You really helped me with something there as we were reading 27 and 28, which I am just really mind blowing. Wow, stuff. I thought this came from a 24 year old? He's incredible. Now that I listen to you, I think how incredible is the Lord that he can use a 24 year old to do this? I bet Joseph would say the same thing. Oh, I'm not incredible. Isn't that incredible that the Lord can take a 24-year-old mind of a farmer, a wonderful person and bring this forth?

It's miraculous, isn't it? Yeah. I can't help but think of the song we sing of we thank the oh God for a prophet. Dark clouds of trouble hang o'er us and threaten our peace to destroy. What do saints say? They say, there is hope, smitely, brightly before us, for we know that deliverance is nigh. That's God, and that's Jesus Christ, and we can make it, and we were able to do it. That's the hope comes forward. And I hope that no one would quit on this vision. And yes, it's hard. And sometimes we get to the end and we think that's

it. There's more. There's more. But you got to hang in there. If you want to see the rainbow, you're going to have to endure the storm. So hang in there because there's something beautiful that's going to be coming here, but hang on. It doesn't come till the end, or at least almost to the end. It's a beautiful thing. The sun will shine. Thank you, Matt, for expanding our minds about all these things. I love the tie-in with the sacrament to the armor of God. I love the idea of common consent and just the Zion, not the place, but the state of our hearts with each other. We're all just doing the best we can. Let's just keep coming back to that table. The open invitation to come back to that table is a Look to the past. Look to the future. Take on the present. Well, we want to thank Dr. Matt Richardson for being with us today. We want to thank Lisa Richardson for letting us

have Matt today. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder. I still remember John that initial phone call from Steve Sorensen. We hope you'll join us next week. We're going to take on section 29 of the Doctrine and Covenants on Follow Him. Today's show notes and transcript are on our website, followhim.co. That's followhim.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our production team, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton, Crystal Roberts, Ariel Quadra, Amelia Cabuica, Heather Barlow, and Annabel Sorensen. Whatever questions or problems you have,

the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to Him. Follow Him.