followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 49-50 : follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: May 13, 2021

Five-minute clip of Hank and John's favorite part of this week's Come, Follow Me lesson.Great to share with family and friends!Please leave a review on the podcast.Join us on social media:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcast

Hello, welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with the incredible John, by the way. We have a podcast called Follow Him, and every week we have decided to do a small little clip called Follow Him Favorites, where we pick out our favorite part of this week's lesson. And John, we're looking at Doctrine and Covenants sections 49 and 50. What is your follow him favorite for this lesson? Oh, it's very hard to pick, Hank. There's some great stuff in both of these. I'm looking at section 50, verse 21 and 22. Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand? It sounds like we're being a little bit dense if the Lord has to start out a verse like that. Why is it that ye cannot understand and know that he that receiveth the word by the spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the spirit of truth. Wherefore he that preacheth and he that receiveth understand one another and both are edified and rejoice together.

And what I like about this is we just learned that the listeners have a responsibility, not just the speaker. We can't say this speaker is boring. I will be on the couch in the foyer, which in our building is turned upside down for COVID. But you have a responsibility too. And I'll never forget something that Elder Bruce R. McConkie said once. He said, we come into these congregations and sometimes the speaker brings a jug of living water that has it at many gallons and he pours it out on the congregation and all that the members of the church brought was a single cup and that's all they took away or maybe they had their hands over the cups and they didn't get anything to speak of oh so that's those verses

tell me i gotta show up with a jug and catch everything i can and ask the spirit to tell me everything the spirit wants because there's what the speaker says and there and ask the spirit to tell me everything the spirit wants, because there's what the speaker says, and there's what the spirit can teach you while you are honestly trying to listen. So I love this section that talks about, hey, the listener and the teacher both have a responsibility. I'm going to share that with my teenagers. Family night, you have a responsibility. Go up with a jug to home even. Right. Yes, please. And I like the end of that verse that you can tell you've been in a class with the spirit if everyone feels edified, built up and rejoice together. That was a great class. Yeah, there's a good feeling there. My follow-home favorite for this week is going to be back in section 49, which is given about a group called the Shakers.

And John, these are a literal group of people who live close to the saints in Ohio who were to show how religious they were. They would often shake. Their bodies would shake. They would dance and move. And some of these saints are going to go over and talk to these people. And so the Lord has a message for them. And I've noticed that no matter who it is that the Lord is talking to, he seems to pretty much say the same thing, which is verse eight, repent. Verse 13, repent. It's all about repent. He says it again in verse 26, repent, be baptized, get the gift of the Holy Ghost.

And you've said this before, that throughout the Book of Mormon is the first principles and ordinances of the gospel over and over. So I think if there's anything that we could focus on as teachers, or if you're sitting there as a seminary teacher going, I don't know what to teach, I know what to teach. Teach them to repent, because that seems to be the Lord's favorite subject is repentance. And repentance is a good thing. It's a positive thing. That's something that I've learned over the course of our podcast this year, John, is that repentance is in a positive group with faith, the Holy Ghost,

with baptism. These are all positive things. So repentance is a positive thing. Yeah. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, repent is perhaps the most hopeful and encouraging word in the whole Christian vocabulary. Yeah. Let's repent. Let's take it. Yeah. It's all about, you know, it's a commandment to improve. That's a great idea. Changing and improving. And the fact that it's even possible and that the Lord invites us to tells us, Hey, you can do this. I'm going to help you. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. It's a hopeful word. Well, we hope you'll join us on our podcast. Follow him. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Hopefully it will find you on the next episode.