followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 60-62 : Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat Part II

Episode Date: May 30, 2021

Dr. Dirkmaat continues teaching that as the difficulties persist and that the Lord commands the Saints to “be of good cheer,” and reminds us that the Savior is “in [our] midst.” We discuss where much anti-LDS literature has been discredited. Dr. Dirkmaat shares dynamic and compelling personal stories that will endow listeners with power because of and through our difficulties. If you only listen to one podcast this week, THIS IS IT. Show notes: https://followhim.co/episodesYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcast

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. Well, so maybe this is a good place to transition into talking about, you know, people who didn't take this advice very well. I mean, so one of those is Ezra Booth, right? So Ezra Booth has this miraculous conversion experience, is so disappointed by Zion, even more frustrated by the way home, that really a month later, by September, his preaching license is being taken away from him. And he's essentially being cut off from the church. But Ezra Booth does not go quietly into the night. Ezra Booth, he begins writing, and I think in part because he's trying to find a way

to get back into his, I mean, he used to have a job. It was being a very prominent Methodist minister. Well, one way to lose your job as a Methodist minister is to become a Mormon elder. So that's not his life anymore. And so he's writing back to Ira Eddy, who's one of the leaders of the Methodist groups there in Ohio. And he is writing to him about this in a very, very, very critical way, essentially saying, well, you know, look, I must have been deceived, right? Because, you know, this is not what we thought. And writing scathing letters against Joseph Smith, against the church. And he really becomes the first concerted effort to put into writing anti-Mormon attacks from

a former member of the church. There have been other people who had certainly said negative things about Mormons. I mean, Eber Howe was writing all kinds of negative stuff in his newspaper there in Painesville, just outside of Kirtland. And you'd already had Alexander Campbell dedicate a great portion of his publication to what a fraud the Book of Mormon is and things like that.

And that Joseph Smith just wrote it and, you know, other arguments that aren't really that great. You know, he hadn't met Joseph, so he didn't realize, oh, I guess Joseph couldn't have written this. But here you have Ezra Booth, who was an elder and is able to use the fact that he had insider information to really stir up negativity against the church. So he publishes a series of letters. They're published in the Ravenna, Ohio Star newspaper. And you might hear about them at some point.

The Joseph Smith papers, we'll quote from them or talk about them multiple times. And his Ezra Booth letters are just this real attack from the inside of this former apostate. And of course, we see that happen multiple times going forward. But this is really one of the first concerted efforts. And because it's an internal attack, it ends up being more devastating. He's able to fuel the fires of anti-Mormonism in Ohio. And antagonists of the church are able to say, look, here's someone who was one of their elders. He'll tell you how he was duped by them in much the same way antagonists of the church today who leave it will say the same thing. Oh, I know I'm an insider. I know what it's like. And, and, you know, that's the true of anyone who leaves any movement under negative circumstances. They, they claim that they have the real understanding. Um, it's, it's really a forerunner of what will become the most concerted effort of written anti-Mormonism from the time.

And that's Eber Howe, that newspaper editor. Not only is he going to gleefully repeat the things that Booth has to say, but in early 1833,, very big or important apostate. I mean, it seems kind of weird to say it that way, but a guy by the name of Dr. Philastus Hurlbut is going to be excommunicated from the church for adultery. And then he's going to, um, he's going to beg to get back into the church. He's going to, you know, tell Joseph, oh, I'm so sorry. Please let me back in. And so Joseph will let him back into the church and then he'll probably commit adultery again and get cut off again. Now, you said you said doctor. Yeah. No. So so his parents named

him doctor. So this is a really good tip for those of you who are about to have children if you want your son or daughter to sound you know like they really succeeded in life go ahead and give them a name like doctor i've always said this would be like naming my son mvp of the nba finals dirkmont and then you got to call him that. It's his name. It's his name. You know, I mean, and you know, and then however it turns out in basketball. It reminds me of when I, people used to tell me about the King Follett. King Follett. That's what I was just thinking. I was like, what was he king of?

Yeah. He's king of what? Or what about the framer named Governor Morris? Yeah. Governor Morris. That's his name. You're like, wow. So doctor is his first name dr philastus yeah the good doctor the good doctor who's anything but um in fact he commits adultery again yeah that's what you said yes it seems to be a pattern uh he he is going to become very important to church history because he is going to claim that not only does he have all this insider information, right?

Because I was an elder in Mormonism, right? Not as many men were ordained to the office of elder then as are now. It wasn't universal. But it was still also a play upon the fact that in the Protestant community generally, an elder was a pretty big deal in a church, right? It was, especially in the Presbyterian church. I mean, it meant you were in the leadership of the church. Many of the early converts were Presbyterians, right? And so you've probably seen this in newspaper reports today, right? I mean, every so often there'll be a Latter-day Saint who commits a crime and they will, you

know, the news media will make a really big deal about it. You know, you know, you know, so-and-so, an elder in the Mormon church, which to every Mormonist. Yeah, exactly. A high priest. A high priest of Mormon. Oh, so he was like over 50 then. We have a democratized, you know, priesthood where essentially every worthy male member receives it.

But that's just not the case among Protestant churches. People don't have titles unless they actually have one. When they hear, oh, I was an elder. It's a helpful way. Oh. He was second only to Joseph. He has this insider claim, but then he's going to make a much more fantastical claim. He's going to claim that while he was on his mission in Western Pennsylvania, he found the actual source of the Book of Mormon.

And he is the originator of the claim that a former minister by the name of Solomon Spalding had actually written the Book of Mormon. Because part of the problem was, again, Alexander Campbell dismissed the Book of Mormon out of hand. Because it wasn't the Bible, and the Bible's all that mattered. And so he went through the Book of Mormon to try to find every place where it wasn't the same as the Bible. The proof, see, this can't be true. It's not the Bible. And so Campbell very blithely like, ah, Joseph, in fact, he says,

it is certainly the work of Joseph Smith himself as Satan is the father of lies. I mean, so he doesn't know Joseph. And so his conclusion is, well, Joseph Smith obviously wrote this. There's a couple of problems, right? The initial reactions of the Book of Mormon are, well, I'm just going to dismiss it because this is obviously garbage.

Or, well, I mean, Joseph Smith just sat down and, you know, pounded this out, apparently. There's, you know, the problem is if you, A, see lots of people reading the book and they start to be convinced by it. It's one thing when it's crazy person you don't know, but what happens when it's your brother or your sister? What happens when it's your wife? The argument only idiots would believe this is from God is not as powerful an argument

when you know the people that are converting and now you need a better explanation. Second of all, if you know Joseph Smith, if you know Joseph Smith, it becomes harder to say, oh yeah, I'm sure he just wrote this all four years ago. And like, what, you know, just, he just put it all out there. I mean, it seems beyond his capability. So, well, Solomon Spalding solves both of those problems, right? Why is it that people are falsely, falsely, I'm putting in air quotes because it's not falsely, but they're saying falsely being convinced of this Book of Mormon? And why is it that, how is it that it's as well written as it is?

Well, I know why. Because a former minister who, of course, knew the Bible backward and forward, he wrote a book that he intended to be what they called at the time, a romance. That sounds as if, you know, it was going to be, you know, something that would be, you know, on a lifetime movie channel at some point, you know, it's a hallmark, you know, celebration, but that was the 19th century terminology for what we would today call a novel, right? A romance is something that's not, it's not, it's fiction. It's a fiction story. And that Solomon Spalding wrote this fictional book. And of course, because he's a minister and knows the Bible backward and forward, he works all kinds of biblical stuff in there. And that's the reason why when people read the Book of Mormon, they

think that it sounds like scripture because this pastor wrote it. And oh, by the way, why is it written in an ability that's well beyond Joseph? Well, because it's this educated pastor who did it. Now, of course, the best part of this claim is that Solomon Spalding is dead. So that makes it impossible to go ask Solomon Spalding. So his Hurlbut's claims are apparently he begins making these public rounds and they are very, they are, you know, very dramatic. And in fact, very, they're, he makes threats against Joseph Smith. Apparently at one point says that he's going to wash his hands in the blood of Joseph Smith and makes enough threats against him that even in a time when it's

very difficult for Latter-day Saints to get any kind of justice in the courts, Hurlbut is actually charged with making threats against Joseph's family and is convicted of it and is essentially placed on probation and has to put up a bond saying that he'll keep the peace. And so Hurlbut's going to be hired by Eber Howe, this newspaper editor. He's going to be hired by him to go back to New York and Pennsylvania to collect as many negative affidavits about Joseph Smith as he possibly can. He's going to collect these all in a book and he's going to publish them in this book called Mormonism Unveiled. Mormonism Unveiled is the first comprehensive anti-Mormon

book. And I kind of transitioned to that from Ezra Booth because Ezra Booth makes his claim in writing and in public attacking the church from the inside. And it kind of transitions to a little while later, Falassus Hurlbut doing something like that with him and Eber Howe conspiring to kind of do this on a much more grand scale. Does Eber use Booth in the book as well? Not directly. He's not interviewing Booth, no. But he uses it in his newspaper. In his newspaper, they're certainly going to reference what's being published in the

Ohio Star. So Hurlbut goes back to Palmyra. Who's there? Anybody who likes Joseph Smith? Well, so it's funny, right? Like, why did Joseph leave Palmyra? Because there was so much persecution he had to get out. And then when you go to Palmyra and ask people about Joseph, surprisingly, people didn't like him. I mean, it's a really weird thing

to go. I went to the place where we drove him out of town on a rail where we were planning to tar and feather him when he left town with Emma. But luckily, the doctor was able to intervene and stop them from doing that. But their but they, they, their plan was to physically doctor. Yeah. Different. Yeah. Yeah. Different doctor, uh, their plan, uh, uh, uh, McIntyre, I think is that doctor. Um, um, but their, their plan is to physically assault Joseph is how angry they are. And so what flasses robot is paid to go back to Palmyra and Harmony and get negative affidavits. And surprise, surprise, being paid to get negative affidavits, guy comes back with negative affidavits. It's stunning that, you know, I'm sure it was a sample set where he asked everybody and every single person I talked to said negative things. He's clearly going to people who already have an ax to grind and he's having them say things like, oh yeah, Joseph Smith told me that he never had any plates and that what he really

loved to do was just lie to people. I mean, frankly, when you read many of the affidavits in Mormonism Unveiled, they're really bad. I mean, they're just, you know, oh, yeah, Joseph and his family were totally addicted to lying. And they would actually brag to everyone about how good they were at lying. Actually, no, you don't. You're either really, really bad at lying. Therefore, you brag to people about it. It's such a – there are just so many things. And, you know, that book and that that Solomon's Balding claim, it provided people with an explanation of where the Book of Mormon came from for years, for for really throughout most of the rest of the 19th century, educated people who wanted

to have a way of dealing with, oh, that book, they were easily just able to say, oh yeah, well, that's, sure, it sounds like it's good because it was written by that pastor. And, you know, there were claims in it like, oh yeah, every name in the Book of Mormon. I mean, even, you uh solomon spalding's kids got in on the action they they would later claim to people oh yeah my dad used to talk about lehi and nephi all the time from the book that he had written you know and then they eventually found the solomon spalding manuscript and they found it and they you know know, a non Latter-day Saint compared it to the Book of Mormon and said, there's not any names that are the same in both of them. And there's no part of the story that's the same.

And in fact, said some other explanation of the of the origin of the Book of Mormon must be arrived at if wants to be had. I mean, so for for decades, very intelligent people, I mean, the halls of Congress talked about the fact that when they were trying to deal with the Mormon problem, that it was just, you know, a Solomon Spalding, you know, forgery. Um, and it's all spawned from this era of these earliest apostates attempting to undermine the church. So we don't know. We don't ever know where it is that attacks on our faith are going to come. Here, I just think this Philastus Hurlbut, Dr. Philastus Hurlbut, I think the arguments against Joseph today still come from those affidavits.

If you're reading something negative about Joseph Smith from his formative years, from when he was getting the plates and the translation, almost all of it is going to come from Mormonism Unveiled and the Falassus robot affidavits. Almost all of it is going to come from mormonism unveiled and the philassois robot affidavits almost all of it from a guy who had been excommunicated for for multiple adulteries who has been paid to go back to get dirt and brings it back with him eber how himself you know has a dog in the fight i mean he's he's not a fan of religion to begin with. He's not a fan of organized religion. He feels like it's kind of, you know, that there's a lot of excesses. So he's making fun of Latter-day Saints when they first show up. I mean, when Parley Pratt and Oliver Cowdery show up preaching, he makes fun of him in his newspaper right away. But over the course of time, things become much, much more personal for him. First, his sister joins the church. So suddenly, again, it's one thing you're like, oh, these crazy idiots. Why would anyone ever believe anything they have to say? And then my sister joined the church, right? And then his wife

joins the church. I don't imagine that the mealtimes at the Howe homestead were... She not only joins the church, she's actually one of the women that we have on record as having donated money for the Zion's Camp March to go redeem Zion. So he has a very personal interest in this too. It's not simply... Obviously, we all have personal interest in the fact that we believe and we know people who believe, but when we're dealing with religion,

kind of like we talked about the last time I was on, the reality is whether or not Joseph Smith saw an angel is something that you can only know through God. You can read Joseph's account and ask God. If someone says in an affidavit, yeah, Joseph told me that he didn't really have the plates, that he made that up and then just told people that he had the plates. That's great. That's wonderful. Thank you for your commentary on it. That has actually, it can't overturn the fact that Joseph is saying that he had a miraculous experience and that miraculous experience is an angel appeared to him. And people can say whatever they want. People said that Jesus was a wine bibber and a blasphemer and they were wrong.

I think it's important for our listeners to understand, anyone who's maybe even new to the church, that there is no other plausible explanation that anyone has given for the production of the Book of Mormon. There is none. There's no cohesive argument that anyone has made that said, I know how he produced it. There's all sorts of, he's a religious genius. Oh, he's a crazy whatever. But there's still, to this day, not any cohesive, like, this is when he wrote it. This is where the drafts were. There's not one.

Another explanation does not exist. I think that's an important thing for people. There's certainly not one that's universally accepted even by non-Latter-day Saint historians. I mean, and there are lots of different claims. I mean, there are certainly people who say, well, Joseph's just a religious genius. And in which case it just becomes much harder to explain why all of his other writing from the time period doesn't reflect that at all. Well, that's because Oliver Cowdery was a religious genius. Okay. Well then how come Oliver Cowdery's other writings from the time doesn't reflect that

at all? Well, that's because Sidney Rigdon was secretly already a believer. He came to Palmyra. He hatched this plan with Joseph Smith. And then he went back to Ohio. He pretended to get converted. And that's how the Book of Mormon was written, because Sidney Rigdon wrote it. And the problem is there's no evidence for that at all, except for it would help you sleep at night. So that's, like I said, I call that unisom anti-Mormonism, right? It's what would help me sleep at night. But that's not what historians do, right? Historians deal with what facts actually exist, right? The reality is when you read most books that talk about the history of Mormons from a non-Mormon perspective, they generally try to pass over the actual creation of the Book of Mormon pretty quickly.

And that's because there isn't a really good argument. Now, look, there are obviously books that are written when the specific topic is the origin of the Book of Mormon. But, you know, I'm thinking of like Daniel Walker Howe's book that he wrote for Oxford on the history of the United States during that time period. When he covers, you know, the Book of Mormon and, you know, he says, look, you know, true or not, this is an impressive literary work, right? But he doesn't really attempt to try to tell his readers where he thinks it actually came from, right? Joseph is saying that he created it. And I think the historical default has to be, look, outside of some other reason, then Joseph has to be the one who's doing it, right? Because that's what he's saying. We

don't have any other credible arguments. And then what do you do with the fact that he's clearly not capable of producing that? Well, then, you know, it goes to, well, there has to be some other conspiracy. He got it from somewhere else, or maybe there, you know, he fell into some kind of trance-like state and produced it. Even though all of our physical witnesses of the translation, they say something the opposite, right? So, I mean, even the theory that, well, Joseph Smith was able to, you know, somehow, you know, he ate some bad mushrooms and he hallucinated and was able to create this far beyond his abilities. Even that theory is actually

in the face of our existing historical records, because we have records from the people interacting with Joseph Smith at the time and during the translation. And that's not what they're saying. So again, even those theories are more about how can I make these things equal? Because Joseph's a real problem. He, by all the documents you read, Joseph really believes he was called by God. There's nothing in anything that Joseph has that suggests he doesn't really believe. If he really believes, it becomes much harder to explain how he fabricated the Book of Mormon and the gold plates and everything like that if he really believes. And so, you know, honestly, a lot of historians simply take a pass on it.

They simply say, Joseph claimed that he had received the gold plates from an angel, and they move on beyond it because the story they're trying to tell isn't the origin of the Book of Mormon. They kind of move past it. Right. Now, Solomon Spalding tided people over for a little bit. For almost a century. I mean, all throughout the 19th century. And even now you'll hear some people say, well, maybe there's actually a second Solomon's Balding Man. No way. Part two.

Okay. Yeah. And there was a shooter on the grassy knoll and all kinds of stuff. I mean, the reality is that conspiracy theories are always, you know, they're fun because you don't actually have to have proof for them. But when you're doing history, you need evidence. And evidence really suggests two things, that Joseph Smith really, really, really believed he was called by God, that he wasn't a fraud, no matter how often someone wants to call him. All the evidence points there, right? All the evidence. I mean, yeah. And it's that way with many religions. He doesn't have a secret journal.

I can't believe this is working. Yeah, it's a case with a lot of people, religious people from history that, you know, historians are not in the position to judge whether or not they've to be legitimately believing the things they're saying. And look, sometimes they're not. It happens that people are two-faced, and you can tell from their other records that they deliberately are being that way. But it's not a historian's job, and therefore, it's not a historical argument to have a discussion about whether or not Joan of Arc actually heard the voice of God. Okay? She says she did. You can say as a person, well, I find that pretty unlikely, especially if you're English, I suppose, right?

I find that very unlikely that this French general beating the English would hear. But as a historian, you don't really have a reason to say, oh, that Joan of Arc, she's a liar. Instead, what you can really say is, Joan of Arc really seemed to believe that she'd heard the voice of Jesus. Now, that doesn't prove that she heard the voice of Jesus, but it does mean she's not a fraud, right? A fraud is someone who knowingly tells a story to people in order to curry favor that they know they don't deserve. There is a difference between someone who really believes they're acting in the name of God and someone who's saying those words in order to curry favor. And there's just no evidence. You can read the 100,000 pages of Joseph Smith documents and you can read them, the 12,000 different, you can read them all, all the documents.

There's nothing in any of them, private, public, that know, that even suggests that Joseph doesn't really believe he's called by God. So you have to deal with him on that level. He really believes he's called by God. He's not a fraud. And then he comes up with this book that is pretty incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

And that just seems to be entirely outside his abilities. And, you know, but Solomon's Balding Manuscript, really, for a long time, it helped provide that explanation. Why does this seem so good? Why does it confuse so many people to become Mormons? Oh, that's because an actual real Christian wrote it. And this imposter, you know, took it and used it for his own nefarious purposes. So I did not want to tell this story, but I have been impressed upon to tell it. So I will. By your friend, Hank.

Yes. Yeah. Just, you know, just to do Hank a solid. I'm going to. Yeah. This is one of my favorite stories. So, uh, the reality is you don't actually know when and where you're going to have people attack your faith. And, and, um, I think we live in a time, especially with, with the internet that, you know,

you're sometimes surprised by it. You know, I mean, you will casually post something on Facebook, you know, and, and someone will in your comments, you know, tell you, you know, that you're a Satan worshiper. And, you know, the reality is there's obviously a lot of vitriol. That's exactly what Joseph was told. We were building a house. And, um, so the, the contractor was a little behind schedule. So because of that, we were kind of transient members of a ward that we were in just temporarily. We were essentially renting month to month in a place. And we already knew the new ward that we were going to be in if they ever actually finished our house, which was on the other side of town. So we were actually at times attending this other ward that we were going to be in because that's where we're really going to be.

So we were not as invested in the ward as we should have been, obviously. Right. And your rental property. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And our, you know, my wife was pregnant and she's super sick when she when she was pregnant. And so, you know, she wasn't able to go to church very often. And so here we are in this very temporary ward because, you know, we thought we'd be done in time. It wasn't. So we had to move somewhere where we could rent very temporarily. And so, you know, I went to a fast and testimony meeting one, one Sunday, someone goes up and begins bearing a testimony. And this person had a stack of papers with him and he began to systematically speak this false.

He began to attack the church from the pulpit. The stake president comes up and whispers to the guy and the guy just he just keeps right on going. And and so eventually he runs out of material. And so I see, I can see that there are a group of them and they're all down there on the first pew ready to go up as soon as this guy's done. But they, you know, they had one fatal flaw in their takeover of the sacrament meeting plan. And that was, they hadn't gone to enough of our fast and testimony meetings to realize that you can go sit up on the stand to be the next person in line. So as this guy,

as I realized there's a whole group of them, as he starts to finish and their next member of their group down there gets ready to start to come up, I essentially sprint to the, I'm in the back of the chapel and I, you know, all the way up to, all the way up to the front of the pulpit. And, and, and, and I get up there first and then I just proceed to, I, I, I filibuster the whole rest of the meeting. I gave a 35 minute testimony because, you know, that way the time's taken up, you know, and, and, and, uh, you know, eventually I get this signal from the people behind me. Like they're like, okay, we can, we can end now.

And the stake president stands right up and he closes the meeting and that's it. I mean, I I'm working for the Joseph Smith papers. And, and so, you know, I'm going through essentially going through point by point and, and, and saying, you know, um, you know, there are some people who make this claim about Joseph da, da, da, da, da, you know, repeating what this guy said, but they obviously haven't read this. They haven't read this. They haven't read this.

They haven't read this. We know from this source and this source and this source that this is the case. Joseph said, you know, I mean, and just going through the whole thing. And so I go to Sunday school. And at the time I was meeting, it was a very old building and I was meeting on the stage in, and it was the gospel principles class. Actually, I was in the gospel principles class, actually I was in the gospel principles class. And, and as I'm in the meeting, uh, I can hear our stake president had a very distinctive and loud booming voice. I can hear him going around to the various classrooms looking for

somebody. Um, and, and, you know, it was one of those buildings that had the old dividers that they had in the gym to create classrooms. Anyway, so I can hear him going to one of those buildings that had the old dividers that they had in the gym to create classrooms anyway so i can hear him going to each of those and he's like and and he's looking for someone and the person he's looking for he thinks is named dirk moss um and so you know he keeps knocking on these doors and he's saying is there a brother moss in here and they're like no no i don't i don't think we have a brother no no a dirk moss is there a brother Moss in here? And they're like, no, no, I don't, I don't think we have a brother. No, no. A Dirk Moss. Is there a Dirk Moss? I don't know. I don't know. And I think what happened is he asked the second counselor, cause I got out, I was, I was

out like a shot when that thing was gone. And I think he asked the second counselor, who was that? Right. And the second counselor was like, I mean, to that second counselor's credit, he had seen me one, he had met me one other time and he remembered my name. And he was like, oh, that's brother Dirk, Dirk Mott. And so the stake president thought my first name was Dirk and then my last name was Moss. And so he's wandering around the chapel, around the church asking for someone that no one thinks exists because he keeps asking for a Brother Moss. And they're like, we don't have a Brother Moss. No, we have a Brother Moss.

You know, the one in the chakra. I don't know who that is because they didn't know me because I was never there at church. And so anyway, eventually I hear him coming to the stage and I, you know, and I hear that, you know, the big knock and, and like I said, he's got a booming voice and he, he comes to the teacher answers. Oh, president, you know, what can you, do you have a brother Moss in your class? I don't, I don't think we have no brother Moss, a Dirk Moss. Do you have a Dirk Moss in your class?

I don't, a president. I don't think. And then he saw me in the back and he's like, brother Moss. And he comes striding across all the way across. I was, I was so far down in my chair. Like, please don't see me.

Please don't see me. And he comes up and he's like, brother Moss. He's like, I, I just, I just wanted to, you know,

come talk to you about what, what happened in there. And he, and he said, I thank you so much for, for being willing to stand up and, and say those things. And he said, I thank you so much for being willing to stand up and say those things. And he's, Brother Moss, how did you know those things you were talking about? I, you know, look, at this point, he said my name wrong, like shouted it wrong about 30 times.

So at this point, you can't be like, well, actually, my name's Garrett. You know, you kind of, you let people say face, you know, you don't, you know, if someone said your name wrong that many times, you just let it go. Like brother Moss, you know, how did you know those things? You said, I've been a member my whole life. And there are lots of things that you said that I've never heard before. I mean, it was all, you know, you, you, it seemed like you knew everything there was to know about Joseph Smith from that time period. I mean, I was working on

documents volume one at the time for the Joseph Smith papers, which was the 1828 to the 1831 time period. So everything that this guy was talking about, you know, and, and I wanted the conversation to be over and I didn't want to try to explain it. And it had totally interrupted the whole class. And so I was like, ah, you know, I guess I'm just lucky. I guess I just remembered some of the stuff I've studied. And he's like, well, I just want to thank you. So the best part about that story that I think the reason why Hank wants me to tell it is not actually part of the story. It's not actually part. That part of the story shows that you never actually know when someone's going to challenge your faith and make all kinds of claims.

That's an important claim. Fast and testimony meeting. But the best part of the story is that we got a call like that week that our house was ready. And so we actually never went back to that ward again. And so what I want to believe, but I don't know, is that that stake president was like, I went back to my office and I looked on the records of my stake and there was no Dirk Moss. There had never been a Dirk Moss in my

We never heard from him again. He was there by himself. He was sitting alone by himself. He seemed to know everything there was to know about Joseph Smith. And then he was gone. And then he was gone. So have you ever heard a story about three Nephite coming out of Lakeland, Utah? Not true. It was just a happenstance of circumstances that the anti-Mormons came to a fast and testimony meeting that I was actually in as they attacked Joseph Smith on the basis of early Joseph Smith history, I think. So, yeah, there was no Dirk Moss.

I'm sure that, you know, that's how three Nephite stories get started. We started here with Ezra Booth, who was so disappointed and turns really angry. Really angry. And you know, the sad part about Booth is that while he seems to initially be trying to ingratiate himself back into the Methodist fold. What we learned from another history, this is not a Latter-day Saint history. He actually abandons religion entirely. And by the time he dies, he's an agnostic. He just doesn't believe. I mean, he's agnostic. He's not atheist, which you couldn't really say you were in the late 19th century anyway, but he, he's kind of abandoned it. And it's, it's a sad thing. And I think, um, it happens to a lot of people who, who do, you know, lose their faith in

the sense that it, um, it's one of the more unfortunate things. I mean, I hope that if people leave our church, they'll at least still believe that God loves them and that Jesus is their savior and that there's still truth out there. And, and, um, it's unfortunate when people have kind of lost all hope. And that, that really is what happens with Ezra Booth. And, you know, the other reason I told that story is that Sidney Rigdon is going to publicly challenge Ezra Booth and, and eventually Hurlbut and others to meet him in the public square anywhere. Uh, Simon's Rider, he'll challenge Simon's Rider to meet him in the public square and he will debate them on any point of doctrine. And so he's never taken up on that, but he's more than willing to do it.

Let's finish section 62. It's what? The next day. Yeah. And it's very brief. Yeah. They it's very, it's very brief. Yeah. They're still on their way back. Obviously I'm still on the legend of Dirk Moss.

I'm still. Yeah. So, so then they run into this guy named Dirk Moss. Well, so what happens is they actually, it's precipitated by the fact that they, what happens is they run into a group of other elders because now they're no

longer taking the water route, right? Because they run into a group of elders that are coming down from that initial missionary call in Doctrine and Covenants section 56 that they're going down. And so they run into Hiram and others who actually had not made it to Zion yet, because these elders had actually taken seriously what God had commanded them to do, that they were to preach the word as much as they could along the way. And one of the unfortunate aspects of that is they had taken so long to get down there as they preached on their way down, that Joseph had arrived, received the revelation of where the temple in Zion was supposed to be built, had some other, you know, held their conference that they were supposed to hold, and then went back, you know, on their way back. Let's clarify, Garrett, let's clarify for our listeners that Joseph wasn't commanded to teach on his way.

It was him and Sidney go. No, they were supposed to go. But all of the other elders were supposed to preach along the way. I just want to make sure. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, I'm sure they did preach where they had the chance. But Hiram and others had taken it very seriously. And so they were weeks behind the other people and they run into each other.

And so it is as negative as DNC 61 was, right? This negative, you know, near death experience. DNC 62 is this, it's kind of this reunion, you know, of these, the loved friends, but it also precipitates some questions, right? I mean, well, Joseph, you know, of these, the loved friends, but it also precipitates some questions, right? I mean, well, Joseph, if our goal was to preach all the way down to Zion, so we could be there for the conference that's held in Zion that you guys had last week. So do we just turn around and go home with you now, or do we keep going to Zion? And so I think there's some cool things to pull out of that. I think verse three is something that has, you know, every missionary who's ever gone out and felt frustrated has probably had, hopefully someone point them to 62 verse three.

Nevertheless, you are blessed for the testimony, ye have borne is recorded in heaven for the angels to look upon, and they rejoice over you and your sins are forgiven. I mean, on just the possibility that my sins could be forgiven if I'm bearing testimony of the truth, I'm going to bear my testimony to every person I meet. I mean, just that, I can't imagine what, you know, I'm guessing that these elders felt similarly frustrated like everyone else was, that this was not the thousands of people marching into the river to be baptized all at once. They'd essentially not been listened to. This had not been successful. It was a terrible, arduous trek.

And now they even missed the conference they were trying to get to. This had not been successful. It was a terrible, arduous trek. And now they even missed the conference they were trying to get to. And God trying to remind them here, the Lord trying to remind them that what you did was follow me. And even if you don't convert anybody, what you were supposed to do was be obedient and you were obedient and you're going to be blessed for that obedience even if people didn't follow. So I think that's a beautiful part of that section. And then secondly, they get the answer to that question, right? That's verse four. And now continue your journey design. And they're going to hold their own meeting there to celebrate the fact they're there. Now, why is it that they are told to continue to go, right? It's very similar to the

same advice that was just given about why the Joseph group, why his party had taken boats, even though God obviously knew that they were eventually going to have some problems in the boats. Why? Because I want you to be able to bear a testimony of the experience you had. This is the same thing that these people are, are, are, uh, told here that, um, they're going to go, uh, and, and, um, that they're going to be able to bear testimony, right, of that when they go back. So, and then you may return, this is verse five, and then you may return to bear record, yea, even altogether, or two by two as seemeth you good, and mattereth not to me, only be faithful and declare glad tidings on the heavens and the earth and among the congregations of the wicked.

Well, I guess we can do six too. Behold, I, the Lord, have brought you together that the promise might be fulfilled, that the faithful among you should be preserved and rejoice together in the land of Missouri. I, the Lord, promise the faithful and cannot lie. And so part of the reason why he still wants them to go is, first of all, they were promised that they'd get to see the land of Zion. And second of all, they're going to not, when they go back to bear testimony in Kirtland to the main body of the church, they're not going to be able to say, yeah, you know, we got like most of the way there, and then we just kind of turn around. They're going to be able to say, we saw the spot where the Lord told Joseph Smith, the temple as the center of the city of Zion is going to be built.

We saw it. It's real. We were there. And there's something to that. There's something to the testimony of that experience that makes it all the more powerful for those who are still wondering about belief. When I was a bishop, we had this guy whose wife died, elderly couple, very inactive, went and talked to him. And he said, well, my wife just had this hang up with plural marriage. I was a ward clerk before. And we invited him back and he said, okay. And he came back to church. And then one day he knocked on my office when I was a bishop

and he just came in and he sat down and he said, I had a dream last night. And she said, take me to the temple. Now I can't exactly wrap my head around how cool that is because she was in the temple in the dream. She said, take me to the temple. And suddenly something made sense. She came walking out and she looked beautiful and she was in front of this white cloudy thing. So we're like, I'm going to get you signed up. We're going to get you the temple prep lessons. Okay. He takes the temple prep lessons, finally goes to the temple. Long story short, knocks on my door again. He says, Bishop, and I kind of gave it away. He said, Bishop, I went to the temple.

And when they said, we will now reveal the veil of the temple, that's what it was. That's awesome. Like she was in the temple, went to the next life with this very bad opinion, confusion, whatever about plural marriage, but she showed up in the temple. Apparently forgiven, apparently everything made sense and said, you got to take me to the temple. And he did and passed away a few months ago. But I'm still wrapping my head around how cool that is, that she was in the temple when she came to him and told him, you got to take me here.

It's amazing. Those experiences that again are miracles that there's something beyond. Even just recently with my brother dying, my 12-year-old son, Kai, he was playing basketball in a comp basketball league. They played a pretty tough game, and they ended up losing at the end. But it was a really late game at night, and we're driving home. It's like 11 o'clock at night. And even though I said, hey, man, as soon as we get home, you've got to get to bed, man.

You've got to go to school in the morning. You've got to go. And so we got home, and I was kind of doing the dishes. And my wife was in there doing the dishes and and uh in it and my wife was in there you know doing some other things too and and and he just kind of sat there he just sat at our at our our counter and he just he was sitting there and it was just kind of weird right i mean you know if you had teenagers you know it's like hmm there's what's going on with them today. And he, I said, hey, Kai, man, what you doing? It's time for bed.

Go get in bed. And he said, he said, so I had to write a biography for school. And so I immediately went to the most negative place, right? Because that's what parents do, you know, because you've been through this rodeo before. And so, like, are you trying to tell me that this is due tomorrow and that you didn't do anything and now we have to spend up tonight? I mean, that was my reaction, which obviously was literally the worst reaction and a demonstration of how un-in-tune with the spirit I was. And that's why I was like, like son did you not even do it and and and and and you know he kind of interrupts me he's like and i'm i'm doing it on i'm doing an

uncle brian that was my my brother i'm doing a biography on him and he said dad i while i was i was reading because he he had the the obituary he said while i was reading the obituary. He said, while I was reading the obituary, I just started crying because I miss him so much. And he said, Dad, I heard a voice. I heard his voice. And he said, everything's going to be okay. And I know my son and I know my son wasn't making up a story. Yeah. And so I think it's beautiful when we get these connections from the other side.

And I'm a believer that what we think a chance is here of getting the gospel is. I think every single person that God can shove into those kingdoms, he is going to, by hook or crook, by all means, he won't exercise any compulsion except that. To like force people to take another chance to try because he loves them so much he wants them to be saved. That's why, I mean, I love DNC 76 for that very reason. I mean, it's just transformative of Christian thought. I think our listeners would love to hear on your personal thoughts on Joseph Smith, the restoration, expressing what it is I feel and believe. I think, um, I don't, I don't have the ability to speak with justice to what it is I feel. I've studied church history, I mean, my entire adult life.

There are obviously other people who are far better scholars than I am and people who are more intelligent than I am. Certainly people who probably follow the gospel better than I do. But I have, in studying the life and documents of Joseph Smith and those early men and women who were early Latter-day Saints, I've had the Spirit speak to me multiple times and tell me that this is God's true work. I was working on the Joseph Smith papers on a volume with another colleague. And it was interesting as we were going through the documents, you know, we'd read each of the documents separately the documents separately next to one another as we'd, then we'd try to figure out, okay, we need to annotate this. We need to annotate this. And there were multiple times that we'd be reading the document and we would look up at one another at exactly the same time without anything being said. And it was because we both felt the same thing at the same time where we expressed, you know, what we just read was not written from Joseph Smith.

What we just read was a revelation that came from God. And it was truth that came from God and that was so enlightening. I realize, obviously, I have all kinds of friends that are into the church, out of the church, on their way out of the church, hopefully coming on back into the church. I mean, we all have friends in every aspect of our life. And sometimes there are aspects of church history or doctrine or belief that cause us to struggle, and they make us wonder if the whole thing is true. If you're someone who's thinking, well, I have a few doubts, so I guess I just don't have a testimony at all.

Well, if you have a few doubts, it's called being a person. It's called existing at all, right? The fact that you have questions about things and you don't have all the answers does not mean that you don't have faith or a testimony. It just means you're like every other person who's ever sought out faith in the history of the world. And sometimes because we can't get all the answers, it causes us to get to spin a little bit to the point where the thing we can't get the answer to is such that it causes us to

forget what it is that we even have. You know, it is sometimes a very real frustration. I'm not, I am not belittling this frustration in any way. I understand why this is a very difficult concept. And that is what is marriage going to be like in the next life, right? I mean, it is something that is such a major part of not only our church, but our culture in this mortal world and trying to figure out how it's going to work. And then especially when it comes to things like now, wait a minute, my grandmother, she was married to four different men when she was alive. But when we went and did her temple work for her, we sealed her to all four of them. But obviously she's not married to all four of them in the next life. So who's my grandmother going

to be with? Because, you know, I mean, I read her journal and I really think she was closest to the second husband that we sealed her to, but you know, they told us to seal her to all of them. And so we, and you can start to see how people start to get really worked up in their mind because they don't understand how it is that marriage is going to work in the next life. And sometimes that frustration that you don't know that it hasn't been revealed can get such that it causes people to have a faith crisis. It causes them to say, I just don't know what to believe anymore. But it's important that when you're in those times that you realize that the very reason

that you're asking the question is because you believe Joseph Smith's a prophet. Because, you know, frankly, there ain't no Presbyterian wondering who great grandma's married to in the next life. Because the answer is nobody. Because marriage doesn't exist in the next life. The only reason you have a question of who's married to who in the next life, or what that marriage is like in the next life, is because Joseph Smith's a prophet of God.

The moment he stops being a prophet, you don't have to worry anymore about how marriage or eternal families work in the next life, because they don't. The moment Joseph stops being a prophet, you don't have to worry about how the premortal life factors into our progression because it doesn't, because there wasn't a premortal life, because there isn't a progression. I hope that when people struggle with the questions they have, they will realize that the truths that we have, the ones that you can hold on to are so powerful

and so important that you're not willing to give them up. Not on the basis of a possibility that you don't understand a maybe, right? At the very least, I hope we can adopt, you know, Pascal's wager that we can at least say, you know, what he said. And that is that, look, if you're uncertain about the existence of God, you should always bet on God. You should wager on God. Because the reality is, if God doesn't exist and you live your whole life like God does exist and you die, well, you won't be able to regret the fact that you your whole life like God does exist and you die, well,

you won't be able to regret the fact that you lived your life like God existed. Because if there isn't a God and you die, then you don't exist anymore. So there is no regret. There's no sitting back and like, oh, why wasn't I drunk more often? Why did I even follow the word of wisdom? Because you won't exist, so it won't matter. On the other hand, if God does exist, then how we choose to live this life actually does matter. And the amount of regret that one might have if they choose to reject and throw away the possible truths because there are great difficulties and trials in this life, that might engender a great deal of regret.

So, um, that was probably not what you're looking for at all, but I, I gotta tell you the very questions we have come from the doctrines. Yeah. They come from the fact that, that, that Joseph was a prophet. And so do we know exactly why X happened or Y? Do we know exactly what happened with the Kirtland Safety Society? Do I understand why God instituted plural marriage? Can I frankly understand all the different aspects of different prophetic utterance? The answer is no. But I can tell you that the reason why I know my brother is still alive,

the reason why I believe that Jesus is the Christ is because I know that Joseph Smith saw resurrected Jesus, and not just once, but on multiple occasions. And I'm not giving that up. I've got all kinds of questions I don't have answers to. And that's especially frustrating for me because I've dedicated my life to trying to find answers. But I'm not giving that up. And I mean, I just hope your listeners, if you're struggling with your faith, I hope you will remember what it is that we believe. That we don't believe that people are burning in hell for eternity. That there's every single person, you know, outside of a few saved people are suffering in some kind of eternal, horrible hell. We believe in the eventual salvation of essentially every person who's

lived on this earth. We believe in an equality of people being able to go to the celestial kingdom, that every single person who's ever lived on this earth will have an equal opportunity in this life or the next in order to go to the celestial kingdom. We believe that all of the horrible things that have happened to us in this life are going to be made up to us in the next life. We believe that families can be and will be together forever, that marriage can be forever, and that you didn't have a chance for marriage in this life. You'll have it in the next life. All of these things that we believe are so beautiful.

I hope we won't casually give away what we believe because of the questions that we can't answer. I testify as much as I can that even though I'm a historian and I've studied things from an academic perspective, I have also had the Holy Spirit speak to me and tell me that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that Jesus is the Christ. And I think that all of us can have that experience. And if you had it once and now you're losing it, have it again. Read, spend some time reading the things that Joseph Smith wrote and not just what people said that he wrote. Go read them.

The Joseph Smith papers are all online. Start reading them and the spirit will speak to you that he's a prophet of God. Amen. This is our second episode with you and it was every bit, if not better than beautiful first. Yeah. John, I'm with you. Yeah. And, and powerful and. That's a just brings clarity to think of it that way. I love the way you said that. We, of course, want to thank Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat, not brother Dirkmaat, for being with us today. We want to thank all of you who who listened and laughed with us. We're very grateful for your support. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, and our production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Kyle Nelson, Will Stoughton, and Maria Hilton. And we hope you will join us on our next episode of Follow Him.