followHIM - Hebrews 7-13 Part 2 • Dr. Philip Allred • Nov 6 - Nov 12

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Dr. Philip Allred continues to explore Hebrews and how Jesus Christ is our Advocate and Savior.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/new-testament-episodes-41-52/YouTube: https://youtu.be/UA-nCVs0QloFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYPlease rate and review the podcast!00:00 Part II– Dr. Philip Allred00:07 Review of the Tabernacle and Yom Kippur02:40 Veil and the Holy of Holies05:05 Temple in 3 Nephi07:00 Writing the Law in our hearts and minds09:12 Don’t get lost in structure11:57 Dr. Allred’s personal story with a fellow student13:46 Israelite Hall of Fame15:28 Abraham learning about Abraham17:00 Sarah and name change20:01 Old Testament examples continue21:26 Dr. Allred in Japan25:14 Rahab the harlot29:24 Running the race 33:17 Jesus developmental experience34:19 Dr. Allred and a high school coach38:00 The Lord chasteneth39:24 Transformation and suffering42:08 “Trial, Blessing, or Both?” and “Rough Start, Great Finish”42:55 Helen Keller 47:03 Esau50:37 The Second Coming54:33 Mediator of the New Covenant58:02 Discipleship and “Think Celestial”1:04:24 End of Part II– Dr. Philip AllredThanks to the followHIM team:Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignAnnabelle Sorensen: Creative Project ManagerWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Keep listening for part two with Dr. Philip Allred, Hebrews chapter 7 through 13. Let's review and restate what we've been through so far, because this is really dense material where every sentence is powerful, and you really have to go slow to understand the argument that's being made. And also, you have to know so much background about the Old Testament and the tabernacle. So far, we've looked at the comparison with the ancient tabernacle, and especially the day of Yom Kippur, when the high priest himself, who represents Jehovah, usually all decked out with his purple ephod and the golden mitre holiness to the Lord across his head. He dresses down on this particular day to look like any other priest. He takes the blood of an animal and can enter this

one day into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur and offer atonement, a shadow of an atonement for all of Israel. Now we have Christ who has offered his blood, which Phil has so masterfully taught us is definitely a different type of blood. The blood of the animal could do nothing. This blood can offer sacrifice, real sacrifice, enduring atonement, he can now offer us a new way, not the old way, the Old Testament way, which was good, which taught them, but this new way where we can all be that high priest on Yom Kippur and enter into what we might call the celestial room, the representation of heaven, the kingdom of God, of exaltation. Am I getting that right? Sounds great. You know what I love? I will never think of that phrase again, which I've used a thousand times in my life, once and for all, that the high

priest was going once a year on the day of atonement for those that were there. But here is Christ who went once and for all. And I'll never think of that phrase. And Paul uses it. It's right there. Hebrews 10.10. But there's a bunch of them. As part of your study, you could find all of those. Like 9.28, once offered to bear the sins of many.

And now the second time he comes where he's taking care of all of it. Yeah. And 7.27, this he did once when he offered up himself. So once and for all, now we can come boldly, which is a awesome phrase that Paul uses to the throne of grace. Let me go a little bit further to see if I understand. The veil that was between the holy place and the holy of holies, which Latter-day Saints are accustomed to that idea of the veil being between us and the celestial room, the representation of exaltation. This veil was closed at one point. Really, only one person can enter, but now this new way that Christ has provided is through the veil. That's Hebrews 10, 20, by a new living way, which he hath consecrated for us,

which I assume is made for us, paved the way through the veil, that is to say his flesh. Let me relate this to my own temple experience. And of course, I want to be careful here because of the sacred nature of the temple. It's not secret, but we want to keep sacred things sacred. In the temple, I approach the veil. I have a conversation with God in which both of us are looking at the veil. In my judgment, he's not looking at me. He's looking at the Savior, and the Savior is my intermediary. He's between me and the Father, pleading my case. Right, John? That's a verse you've used often.

And shadow of a judgment allows me entry through the veil, through the actual torn flesh of the Savior, I'm allowed entry into God's kingdom. Much like Yom Kippur is the climactic day in Israelite history, the climactic moment of my endowment is approaching the Lord, speaking with God the Father, and being allowed or introduced to the kingdom of God. As a young man, I don't think I understood that when I went through the temple for the first time. As Latter-day Saints, we approach the veil one at a time that the Nephites in 3 Nephi 11, the Savior said, come up to me and feel the prints in my hands. And they come up one by one. I know that our friend John Welch has taken apart third Nephi and really made temple connections with the whole experience of Jesus with the righteous in the new world. One time I did the math. What if 2,500 people took 10 seconds each and I got 6.94 hours, I think. If they took 15 seconds each,

and if they did everything Jesus has, touch and feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet and the wound in my side, it would have been exactly 10 hours. I also think, look at the impact of a society where 2,500 people have that kind of witness of Christ and the resurrection, and we call that fourth Nephi, where there could not be a happier people among all the people that had been created by the hand of God, and there was no contention. That's a nice connection, Hank. Thank you. And Phil, did I connect that right? It's not here in Hebrews where we learn about the Latter-day Saint temple, but we should have that on our mind, right? As we're reading this.

Yeah, it's our privilege to, and that's the beauty of the restoration is that we're not limited to former understandings. We can stand on the shoulders of those understandings and see, if not the same things they saw, we can see perhaps even further because of their sacrifices of their work and what they had revealed to them by Heavenly Father. It seems to me, Phil, that before the Savior, like you said, this is an Aaronic priesthood temple. Our experience in the temple, we would say, is a Melchizedek priesthood. It's like Yom Kippur, but it's different. It's not the same thing because the Savior now has atoned and

opened up the way. Does that fit? Yeah. And if you take section 84 in those passages about the ordinances the Melchizedek priesthood bring and have manifest for us these powers of godliness, the very next scene he talks about is this is how you come into the presence of God and see his face. He said, this is the very thing Moses tried to do with his people and they wouldn't do it. That's why we ended up with the Aaronic order. That's tracking right with the author of Hebrews who's saying, hey, don't be like our ancient Israelite counterparts who had the chance at Sinai, and they missed it. They wrecked it. They didn't want it. Now we have a chance. Let's go forward. In many ways, this community looks to be interested in perhaps going back to an older order, maybe a more systematic order. We have to go through the Savior into the Father, and he's wanting to write his law in our hearts and minds. Well, this is

like an inexact science then. All relationships are inexact sciences. That's how a marriage works. My wife says, our parents raised us part of the way, and then we raised each other the rest of the way. If you go to the end of chapter 10, in verse 23, 24, 25, he says, look, hold fast the profession of your faith. Don't waver, because he's faithful that promise. This is personal. He's got us. But he says, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. Don't forsake assembling together as the manner of some is. Some were stopping going to their worship services together and their discussions, the love feasts, if you will, the agape feasts, the sacraments probably that they were doing. And then he goes more to 35, don't cast away your confidence, et cetera,

because the temptation of an earlier structured order is one we can all relate to. When we had ministering come in, it was like, wait, how do I do this? I had structure before when President Nelson says, look, the Sabbath day is your gift to God. Well, all of a sudden that takes maturity that you were talking about with Dr. Gray before coming into this maturity as a disciple, where it's a relationship. What am I going to give him? I can much easier just live by some list of do and don't, do and don't, do and don't. That's milk at best approach to discipleship. And so there's many more of those kind of structured things. I think for the strength of youth just recently, this is another

sea change where we're trying to get strength from Jesus. It's relationship. How many parents had to go through this mess at 15.96 days old? Are you going to go on that prom date or you're not? Oh my word. It's real, but is that the ideal approach? And then the prophets are saying, I think we've matured. Let's get to Jesus. He'll be the strength of youth and he'll be the strength of parents.

To quote president, now elder Uchtdorf. The author is pulling on the old structures because they're familiar to this group, but he's saying, don't get lost in those structures. This is about getting to Jesus and through Jesus to the Father. That's a relationship. It's not a recipe. This has been fantastic. I would regret not mentioning one thing, it seems that Elder Holland was studying Hebrews in 1999. That BYU devotional, cast not away therefore your confidence. Hebrews 10.35. That phrase became a household phrase.

And then later on that year, the high priest or an high priest of good things to come. That's Hebrews 9, 11. I was in my twenties where he talked about him and his wife and a couple of children making their way from Utah to the East coast. We can put this in our show notes at followhim.co. Whatever you're doing, go find both of these talks, A High Priest of Good Things to Come and Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence. If you haven't heard them or if it's been a long time since you've heard them, they are relevant, personal, and they'll definitely stick with you. Such a great, a very personal approach. You're going to make it through this.

Verse 35, that became the title of a great talk. So thanks for bringing that up. I hope our listeners will go find that because they'll be blessed by it. From my experiences, a lot of us struggle with receiving revelation and being able to move forward feeling like we know what the Lord really wants us to do or not. And he really unpacks that well in that talk. And he really unpacks that well in that talk. And he really does an excellent job of helping us understand that if we had an initial spiritual experience and it was clear that the adversary is going to come and try to wreck that. And how do you comfort yourself from the future? Would you say that you're helping yourself by recording the spiritual experience and making sure that you've witnessed that you had it.

Because what's going to happen is you're going to later come to a place in which you don't have that record. If you don't have that record, you're going to be liable to the adversary testing that. I had an experience outside of a classroom one day. I was in my grad work, and I had made a presentation as a grad student in the earlier class period. And I didn't know this particular fellow student, but she caught me outside the door and she said, is this class bothering you? It wasn't too hard to play dumb because I am dumb, but it was a genuine one. I don't know what you're talking about. It was a class called sociology of religion. And it was a godless professor by, and he said, I'm an atheist, but there he was teaching the sociology of religion. And she said,

yeah, I don't know what I believe anymore. In fact, I don't even know if I believe in God anymore. I was kind of like, wow, I'm having this horizontal conversation. I don't even know this person really. But then happily, the Lord had the vertical. And here's what he told me to say. All you need to do is read your journal. You'll be fine. I was left wondering, does she have a journal? Yeah, sure. What did she write in it?

But it was so cool because it was really clear. As soon as she heard that, I could see a change in her countenance. Wow. And it was clearly from him. I don't know any of that. It was clearly from him. And she apparently had written, she'd had experiences. And now she's at a point where she could cast away her confidence and she's feeling like to do so. But because she had a record, she could go back and read and reconnect and remember, remember that she has a relationship with him. He's real. He's been in her life. And I think that's a great practice for all of us. Like President Eyring, are we recording when we see his hand in our lives? It'd be a great strength to us.

That's a perfect lead-in to Hebrews 11, because he's going to go to the past and say, here's a faith hall of fame. Like, is that what you called it? Yeah. Here's a journal. And in other words, he's been saying, look, we've got this liturgical history, you know, to use those kinds of terms to say, this is the churchy kind of history that we're using, but now we're just going to go to the people of history, like actual people. And in these people, we're going to see that they were focused on Christ,

that they had a witness of Christ, and that what they did was Christian, even though it was pre-Christ. So we'll call them pre-Christian Christians. We can coin that term. I'm sure that's not original, but these are the pre-Christian Christians who are working it. So Hank and Jonas, this writer pulls together the Israelite Hall of Fame of Faith that his community, his group were familiar with, which one of these individuals or instances speak most to you? I love Abraham because I try to understand how difficult that was. So in verse 17, by faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, the way it's phrased, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. I mean,

the contradiction in Abraham's mind must have been why? And then counting verse 19, God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. So I love Abraham, and I love the way the book of Abraham starts, where Abraham says, I sought for the blessings of the fathers. And we're all going, wait, you are the fathers. It's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the fathers. We kind of learn that God made similar problems to Adam and Enoch.

I had a great knowledge, but I wanted a greater knowledge. And I just love Abraham. I remember the story, I think Truman Madsen tells it, of being on a ship to the Holy Land with Hugh B. Brown. And if God knew that Abraham would be willing to sacrifice Isaac, why did he put him through that? And President Hugh B. Brown said, because Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham. That's one that stood out to me because that's hard. Take your son, your only son, the author of Hebrews called him your only begotten son and sacrifice him. Even though you've just been promised, your seed will come through. This makes no sense. You know what I love about that,

John? In verse 19, this is the faith that he had in God that God could, if he did sacrifice him, he could just bring him back to life. And that's such an interesting thing is that you could have that confidence perhaps. Okay, you want to see if I'll do this? Okay, I will do this. You'll just bring him back to life because he knew that God had made the promise and he knew that God was faithful. It's something that Sarah will say. She believed, she knew that he who had made the promise was faithful. And this is to the author's point is if we have a relationship with God, we can do anything because we know him, we know he's faithful and he could command us to do anything. Absolutely. I thought of two, if any of our listeners, if you're looking through Hebrews 11,

you can mark these names, Abel in verse four, Enoch in verse five, Noah seven, Abraham in verse eight, Sarah in verse 11. I love that Sarah's in there. Don't you, Hank? That he would mention her. That's a posterity thing. And both of them, male and female, their names were changed. That's cool. Sorry, Hank. Keep going. And that that's your wife's name.

Yeah, I was going to say that was actually my first stop was verse 11. Because I have an affinity for that name in verse 11. And I'm glad too, John, that Sarah is mentioned here because we often speak of Abraham and Isaac. They almost just flow together, those two names. And I don't know if we talk often enough about Sarah and Isaac. So often we say how much Abraham loved Isaac. And I'm certain he did. But how much did Sarah love Isaac and what he represented when it comes to the covenant? So the author of Hebrews recognized that and put her name in there, which is great. I'm happy about because to me is the most beautiful word, Sarah.

I do adore my Sarah. I do adore my Sarah. Going on to verse 20 is Isaac. Verse 21, Jacob. Verse 22, Joseph, who we could talk about for all of these great people we could talk about. The one that I saw in verse 23, Moses. And it goes through Moses' story about Pharaoh's daughter and coming back to Egypt. But then verse 29, Phil, I want to just see if I can make a connection here to what you taught us previously. By faith, they passed through the Red Sea as if dry land. You've taught us about the Savior creating this way and parting the veil into the kingdom of God. And the visual of that made me think of Moses, that here I am on this side of the Red Sea, and on that side is, say, the kingdom of God, right? That's where I want to get to, but I can't get there. I mean, on my own, I am stuck,

and here comes the Egyptians, might be the law of justice. I don't know. Something's coming after me and I am stuck and I want to get to the promised land. I want to get to exaltation and I can't. And then like you talked about earlier, the savior opens up the impossible way. And I pass through the Red Sea might be the veil that you talked about. I pass through that and I'm able to actually get to exaltation, the place I just never dreamed I could get to from being on the far side. It's going to be repeated after 40 years. They're going to have to do the same thing with the River Jordan, but it's that same idea. That graded sacred space is repeated at Sinai. Yeah, that entrance into the promised land typologically fits that so well. I think this is the beauty of what the author's doing is trying to say, you have help and you have hope in Jesus. Go forward, be bold. Who else is mentioned in the chapter? So we got some really fun ones.

The one I want to talk about for a second is in 31 with Rahab. Yeah. In 32, you got Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, David, even King David, Samuel. Samuel. Then you've got in 35, women are listed who had received dead that were raised to life. That makes us think of Elijah and his work. Others that were tortured, verse 36, another group of others that had trials of cruel mockings, et cetera. Then in verse 37, they that were stoned, they that were sawn asunder,

probably Isaiah traditionally is one that was considered to have been sawn asunder. They that wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins sounds a little John the Baptist and many others perhaps before. Verse 38, they that wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves. Those are kind of groupings of people with various experiences, but they exercised faith. You can go through this list and wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah. I think what the author's trying to do is encourage. He's saying, hey, listen, because when we get to chapter 12 in a moment, he calls this a great cloud of witnesses. That's 12 verse 1, right? He's tried to say, look, guys, I know it's tough, but wow, check this out. All these should give you confidence, which is that term that's been

used by him several times. You should be able to feel bold now. I was in Japan on the mission, as I mentioned earlier, and grateful to be serving there. But one day I was just bouncing off of the billboards and the cultural casualness with modesty and these kinds of things. And as a missionary, especially always trying to be good, I just couldn't look anywhere. It seemed like riding my bike down the street, there was literally nowhere I could look, which didn't have a temptation with it. Well, there I am riding my bike. My companion has no idea what's going on, but I'm having this internal wrestle of just frustration that I am being pummeled by the world and worldliness. I just kind of screamed out to God. I'm just like, I'm sick of this. When can we be done with this? I want to be done with this.

Can I just look somewhere without having to screen it? And it was really cool because, and I don't always get responses like this, but I got a response and it was, this isn't your home. And it wasn't Japan. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing about Japan, the people or anything like that. He was talking about mortality. This earth, this isn't your home. It's not yet made into its paradisiacal glory. And then I had in my mind, pop verse 13, they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. The earth wasn't their home. And it became really cool. As that phrase came into my mind, I had a flood of comfort. Oh, I'm not the only one that's uncomfortable here. And they went through it and they stuck the landing, to use our gymnastics term. Look in verse 13. These, in fact, died in faith and then this word, not having received the promises, but they sobbed the promises afar off. And they were persuaded

of those promises, and they embraced, that's a very interesting term, they embraced them, and they confessed, ah, this is not the place where we get everything tidied up. This is not the time in which all the promises are fulfilled. Remember, these two had been promised not a child. They had been promised seed without number. As I think about my life, not only then as a missionary, but now in my older decades, and I'm thinking about the promises in my patriarchal blessing, the promises in various other settings, including and especially the temple, the promises that are made, and I haven't received them. Now, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying, oh, I get it. If I follow these that died

in faith, not having received the promises, I realize this is not the place nor the time for the realization. This is the place and the time for preparation. And so I can join Abraham and Sarah in patience, working forward, getting to know him, preparing for when he can and will fulfill all of the promises. And so I am persuaded. I am embracing my role as a stranger and a pilgrim here. And sometimes it just is no fun. It just, but I know I'm in great company. I'm in amazing company in the company. My men is kind of hilarious. You talked about Sarah being past age. We'll take a look at 12. It came from him as good as dead. They're kind of sweet to express it that way for Sarah, but they don't hold any punches for poor Abraham. He's as good as dead. What an amazing testimony and witness

that you and I can too, when we're past age, if you will, and we're as good as dead, sometimes even in our feelings, we can take example from them. That's one that strikes me, especially from that experience that I had. But here's another one, and this one is so fun. Verse 31, Rahab. What I love about this is that it's not just Rahab. It's Rahab the harlot. It could be Phil the fill in the blank. It's not Phil. It's Phil fill in the blank. It's Hank fill in the blank. And it'd be those things that we have experienced, we've done, we've been foolish, we've been stupid, we've chased after things we shouldn't have. And we could easily all be in this verse. John, the sinner, whatever horse we're trying to tame, to quote Elder Christofferson. I love this because she didn't perish with them that believed not, which means

she believed. She received the spies with peace, which is, by the way, a relational term. It's really cool how this all dovetails. What did she do? Well, interestingly, when she takes in the spies, she bears testimony and she uses the word L-O-R-D in caps in our King James Version, which means she's using the name Jehovah. She says her people, and we go back and read about this in Joshua 2 and then Joshua 6. And that whole narrative is super interesting. And what's fun is there's a reference in some ways, almost a foreshadowing of her, in this case, almost a post-shadowing, but in chapter 9, where what did they do with Moses? Hebrews 9, 19, just to stretch back for a quick second. Moses had spoken the precept, meaning the law. He'd given the covenant to the people, and he took the blood of the calves and of goats, and he mixed it with water and this,

scarlet wool and hyssop. The scarlet wool was wound around the hyssop to make it a little bit of a brush, and then it was dipped in the water and the blood, and that was sprinkled on the covenant, the writing, the scroll of the covenant, and that was sprinkled on the covenant, the writing, the scroll of the covenant, and it was sprinkled on the people. Remember in Joshua that what saves her is she has put out a scarlet thread, indicative of a scarlet yarn or something, Afghan or whatever they knit in those days, a textile. And that was the marker. Think about that with Passover and splashing the blood on the doors. She's putting that out her window. I believe in Jesus, if you will. I believe in Jehovah and I have made peace. I have made peace with his representatives. They came into my city. I took

them in. And no matter what her past life was, the harlot, and we know this isn't just she was a hostess. She was actually a harlot, but she believed in him and on his name. And we get that from Joshua. Even though she's the harlot, she is received by the conquering Israelites and her family is saved. And she shows up in the genealogy of Matthew for Jesus. It's really cool when you think about that back in Matthew 1, she's one of the few women that are mentioned in Matthew as being in the line for Jesus. And we realize that, okay, fill the sinner in my way. Well, if I get my red scarlet, my symbolic representation that I am taking on me the name of Jesus Christ, that I believe in his atoning blood, and that I am seeking to take his name upon me, well, then I can be saved. With me, my family can be saved. Even though right now the promises seem very far off, I think we can all relate in some way to those promises of eternal family seeming like a brick wall that stretches for eternity in every direction. But like our

witness here, we have a cloud of witnesses that say, no, no, Jesus speaks of better things, better covenants, better powers. He is superior to all things that would stand in the way of his promises being fulfilled. I love that Rahab is in the hall of fame of Faith. It gives me great hope. That is a fantastic chapter. And you could dig into each one of those names, feel the power of their story. Phil, let's transition towards the end here. We have just two chapters left. The author of Hebrews, how does he or she close out here? Verse one just really transitions us well, doesn't it? He's telling us that I gave you all these people so that you would have a cloud of witnesses. To what end?

Just so that you can say, well, their lives were cool and that's great for them. You know what I mean? That's a temptation sometimes when we're feeling maybe perhaps a little bitter about our own lives. But he says, no, because their examples should let you lay aside every weight and the sins that easily beset you. And then you can run with patience the wraiths set before you. Now I've rephrased that, but you've tracking there with Hebrews chapter 12, verse one. How do we do it? How do we let this cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside the sins that are so easily nailing us? He says, how you do it is verse two. It's the very thing these people did. Another witness that while we don't have all the record as clearly as we might, that apparently they all, in verse 2, looked to Jesus, the author

and finisher of their faith, who for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and despised the worldly shame that was heaped upon him. And he made it all the way to the right hand to sit down on the throne of God. This beautiful message is not just been like, well, that was cool for them and there. It's like, no, if you do the same things they did, if you will engage in the same Christ-centered life where you are looking through the eye of faith of Jesus Christ at all your problems, all your concerns, all your obstacles, you will be able to lay aside the sins that seem to be so easily besetting you. You can do it. The answer is Jesus Christ. The answer is always Jesus Christ.

As our prophet, President Nelson, has said recently, Jesus himself endured the cross. Why? Because he allowed his father, in this case, to chastise him for the sins of everyone else. For us, it's different. The chastising that we need to endure is for our own growth and becoming. Jesus, true, through sufferings did become who he is, but his sufferings didn't include any payment or guilt or issues over sin, but he still did. We know from section 93 and John's record that he did grow from grace to grace. This next section is really cool. Before we go to the chastisement, there's something really interesting in verse 3 and 4.

Part of this focus on Christ is to recognize when we consider him, he endured such a contradiction of sinners against himself. Now we know what that contradiction is as we think about it. It's that like Galatians, Paul taught in Galatians, he became sin for us. And what a contradiction that this sinless, perfect person that always deferred to the Father, and it was such a contradiction to his very soul that the writer of Hebrews is saying it drove blood from him. Verse 4, you have not resisted that to the extent he did because he exuded blood even in that experience. It's just wow. The NIV says, in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

That's an interesting moment. The beauty of this is that in Jesus, we have someone that did take upon him our nature. Like Elder Holland said, he's in the boat with us. He's in the water and learned to walk on it. And he's saying, you can too. You must too. This is a developmental experience that we're having. And I learned grace for grace. And so can you learn grace for grace. It will take looking to me, speaking metaphorically as Jesus, you will take that to be able to lay aside the sins that easily beset you. And the process you're going to engage in now, verses 5 through 11, is some tutoring. There's some training that's going to happen. And he says, you're going to be tempted to forget this reference from Proverbs chapter 3. This is

what he's quoting in chapter 12, verse 5 here. He's going back to Proverbs 3, verses 11 and 12. And he says, my son despise not the chastening of the Lord or be faint when you're rebuked of him because the Lord loves the person that he chastens and he scourges every son that he's going to receive. There must be something about eternity, something about the celestial kingdom and the kind of life they live that requires a training, tutoring, and becoming on our part. That it's not just location, it's not just geography, that it's actually character. And the adversary is always accusing this process and saying, oh, God doesn't like you. He doesn't want you to have fun. He's trying to restrict you and all these kinds of things by obscuring the idea that this is a benevolent coach who's trying to help you be capable and that you'll be much happier when you're capable.

I had an experience in high school. I had a very small modicum of athletic ability to run. It wasn't amazing. It was enough that I was considered for state. Like I'd probably be able to go to state in this particular race. I get to the districts. I run out. And by the way, verse one, run with patience the race that's set before you. So this is a track and field metaphor in some ways, this athletic metaphor. I get out and I'm running and now I'm happening to be running the 400. It's really not a lot of strategy in the 400. It's just run as fast as you can until it's over. That's a tough race. It's a really horrible race. Because it's like not a sprint, tough race. It's a really horrible race. Not a sprint, but it is a sprint. But you kind of have to sprint as much as you can. Yeah. I hit the wall at 300 something meters. I was killing it until then. I hit this wall. I ended up getting passed by a couple and then in successive heats, I didn't qualify. But here's

the interesting story. I was in one of the earliest heats and I went up to the stands and the several guys from a rival high school were there. And we'd kind of gotten to know each other through these track meets. And they were like, whoa, what happened? We were like, this guy's going to set records. He's just out there blazing past. And they're like, well, so what happened? I'm like, well, what do you mean what happened? I hit the wall. And they're like, well, like at this stage of the season, what do you mean the wall? You're supposed to be like past the wall at this point. So one of them said, well, what does your coach have you do? And I've reflected on the several months of the track season and happened to know this

coach, his friend of the family. We would gab, we would visit and this and that, do some things. But pretty much my practices were not about building up endurance. He did train me in a few things. I'm not trying to throw this coach under the bus or anything. I reflected on it because what they said, when I described what we did for practice, they were like, that's crazy. We like, we hate our coach. He makes us do this and this and this. And they went through this litany of horrific training hours long every afternoon. He makes the shot putters even run three miles before we do any

of the other stuff. Well, that was a funny thing because they said they hated that coach, but all three of those guys qualified for state. I was home and I liked my coach. I thought my coach was a cool guy. And again, I'm not trying to be too harsh on this coach. And he probably was trying to train me and I just wasn't responding. Okay. That's fair too. But the idea here is look, if in verse nine, we have fathers of our flesh, this is Hebrews 12, nine, and we gave them reverence. Well, then how much more should we be in subjection to the father of our spirits and live? Athletic metaphor or not, whatever it is that the celestial world is like, whatever the cosmic realities of our future existence is, this Father who loves us and is

subjecting us to the training is pleading. Like President Nelson, I plead with you over and over president Nelson. I plead with you. Come do the work that God has laid before you. It will bless you. It will train you. It will change you. It will make you happy. You'll be happier because you can go do things like state. We have a listener that sent me a really nice letter. Lyndon J. Robison taught at Michigan State. He's emeritus now. He wrote an article in the Religious Educator called For Our Good. We talked a few weeks ago about a lot of our trials come from us because we do dumb things. Other people misusing their agency. And sometimes the Lord seeks to chasten, but he does it because he loves us. And that's what this article is about. If anybody wants to find it at rsc.byu.edu for our good by Lyndon Robison. It's kind of like sweet of the uses of adversity. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.

Isn't that something? Elder Holland, in a recent devotional, reframed a word that we see in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 3.19. The natural man needs training, he needs to be put off, and we need to yield to the Spirit so that we can handle everything that it says. King Benjamin says that the Lord seeth to inflict upon his children. There's that same kind of parallel. But what Elder Holland did with this was super interesting. We can say nobody loves this. It's grievous. But the adversary tries to play that off as like, God hates me.

This is because God dislikes me. I've got his disapproval. And I'm looking upwards like, what'd I do wrong now? What's the next shoe to fall? Because you hate me, God. But Elder Holland said this. This is BYU to fall? Because you hate me, God. But Elder Holland said this. This is BYU devotional, 18th of January, 2022. He says, I think the only commentary needed for this verse might be regarding the line suggesting God inflicts trials and burdens upon us.

In English, the word inflict, which comes from the Latin infligere, has at least two meanings. One is to strike or dash against, and another is to beat down. But those definitions are not applicable to God or his angels. Ooh, interesting. He continues, no, the proper definition of the word as King Benjamin used it is to allow. Something that must be born or suffered. Then he says, not allowing something is a different matter. God can and will do that if it is ultimately for our good. There's one more piece to what he says, but I want to harken back to the end of 11 just to say something cool. The JST and the end of 11 is this. It says Hebrews 11, verse 39 and 40.

These all, that cloud of witnesses, those that came before us, they all obtained a good report through faith, receiving not the promise, just like Sarah and Abraham. They were waiting on those promises to be fulfilled. Well, then verse 40, the Joseph Smith translation is so helpful. God having provided some better things for them through their sufferings, for without sufferings, they could not be made perfect. When God, quote, inflicts, Elder Holland is saying, no, he's allowing the suffering that is required for our transformation. We want to take our divine nature and turn it into our eternal destiny.

And that transformation Elder Renlund has recently spoken of, et cetera. What does that look like? Well, part of it looks like suffering. Now, President Elder Holland continues, I'm going to say it again. God does not now, nor will he ever, do to you a destructive, malicious, unfair thing ever. It is not in what Peter called the divine nature to even be able to do so. By definition and in fact, God is perfectly and thoroughly always and forever good. And everything he does is for our good. So it's not like your coach would go over and shove you and trip you and try to make life hard for you.

There's a design. Yeah, there's a design through the training program. Hank, didn't you do a talk called a trial, a blessing or both? I did a talk on CD over this very topic trial blessing or both because so many conversations I'd had with people over deep, dark, difficult trials. And I'd say, Oh, it's so awful. And some of them, many of them would say this has really turned out to be a blessing. And then they'd explain how it, how this difficult, dark, painful thing ended up being stepping stones to blessings. Now, John, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong,

because I put John, by the way, CDs in when I have my kids trapped in the car. And I put ears in and vice versa. Wasn't it called Rough Start, Great Finish? Very similar, right? The Helen Keller story is so interesting to tell. Some members of the church, some prophets, scriptural stories that kind of illustrate that idea. You know what I'm thinking of right now, Hank?

Was it two years ago we're doing Doctrine and Covenants? This verse, which I'm sure I'd read before. I don't know. It just, it kind of climbed the charts of my top 40, you know, and it's section 58, verse 3. For you cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. Isn't that a great verse?

It's in my top 40. You can't see what I see, so you're just going to have to trust me on this difficult training program. Phil, connect this for me. This is a beautiful principle that Hebrews 12 is teaching. Why is the author talking about this? We went from the tabernacle to this faith hall of fame, and now we're talking about difficulties and trials. Is this his transition into, look, I know you're facing difficult things. So did they. So did our great high priest. Yeah. In fact, that's the real key, isn't it? That even Jesus, when he was facing the most

difficult thing that anyone in the cosmos has ever faced, even Jesus had to submit to the will of his father. It was not a reflection of God's love for him. It was not a reflection of his displeasure with him. It was, this must be. This is the author saying, listen, I know you're struggling. And there are various passages where we get that sense that they've had various kind of difficulties with persecutions. You look back at chapter 10, verses 32, 33, 34. They've been in bonds and all these kind of various things. And that's why he says, cast not away therefore your confidence. He's returned to this theme like, okay, we have walked through this various twin streams of the argument, but at the end of the day, do you see

that it actually applies to you? Do you see that you can apply it in strength to overcome the sins that easily beset you? And therefore, it can yield the peaceable fruit that we read with John in verse 11. So now he engages them in this endurance of faithfulness by following the example of Jesus and following the example of others who have followed the example of Jesus. That's the way to exaltation. Where we're going to track now is what does it look like in verses 12 on to the rest of the chapter and into 13 is what does your Christian life look like? What does a follower and a disciple of Jesus Christ look like for you to do

this? In 12, lift up the hands that hang down. There's other people that are struggling around you too. Serve them, help them. They're struggling. Verse 13, make straight the paths for your feet. With the lamp to your feet, Proverbs, take the Lord. He will tell you how to go, what things you should do. And the healing is there in verse 13. Verse 14, this peace again with all men that is to be in right relationship with people, including the Lord, this holiness that no man without which can see the Lord. It's this process. You're in process. You're engaging incrementally. And he says, look diligently. You got to be careful lest any of you fail of the grace of God. It's not an automatic. In 15, watch out for bitterness that would spring up and trouble you,

that many would be defiled by that. And the bitterness that we can feel sometimes is the promises aren't happening. I followed the recipe. I did what they said and the cake hasn't turned out. I know that personally, and I know many who experienced similar kind of crises, like, wait a minute, I'm being good. Why is all this happening? Or why is this not happening? which was supposed to have happened by now? So there's President Nelson saying, think celestial. President Nelson is saying, look, when you think that this was a premature death, and he puts premature in quotes, he's saying,

you're not seeing things from the Lord's perspective. You're not thinking celestial. He's going to use another example. Now he's going to go back in history and say, well, here's the danger. We got all these cool people, but then we have this person in Esau in verse 16, a profane person, a fornicator. He sold his birthright. And that's not just that moment where he made the bargain with Isaac because he was hungry. No, he's saying in context of fornication and being a profane person. Profane means you're worldly. You care about the world. It's sacred, the Kedosh, the Hebrew.

Those mean you recognize the difference between sacral space and profane space. And this person, his life, it wasn't that moment. Because think about it. Rahab was a harlot once. This is Elder Bednar, "'Twas I, but tis not I." It's not about that. Esau had lived that life, apparently such that this author could pull on it as an example of, no, he gave over to the profane life and considered his birthright of no more worth than a mess of pottage. He would like to have inherited it. There may be a day coming when you want very much to have what was laid before you to have, but you did not treat it carefully. Verse 17, carefully with tears. The time to carefully with tears is now, not later.

If we carefully with tears do like Alma did with prayer and fasting for many days, now we can become, now we can have a transformation. We can have oil in our lamps, if you will. He brings up another historical example, starting in 18. He says, go back to Sinai. Sinai, these people, it was scary. There was a sound of a trumpet. It was this beast could touch the mountain or it'd be stoned or thrust through that this glory was of such power. So terrible is the sight that Moses even said, I'm fearing and quaking. He's quoting Deuteronomy 9 there. And he's invoking Esau.

He's invoking the people at the time of Sinai who shrank back, who decided, no, I don't want to do this. They didn't endure in faith and persevere. Because now the next section, 22 through 29, what we're preparing for is not some mountain you could go find today. And it's the same thing back in 11 with Sarah and Abraham. They knew the city they could have gone back to. It wasn't some worldly city that you just need to travel there. We're talking about the city of the living God, verse 22. This is Mount Zion. This is the heavenly Jerusalem. This is where that innumerable company

of angels, the Book of Mormon speaks of them as our holy fathers. We would add, of course, to that our mothers, our matriarchs and patriarchs. This is where they are. We're preparing to go where they are and do what they do and be with them. The laws we have now are beautifully provided so that we can, through that training, become ready to experience that. So in verse 24, to Jesus, too. He's there. He's the mediator of that new covenant and this blood of sprinkling

that speaks better things of Abel, like they had rested Abel in ancient days. Then he says, no, in 25, refuse not him that speaks. Don't refuse God. Because the warning is if you refuse him that speaks, meaning God, then realize that those people before didn't escape who refused him. And we're not going to escape either. The author has not only brought up great examples of how to do it. He's also brought up examples to be profoundly sobered by so that we don't make the same mistakes. He continues and says something super interesting to me.

He says in verse 26, now he invokes some kind of imagery and it's imagery, but it's foreshadowing. I think there's something to it because it shows up in the doctrine and covenants as well. He says, whose voice, meaning God's voice then shook the earth on Sinai. But he says, he promised, he's saying, I'm going to shake the earth again. And not just the earth in verse 26, I'm going to shake the heavens. This is Haggai 2 verse 6 that he's quoting. He says in 27, this word yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, because as of those things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken remain.

Now he's pulling on the imagery of the creation and whatever at the time of the second coming, if you will, as we read about in section 101, he's going to come melt the earth with fervent heat, melt even the elements. And that which remains is what gets to stay into the time when the Lord comes as the lion now to reign on the earth in the millennial period. He says, we in verse 28, we receive a kingdom that can't be moved. Very interesting because this is a covenant reference. If you go to section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, we have this interesting fact. And again, the message of Hebrews is, we have covenant relationships with God. They're available through the Savior's atoning work as

the great high priest. He enacts this incredible relationship that we can have. Covenants bind us to each other in covenant relationship. This is section 132, verse 7. He says, you've got to enter into these contracts and bonds and get it sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. Skipping down past that, he says, if you don't do that, they don't have efficacy. They have an end when men are dead at the end of verse 7. But he says, no you don't do that, they don't have efficacy. They have an end when men are dead at the end of verse seven. But he says, no, my house is a house of order.

Will I accept an offering except it be made in my name? Can you make covenants or can you make pinky promises and all these things? Can you do that without my name and have it last into the eternities? He says, no, it won't work to To really clarify, and this brings up that imagery again, verse 13. Everything that's in the world, if it's ordained of men, if it's by thrones or principalities, political powers, things of name or whatever they may be, if they're not me, if they're not my word, saith the Lord, they're going to be thrown down. What? They won't remain after men are dead. In fact, neither indeed after the resurrection,

because in 14, whatsoever things remain are by me. Whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed. And that's the context for then going into marriage between man and a woman is ordained of God. Family is central to the creator's plan, right? For his children. So if we go stretch back to Hebrews, right? What this author is saying is mortal life is full of types and shadows of what it's going to be like there. As you're preparing to enter into the great Church of the Firstborn, verse 23, General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, this is in Hebrews 12, you have to do it in such a way that we've entered into a covenant relationship.

That's the only solidity. That's the rock upon which ye are built. If with him the whirlwinds can come and the shafts in the whirlwind, to quote Helaman 5, they will have no power over us to drag us down, shaken and destroyed to the everlasting gulf and misery that is there. I just think this is super interesting. Now, what exactly it looks like, I don't know, but this is imagery. This is imagery that your life is built on solid things. Is it sand? Is it the rock? Because we're going to come to a time when the harvest is past. And did our souls get transformed? Did we become like God?

This is great. I like seeing these titles of the Savior, like in verse 24, Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. So there we have again, and I think we heard that in the last general conference about not just transactional, but relational things. And this is a relationship. He's our mediator, our advocate, our intercessor. How wonderful to have him on our side. Don't we sing that hymn? Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side. Do we believe that? Because he is, he's our advocate. He's going to advocate for us.

Who would you rather have? He's probably pretty good at that. Elder Stevenson once said, you have the Savior on your side. How can you fail? You're going to be okay. Phil, we have one chapter left. How does the writer of Hebrews close this out? I think it's really cool.

The first few verses are, again, what does a Christian life look like? As we're putting off the sins that easily beset us, we're doing these wonderful Christian things in the first five, six, seven verses. And the reminder is we do this in verse seven because we're considering the end of our conversation. That conversation, there's the end of our life. We know we're headed for this kingdom. We want to join with our Holy Fathers, do the things they do, enjoy the life they have. That's a beautiful thing as he just kind of continues some practical advice of what that looks like. The thing that I would close out our time in Hebrews with mostly is verses 10 through 14, which kind of pull it all together. We have an altar. Whatever they were thinking

about, and we don't know if this was pre-70 AD and that the Herod's temple was still there, or if it was after it was destroyed. But either way, he says, we have an altar of which they have no right to eat, which serve in the tabernacle. This isn't an Aaronic order. This is not Levitical. This is not political. This is not even temporal. We have a different altar, and that could be the sacramental altar in their current worship services or things like this, but it's definitely the altar that we kneel at in our prayers to God. Now that we have access through Christ to him, this is definitely a reference to we have direct access to the Father. Verse 11, the bodies of the beasts and the blood that's brought into the sanctuary, this is that reference

to Leviticus chapter 16. The one unique thing among several about the day of atonement was that they didn't burn it in the tabernacle. They took it outside and they burned it without the camp in verse 11. That's unique to that one day. Verse 12, wherefore, he ties it together. Jesus, that he could sanctify the people. He, with his own blood, he suffered outside the gate. When he was pierced in his hands and his feet and his side and the blood flowed out. This is him enacting the fulfillment. He is the type that was shadowed by those rituals. And he outside the camp on Golgotha,

which is absolutely directly outside the gates where the crucifixions would take place, he is out there and he's bearing his reproach. In other words, he's abiding the temporary lifted up by the world because he knows with joy that it's this that buys the purchases, the price of the veil being rent and all of us being able to join in with him in heaven. So the discipleship move based on that point is verse 13. So let's us go outside. We're going to leave the camp. And in this case, the camp means, yes, the Levitical order and et cetera, but it means the worldly cities. It means the worldly way of living. We're going to leave all that and the way the world says it should be, and we're going to follow Jesus outside the camp. We're going to bear his reproach like he bore his

own reproach. We're going to bear it, not be ashamed of the gospel. Because we know in verse 14, to think celestial is to know that we don't have a continuing city here, that the houses we build and the communities we live in are temporary, that the real community, the real place we want to be, the real people we want to be with are what President Nelson said is the choice we're making right now. In verse 20, Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. What a book.

My goodness. It's like a Thanksgiving dinner of scripture. You just feel so full by the time you cover all 13 of these chapters. Wow. I've got to go back and listen again. I learned a lot. Some really awesome themes about Christ. Wasn't there?

Yeah. His sacrifice, what it means for us. I like that without the gate, without the camp. We have no continuing city here. We seek one to come. That's a great verse. 14. Yeah.

Phil, as we wrap up here, we are grateful for our listeners. They're just like us, trying our best we can to come closer to the Lord, leave the city and follow Jesus outside the camp. What do you hope our listeners walk away from this book? What do you hope they're feeling, thinking, doing differently? With the author, I think I would be most pleased, and I hope the Lord is more in witness even through my weakness, that there is hope because they have the help of Jesus. In the book of Hebrews, again, to return to where we started, we have a twin witness of Jesus Christ. He is more powerful than anything this world has ever experienced be it social military intellectually ecclesiastically he is god on earth he is the lion of judah he is now enthroned in the

heavens he's the master of all creation he's wielding infinite eternal power on behalf of all of us but more especially of course those that will accept him and follow him. And he's more merciful and loving than anything this world has ever experienced, be it social, emotional, psychological, even religiously. He was God on earth. He condescended as the sacrificial lamb. He was slain from the foundation of the earth. He got rejected by the so-called acceptable society, and he suffered outside the gate. He was shunned. He was despised because he bears every one of our burdens in every wilderness we experience. He continues as the minister to every child of God.

Jesus truly is the hope and the help of Israel on both sides of the veil. I am so thankful and so grateful and love him so much and want to love him so much more. And I'm grateful to the book of Hebrews for helping me see a little more and a little better our sweet Jesus. The book of Hebrews is worth the work because you get to see a glimpse of Jesus that maybe you don't see in any other book. Phil, thank you so much for being with us, taking time to be with us. Such an honor to be with you both so much. Thank you. John, what a great day. The church has its own Dr. Phil to show us the way. Yeah, from Ankara to Osaka to Rexburg to follow him. So thank you for being with us today.

Such an honor. Thank you both. We want to thank Dr. Philip Phil Allred for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, the wonderful Shannon Sorenson. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorenson. And we always remember our founder, Steve Sorenson. We hope you join us next week. We're looking at the epistle of James, which had some influence on this church. Next week on Follow Him. Today's transcripts, show notes, and additional references are available on our website, followhim.co. That's followhim.co.

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