followHIM - "Why do we have temples at all?" : followHIM Favorites

Episode Date: May 1, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from the Come, Follow Me study from Exodus 35-40, Leviticus 1; 16; 19Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with my co-host, John, by the way. We have a podcast called Follow Him. This is not the podcast. This is just a little clip of the podcast. We do Follow Him Favorites, where we just take a single question from this week's lesson and try to answer it in these few minutes. John, the lesson this week is from the end of Exodus it in these few minutes. John, the lesson this week is from the end of Exodus and the book of Leviticus, where we're talking all about the tabernacle, the sacred tabernacle that the children of Israel built. And so the question that I receive sometimes, and I'm sure you do as well, is why do we have temples at all, right? This is kind of the

first temple that we see in the Bible. It's going to turn into Solomon's temple, which is going to become Herod's temple, the temple that where Jesus during the time of his life. And eventually our Latter-day Saint tradition, we're going to build temples, the Kirtland temple, the Nauvoo temple, St. George, Salt Lake, and now hundreds of temples across the earth. So let's kind of start back here at the sacred tabernacle and say, what is the point of all this as you see it? There's a phrase that we used on the podcast and you've heard before about sacred space. It's kind of symbolizing a place where God can be.

His influence is everywhere. So here's a place where we can set apart a space and we can set ourselves apart by how we dress and how we act and by keeping our voices low and everything and go into this area of sacred space. The thing that's so interesting about this, as you know, Hank, is it was kind of like a portable temple. They set it up and then they moved as they were moving through the wilderness. But there is always this place where you could kind of prepare to be around God or near to God. As a child, Hank, we sang, I love to see the temple. I'm going there somewhere.

And that's all we could do is just see it. And now, once you turn 11 now, you can go. You can participate in baptisms for the dead and things like that. And I think once you've gone, you sense, it's a pretty easy place to sense this is different. This is a different place. I love being inside the walls of the temple. It is set apart. It feels different. And I hope those who are listening to this are nodding their heads right now going, yeah, when I'm in there, it feels like a different, quiet, serene, beautiful place. And I guess that was for them to always have them being prepared to have the Lord kind of in their midst to be with them.

Right. It's the idea that I think Adam and Eve get cast out of the garden and now we're separated from God's presence. And here God says, I want to have a place where you can come back to Eden and be in my presence. So the temple to me is let's return back to the Garden of Eden. You almost get to put away the fall, right? The fall of man for a little while and just sit in the presence of God and be replenished and be refreshed. As we were studying these chapters with Dr. Matt Gray, I kept thinking of the Savior, right? They'd bring these animals in and sacrifice them. And he talked about the

blood that they would collect, right, in the cup. And then they'd take it inside the Holy of Holies, which we would call the celestial room, and sprinkle it in there. I don't know about you, but as he was telling us about this ancient Jewish tabernacle, I was thinking all about the Savior's blood and his own sacrifice and our opportunity to return to Eden through his atonement. Yeah. And as a kid, it sounded kind of gruesome. They killed a lot of animals. And why did they have to do that? Why did they have to sacrifice all these animals? And maybe it was Adam and Eve that had the same question. It's such an important verse where Adam offered sacrifice. And after many days, an angel said, why are you doing this? And what did Adam say?

He said, I don't know. God told me to. And what I love about that is he obeyed first and then he got the explanation. And maybe sometimes that's what we have to do. But the angel said, that's a similitude of the only begotten. And one of my favorite things in the book of John, because it's, I think, the first place where the phrase is used, is when John the Baptist sees Jesus, what's the title he throws out there?

Yeah, the Lamb of God. This is the Lamb, not that we bring. This is the Lamb of God. This is the lamb, not that we bring, this is the lamb of God that God is bringing as a sacrifice. This is God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And so it helped me a lot to think of all these animals and the sacrifice and the blood

of the sacrifice of the lamb of God. And makes you just feel reverent to think about, wow, what a sacrifice, but Jesus willingly gave his life, shed his blood for us. And we get to remember that at the sacrament table. Right. Bringing in a lamb to the temple and having his throat slit right there in front of you and then having the body torn up.

And that would have been a very visceral experience, right? You're going to have Dr. Gray talk to us about the smells of the temple and the sights of the temple. I think one of our guests, Dr. Satterfield, said it goes from black and white on a page to in color when you are in there and you're seeing this experience. And I remember thinking, wow, that is so gruesome and difficult and bloody. And the Savior saying, I know, I know all about difficult and gruesome and bloody. I know about these things. This is my atonement. So maybe it's his way of saying, yes, this isn't a beautiful, pretty thing. This is a difficult, painful, deadly thing that I did for you. Dr. Gray talked about

how the temple can be separated into those three rooms. Do you remember that? The courtyard, the holy place, and then the holy of holies, and how we can overlay that with kind of this idea of a telestial, terrestrial, celestial room that we're moving towards the presence of God. I noticed that in the Garden of Gethsemane, that when the Savior is outside the garden, he leaves eight of his apostles outside. Then he takes three more and goes a little bit further. And then he himself goes kind of like on that day of Yom Kippur that Dr. Gray told us about. He himself, that as the great high priest goes into the Holy of Holies and sprinkles the blood on the altar, right? And we talked about the verse in Matthew, where after the Savior's

atonement, it seemed like the celestial room of the temple, the Holy of Holies, is now wide open because of the Savior's death. Now all of us can go and become priests and priestesses, right? All of us can become this holy nation like that one high priest was. That's a good answer. The veil of the temple was rent, and now it's available for all of us. The temple and the Savior, and that seemed to be his preferred place to teach when he was in Jerusalem. And the apostles went right back there to teach. And I just think it's such a testimony that in the restoration, job one, we got to build a temple.

And as we did Come Follow Me last year, Hank, you remember how the Lord kept telling him in the Doctrine and Covenants, would you just build the temple? I have such blessings I want to give you. And they finally did. And we got kicked out. Well, let's start another one in Far West. We get kicked out. Well, let's start another one in Nauvoo.

They finish it. We get kicked out. They get to the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young. First day is it shows in that movie, Mountain of the Lord. Here we build the temple of our God, right? And Wilford Woodruff happens to find a stick and a rock right there and he marks the spot, right? And the cameraman was right there too. He was right there too. But it was that important that the temple, this is the place where we symbolize the God's presence with us and connect the savior taking us back to the father.

That's the at-one-ment. Yeah. And in our Easter episode, the Hafens talked about the atonement. Jesus's life is the atonement, but the story of Adam and Eve and us is the story of receiving that atonement. And that's why we review that story so often in the temple is we watch our great, great,

great grandparents, Adam and Eve receive the atonement. And then we do that same thing. We go there to receive that atonement and look for Christ in the temple because he's everywhere in there. I've noticed through the years that I've been through the temple, John, I find the Savior more and more often as I've learned through the years that I've been through the temple, John, I find the Savior more and more often as I've learned more about the temple than I ever did the first time I went.

And I think maybe one thing we could say that with all the lambs that we talked about, they were creatures that didn't really know what was going on. With the Savior, he willingly gave his life. He said, no man taketh my life for me. It was a willing sacrifice. And that makes going to the sacrament table every week, even more beautiful that he willingly gave

his life. I have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer, you know, section 19. He knew, and he wanted to give his life because of his love for us, which is just overwhelming. That's why we sing songs like I stand all amazed. There is just no better place I have found to get to know the Lord than in the temple. And as we talked about in our podcast, I don't think I saw that the first time or second time or third time that I went, but through the years, as I've decided to look closer and try to study, and the more I've learned about the temple through the scriptures, all of a sudden the temple has become kind of like a parable where I see more and more every time I go. I learn more and go, hey, how long has that been there? Hey, I didn't notice that before. And all of a sudden I see the Savior there covering us. What does Nephi say? Encircle me about in the robes of thy

righteousness. And I thought, how come I didn't see that before, right? Encircle me about in the robes of thy righteousness. So we hope that you will go and keep seeking the Savior in the temple because he's there. Just put on that lens, go there looking for him and you will find him. And he wants us there. He wants us to come. Beautiful. We hope that you'll join us on our full podcast. If you want to come learn about the sacred tabernacle, the ancient sacred tabernacle, come join us this week with Dr. Matt Gray. Join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites. Thank you.