John Bytheway:               00:00:01             Welcome to part two with Dr. Kerry Muhlestein, Genesis five and Moses six.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:00:06             Maybe we can jump forward in this sermon a little bit. So Mahaija is asking, he says, Tell us plain who thou art. And he starts talking about coming from the land of Cainan. He has a vision. Verse 43, The Lord spake with him and he’s the God of heaven. And the earth is his foot stool. Verse 45, he really starts to teach the gospel. And this is gonna become good, plain, in some ways simple gospel and in some ways so beautifully taught. It’s simple and beautiful at the same time. So we start with verse 45, And death hath come upon our fathers. This is the basic problem for mankind. We’re dead spiritually and we die physically. I don’t care how good our medicine gets. I don’t care how good our technology gets. We’re not gonna stop people from dying. We all die.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:57             The two monsters are coming.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:00:59             That’s exactly right. That is exactly right. I shouldn’t be flippant about this, but I often hear people say, okay, well, we gotta work on this because this is the leading cause of death. And I think we should work on whatever is the leading cause of death, but I always think, you know that there will always be a leading cause of death because we all die. We’re not gonna get rid of death with this. Now, I still wanna cure cancer and heart disease and everything else, but we’re still gonna die even if we cure those things. We’re gonna die. Nevertheless, we know them. This is beautiful. So he says, Death came upon our fathers. Nevertheless, we know them and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam. Now, this is something we sometimes miss. In chapter five, we have Adam and Eve teaching about their interactions with God and Christ.

                                           00:01:47             These are eyewitnesses. They have seen God. They have heard God teach about Christ. They have seen angels. They’ve heard angels teach about Christ. They know. Still, most people chose to ignore them. Their children chose to ignore them. Enoch is reminding them. This guy is real and he knew, and we know that he knew. You may be choosing to do something else, but we know that he knew. He tells us how they know, and we get back to this book of remembrance that was given, written among us according to the pattern given by the finger of God, and it’s given in our own language. So there, again, we’re getting back to this idea that God teaches us to keep records and to write these things down in our interactions and our relationship with him. That’s a pattern that he’s given us. Enoch spake forth the words of God and that people trembled and could not stand in his presence.

                                           00:02:44             I mean, he is teaching so powerfully. This is what he teaches them. Adam fell, because that Adam fell, we are. This very Book of Mormon-esque, getting this about six months after the Book of Mormon was published about eight, seven or eight months. But because that Adam fell, we are, and by his fall came death, and we are made partakers of misery and woe. We can’t gloss that over. I love life. Life is wonderful. We’re in a church of joy. Life is full of joy, but there’s misery and woe and there’s no way around it. I can remember about two years after my father died, your father died. I could identify with the misery and woe in a different way than I would have been able to had it been two years before. There is no way getting around because it’s a fallen world, because there’s death, sickness, and people use their agency in terrible ways.

                                           00:03:39             There’s no way of getting around that this is a period of misery and woe. This is part of our problem. We’ve got death, as you said, we’ve got hell, and we have misery and woe, and you and I can’t stop that. Period. I love that we have heart surgeons. I love that we have the therapists, but we’re not gonna stop those things. What’s more, verse 49, Satan hath come among the children of men and tempteth them to worship him and men have become carnal, central and devilish and are shut out from the presence of God. That’s that spiritual death. We, by our fallen natures and because we choose to follow Satan, are cut off from the presence of God. But God has made known unto our fathers that all men must repent. So we’re getting back to this repentance thing. And this is where we get back into now Enoch is going to tell us, and I assume he learns this from this book of remembrance that we don’t have, but he’s going to tell us part of Adam’s story that we don’t get in Moses four or five.

                                           00:04:36             We don’t get it anywhere. I’m so grateful Enoch gives us this and that God gives it to Joseph Smith to give us this. Verse 51, and he called upon our Father Adam by his own voice saying, I am God. I made the world and men before they were in the flesh. And he also said unto him, If thou wilt turn unto me, I want to stop there and say, let’s talk about repentance for a minute. And the real meaning of at least the words that we have for repentance. And we’ve had President Nelson has taught us about Greek phrases and so on, but of course those Greek phrases are trying to translate Hebrew phrases and it comes from a word <foreign>, that means to turn. That’s what it means to turn or to return, to change. This is something people should look for in the Old Testament.

                                           00:05:23             I would say one of the most common themes, especially as we get to words of prophets where they are telling us the words of God. When we hear prophets telling us what God says, one of the most common things is turn or return to me. And it’s coming from the same Hebrew word we translated, sometimes turn or return. But the idea is, come back to me, turn from whatever it is you’re doing, wherever it is you’re going that’s not to me, and come back to me. That’s what repentance is. Repentance is coming back to God through Christ. Sometimes we think of it as this terrible thing. Even before President Nelson’s fantastic talk on this, a dear friend who I think really highly of, and he’s got a great gospel understanding, but I can remember him saying repentance was hard and terrible. It was always so hard and always so miserable and it was a difficult experience for him.

                                           00:06:18             And he said this in a classroom setting and lots of other people were agreeing with him. And I think that that is culturally we’ve created that perception, but I think President Nelson is showing us a better way. This is a thing of joy. Hopefully, I mean, if we’re doing it daily, we should get better at it and at least I usually get better at things I do daily. It should be less painful for us, but yes, there has to be some sorrow over when you realize, I hurt that person. But repentance actually turns that sorrow into joy. The sorrows are gonna be there if you don’t repent. The repentance turns it into joy because you turn to God or Christ. I know you guys are fantastic teachers on the idea of what it really means to repent. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on this idea where he keeps telling him to repent and he starts that with, if thou wilt turn unto me and hearken unto my voice and believe and repent of all thy transgressions. What thoughts do you have on that?

John Bytheway:               00:07:17             Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, repentance is perhaps the most hopeful and encouraging word in the Christian vocabulary. I have a T-shirt that has six different aviation instruments on it and it says, which part of… it shows all these instruments… don’t you understand? Right? And then one of them is a turn and bank indicator.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:07:39             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:07:40             That whole idea of turning and Hank have read my mind exactly. I’m gonna quote Stephen Covey. Think about taking a trip on an airplane. Before taking off, the pilot has a very clear destination in mind, which hopefully coincides with yours and a flight plan to get there. The plane takes off at the appointed hour toward the predetermined destination, but in fact, the plane is off course at least 90% of the time. Weather conditions, turbulence, other factors cause it to get off track. However, feedback is given to the pilot constantly, who then makes course corrections, or in other words, turns, and keeps coming back to the exact flight plan, bringing the plane back on course, and often the plane arrives at the destination on time. It’s amazing. Think of it, leaving on time, arriving on time, but being off course 90% of the time. If you can create this image of an airplane, a destination, and a flight plan in your mind, you can understand the purpose of, and his point here was about a personal mission statement, but I think when we think about bringing to pass our immortality and eternal life, we’re gonna be off course a lot, but we keep turning. Hank’s heard me tell this story, but I, to speak at the prison one time and I stood up to speak to these inmates, the attention they were giving me and the expressions on their faces of, give me everything you’ve got. I don’t think I had that same attention when I was a bishop in my own ward. It just made me think, you know what? It’s not about distance. It’s about direction.

Hank Smith:                      00:09:19             Right.

John Bytheway:               00:09:20             Which way you’re facing. And they were turned, they, you’re in church, but are you coming or going? You’re in prison, but are you coming or going? It’s not distance, it’s direction.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:09:30             If it’s all right, that reminds me of something that happened to me once that I hope that one of the lenses will apply to the Old Testament is this idea that God is constantly pleading for us to return to him and he’ll do whatever he has to do because he’s in relentless pursuit of us to get us to do that. The first book I ever wrote, it’s called Return Unto Me. It goes through the Old Testament showing how that’s what God does. He’s made it possible for us to return to him and he’s always asking for us to return to him. I was asked to do a fireside on that book right when it came out. When I spoke on it, at the end of the fireside, this guy came up to me that frankly scared me just a little bit. Little bit of an intimidating guy, pretty ragged, not dressed exactly how you would expect.

                                           00:10:15             Not too much out of keeping with church, but not really in keeping. He said to me, yesterday was my first day out of prison. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come back, couldn’t get myself to go to sacrament meeting, but I came to this. This is the message that I need. This is the hope that I need. It’s true. Again, the first part of that verse, if thou wilt turn unto me. That’s where it starts, and that’s where we have to keep going again and again. That’s repentance. But if we just keep however many times we fall off the wagon, get thrown off the horse or whatever else, if we just keep getting up and coming to Christ again, turn to him however many times we’re off course, turn to him. It’s a beautiful thought. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:05             Here’s something silly that I’ve done with teenagers And John, I was telling you about it because some people come up to me and they’ll say, I’ve always remembered broccoli and Slurpee. And I’m like, really? Of all the things I’ve taught, that’s what you remember. I’ll say, The Lord presents us with our two options. He’ll say, You have broccoli over here and a Slurpee over here. And I really want you to choose the broccoli. You say, Okay, I’ll choose the broccoli. Okay, go. And we choose the Slurpee, like almost automatically we choose the Slurpee. And he said, Okay, okay. Let’s try that again. Let’s try that again. Remember, I want you to choose the broccoli. Broccoli, got it. Broccoli Slurpee. And we think, Oh, I failed. And the Lord would say, No, no, no, you hesitated. Didn’t you? You hesitated. Well, yeah, I did. Ah, that’s a win.

                                           00:11:56             We’re moving in the right direction. Okay, try it again. And I look at the broccoli for a second and I go, well, maybe Slurpee. Over time, my hesitation turns into thoughtfulness, which turns into trying, which turns into sometimes, well, let me see if I can do them both at the same time and, oh, that doesn’t taste very good at all. Eventually, I start saying, Lord, I actually am desiring the broccoli. Where we see failure, the Lord sees progress. Let’s keep coming back. Try again. Try again. Try again. You’re gonna get this, I promise. Both of you know Luke 18, the parable where the Pharisee stands up and says, God, I am thankful I am not like other people.

                                           00:12:38             I’m not an extortioner. I’m not unjust. I’m not an adulterer and I’m definitely not as bad as this guy right here, this publican next to me. I fast twice a week. I fast twice a week, he says. I pay a full tithing. Then the publican is far away would not even lift his eyes up and just smote his breast and said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I remember once I had a stake president, Dale Monk, he said, Brother Smith, I’ve decided a righteous man is a man who’s repenting.

John Bytheway:               00:13:11             Exactly.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:13             A righteous man is a man who’s repenting. I think we’ve done better in the last decade because of President Nelson where we celebrate repentance. What if we just said, the first commandment is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the second is improve. Improve.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:13:32             Then you’d be saying something different than what he said about what are the first and second command.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:38             Right. Improve. Come back.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:13:39             I agree with you, 100%. Enoch’s gonna teach us some of what we need to do. well, it’s actually God teaching Adam and Enoch tells us the story. Let’s look as we go through where he says, Okay, if thou wilt turn unto me, the next thing, and repent of thy transgressions and then be baptized even in water in the name of mine Only Begotten Son. The Lord puts parenthetical phrases all over the place. We’re gonna have to come back to remember that the last thing he said was, be baptized in water in the name of my Only Begotten Son. But first of all, he’s gotta tell us who his Son is. So he’s gonna have a long thing about that. Who is full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men.

                                           00:14:20             He’s made sure we know who Christ is. Now we go back to be baptized even in water in the name of my Only Begotten Son. I’m gonna skip that part where he tells us who Christ is, but you shouldn’t really ever skip that part. Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So do you see what he’s saying? Come to me, believe, so come to me, believe, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, asking all things in his name, meaning Christ, and whatsoever you shall ask, it shall be given unto you. So all of this, everything in this verse has to be done in the name of Christ who is full of grace and truth and the only name by which we can be saved. Then verse 53, Adam says, Okay, but why? Our Father Adam spake unto the Lord and said, Why is it that men must repent and be baptized in water?

                                           00:15:04             That’s a reasonable question. He says, Okay, now I know you told me I have to teach everybody this, but why do we have to do that? Look at the Lord’s answer, which is not really an answer. And the Lord said into Adam, Behold, I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden. You’re like, What? How is that an answer? We saw this in Moses chapter one where Moses asked the question and God’s gonna have to tell him a whole bunch of stuff before he gives him the answer in verse 39. Here he’s gonna give the answer in verse 59, but in both of those cases, he has to get them to understand something first. Like, you’re not going to get the answer unless I give you some background information. This is the background information. The reason we have to be baptized, if we’re gonna understand that, we have to first of all understand God has forgiven us for what Adam, he forgave Adam, and by extension, all of us for that transgression of the Garden of Eden.

                                           00:15:53             Hence came the saying abroad among the people that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt. Now we have to pause there for a moment. That’s almost the phrase original sin. It’s not quite. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because of some things Mormon wrote in his letter to his son, we have a pretty guttural reaction against the idea of original sin, and we should, but we actually believe in most of that. The idea of original sin is that when you are born, you are of a fallen nature and so you’re cut off from the presence of God and can’t be saved without baptism. We believe that. We just also believe that children who are not yet accountable are automatically saved because they aren’t capable yet of making the decision of what is right and wrong and to be baptized.

                                           00:16:44             That’s the part we don’t believe, but the rest of that, we actually believe, and it’s explained here. Our, apparently our phrase for it here in the Book of Moses is original guilt. And the reason that we can say he’s atoned for original guilt is because the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world. That’s that part that’s different for us. The Atonement automatically makes all children whole and clean and pure, even though they do have a fallen nature. They’re whole and clean and pure until they reach the age of accountability. That’s when we get to verse 55 and God teaches Adam something very powerful here. And he does it with a play on words. Let’s first of all just say he’s going to use the phrase conceived in sin.

                                           00:17:33             That does not mean what we usually mean when we say conceived in sin, which is conceived out of wedlock. That’s not what he means here. He means conceived by sinful beings. And he’s gonna use a play on words and that’s the reason he uses that phrase. And the Lord speaking to Adam saying, Inasmuch as thy children are conceived in sin, they’re conceived by sinful beings, meaning Adam and Eve, because they sinned. Even so when they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts. It’s part of our nature. By being fallen beings, we’re conceived by fallen parents, therefore we have a fallen nature. Therefore, not only are we fallen, but we will choose to sin. We come up with sinful ideas in our hearts and we follow after it.

Hank Smith:                      00:18:14             Slurpee.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:18:15             Right. We go slurping. But the reason is to know so that we can taste the bitter that we may know to prize the good. So apparently slurpees are bitter and broccoli is good. That’s really what he’s saying here. We had to be fallen beings so that we could go through the learning process that we’re going through. That’s the plan. This is God himself explaining that plan. We’ve had Lehi explain it. We’ve had others explain it. This is God explaining it. And he tells us, you’re fallen, problem A, because you’re fallen, you sin, problem B, but that’s what had to happen. Now, I wanna make sure we understand this. As fallen beings, the moment we take breath, even before we’ve had a chance to do something wrong, we breathe a breath, we’re cut off from the presence of God. We cannot be in God’s presence. We’re damned at that moment, meaning without Christ we’re stuck.

                                           00:19:14             If there were no Christ, at the moment we have birth, we are destined for eternal death. No other way around it without Christ, right? And that’s because of our fallen natures, but with Christ it’s different. He’s gonna continue to teach us. It is given unto them to know the good from the evil, wherefore they are agents unto themselves. Do you hear how much Lehi is, I mean, I wonder if Lehi had this teaching in the brass plates. I don’t know. It sounds so much to me like 2 Nephi 2. In any case, they are agents unto themselves and I have given unto another a law and commandment, wherefore teach it unto your children that all men everywhere must repent. So now he’s getting back to the repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there or dwell in his presence.

                                           00:19:56             Now, I think that’s worth pausing right there. This is the big problem we have. This is why we’re cut off from God’s presence. This is why as fallen beings, we can’t be there. Everything else in all commandments fall under this heading, really. No unclean thing can be with God. So the big problem we have to do is since we were born as fallen or unclean beings, we have to get to be clean beings. Some of that is by commandments, but it’s most especially the commandment we’re reading about here, repent, be baptized, come to Christ, because he’s the one that can change us into something clean. Without it, we’re stuck. We can’t be with God. That is because in the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name. And the name of His Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous judge who shall come in the meridian of time.

                                           00:20:44             Therefore, so because of all of that, now he’s finally getting around to his answer. Because of all of that, I give unto you a commandment to teach these things freely unto your children that by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death. Here’s your basic problem. This is why you need to be baptized because of death. Inasmuch as you were born into the world by water, blood, and the spirit, which I’ve made. So he’s talking about physical birth, which involves water, blood, and spirit. And so become of dust, a living soul, even so you must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water and of the Spirit and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten. We’re gonna pause there for a second. Notice the comparison he’s making. We all know our birth was real. I don’t remember it, but I know it’s real. And I do remember the birth of my children, and I know that that was real. And it has water, blood, and spirit as part of it.

Hank Smith:                      00:21:37             Right.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:21:37             That’s real. What he is telling us is that your rebirth, you’re being changed into a new creature by Christ is every bit as real, and you better take it every bit as seriously as being born. It’s that real and that necessary for you to have life. Being born again isn’t just a nice thought or a nice symbol. It’s real. And this verse makes it very clear. God has just gone to great pains to make sure we understand this is very real and you really need it. And what it brings then, we are born again by water, blood, and the spirit, even cleansed by the blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten, that you might be sanctified from all sin and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world. So in this life, we’re going to enjoy the promises and the teachings about eternal life and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory.

                                           00:22:33             So he’s telling us, You’ll be cleansed and sanctified in this life. It’s almost like you enjoy tastes and glimpses of eternal life here, and then you get actual eternal life in the next world. And he wraps it all up in verse 60. It’s so beautiful. For by the water you keep the commandment, that’s the same kind of language that we get in Nephi talking about the doctrine of Christ. In fact, I’ve just had a deja vu moment. I think the last time I was on the podcast with you both was doing 2 Nephi 31 and 32 and the doctrine of Christ, and we ended up reading this because it’s a little mini version of the doctrine of Christ. By the water, you keep the commandment, by the spirit you’re justified, and by the blood, you are sanctified. Now, if we were to go to 3 Nephi 27:20, which is another example of the doctrine of Christ, there it says, we’re sanctified by the Spirit.

                                           00:23:23             They’re all necessary. You are justified and sanctified by the atonement of Christ and by the Spirit. You’re sanctified by the atonement of Christ and by the Spirit. Joseph Smith taught us that baptism without the Holy Ghost is half a baptism. You don’t get baptized without the Holy Ghost. You don’t get the Holy Ghost without baptism. You have to have both for this to work. Think of that. This is two members of the Godhead working together to make us clean enough to be with the third member of the Godhead. It’s beautiful, powerful stuff. I’d love to have a little discussion if it’s all right on the difference and complimentary nature of justification and sanctification. And I mean, I have all sorts of things I can throw out there, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

John Bytheway:               00:24:11             Justified is pronounced clean. It’s kind of a legal definition, but sanctified, you’re changed internally. You’re made holy. So in the sacrament prayer to bless and sanctify this bread, I think means to make it holy. Justified is pronounced clean legally. So maybe we’re cleansed then changed. Either have clean hands, pure heart. It sounds like they’re all justification, sanctification. Am I getting that right, PhDs?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:24:42             I love what you’re saying. Hank?

Hank Smith:                      00:24:43             I would describe it as two sides to the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. The enabling power of the atonement and the cleansing power of the atonement, that I’m cleansed through the Savior’s suffering and sacrifice. I also can be changed, like John said. Both of you know President Oaks, it’s a great analogy because his name is President Oaks, uses the analogy of a tree that when a windstorm comes, a big storm comes and the tree is bent into the mud, we have to clean the leaves, but also strengthen the tree. And the Savior’s Atonement does that. It cleanses our lives, but also changes us so the next storm that comes, we don’t dip down into the mud as far.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:25:38             Good. I love what you’re both saying, and I would agree. I mean, it feels like, again, if we’re talking about that which keeps us from being in the presence of God, there are actually two elements of it. One is we conceive of sin and then we act on that sin and justification can forgive us of the sin that we conceived of, but we’re still a fallen being that conceives of sin and we need to be changed from being that kind of being to being God-like. We can’t be in God’s presence because we’re unclean, but also because we’re not godly. Our nature isn’t compatible with this. So we need to have the sin washed away from us, the world washed away from us, the worldly desire, the fallen desire, the carnal, sensual, devilish desires that are naturally part of being a fallen being, but we also need to be changed to someone who has godly desires and eventually becomes godly in nature.

                                           00:26:28             And I think you’re right, that’s justification and sanctification and they have to work together. And you see this all over in the symbols of the gospel. We’ve just talked about baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost, which in many ways is washing symbolically. They work together. Neither one is whole without the other, but symbolically washing and then receiving a piece of heaven into yourself. Washing and anointing is the same idea. We just get this couplet everywhere in symbols of the gospel, this idea … Well, Isaiahs, we have to talk about Isaiah every now and then. He says, Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Right after that, he says, Let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they can be white as snow. There’s always this, okay, we have to get rid of the world. We have to insert heaven. When we’ve gotten rid of all of the world and inserted all of heaven, then we’re Christlike beings.

                                           00:27:16             That’s the process we’re getting to. To me, at least something of what justification and sanctification is. And in verse 61, he says, Therefore, it is given to abide in you, the record of heaven, the Comforter. Notice, there we are, the Holy Ghost again brought in. But also that record of heaven, the peaceable things of immortal glory, the truth of all things, that which quickeneth all things, which maketh alive all things. Now this sounds like it’s the spirit of Christ or the light of Christ. You can’t really separate Christ and the Holy Ghost. Sometimes we try to do that, but there are too many places in scriptures where it becomes clear you can’t separate any member of the Godhead, really. They are too unified. That which knoweth all things and hath all power according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice, and judgment. And then he tells him, this is the plan of salvation, that’s the blood of mine Only Begotten, and that all things have their likeness.

                                           00:28:07             I wanted to come down to verse 64. I don’t know for sure, but I believe, this is just my opinion as I’ve tried to piece these events together, going through it again and again and again, that we’re now being taken back to Adam and the angel right after he’s been taught about sacrifice and then it tells us that all things were confirmed unto him by the holy ordinance. So I wonder if this isn’t all part of that same discussion. Enoch is giving us a part of that discussion that we didn’t get in the Moses chapter five part. I don’t know for sure that that’s what happened, but I suspect so because we get now in verse 64 and it came to pass that the Lord had spoken with Adam, our father, that Adam cried unto the Lord and he was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord and was carried down into the water and was laid under the water and was brought forth out of the water, thus he was baptized and the spirit of God descended upon him.

                                           00:28:59             We’re gonna stop there for just a second. This is having things confirmed upon him by the holy ordinance. Whether that’s what it was referring to at the end of chapter five or not, this certainly fits that description. Whether that was referring to a separate ordinance, I don’t know, but this is absolutely Adam having things confirmed upon him by a holy ordinance, the ordinance of baptism where he enters into a covenant with God. Now, we know that God had promised him that he would make a covenant with him, that he’d promised him that Christ would come. I often put myself in Adam and Eve’s position or place when they know that they’ve made this choice to allow mankind to come into the world, so they’ve decided to become fallen beings. As far as they know, that cuts them off from the presence of God. This is someone whom they know and love and they’ve just lost their presence as far as they know forever.

                                           00:29:51             Then God says to them, But I will send my Son to save you. Can you imagine how Adam and Eve felt when he tells them, you actually can come into my presence again eventually. Then he covenants with them that that will happen. I don’t know if that’s a separate thing from this or not. For us, that’s when the covenant with God that it will happen, that’s when it starts is with baptism. So I would guess it does with Adam and Eve, but I don’t know. There are all sorts of exceptions going on in this kind of exceptional story, but I think we can’t overlook the importance of this covenant and what happens here. Then let’s look at the next thing God describes, and this will take us all the way to the end of the chapter, and it’s worth talking about this for a moment.

                                           00:30:35             Verse 65, And thus he was baptized and the Spirit of God descended upon him, and thus he was born of the Spirit and became quickened in the inner man. That’s that rebirth that it was talking about so beautifully back in verse 59, that as real as his birth into this world, our birth into this world is, so is that rebirth. And he heard a voice out of heaven saying, thou art baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost. This is the record. Again, we get this record. This is the record of the Father and the Son from henceforth and forever, and that’s part of the doctrine of Christ. We talked about that like a year and a half ago in 2 Nephi 31. Thou art after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years from all eternity to all eternity.

                                           00:31:15             So that’s after the order of Christ. They’ve entered into that by being baptized, both Adam and Eve, verse 68. Behold, thou art one in me. Let’s stop there. Remember, the big problem they had is that they’ve lost God’s presence. They had a unified relationship with him. They now have lost that. But by being born again, becoming a new creature, sanctified, justified, new creature brought about by the atoning power of Christ and by a covenant relationship with God, they now have regained a degree of unity with them. Eventually, we get complete and full unity, but at this point, they have a degree of unity in him, thus may all become my sons. This was in the Adamic language, and I don’t know how the Adamic language works, but if this were in Hebrew, I’d feel completely confident in saying children. Sons and daughters would be a good translation of that.

                                           00:32:07             And whether that’s a good translation of that or not, it’s a good translation of the truth of that statement. Thus, may all become my children or my sons and daughters. Now, we’re all his children anyway, but this is a different level of being children. It’s associated with the covenant again and again and again in the scriptures that when you make this covenant with God, you become His child in a different way because you have been born again through the atoning power of Christ. You are a new creature, not the same one you were yesterday. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what that means to become a child of God and one with God through the covenant.

Hank Smith:                      00:32:46             John, do you remember last year we had Dr. David Holland on? He said, what does it mean when someone says you certainly are your father’s son? You’re like, I knew that already. No, it means something else.

John Bytheway:               00:33:00             More than a biological fact, you’ve become like that person. We see that in the Bible, that you can have power to become the sons of God. And, well, wait a minute, I thought we were already children of God. Well, in a pedigree chart of your spirit sense, yes. When you start to take on the quality or strive to take on the qualities, then that’s, you certainly are your father’s son. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Hank Smith:                      00:33:30             Kerry, I’m gonna take us in a little different direction with your question than you probably thought. If we go back to that Moses 6:59, it says, you were born into this world by water, blood, and spirit, and you said you’ve seen some babies born. As have I, there’s a lot of water, blood, and spirit, especially twins. There’s, I remember the doctor saying, bring me a dozen towels. He says, I want you born again by water, blood, and spirit. Now, water, baptism, spirit, holy ghost, blood this time, the blood in your physical birth was provided by your mother, that’s why she’s your mother.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:34:14             Yeah, and in fact, Jenet Erickson would tell us all sorts of fascinating stuff about how that blood goes back and forth between the two of them.

Hank Smith:                      00:34:20             Yeah. Even those who are adopted say, oh, that’s my birth mother. And in your spiritual rebirth, you also receive blood, but this is the blood of mine Only Begotten. This might seem odd because we often think of Jesus as our brother, but in this analogy or this symbol, he is my father of my spiritual rebirth. Isn’t that what King Benjamin called his people? You are now the children of Christ. This day he has spiritually begotten you.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:34:58             And I think that actually Abinadi is talking about this same thing. We have a father of our spirits. We have a father of our physical bodies, and every bit as much, we have a father of the new creature we become, and eventually of our eternal life. So we have a father of our spirit life, of our physical life, and of our eternal life, but even in between eternal life and now we have this new creature we’re becoming. I emphatically believe that Christ is our father as much as either of our other two fathers.

Hank Smith:                      00:35:32             It’s laid out in the Book of Mormon almost better than anywhere else.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:35:36             I think it is better than anywhere else. Yeah. And I’m so glad you brought us back to this because we kept talking about blood and tying it into Christ, but we should have made that very specifically the way you’re doing now, that this blood we’re talking about is Christ’s blood, shed for us in Gethsemane and on the cross. His loss of blood is what gives us life. Just like actually as your mother lost her blood, both through the umbilical cord while you were in the womb, and then as she gives birth, she is losing blood to give you life. That’s what Christ does as he becomes our father. And this is beautiful because in some ways it’s showing us that mother, father, parent is probably the word we should be using. Sometimes we make such a big deal about being a father. The mother in this analogy is being used as equal with the father, like congruent with, synonym with the father. It’s parenthood is what we’re talking about.

Hank Smith:                      00:36:31             A woman then, according to this verse, can be a symbol of Christ, one who can give life through their own blood.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:36:38             Absolutely. And Christ does that when he uses, talks about a hen and so on. He uses mothers as symbols of himself frequently, actually.

John Bytheway:               00:36:45             I know, Hank, that you have loved this water, spirit, blood thing because I’ve heard you teach it before. I don’t know. I was just sitting here thinking, all things testify of me, there’s so many different ways to, that all go back to a testament of Christ. And this is just another God’s elegance in his language and in his symbols.

Hank Smith:                      00:37:07             None of us here are mothers. We are fathers. And Kerry, I think this, what we’re teaching here can help people understand how much the Lord loves them. Think of a wonderful father. You both are wonderful fathers. Now, times that by however many thousands, you have the love the Lord has for you. Of course, he’s not going to give up on you. Of course, he’s going to seek after you. Of course, he’s going to give you everything you’re willing to receive. Of course, he’s gonna let you learn lessons and teach you lessons so you can become.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:37:51             I think in many ways, these last few, really from verse 59 to the end of this chapter is what this whole chapter has been leading to. The rest of the chapter is wonderful, powerful, amazing, but it’s been leading to this, and this is as beautiful stuff as we can get to. And I love what you’re saying because it uses so many symbols to help us understand the reality of being born again and how much it’s dependent on the Father giving the Son and the Holy Ghost power to do that. But think about it, I’m sure that everyone listening to this podcast will feel this desire to some degree, and there are many who will really desperately feel this desire when Christ is saying, I can make you a different person. There are parts of me that definitely need to be made into a different person, and there are persons who are like, well, kind of, kind of like how I am, but yeah.

                                           00:38:39             There are things that I like about me that should be killed and should be gone, but hopefully the good parts, I don’t think he’s saying I’m getting rid of the good parts. I’m just gonna make them even better. We’re upgrading. This is version Infinity.0 of you, but I think all of us can think of things we’ve done or things about ourselves where what we desperately want is to hear Christ say, I can make you a different person. He is in the process. We are in the process. Everyone has felt this to some degree. Everyone who has come to Christ at any point has felt a degree of being born again, has felt a degree of the words of eternal life in this life, has had some kind of change in them. Maybe it was just that you could love someone that you couldn’t love before or at least feel more kindly towards him than you could before, or you could extend a degree of forgiveness to someone you couldn’t forgive before. If you’ve come to Christ, Christ has changed you in some way. He’s making you a new person, and at some point, he makes you a new you that is Christlike. Don’t we all want that so desperately?

John Bytheway:               00:39:44             It’s not something we can do ourselves by effort either. When we feel sad and guilty and broken, well, Jesus is really good at fixing sad, guilty, and broken. Really good at it.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:01             We want it to go a little faster.

John Bytheway:               00:40:05             For sure.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:40:05             Sometimes the people around me would like it to go a little faster. Like, can’t you fix Kerry a little more quickly? That’d be nice for all of us.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:11             Can’t we go a little bit faster? We go at the right pace that the Lord has for us. Kerry, I loved how you said that these two members of the Godhead work together. You almost always see the Holy Ghost involved in the cleansing and enabling power of Jesus Christ, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, puts off the natural man and becomes a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord. President Eyring has said multiple times, when the Holy Ghost is your companion, you know that the atonement is working in your life.

John Bytheway:               00:40:47             Yeah. That’s a beautiful thought. You go somewhere and you feel the Spirit. What is that telling you?

Hank Smith:                      00:40:54             The atonement of Jesus Christ is working.

John Bytheway:               00:40:56             It’s working. It’s not, I’m not good enough. You’re feeling it, you’re going, it’s working. I’m making an incremental turn, a slight course correction.

Hank Smith:                      00:41:06             I have to tell you both a quick story. I was in the Susquehanna, Pennsylvania Ward recently. I was sitting by Brandon and Jessie Hatch, two of my friends. We were just visiting, and a woman was invited up to talk about her experience. She had just gone through the temple. She was probably in her 60s. She went up and she said she had been baptized a year earlier, and she said, I was terrified the night before. I was terrified of going to the temple. I didn’t know what to expect. She said, I just wanted to … It was so funny. She said, I just wanted to tell the missionaries I couldn’t do it, and I just smoke a pack of cigarettes. That’s what she said I wanted to do. I just wanted to smoke a pack of cigarettes. She said, no, I can do this.

                                           00:41:49              So she got up the next morning and they drove all the way to the temple, a couple of hours. She said I was so nervous the whole way up. Then she said these older women came up and they were so nice and my friend came over and said, just go where they want you to go. And she said, I don’t understand what they’re saying, stay by me. She stayed by me. And she even said at one point, she said, I thought I was gonna get sacrificed. So then she went through the temple and she said, well, I didn’t understand most of it, but I’ll tell you, I came out and I loved my family more. It was just a beautiful moment. It’s working. It’s working.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:42:32             That’s a change in her. That’s her being sanctified, right?

Hank Smith:                      00:42:36             Right. It was a beautiful testimony. I smiled. I thought this is why we get together to see this in one another and to be happy for each other.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:42:48             As you say that, one of the things I think of that, again, I think we undervalue. We’ve talked about a number of things today that we undervalue. We talk about this baptismal ordinance that Adam and Eve went through here that has them be born again. They’re one in God and new children of God. Sometimes we undervalue that we renew that ordinance every week with symbols of blood and spirit. Well, blood and body, but if you listen to the language of the prayer, then you’ve got the Holy Ghost in there as well. We can become justified, sanctified, and new people, one in God, new children of God every single week. Tell me God doesn’t love us. Tell me He isn’t working in relentless pursuit of us. Tell me He’s not trying everything he can. The fact that He wants us to repent daily and renew that covenant every week, like every seven days I can renew that covenant. That’s incredible. God does so much to help us come to Him.

John Bytheway:               00:43:53             Yeah. I love the repetition of the sacrament. Come back again next week. You’re gonna need this.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:44:00             That’s right. Yeah, yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:44:02             And it’ll be here. This table will be bolted to the floor. Come back again.

Hank Smith:                      00:44:08             Yeah. Be willing. Willing to take upon them the name of thy Son. Willing to keep his commandments. Yeah. Willing to remember Him.

John Bytheway:               00:44:15             I’m gonna try.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:44:17             It takes us back again to verse 52. If thou wilt turn unto me and hearken to my voice and believe. That’s where it starts. Just keep doing that. Just keep turning to him. It almost makes it sound like you should follow him.

Hank Smith:                      00:44:29             Hey.

John Bytheway:               00:44:30             Like the sound of that.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:44:32             It’s catchy.

Hank Smith:                      00:44:33             Yeah. I had a question for both of you on verse 63. All things are created and made to bear record of me. Where have you seen that? I’m interested in either of you. Where have you seen something that the Lord created that you thought, I think that was made to be a testimony. For me, I’ll give you one example. Every year we experience the creation, the fall, and the redemption. During the Spring and Summer, here’s all this creation, leaves, trees, and growth, then the Fall. It’s literally called the Fall where everything is actually kind of beautiful for a while, the Fall. Then comes this time of, I mean, if you were to look at a tree in the winter. You would have said, that’s dead. The, all the life is, yeah, underground. And then here comes Spring again, and everything comes back to life. Now, those of you who live in Hawaii, you’ve never experienced this. Those of us in North America, most of us experience the Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. From my perspective, that was created to bear record of him.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:45:45             Verse 63 that you’re talking about reminds me of the verses just before it. Like, being a parent. The process of birth, that’s why he’s saying it. Like, this process of birth is designed to bear a record of the birth that I give you. That’s what he’s specifically referring to, but I think I’ve learned more about God from being a parent than I have from just about anything else. The lengths that I would go to for my children, the way I would, am in relentless pursuit of wanting them to become what they can become and to be happy and to do well. And God uses it all the time. Can a mother forget a sucking child, right? And so on the way he compares mothers to himself frequently. So I think parents in general, that bears witness to me of God’s love for us and his desire to have us with him.

John Bytheway:               00:46:47             When my children were barely old enough to talk or be toddlers, I, maybe they were more like preschool or kindergarten. One of them came to me just, Dad, I made a mistake. I just melted. I don’t know what it was, but it’s okay. I think that parental love that the father must have for us when somebody comes and I broke something, I made a mistake, eager to forgive before I even knew what it was. Our heavenly Father’s that way too, but he’s even better.

Hank Smith:                      00:47:21             Kerry, I just wanna switch gears here for a second. We’ve had you on many, many times, so if, I’m sure we’ve talked about this in the past. One thing we’re studying right now, though not this week, is the book of Abraham. You are an expert. In fact, when someone brings up the book of Abraham, a little picture of Kerry Muhlestein comes in my head. That’s how-

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:47:40             Which is probably frightening.

Hank Smith:                      00:47:42             Yeah, it scares me every time. I’ve almost linked you and the book of Abraham together as much as I’ve linked the book of Abraham and Joseph Smith together. You’ve spent a career studying this. You are a top of the line Egyptologist, like the awards you’ve won, the things you’ve published. Here you are saying, I love the book of Abraham. How does a scholar, an Egyptologist, a scholar, take the book of Abraham and love it because there would be many who would tell you, many critics would tell you, that’s impossible.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:48:15             I mean, this is a large, large topic. I’ll try and be brief. I could go on for a while here, but I will say that those who would say that’s impossible are either misunderstanding something or misrepresenting something, and I’d rather be kind and just say they misunder- they don’t have the facts that, that really, I’ve not heard anyone who has had a critique of the Book of Abraham that hasn’t misunderstood something or made an assumption without realizing it or something along those lines. And I can say that categorically. I’ve not heard anyone that hasn’t made some mistake along those lines. I will say I have an intellectual testimony of the Book of Abraham. I have, even more importantly, a revealed testimony, but I have an intellectual testimony of the Book of Abraham. You know, the little thing we did with Mahijah here and that this name is how could Joseph Smith make up that name?

                                           00:49:05             I have dozens of things that as I teach and write about the Book of Abraham that I’ve said that, about like so many things, oh man, Joseph Smith is a good guesser. Joseph Smith is a good guesser where I believe at this point … Well, let me put it this way. If you believe in the Book of Abraham, that’s a faith choice. If you disbelieve in the Book of Abraham, that’s a faith choice. Either way, you’re exercising faith. Anyone who tells you differently is kidding themselves. They’re just being naive and they’re not being intellectually honest with themselves. You have to make a faith choice. Joseph Smith was inspired and translated the book of Abraham through inspiration or he did not. Both require faith. In terms of things that you have to explain away, you have to explain away more things if you make the faith choice to not believe in the Book of Abraham as an inspired translation than you do if you believe it.

                                           00:49:58             Therefore, I think you actually have to exercise more faith to disbelieve the Book of Abraham than you do to believe the Book of Abraham. And that’s based on my intellectual analysis of this. I have an intellectual testimony of it. Does that mean that intellectually we can prove it? No. And that’s true of everything. I can’t prove that Christ was resurrected. I can’t prove all sorts of things. But they’re true, nonetheless. It’s fine if people make a different faith choice and then interpret things differently, they have the right to do that. Joseph Smith taught. We give them the right to do that. But intellectually and spiritually, I am absolutely convinced the book of Abraham, and I would say the beauty and depths of its teachings, the way it’s unified in ways that go beyond anything Joseph Smith would have had to have thought so long to come up with so many unified things in there. It’s ridiculous. It really is a ridiculous proposition. It has beautiful teachings that bring power into our lives and that bring us closer to God and Christ. Besides the intellectual elements, it’s just powerful and beautiful in every way.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:05             John, you’ve said it frequently, but I’m gonna have you say it again. Tell me what you think about the Book of Abraham. Have you read it?

John Bytheway:               00:51:12             That’s exactly right. It’s wow. And it’s beautiful and amazing. It’s not out of the mind of an uneducated boy from New York. There’s so many things in there that you just go, wow, have you read this? This is incredible. Soaring doctrine.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:30             Elder Maxwell said that sometimes we get caught up in the thick of thin things. Discussing how we got it, it’s kind of like Elder Maxwell said, chewing old bones in the courtyard when there’s a feast inside. Have you read it? Have you gone verse by verse and word by word and thought, how can this impact my life, my relationships? That’s where the beauty is.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:51:59             Amen. I do think it’s worth for all of our books of scripture trying to understand how we got them. I think that’s worthwhile, that’s a sign of respect for the scripture, but to spend your time on that and not get into the book is also not being intellectually honest. It really isn’t. If you wanna know the truth of it, you need to spend at least as much time studying the book itself as things about the book.

John Bytheway:               00:52:21             Kerry, have you done an episode on the Scriptures are Real, your own podcast about the Book of Abraham or have you done dozens about it?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:52:30             I did several four years ago. I’ll do some more by the time this airs maybe. So you can find one. I did one even in the Doctrine and Covenants here, Stephen Smoot and I, the episode where we had Joseph Smith asking questions about Isaiah. We then also talked about the Book of Abraham, because of course you should, as often as possible. So there are lots of places, but I think probably there are two resources that I would point people towards. One that’s in my mind, and I’m absolutely 100% biased on this, but probably the easiest little summary of it is a book called Let’s Talk About the Book of Abraham that I wrote, so that’s why I’m biased. I wrote it intending to give people an understandable summary and a way to think about it and to try and go forward on their own investigating and learning more.

                                           00:53:17             There’s also a volume of BYU studies that John Gee, John Thompson, Stephen Smoot and myself did. Those are three PhDs in Egyptology and one who I think by the end of the year will be a PhD in Egyptology. The entire volume is a series of short articles that go through and answer a lot of the questions people have. And if you just Google BYU Studies introduction to the book of Abraham, you’ll find that. Those are two resources that people can use. The Let’s Talk about the Book of Abraham is very short, very readable. The other one is a bit more academic, but far more broad ranging.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:52             We’ll put links to both of them on our show notes. Go to followim.co, go to the show notes for this episode and you will find those. The amazing Lisa Spice, we’ll make sure those are linked up for you.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:54:03             We will have several special episodes. Some of them I’m doing in conjunction with other podcasts and things like that on my podcast as well.

Hank Smith:                      00:54:12             Yeah. Kerry, you and I have had so many personal conversations. I’ve seen you present in so many different venues and we’ve talked here, so I honestly can’t remember what we’ve talked about where. There was a time in your career where you had to, in a way, choose to be a faithful Latter-day Saint. Here you are, you’re publishing in Egyptology and you and your wife decided, are we gonna do this? Is this ringing a bell?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:54:42             Yeah. I shared that story here and I’m glad you gave me this opportunity because sometimes it’s been repeated a couple places, just a teeny bit off, but pretty close. So I’m glad you gave me the opportunity here. I went a number of years. I think I intentionally went five or six years just publishing Egyptology, not anything about the Book of Abraham. But then I was asked by a couple different people to write something from a Latter-day Saint point of view. And well, I, it’s worth saying, initially, when I got into Egyptology, I didn’t want to do anything about the Book of Abraham. It was contentious and I don’t like contention. I really don’t like contention. I’m not a contentious guy. It’s not comfortable for me. I don’t, I don’t like it at all.

Hank Smith:                      00:55:20             It’s not in your nature, yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:55:21             I was just gonna stay away from it, but it turns out that people ask LDS Egyptologists about the book of Abraham, so I thought, well, I ought to at least learn enough to answer some of their questions. And it became a pretty fascinating topic for me. Like it is, it’s fascinating. And the book of Abraham is beautiful, but even the issues around it, like the fascinating stories. So I fell in love with it, spent a lot of time researching it, but some of that came because some people said, could you really just write a little something for an LDS venue about it? I thought, well, people have questions and I’m a professor. It’s my job to answer questions, so all right, I’ll write something. So I wrote something, about the book of Abraham from a faithful, believing point of view. And when I finished it, before I hit submit, send on the email, I sat down and I talked with my wife who knew all of this backstory, she was with me through all of it, right?

                                           00:56:08             And I said, Here’s what you need to know and we need to talk about. As soon as I hit send and this ends up getting published, I mean, assuming it passed the peer review process, which it did, people will hate me and say bad things about me and our family for the rest of our lives. They’ll attack my ability as a professor, they’ll attack my ability as an Egyptologist, they’ll say things about our family. People get so contentious about the Book of Abraham. As soon as we push send, I’ll be attacked on every element of our life that we can imagine. Do we still want to do this? And my wife, bless her heart, looked at me and said, yeah, we’re consecrated. We’re all in. So we did. And, and we have. I’ve had so many things I’ve said twisted. There are a couple things I’ve said that just get twisted again and again and taken out of context again and again.

                                           00:56:57             All sorts of crazy things. Fortunately, most of that happens online and I really have no appetite for getting on and people tell me about it. I’m like, oh, okay, thanks for letting me know. I don’t want to get in and get involved. There are a couple of times where I felt like, okay, I should respond to this or that, but mostly I don’t. But it absolutely has happened. That’s the nature. We talked about it earlier in this. If you’re gonna stand up for the truth, there are people who will be offended, yet studying the book of Abraham has brought rich peace, rich closeness with God, wonderful blessings in my life, absolutely worth it.

Hank Smith:                      00:57:32             You’re as good as everybody listening hopes you are. I’ve sat with you at dinner, I’ve sat with you in meetings. We’ve tried to solve problems together and all sorts of stuff. We’ve been on committees together and you’re as good as I pretend to be, Kerry.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:57:52             You and John have done us all a great service and you bless us. So I will say the same to you. Maybe we don’t want to go too much down nostalgia road. I don’t know if John even remembers this, but when we were both teaching adjunct at the ancient scripture department, Richard Cowan was the department chair. So I was housed in his office, which is now my office, actually. Your office, you just come around the corner and your office was right there. It’s now like where we have printers and stuff, but your office was right there. We just run into each other every now and then, and I’ve seen you two bless the lives of my family, specifically my family, you’ve both blessed the lives of my family and lots of others, so we’re grateful for you.

Hank Smith:                      00:58:30             We love the Muhlesteins. Kerry, I know you probably have to go. There’s a flight to Cairo that you probably need to be on. I wanna discuss another topic. John, this is something that you’re passionate about. This is Moses 6:58. I give unto you a commandment to teach these things freely unto your children. Both of you are wonderful fathers. We have listeners out there who want to be wonderful parents, who want to teach, who hope to teach. We have people out there who maybe don’t have children of their own, but have nieces and nephews that they want to teach and ward members that they want to teach. What’s the message to parents who are trying, they’re doing what they can. Sometimes family night doesn’t go very well. Sometimes Come, Follow Me time doesn’t go very well. Sometimes you think this is not working. Sometimes, John, someone comes to your office, one of your kids comes to your office and says, I don’t know if I know.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:59:35             Or maybe I can even add another element to that because I think this is the case for a lot of people that as their children are older now their children say, don’t talk to me about this.

Hank Smith:                      00:59:47             Right. I know how you feel. Don’t tell me. What would you say to the moms and dads who are listening saying, oh, I promise I’m trying. I know it’s a commandment to teach my children and I promise I’m trying.

John Bytheway:               01:00:01             My parents came from very different places. My mom was old school pioneer stock, awesome. My dad was a convert since age 24. It was pretty cool for us as kids to just see them try. They kept trying. I feel pangs of guilt for some of the home evenings where we’d get joking too much. It was like an argument that began and ended with a prayer. I love the strippling warriors that they say, we do not doubt our mothers knew it. It doesn’t say, and we know it’s true. But they did say, we know our mothers know. I could see my dad coming from a different place as my mom, but I knew that both of them knew. When I was struggling to figure out if I knew, it was helpful to know, well, I know my parents know. They tried to teach and sometimes we just wanted to mess around. But now I look back and what’s the phrase? I’ll rise up and call them blessed at the last day. And that’s how I feel about my folks for sticking with it and trying so hard. There were words, but there were examples. There were watching them try to fulfill callings that all those things told me they were all in not just the words.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:01:21             Everyone will be in lots of different phases of parenting and children and you can teach one way when they’re this age and another way when they’re that age. I read something recently. It’s actually a member of my bishopric that pointed this out. It’s a talk by Elder Ashton, Elder Marvin J. Ashton from the 70s. Most of the talk was actually kind of a reaction against the new hippie drug culture. But he shared this story that had something really powerful in it. He said that after giving a talk once, a woman came up to him and she said, I need help understanding what this phrase means that no success can compensate for failure in the home. And he said, knowing her circumstances and her family and what her concerns were, he understood what she was really asking. And he thought about it and then he said this, he said, failure is when you have stopped trying and you’ve given up on them.

                                           01:02:17             If you haven’t given up on them, you haven’t failed. I think there’s something to this. Sometimes you teach freely, you teach freely whatever way the Spirit prompts you at the time. Sometimes that will be you got in a prayer at the end of Family Home Evening. Sometimes it will be they’re listening to you as you tell a story about your life and they actually listen and they’re in. And sometimes they say, Dad, don’t tell a story again, or, Mom, don’t tell a story again. Sometimes it’s going to be you don’t say anything anymore, you just live a Christian life and you love them. In some ways, that’s the most powerful teaching is if we just keep living and loving, that will make a difference sooner or later, and that’s not giving up.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:04             Beautiful.

John Bytheway:               01:03:05             Yeah. God has the long game in mind and we want things solved by Thursday. He has the long game and you mentioned Marvin J. Ashton. I remember Elder Bruce C. Hafen saying, there is a success which can compensate for all of our failures. That’s the success. We’ll just lay it at his feet, say, can you help me fix this? ‘Cause he’s so good at it.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:03:31             He is the one that’s mighty to save, as you both say so often.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:35             Right. The Come, Follow Me Manual this week links to Elder Uchtdorf’s 2023 message, Jesus Christ is the Strength of Parents. Do you both remember the story he started with? Once upon a time, a father was about to leave for an evening Bishopric meeting. His four-year-old daughter stepped in front of him wearing pajamas and holding a copy of Book of Mormon stories. Why do you have to go to a meeting? She asked. Because I’m a counselor in the bishopric, he answered. But you are my dad, his daughter protested. He knelt in front of her. Sweetheart, he said, I know you want me to read to you and help you go to sleep, but tonight I need to help the bishop. His daughter replied, Doesn’t the bishop have a dad to help him go to sleep? He goes on to talk about, it’s hard to be a parent, how difficult it is to know exactly what to do and when to do it. He finishes with basically what you just said, Kerry, and I, maybe this will be a second witness.

                                           01:04:31             My dear friends, my dear brothers and sisters, building faith in a child is somewhat like helping a flower grow. You cannot tug on the stem of it to make it taller. You cannot pry open the bud to get it to blossom sooner, and you cannot neglect the flower and expect it to grow or flourish spontaneously. What you can and must do for the rising generation is provide rich, nourishing soil with access to flowing heavenly water. Remove weeds and anything that would block heavenly sunlight, create the best possible conditions for growth, patiently allow the rising generation to make inspired choices and let God work his miracle. The result will be more beautiful and more stunning and more joyful than anything you could accomplish just by yourself. In Heavenly Father’s plan, family relationships are meant to be eternal. That is why, as a parent, you never give up, even if you are not proud of how things went in the past. With Jesus Christ, the Master Healer and Savior, there can always be a new beginning. He always gives hope. Isn’t that beautiful?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:05:38             I remember that talk really well. My wife and I listened to it as we were in a car driving, a little more than an hour drive from where we lived to visit my daughter who was in a facility. It was after the third time she attempted suicide, and we were trying to find whatever help we could. We’d been praying for miracles. President Nelson had told us to seek for and expect miracles, and I was praying, and I was saying, where’s my miracle? And we didn’t know what else to do. And you can imagine, I would encourage anyone who is having struggles in their family to listen to that talk again. You can imagine how a talk like that felt as you’re on your way to visit your daughter in a time like that. That was two years ago, a little over two years ago. I wouldn’t say that her life is all roses now, but the miracles I kept asking God, where are they? Most of them, most of them I’ve seen by now. It was not by Thursday, as John said, it wasn’t as fast as we would like, but God knew what he was doing, and God works His miracles. I can testify that Christ is the strength of parents. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t that facility, it wasn’t my amazing wife. Christ is the strength of parents. In the end, with her, what, for quite a while, what we did by teaching these things freely unto our children was we lived the gospel and we loved her.

John Bytheway:               01:07:08             Yeah. We’ve talked about when you gave your talk Hank at Ensign College, rather than saying, Heavenly Father, you’ve got to help me with my children. Your twist on that phrase was, Heavenly Father, how can I help you with your children? They were his long before they were ours and he loves them more than we do and he has made ample provision for their salvation. We can kind of spiritually go, you know, I got help.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:07:38             I had that experience with that same daughter when I was praying. Help me with this daughter who I love. And I got the very strong answer, oh, she was my daughter long before she was yours and I love her more than you love her. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      01:07:51             Hmm. He might be saying to you, Kerry, thank you for helping this daughter that I love.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:07:57             I got two things from that. Thank you for your small contribution here and not in a bad way, but really, I’m grateful that you’re helping, but trust me, I know what I’m doing here.

John Bytheway:               01:08:09             Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      01:08:11             The battle is not yours, but God’s. Kerry, what a wonderful day. It always is with you.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:08:19             Well, with the scriptures.

Hank Smith:                      01:08:21             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               01:08:21             Can’t lose when you got good material.

Hank Smith:                      01:08:24             We hope everyone will check out The Scriptures are Real and all the other resources that Kerry has put out there. It’s almost impossible to list the books and the digital content. You strengthen faith everywhere you go, Kerry.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:08:39             We’re all trying.

Hank Smith:                      01:08:41             Yeah. We’re all on the same team here. Building the same kingdom. With that, we want to thank Dr. Kerry Muhlestein for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. I remember John, he told me once we have got to get these scholars out there more. We’ve got to get them in front of more Latter-day Saints. He would have loved this. I’m sure he does. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’ve got more Old Testament to cover on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode.

                                           01:09:20             Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website, followhim.co. That’s followhim.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith, and Annabelle Sorensen.