John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to Part 2, Dr. Robert Millett, John Chapters 2 through 4.

  00:07 This verse 30 is important to me when we talked before with Dr. Steve Harper about this but just briefly, the idea of a spiritual eclipse, Joseph McConkie in a classroom showed us a picture of an eclipse once and he said, “What’s happening?” Well, the moon’s in front of the sun. And he said, “What happens then if anyone or anything gets in front of the S-O-N, the son?” And he said, “That’s a spiritual eclipse.” And shook his finger at us and said, “Don’t ever become a spiritual eclipse.” And what a wonderful metaphor, I’ve never forgotten.

Dr. Robert Millet: 00:40 Teachers really need to take heed. The issue isn’t how impressive I am. The issue is how I can point myself. We’ve had teachers that did it the right way. And that is you never left that person’s class saying, “Wow, this person is powerful. I’ve never anybody that knew the scriptures that well.” But you do leave deeply touched.

  01:02 Maybe you’re saying, “I want to go read,” or, “I want to go study.” Yeah, the temptation is to get them pointed toward you rather than to the Savior. And I think that’s a scary business meaning they’re picking up on your charisma more than they are on the Lord himself.

John Bytheway: 01:19 The outcome that you’re after is that people are closer to the Savior or they’re intrigued. I think that we’ve talked about that series called The Chosen. And what I like is people are saying, “Wow, I got to read that and see how the scriptures actually described what happened there.” And we all know they take a little bit of license in that show. But if it’s getting people to open up and read, I like that.

Dr. Robert Millet: 01:44 There’s a humanity about Jesus and the apostles in The Chosen that is so moving, very touching. That’s why millions are just in love with that series.

  01:55 Okay. Chapter 4. Let’s start with verse 5. “Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.” Sychar would be what we would know as Shechem as it’s called elsewhere in the Old Testament, for example.

  02:15 “Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.” That well, I think most people believe the well is about 7 to 8 feet wide, about 100 feet deep. It’s fed by springs down in the earth and so waters was constantly coming there. The sixth hour would’ve of course been noon. Jesus comes and sits down at the well.

  02:44 “There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, ‘Give me to drink.'” Could I have a drink? “For the disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat,” buy food. “Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, ‘How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?’ For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”

  03:10 We need to talk about. That sounds like she thinks, “We shouldn’t be talking to each other.” Jesus would have been condemned, of course, for talking with her and she would be condemned. Think about the fact that when the Assyrians came in in 721 and basically destroyed the northern kingdom that anciently often, what kingdoms would do who are successful in winning a war is they will demoralize you by one, taking many of your people to their country and taking some of their people and putting them in your country.

  03:42 And that’s exactly what happened. And after the northern tribes were taken captive, people came into Judea and people in other parts of Israel. And they began to live there and many of them brought their ideals, their false religious beliefs and practices with them. Eventually, there began to be intermarriage and they grew up, people that came to be known as the Samaritans and the Jews looked upon them as kind of half-breeds and not worthy of spending time with.

  04:16 Let me just read a few things that were beliefs. I made a list of things that are beliefs of the Samaritans. One, they only accepted the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses. They did not accept the rest of the Bible, the other books of the Old Testament. They believe that Moses was the final seal of the prophets. He’s the prophet that they hold up.

  04:39 Third, they believed in Jehovah alone after their own fashion, most of the people by the New Testament times. A belief in one God, Jehovah. A belief that Mount Gerizim was the Holy Mount. This is in Shechem. And that their temples should be built there and their sacrifices should be all offered there rather than any other place in Israel including Jerusalem. And you can imagine the ire that brought up with the Jews toward them.

  05:11 And finally, this one which isn’t as obvious from the scripture itself but a belief in what was called a Taheb, T-A-H-E-B, or Restorer who would bring in a new dispensation, teach the law, reestablish proper worship. And a belief in a final day of reward hereafter for the righteous and punishment for the wicked. The Jews of course looked upon the Samaritans as ritually impure.

  05:41 It was said, this is kind of gross but it’s said, Samaritan women were according to one passage in the Mishnah menstruants from the cradle, which is a pretty harsh thing to say. For that matter, Jesus drinking what she offers would have made Jesus ritually impure by the standards of among the Jews.

  06:02 Now, we come then to verse 10. “Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, ‘Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would’ve given thee living water.'” Now here again, Jesus is going to be speaking on one level and she’s going to be understanding on another.

  06:20 “The woman saith unto him, ‘Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then has thou living … Where did you get this living water meaning flowing water, flowing water. Where did you get this?” Totally missed it. “‘Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?’ Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.'”

Hank Smith: 06:48 I noticed he didn’t answer that first question, “You greater than our father Jacob?”

Dr. Robert Millet: 06:53 Well, actually-

John Bytheway: 06:56 That’s a good point, Hank.

Dr. Robert Millet: 06:58 Yeah, yup.

Hank Smith: 06:59 He doesn’t answer that question.

John Bytheway: 07:00 I’ll go to your second question.

Dr. Robert Millet: 07:01 “But whosoever drinketh of the water I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, ‘Sir, I’d like to have some of this water so I don’t have to come back to this well and draw.'” You can see how fascinating and beautiful this is. He’s talking to her and she’s missing the point.

  07:26 And then, of course, things get a little more touchy here. Verse 16, “Jesus saith unto her, ‘Go, call thy husband, and come hither.’ The woman answered and said unto him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said unto her, ‘Thou hast well said, you’ve spoken the truth, I have no husband for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.'”

  07:52 It was believed that Jews, it would’ve been true probably for Samaritans too, should never have more than three marriage partners. She would have been considered grossly immoral, okay, grossly immoral. That would be again why she comes late in the day. Women usually went in the evening, coolness of the evening to draw water. She did not want to go then. She chose a different time to go there because she knew the kind of scolding and blasting she’d get from the super righteous.

  08:23 “Then the woman saith unto him, ‘Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.'” One of the real profound points in the scripture.

John Bytheway: 08:30 Yeah, you think?

Dr. Robert Millet: 08:32 “‘Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’ Jesus saith unto her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.'”

  08:56 Now, people read that latter part, Latter-day Saints read that and say, “Well, so was Judaism a way to go or was Jesus’ gospel the way to go?” Well, I think this is a way of saying the Jews have revealed through scripture Jehovah and who God is and who we should be worshiping and how we should be worshiping.

Hank Smith: 09:15 It sounds like she’s saying, “Well, who’s right? The Jews or the Samaritans?” And he’s saying, “Listen, the Jews have the rightful temple.”

Dr. Robert Millet: 09:22 That’s right. We’re in the right place. “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father,” in verse 21. I’m not completely sure what that means. I suppose it could have reference to by 70 AD it won’t matter much because the Romans are going to come in and destroy what you have here.

  09:41 But then we get into the essence of this little conversation. “The hour cometh, and now is, when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” And then the next verse, “God is a Spirit,” as we read it in King James, “they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

  10:02 Now, of course, that isn’t the way it reads. It reads, “God is Spirit. God is Spirit.” Well, the 93rd section of the Doctrine and Covenants says, “Man is Spirit.” And to say God is Spirit is the same thing as saying God can only be understood by the power of the Spirit. God can only be approached by the power of the Spirit. God can only be grasped by the power of the Spirit and spiritual things.

  10:25 I had this thrown in my face so many times as a young missionary that, “That’s ridiculous you believe God has a body. It says here God is a Spirit.” No, it says God is Spirit. Man is Spirit as well.

  10:37 “The woman saith, ‘I know the Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when he has come, he will tell us all things.'” And this is one of the first very direct statements, “I that speak unto thee am he.”

  10:53 Now, how scholars can read the Gospel of John and not believe that Jesus … I mean, I’ve heard so many times through the years Jesus never told the people who he was. Well, he’s telling her, “I am the Messiah.”

John Bytheway: 11:06 And using that phrase “I am.”

Dr. Robert Millet: 11:08 That’s right.

John Bytheway: 11:09 Something I didn’t understand way back was that just as there are liberal and conservative in political realms that are liberal and conservative in Christianity and that some, the far end of the liberal end would say, “Well, Jesus was a great moral teacher but he was not divine.” And I think one of President Benson’s strong things about the Book of Mormon was its declaration that Jesus is the son of God. And can you talk about that a little bit? Now, some scholars would say Jesus never said he was the Son of God.

Dr. Robert Millet: 11:43 Yeah, just a little bit of a historical background if I can. In the early 1920s, a movement grew up in the United States that came to be known as Liberal Protestantism. It was affected of course by what we would call higher criticism or literary critical historical studies of the Bible.

  12:03 I remember when I first got into a class at Florida State, an Old Testament seminar, the professor said early in the semester, “Now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to bracket out in our study some things so that we’re not fighting always about issues. We’re going to bracket out divine intervention, predictive prophecy and miracles.” And I thought, “What else is there?”

Hank Smith: 12:28 Yeah.

Dr. Robert Millet: 12:30 By the early 1920s, there’s been a swing on the part of Christians to a liberal branch of Christianity. You’re talking today would be groups like obviously Unitarianism, United Methodism, United Church of Christ, groups that would not worry much about the divinity thing, Jesus as a good person, as a nice guy.

  12:52 The reaction to that was a swing right that takes place some 20 or 30 years later, a group of Christians who swung to the right. Now, let me just say on the far right would’ve been the fundamentalist, the Fundamentalist Baptist for example. They swung toward the middle is what their claim is and they call themselves evangelicals, the New Evangelicals.

  13:15 They’re reacting to the Liberal Protestants. They don’t want to go quite that far over there to fundamentalism where you don’t believe in science or you believe that everybody ought to be condemned. What we see today is a growth in a liberalism of Christianity. The day we’re in right now, the day of where some 70 million people in the United States alone have walked away from any form of religion or religious organization, 70 to 80 million people. That’s a nation.

  13:48 And consequently, you also hear much these days from some pulpits about let’s don’t hang up on whether there was a real resurrection. What that really represents is coming to life spiritually. I think these things don’t happen haphazardly. That is to say the movement toward no religion, the fight against organized religion, the growth of the numbers of people that become nones, N-O-N-E-S, meaning whenever they are asked to write religious preference, they put none. These are those that want to be spiritual but not religious. And to me, that means, “I don’t want to go to church. I’m just going to have my beliefs.”

  14:31 I think we have a challenge with liberal Christianity and certain branches of Christianity that I would say one of the real differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many wonderful people there. But the church has basically moved leftward to basically being a United Methodist faith, a belief in the trinity, a belief that there’s no one true church and so on and so on. Great people, but there’s been a surrendering to this left movement.

  15:07 And that’s a comfortable movement. That’s people as Elder Holland would say, “They want a smooth God. They don’t want a hard God that asks you to keep his commandments. They want a smooth God.” He doesn’t ask much of you. That would be my reaction to your question. Sorry so long on that.

John Bytheway: 15:23 No, I just think the point of Jesus saying, “I that speak unto thee am he,” and acknowledging that he’s the Son of God and divinity, it’s too easy for people sometimes to, “Well, I think he was a great moral teacher.” You know, what C.S. Lewis said about that. Well, you can’t have it that way.

Dr. Robert Millet: 15:41 That’s right.

John Bytheway: 15:41 He either was the Son of God or he was crazy or something.

Dr. Robert Millet: 15:46 Verse 26, “I that speak unto thee,” I’m going to follow up on what you said, John. “I that speak unto thee am he.” You notice the “he” is italicized. What does that mean? That’s not on the manuscript. So, what you’re saying is right. It’s the “I am” statement. It really reads, “I that speak unto am. I that speak unto thee am.”

John Bytheway: 16:05 And there’s a nice footnote comment there. The term “I am” used here in the Greek is identical with the Septuagint usage in Exodus 3:14 which identifies Jehovah, so.

Dr. Robert Millet: 16:16 I am that I am.

John Bytheway: 16:17 Which is such a great name. I’ve, not, I was, I used to be, I am. It’s a great name.

Dr. Robert Millet: 16:23 Well, our Samaritan woman has obviously been touched and so by verse 29, she’s saying to the people in town, “Come see this man who told me everything I ever did.” A little bit of an exaggeration but she’s got the point there. “He’s looked right through me. Is not this the Christ, the Messiah?”

  16:43 “Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.” Here we go again with levels of understanding. “In the meanwhile, the disciples prayed him, saying, ‘Master, eat.’ But he said unto them, ‘I have meat to eat that ye know not of.’ Therefore said the disciples one to another, ‘Hath any man brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said unto them, ‘My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.'”

  17:11 When you read this, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work,” reminds me of Joseph Smith saying, “It is my meditation all the day and more than my meat and drink to know how I shall make the saints comprehend the visions that roll like an overflowing surge before my mind.” Powerful statement. Jesus used that similar language. “My meat I feast on. I find strength in serving, helping, building people up.”

John Bytheway: 17:40 I think it’s fun I’ve got in my margin the different things that the woman at the well calls Jesus and there’s a progression. She goes from, “How is it that thou being a Jew,” she goes from Jew to sir to prophet to Christ.

Dr. Robert Millet: 17:56 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 17:56 It’s kind of fun to see that progression with her.

Dr. Robert Millet: 17:59 And one of the touching things too is Chapter 3, he meets with a very religious man, Nicodemus. Chapter 4, he meets with a clearly unreligious woman.

John Bytheway: 18:11 Yeah.

Dr. Robert Millet: 18:12 I think this is organized this way on purpose to show Jesus is out to find all the sheep, every one of them.

John Bytheway: 18:19 Didn’t they travel in a way to avoid going through Samaria? And was this unusual for him to even be there?

Dr. Robert Millet: 18:25 Jews didn’t generally go through Samaria, they would go around it. Clearly, Jesus went through Samaria on purpose. He had a divine appointment he wanted to attend to. And interestingly, what he’s going to do is teach the gospel to Gentiles, if you will, long before the Cornelius episode in Acts 10. This becomes a half-step, if you will, toward taking the gospel to all the world. So that when we get into the book of Acts and you come to Acts Chapter 8, Philip is going to go into Samaria and have tremendous success. Why? Because Jesus has already laid a foundation.

John Bytheway: 19:03 Yeah. Verse 39 says, “Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, ‘He told me all that I ever did.'”

Dr. Robert Millet: 19:14 And then in verse 40, he stays there two days. “Many more believed because of his own word and said unto the woman, ‘Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.'” That’s a beautiful statement.

Hank Smith: 19:31 Bob, let’s compare those two one more time. I really like that exercise. I didn’t want to cut it short. Here, you’ve got a male Jewish, educated leader and you’ve got a Gentile female, immoral woman.

Dr. Robert Millet: 19:46 Yes.

John Bytheway: 19:47 Outcast perhaps.

Hank Smith: 19:48 And outcast. Which one becomes the missionary?

Dr. Robert Millet: 19:52 That’s correct. It seemed to almost matter more at this point at least, matter more to the woman whose sins have been greater. I mean, isn’t that a little bit like what’s the … Is it Luke 7? “Her sins are forgiven, for she loved much.”

Hank Smith: 20:05 Loved much. Yeah. It’s fascinating to me that he comes in the dark and she comes in the light.

John Bytheway: 20:11 And the light, yeah, you could put those side by side. That’s a fun exercise.

Dr. Robert Millet: 20:15 In my mind, there’s no question that John organized it just this way to make the point that Jesus comes for everyone. And at a certain point, you just say, “You know what? Sin is sin. Everybody needs Jesus. And I don’t care whether you’re in the depths of sin or you are a hyper religious person, you may need Jesus in some cases more than the horrible sinner because your sin is of a higher level, a sin against charity.”

John Bytheway: 20:43 Publican and a Pharisee, a parable fits that.

Dr. Robert Millet: 20:46 The one who bangs on his chest and says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

John Bytheway: 20:50 And he goes home justified.

Dr. Robert Millet: 20:52 That’s right. The Lord is much more open to people who acknowledge their sin. I was just thinking of a Book of Mormon corollary where Alma’s preaching to his sons. And you come to Shiblon in Chapter 38 of Alma, “Do not say, ‘Oh God, I thank Thee that we are better than our brethren,’ but rather say, ‘Oh Lord, forgive my unworthiness and remember my brethren in mercy.'” And then I love this. “Ye acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times.”

  21:23 And of course, King Benjamin teaches the same thing. The way to retain your remission of sins from day to day is to, one, acknowledge the power, the greatness, the goodness of God and my own nothingness without him. That’s how you maintain and retain a remission of sins.

  21:40 Let’s begin with verse 46 of John 4. “So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, ‘Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.’ The nobleman saith unto him, ‘Sir, come down ere my child die before my child dies.’ Jesus saith unto him, ‘Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.”

John Bytheway: 22:25 It’s intriguing because you would think Jesus would have to be there or touch them or say something to them or inquire about their faith. I don’t know what the distance was but it sounds like a long distance, just another kind of miracle that he could do.

Dr. Robert Millet: 22:42 Many years ago, my wife and I were struggling with a family member that was really having difficulty with life, struggling with life. And it had just sort of worn us down. And we were in a meeting with one of the members of the 12. And he listened and he was very moved and concerned.

  23:04 And I remember he gave us each a blessing. And as he put his hands on Shauna’s head, he gave her a blessing personally. And then he said, “I bless you and through you, I bless your children as though my hands were laid upon their head right now.” That I think is what we’re talking about, isn’t it?

Hank Smith: 23:22 Wow, yeah.

Dr. Robert Millet: 23:23 In other words, the distance doesn’t matter sometimes. And I had a loved one that was having difficulty a long ways away. And I remember the number of times I’ve said to the Lord in prayer, “I have faith that if I could be there, I could give them a blessing and they could be made well.” And I’ve asked the Lord, “Would you bless them as though I were there?” I think there’s something to that that’s significant. Distance is not an issue.

John Bytheway: 23:49 I have a statement, another statement of Elder Bruce R. McConkie. He said, “Though he was in Cana, Jesus gave the command and the nobleman’s son some 20 miles away in Capernaum was healed. By the power of faith, the sick are healed regardless of their geographical location. God is God of the universe. His power is everywhere manifest.”

Dr. Robert Millet: 24:11 Beautifully said.

Hank Smith: 24:13 Bob, this has been fantastic. Let me read to you something out of the manual here I really like. It says, “At a marriage feast in Cana, Christ changed water into wine. An event John called the beginning of miracles. That’s true in more than one sense. While this was the first miracle Jesus performed publicly, it can also symbolize another miraculous beginning, the process of our hearts being transformed as we become ever more like the Savior.

  24:37 The miracle of a lifetime begins with the decision to follow Jesus Christ, to change and live a better life through him. This miracle can be so life-changing that being born again,” so now they bring in Nicodemus, “is one of the best ways to describe it. But rebirth is just the beginning of the path of discipleship. Christ’s words to the Samaritan woman at the well remind us that if we continue on the path, eventually the gospel will become a well of water inside us springing up unto everlasting life.”

  25:07 Love how the manual kind of said that there’s a beginning miracle here of changing water into wine and it can become a born again experience and then eventually a well of water. I thought it was a great way to put these three chapters together. What do you hope our listeners, and feel free to become Grandpa Millet here, what do you hope our listeners get out of these four chapters? As they’re doing their best to live the gospel and to raise righteous children, what do you hope they get out of it?

Dr. Robert Millet: 25:38 Let me read you something first. I brought this for some reason and maybe this is part of it. I’m reading to you from a man named N.T. Wright. N.T. Wright, Nicholas Thomas Wright, Tom Wright. Perhaps one of the most respected and beloved believing scholars of the New Testament in the world. That’s a large thing.

  26:00 Let me just read what he said. He’s talking about rebirth. “I’ve lost my birth certificate. It’s a sort of thing that happens when you move house which we did not long ago. I knew where it was in the old house. It may have been accidentally thrown away, but I suspect it was put into a very, very safe place and the place was so safe that I couldn’t find it.

  26:21 Fortunately, I don’t need it at the moment. I have a passport and other documents. Sooner or later if it doesn’t show up, I shall have to get a replacement which means going back to the town where I was born and paying to have a new copy made from the register there.

  26:36 But, of course, the one thing that a birth certificate isn’t needed for is to prove that a birth took place. Here I am, a human being; obviously I must have been born. The fact that at the moment I can’t officially prove when and where is a minor detail. When Christians discuss the new birth, the second birth or the birth from above, they often forget this. Some people experience their entry into Christian faith as a huge, tumultuous event, with a dramatic build-up, a painful moment of decision and then tidal waves of relief, joy, exhilaration, forgiveness and love.

  27:18 They are then easily tempted and there are movements of thought within Christian culture which make this temptation all the more powerful. Tempted to think that this moment itself is the center of what it means to be Christian, as though what God wanted was simply to give people a single wonderful spiritual experience, to be remembered ever afterwards with a warm glow.

  27:41 But that’s a bit like someone framing their birth certificate, hanging it on the wall, and insisting on showing it to everyone who comes into the house. What matters for most purposes is not that once upon a time you were born, though of course sometimes it matters that you can prove when and where you were born. What matters is that you are alive now, and that your present life, day by day, moment by moment, is showing evidence of health and strength and purpose.

  28:14 Physical birth is often painful and difficult, for the baby as well as for the mother. But you don’t spend your life talking about what a difficult birth you had, unless for some tragic reason it has left you with medical problems. You get on with being the person you are now.

  28:33 So when Jesus talks to Nicodemus about the new birth, and when John highlights this conversation by making it the first of several in-depth discussions Jesus has in this gospel, we shouldn’t suppose that this means that we should spend all our time thinking about the moment of our own spiritual birth. It matters that it happened, of course.

  28:53 Sadly, there are many, inside the church as well as outside, whose present state suggests that one ought to go back to examine whether in fact a real spiritual birth took place at all. But where there are signs of life, it’s more important to feed and nurture it than to spend much time going over and over what happened at the moment of birth.”

  29:17 Don’t you think that’s beautiful?

John Bytheway: 29:18 That’s awesome.

Dr. Robert Millet: 29:19 What he’s addressing himself to is that so often, Christians will say, “I became a Christian when I was born again on January 12, 1969.” And that’s great. The real issue becomes, “Yeah, well, what kind of a person are you now?” I mean, this gets at the whole issue of being born again is a gradual process.

  29:38 Let me give you one personal experience, if I may. As a teenager and just before I left on a mission, I had some relationships with young women, good girls. But more than once, they made a wise decision and left me.

  29:54 In fact, in one case, I found out that while they were going with me, they were going with someone else at the same time. It just sort of bludgeoned my heart. So I went on a mission, had a good mission, came home. Two years after being home, married my wife Shauna. She’s an amazing, amazing person. But I had a problem. I had a jealousy problem. And it dated back to those times when people were dishonest to me or hurt me. And time after time I would say or do things that really hurt her.

  30:29 One day, I remember we were sitting in the car where now the BYU Law School is. It was a parking lot. We were sitting there in the car and she looked at me and she said, “Have I ever done anything, really done anything that would cause you to doubt my loyalty to you?” I said, “No.” And then she said, “Why then do you continue to torture me?” It was that word torture that got my attention. And I knew then and there that something had to change.

  31:07 I began a serious season of prayer and fasting and seeking and hoping. And it took a few months. But I look back now and I can remember when it was no longer there. I think of those moments back then when I would say insulting things to her and it just kills me. I can’t imagine me doing that. I know of the reality of the new birth because I’ve experienced it. As I prayed, I remember saying to the Lord, “I sense that unless this gets solved, I’m going to ruin a beautiful thing.”

  31:44 And it was something that had to be changed. And so, it was thank heavens. And I think being born again, it sort of defies, there’s a sense in which it defies physical birth because in many ways, we’re born again and again and again. Elder McConkie said it. We’re born again a little bit here and a little later we’re born again. We spent our life being born anew in the sense that we come alive to things we feel that we didn’t feel before.

  32:14 If I find myself thinking or doing things I shouldn’t, well, I do everything I can to solve that problem. But there are some things I can’t do to solve that problem and only God can solve. I just think the concept of the new birth, we need to be wise in how we look at it because while there are dramatic experiences again and again and again, especially in the Book of Mormon, of people being born again almost in an instant, that is seldom the case.

  32:46 Those experiences are revealed and put into the scriptures because they are so dramatic. It would be like supposing that every time we pray, we need to have an Enos experience. I’m guessing Enos didn’t have that kind of experience many times in his life. It was sufficient. I think it would be wrong for us to pose and to suppose that we need to be worrying and worrying and worrying.

  33:11 I had a young lady when I was teaching early in my teaching at BYU, a young lady, beautiful young lady in my class, Book of Mormon. She came into my office and said, “Could I speak to you?” “Certainly. Come in.” And she began to cry. And this is … When I say a beautiful girl, I don’t just mean pretty. I mean she glowed. There was just a light that just burned within her. And in class by the way, she was the head of the class.

  33:36 She knew the gospel. She came in and she started crying. I said, “What’s the matter?” She said, “I’m so ashamed.” And I said, “Now, is this something you want to talk to me about or should you talk to your bishop?” She says, “No, it’s not that.” She said, “I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience like Alma had.” At that moment, I thought of the different ways I could answer her. I guess I could’ve said, “Really? Ooh, that is really too bad,” or, “Whoa, you better watch out when you cross the street.” Or what if I’d said this, “Oh, hang on, you’ll have it one day eventually.”

  34:13 It would be wrong for me to do that. Why? And I said to her, “I can see in your countenance, you don’t have to have an Alma experience. You’ve grown bit by bit by bit but you don’t notice it, but other people do.” The whole notion of being born again, we have to bring it down to life and say, “I begin to get better at things. I begin to get better at this and this with the Lord’s help.” In my case, gradually, gradually, gradually, jealousy left me and now seems like something that horrifies me that I ever felt that way. But it took time.

John Bytheway: 34:50 I think I probably got this from you, Brother Millet, but President Ezra Taft Benson said, “For every Paul, for every Enos, for every King Lamoni, there are hundreds and thousands of others for whom the process of repentance is much more subtle, much more imperceptible. Day by day, they move closer to the Lord little realizing they are building a God-like life.”

Dr. Robert Millet: 35:14 That’s a beautiful statement.

John Bytheway: 35:15 “They live quiet lives of goodness, service and commitment. And they are like the Lamanites, who the Lord said were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.” And like you said, Elder McConkie said, “Oh, those are so extreme, they get written up in the scriptures.” But yeah, I think that’s a really important point to make.

Dr. Robert Millet: 35:35 Warning is too strong but it’s a caution for teachers of the gospel that we not so dramatize the experiences, the dramatic experiences in scripture to the point where we have students leaving thinking they’ve got to have something like that or they haven’t really been born again when in fact day by day, they’re getting better and better and better. That’s true with homemakers. That’s true with men of the priesthood. It’s true with children.

John Bytheway: 36:00 The ones in the scriptures are exceptional, not typical. I think Elder Christofferson said something recently in the same way. But that is helpful because you may think I’m supposed to feel like this or else I’m not doing it right.

Dr. Robert Millet: 36:12 You don’t need an Alma experience because you haven’t been where Alma was. Thank heavens.

John Bytheway: 36:16 Yeah, good point.

Hank Smith: 36:18 It is a process. And in many cases, it’s a slow process. Here’s a thought and a question for both of you. Straight out of the Come, Follow Me manual. It says Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught to “the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of his heart, mind and strength.” And then this question, how have you felt the love of God through the gift of his Son? We want all of our listeners to feel that if they can and all the various ways that God manifests himself. How have you felt the love of God through the gift of his Son?

Dr. Robert Millet: 36:54 Well, I start, at least first personally, the reason I can bear testimony of the power of Christ to forgive sins is he’s forgiven my sins. I think that’s where most of us have to begin and say, “I know what it’s like to feel awful. I know what it’s like to feel dark. I know what it’s like to feel like I’m never going to make it. I’ve been there.” But I also know what it’s like for that to be lifted like a film and to feel clean, to feel strengthened, to feel edified again. I testify of the Christ’s atonement because I’ve experienced Christ’s atonement and I continue to again and again and again.

  37:33 Let me give you a cute story. When I was stake president, a young lady came in, beautiful girl, returned missionary, came in for a temple recommend. So I asked all the right questions and she gave all the right answers. I asked this question, “So spiritually speaking, tell me how are you doing?” And she said, President Millet, I am doing so, so good.” I said, “Well, how good are you doing?” She said, “I haven’t had to repent in months.” I said, “Whoa, you are doing good. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody like you.”

  38:06 Now, we talked about it. And clearly, what she’s saying is, “I haven’t done something so horrible that I had to confess it to my bishop.” And she missed the whole point that President Nelson’s now trying to teach us. That is, it’s a daily process. And to help her see that was a real fun experience because when she thought of repentance, she thought of, “Oh, I got to go talk to the bishop.”

  38:27 No. I mean, repentance is improvement. Repentance is refinement. Repentance is growth. I’ve experienced it in a lot of ways. I’ve experienced it, too. I’ve experienced the love of Jesus through the years through people who changed my life. That is, the Lord had blessed them with a light and a power about them and my life was never the same after that.

  38:53 I think back of key people in my life, teachers, Sunday school teachers, priest advisors, mission presidents, wonderful little lady that taught us in Sunday school. It’s one of the most distant memories I have of sitting in Sunday school, her teaching a lesson and bearing her testimony. I’ll never be the same.

  39:12 I think for example when we were in a little branch made up largely of sisters, this is in Louisiana. Not many brothers there. Either their husbands had died or their husbands were inactive or their husbands weren’t members of the church. But it was the testimonies they bore in testimony meeting that moved me to the core. Normally, you think a teenager would hear somebody old talking say, “Oh ugh.” No. There’s something about that.

  39:39 So, the Lord’s blessed me through other people. The Lord has blessed me through the teaching of great teachers. I’ve been moved by his Spirit as I’ve listened to people who are what they teach. There is an integrity about them that touches me.

  39:56 I felt the love of Christ in my life a great deal from watching myself change, watching gradually as things that I valued so highly matter precious little to me now. Things that I hated before that are now an important part of my life. There are a lot of ways the love of Christ can bless us and it isn’t just through forgiveness.

  40:18 The number of times I’ve been physically very, very ill and I had to speak somewhere. I was on a Know Your Religion tour through Alaska. And we came into one big city. And I had a horrible, horrible, horrible headache. I was nauseous. And the people picked me up and I was going to stay at their home. And I said to them, “I’m so sick. I’m so sorry but could I go lie down?” “Sure.” I’m lying down. And after a while, they called me down for dinner and the last thing I wanted was dinner. And the smell in the air made me sicker.

  40:54 But we got to the church finally. And I’m sitting on the stand while the stake president’s conducting the meeting and I’m thinking to myself, and I don’t mean to be gross, I was trying to decide whether I was going to pass out or throw up which would be less offensive to the congregation. And I prayed and prayed. I stood up. The headache was gone immediately. I spoke for an hour and 20 minutes, sat down and the headache came back.

Hank Smith: 41:23 It came back.

Dr. Robert Millet: 41:25 I thought … Have you guys experienced that? That sometimes the Lord blesses you for the benefit of others. It was a funny experience. I just think that President Eyring was the one that taught so beautifully the value of sitting down at the end of each day or frequently and writing the things that the Lord has done for you, writing down the things the Lord has done for you.

John Bytheway: 41:51 Document the hand of God in your life. I’ll never forget that. Yeah.

Dr. Robert Millet: 41:56 That’s it, yeah.

John Bytheway: 41:57 This topic in John 3 of being born again and ye must be born again, and I find that phrase throughout the standard works, “Ye must be born again.” So I ask my class, if we must be born again, we must figure out what that means. And is being baptized the same as being born again? And I get answers all over the place.

  42:19 And I think what we’ve arrived at through statements from the living prophets and things is that baptism is an event, but being born again is a process as you have said.

Dr. Robert Millet: 42:30 Agreed.

John Bytheway: 42:30 It’s kind of like my temple wedding was an event, but having a celestial marriage is an ongoing process mostly of me repenting. I love what you said about you’re born again and again and again. So yeah, baptism, I can tell you the date and the time and show you a certificate if I could find it. But being born again, ongoing. And let’s be patient with ourselves as we keep on going.

  42:56 And maybe we’re born again to principles at a time. Do you know what I’m saying? Something you might have thought so strange and unusual and odd, you look back on it and you say, “I totally missed that. I think I understand it now.” I mean, maybe it isn’t this large grand process as much as it is little pieces at a time of my soul being born again. My understanding of this and my appreciation for that.

  43:22 I think one of the things too that we ought to say and that is this because the brethren have stressed it so much and I’ve seen it so much. Dear, dear friends of mine who were once very strong members of the church, very much involved in the church and its programs who experience what I don’t know what else to call but spiritual amnesia. They leave the church and then they’ve got to find some reason for having left.

  43:47 There has to be a rationale. Whether they realize they’re doing it or not, what they’re doing is saying, “I’m redefining my past. I’m going to say I suppose that what I experienced in the temple didn’t really happen. I suppose that what I felt when I bore testimony as a missionary, that wasn’t real.” And I know that Elder Holland’s talked about this a lot. And that is, once you’ve had that kind of an experience, don’t run away from it. Keep those things in memory. That concept of remember.

  44:16 We had an experience, my youngest son and I went down to Louisiana for a visit many years ago. My custom, because I’m such a sentimental cuss, is to always go back and visit old places where I was which drives my family crazy. They’re bored to death.

  44:31 But I took my son and we drove north of Baton Rouge to a little community where we had once attended a branch that became a ward. And I said to my son, “You see that church house there? It was our church.” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “You know what? You see that white paint on the outside?” He says, “Yeah.” I said, “I put that there.” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah. And I’ll show you where else I painted. I painted there. You see how steep that roof is right there?” “Yeah.” “I helped put those planks up there. And I slid down that roof once and a nail caught me and I still have a scar.”

  45:05 And I went on. And of course he’s thinking, “What in the heck are you doing? What is this about?” And what I was saying to him was there’s something of me in that. That is the memory I have of … I said, “That’s the building where I first bore my testimony. That’s the building where I left and I went on a mission.”

  45:24 What it reminded me of was this from the Book of Mormon in Chapter 18 in Mosiah. “It came to pass that this was all done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer?”

Hank Smith: 45:48 Wow.

Dr. Robert Millet: 45:48 “Yea, and how blessed are they for they shall sing to his praise forever.” There are those moments of memory that are so sacred that we need to hold onto. That when I’m having a moment of doubt or time of doubt, I need to stop and say, “Wait a minute. Let’s think about what I’ve experienced. Let’s think about what I’ve come to know.”

  46:08 Can I really doubt that? Avoiding the spiritual amnesia that is so rampant out there, someone literally having to reinterpret their past, I think that’s sad. And Elder Holland has taught so many times, let’s remember what you experienced. Keep in your head, in your heart what you went through.

John Bytheway: 46:27 I like King Benjamin. He talked about commandments but keep it before their eyes. And Mormon to Moroni saying, I’m sorry. May not the things which I have written grieve thee, things are so bad but may Christ lift thee up and may his sufferings and his death, his showing our body to our fathers, let that, great phrase, “rest in your mind forever.”

Dr. Robert Millet: 46:47 Yeah. There ought to be some things that are in our heart and mind that never leave. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 46:52 What a great day we’ve had with Dr. Robert Millet. He’s our friend Bob to us. Thank you so much for being here. We’ve loved having you.

  47:00 We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And of course, we want to remember our founder, the late Steve Sorensen. We hope all of you will join us next week. We’re continuing in the New Testament on followHIM.

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