Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:15 As together we follow Him.

Hank Smith: 00:20 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my holy co-host, John Bytheway. John, our lessons today are in Haggai and Zechariah. We’re talking about holiness, and guess who I thought of when I think of the most holy person? I think of Jesus, but then I thought of you, John, then I thought of you right after Jesus. You are a very holy guy.

John Bytheway: 00:45 I thought you meant I had holes in my socks. That’s what I thought you meant by holy.

Hank Smith: 00:49 You are very holy. Someone get John some new socks. I’m sure there’s a listener out there who wouldn’t mind sending you some new socks there, John. Hey, like I said, John, we’re in Haggai and Zechariah today, and we needed someone to come and help us understand these books, because I’ll be honest, I can’t tell you that I feel like an expert on these, but I’m hoping to by the end. Who’s with us today?

John Bytheway: 01:13 We’re thrilled to have Dr. Anthony Sweat back with us again. We call him Tony because we know him, and can I say I’m your friend, Tony?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 01:20 Oh, man.

John Bytheway: 01:21 Is that a fair statement?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 01:23 No, that’s an unfair statement. You are a dear friend. You are a dear friend. I’m so grateful to be with you, you great saints. Again, thanks for having me on.

John Bytheway: 01:33 Absolutely. We love having you, and I have students that are like, “Hey, I’m getting ready to go to the temple, what should I do?” And I’m always like, “Oh, go get Dr. Anthony Sweat’s book, the Holy Invitation and The Holy Covenants.” These books have really blessed a lot of my students as they’re preparing for the temple, and my children, too.

  01:48 My kids that have gone on missions. I have had them read this. It’s so helpful just to have not only an expectation, but a doctrinal expectation and backstory of, “What am I doing here as I’m going to the temple?”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 02:01 I appreciate your guys’ work, everything you’re doing, and for this amazing work on this podcast, you and the whole team. What great stuff you guys are doing. Thank you for blessing so many. And collectively, I’m just going to interrupt here for all the listeners and just say thank you for the work you guys are doing here, letting me be a part of it.

John Bytheway: 02:18 I was just lucky to be here. That’s all I say. A lot of our listeners will remember Tony, but let me give you a brief bio, anyway. Anthony Sweat is an assistant professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He’s the author of numerous bestselling books and a regular speaker at various LDS events and conferences.

  02:38 He received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah, and Masters of Education and PhD degrees in Education from Utah State University. He and his wife Cindy, are parents of seven children and reside in Utah. And I think our listeners will remember that. Haven’t we shown some of Tony’s art. He had some Doctrine and Covenants art that he’s done.

Hank Smith: 03:00 Absolutely. We highly recommend anything from Tony’s art, but it was the book that he printed last year called Repicturing the Restoration. We used that a couple of times last year.

John Bytheway: 03:10 Tony, how do you want to approach these two books? I’m guessing most of our listeners have not read much of Haggai and Zechariah. We may have one or two out there who are like, “Are you kidding me? These are my favorites,” but I’m guessing most of us are not familiar. What do you think?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 03:26 Most of us aren’t familiar with them, and one of the reasons I know that is because I simply looked up on the scripture citation index how many times the book of Haggai has been cited in the history of general conference. It’s the third to last. It barely beat out Song of Solomon. It’s got a great track record. It’s only been cited 14 times in both conference, Journal of Discourses, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

  03:56 I’m saying this up front and you’re like, “Oh no, you’re undermining the product.” No, like I told you before we were getting started, I said, “The tagline for this needs to be, ‘Let’s make Haggai the guy.'” This book of Haggai is profound, in particular because it is a temple centric book.

  04:14 It’s got wonderful admonitions and applications related to the temple which, when Hank invited me on here with some of my work I’ve done on the temple, we wanted to make sure we make that connection. So I think that’d be the first thing for all the listeners is make sure you’re viewing it centered around their command to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed.

  04:35 But Haggai, it’s a powerful, powerful text that, in essence, the part that likes to get quoted and the ones that do get quoted often have to do with consider your ways. Consider your ways. It’s one of the rhetorical devices through this book. It’s only two chapters long, and you’ll see that a few times where Haggai’s going to tell the people to consider their ways.

  04:58 We’ll get into it, but there’s great metaphors for all of us to, in essence, reconsider our priorities, where the temple is at in those priorities, and the other one that likes to get quoted is that people have a bag with holes. We were talking about that famous, “You’re putting money in a bag with holes.”

  05:18 In essence, you’re not finding the fulfillment in life that you’re wanting to because you’re omitting the central thing that God wants you to do which is centered on rebuilding His Holy City and in the middle of it, His Holy Temple. That’s big picture perspective why Haggai is a really important book that I hope as we get into it people just love.

  05:39 And then obviously, with Zechariah, who’s a companion to Haggai, maybe that’s one thing up front is that Haggai and Zechariah should be read together. It’s good that they’re paired this week because they’re prophesying at the same time. Haggai is going to start his prophecies in 520 BC. Zechariah will start his in 518, two years later, it says.

  06:00 Hank and John, I think you had Jared Ludlow who did Ezra on your podcast, but Ezra 5:1 brings up both Haggai and Zechariah together. This is Ezra 5:1, “Then the prophets, Haggai, the prophet, and Zechariah, the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem.” So it’s good to think of Haggai and Zechariah as companion prophets. They are Russell M. Nelson and Dallin. H Oaks. They are Lehi and Jeremiah. They are prophesying together at the same time for the same purposes.

Hank Smith: 06:35 Got it. Let’s just do a little bit of history here just to catch everybody up. Lehi left Jerusalem. We had our Babylonian captivity. Babylon kind of ruled the area for 70 years, 70 some odd years. Persia takes over. Cyrus the great says, “You can go back and rebuild your temple.” And then this is where these players like Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah come in. Am I on the right track there?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 07:03 Right track, spot on. And where they’re coming in is they’re going to return. Cyrus tells the house of Judah and Benjamin, “I have roughly 50,000 of these exiles who are in Babylon,” which had been conquered by the Persians, and Cyrus is going to let them come back under divine direction to rebuild the temple.

  07:23 This has been covered in your other books, but just to bring up to speed, they’re going to get back to the Holy Land, from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin mainly, and they’re going to lay the foundation of the temple. They’re going to rebuild the altar so they can start offering sacrifices. And then you get all the machinations with some of the Samaritans and the political issues.

  07:44 And to maybe cut to the chase, the Jews, as they go back, they’re going to lose their zeal. They’re going to lose their focus. They’re going to lose their priorities. They’re going to get frustrated, tired, put their energies elsewhere, and they’re going to stop rebuilding the temple for a number of years, for up to 15, 16 years that they let go past once they’ve returned.

  08:10 And Haggai and Zechariah are going to call them to remember, “What God wants them to do is to build this temple and to quit being distracted and to get their priorities recentered.”

John Bytheway: 08:22 Does this remind us of anything last year in Doctrine and Covenants?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 08:28 Yes, and Hank was teasing me beforehand. He’s like, “Now, Tony, I don’t want you to get on here as a church history and doctrine guy, and within two seconds be like, ‘Now this reminds me of Oliver Cowdery.'”

Hank Smith: 08:38 That’s exactly right.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 08:39 But there’s just no way around it. As I was studying this, I couldn’t help but see the parallels between this and the saints who go to Zion. Here you have the saints in David Zion, in Jerusalem, who don’t build their temple. And we have the saints in the new Jerusalem in Independence, Missouri, who they’re there for a number of years.

  09:02 Joseph Smith lays the cornerstones in 1831, and in 1833 the Lord’s saying, “Are we going to do anything with this?” And when the saints get exiled, the first thing the Lord says in Section 101 is, “You should have built the temple like I told you.” There’s some repeat history. And then without getting to modern day, today, obviously, we’re building temples at a phenomenal rate. But the issue is, and we’ll talk about this, where’s our efforts? Where’s our energies? Where’s our priorities?

Hank Smith: 09:29 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 09:30 Are they centered in the things that won’t fill and won’t last and aren’t bringing true joy? Or are they centered in the things in the temple? Do you see why Haggai matters so much right up front?

Hank Smith: 09:42 Yeah. Sounds like you’re going to ask me to do something uncomfortable today, Tony, which is going to be reconsidering my priorities and where the temple fits into those priorities.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 09:51 I would never do that, Hank, ever.

Hank Smith: 09:54 Oh.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 09:55 Hank, I want you to consider your ways, my brother.

Hank Smith: 09:57 Okay. I’m both nervous and excited that I’m going to feel prompted to get myself back into the temple in better ways.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 10:06 That’s what I hope we all do. And the reason why is because we have a modern day Haggai named Russell M. Nelson who is following this prophetic pattern that you see from ancient and modern prophets to do so, so I actually hope that’s our outcome.

Hank Smith: 10:22 To our listeners we could say, “Don’t stop listening now.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 10:25 No way.

Hank Smith: 10:26 Just because you might feel a little uncomfortable it’s coming, you know what’s coming, but it’s going to be good.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 10:31 Yeah. Haggai is a very hopeful book, and maybe upfront to give the listeners a way to break it down, I like breaking down texts, because it gives us easy ways to understand them. And the way I would break it down is Haggai is going to have four prophecies that he’s going to deliver over four months. Four prophecies in four months. And I’ve given a one word summary of what the four prophecies are.

  10:55 The first one I call accusation. The second prophecy is expectation. The third one is invitation. And the fourth one I would call celebration. I’ll say that again. Accusation, expectation, invitation and celebration. You see prophets do this all the time where they say, “Hey, there’s a problem, there’s a problem.” That’s the accusation.

  11:22 And then they’re going to raise our sights. They’re going to try to get us to do higher and holier ways, to use that phrase that’s being used in the church today. And that’s the expectation. Let’s raise up your expectation. And then there’s the invitation, which is to act and to do and to implement something. And then there’s the promise, the reward, which is the fourth prophecy of the celebration. And Haggai’s going to follow that pattern as well.

Hank Smith: 11:48 I love it. Accusation, expectation, invitation, celebration. I’ve written this down. Four prophecies in four months. It’s a nice way to frame what we’re looking at here in these two chapters.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 11:59 And the great thing is this book of Haggai’s short. This is like the Old Testament version of Enos where you’re like, “Yes.”

Hank Smith: 12:05 Yeah. When you run into this in family scripture study, you’re like, “Woo-hoo.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 12:10 But it’s power packed, as well. Can we jump into it? You guys ready?

Hank Smith: 12:13 Yeah, let’s do it.

John Bytheway: 12:14 Let’s do it.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 12:15 Let’s start in Haggai chapter one. Obviously, you get the context there in verse one, “In the second year of Darius the King,” that’s the king of Persia, “in the sixth month, on the first day of the month,” so this is where we’re getting these timeframes. They’ll use these months and the times and you’ll see from the first prophecy to the second, 24 days will pass, et cetera.

  12:34 He’s mainly, by the way, going to focus in in verse one, it’d be important to notice, as is talked about in the book of Ezra, a lot of his efforts, both Haggai and Zechariah, are going to be marked or highlighted in verse one. He’s going to talk to Zerubbabel, who is the governor or the political leader, as they return, and then Joshua who will be of the lineage of the high priestly line. You have the governor leaders, Zerubbabel, and then Joshua who is our high priest.

  13:04 And a lot of what they’re going to do is to be speaking and to motivate these two great leaders of the Jews to help bring about the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, specifically.

Hank Smith: 13:15 Okay.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 13:18 In verse two, “Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts saying, ‘This people say the time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.'” So here’s where you’re going to get the accusation. He’s like, “You’ve been there for 15, 16 years and you’re still saying it’s not time.” Then you’re going to get the word of the Lord to Haggai, and look at verse four. Here’s the first accusation.

  13:39 “Is it time for you, oh ye, to dwell in your sealed houses?” Or your paneled or your nice, we might say your posh houses.

Hank Smith: 13:48 Your posh.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 13:49 “And this house posh lie waste?” The Lord’s saying, “You’ve gone back and you’re rebuilding the city. That’s awesome. And you’ve built yourself some nice comfortable houses, but My house lie is lying in ruins and you’re not focusing there.” And then notice this is where he’s going to point out some of their frustrations in verse six.

  14:10 “You have sown much and you bring in little. You eat, but you have not enough. You drink but you’re not filled with drink. You clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it in a bag with holes,” which is a great phrase.

Hank Smith: 14:29 It is.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 14:30 And John, you joked, this is kind of like all of us. We make money and we’re like going, “It just goes to pay all these bills.” But I think maybe on a deeper level, the Lord here is trying to say, “You’re trying to find happiness and comfort in things that actually don’t bring true happiness and comfort.”

  14:49 To me, it’s reminiscent of President Nelson’s October talk where he talks about people who, in essence, are exhausted, trying to do all the things and follow the ways of the world and they’re not finding peace and rest that’s promised through the Covenant Gospel and the Lord’s divinity and, in particular, His promises through the temple.

  15:14 That’s how I interpret verse six with this. You’re eating, you’re clothing, you’re drinking, you’re making money, but you’re just still not filled. It could be literal, but I also think it’s a great spiritual metaphor.

Hank Smith: 15:25 Yeah, I think I’m seeing that exact same thing, Tony, is, “Let’s consider your ways and how they’re not working, are they? You’re still missing something, aren’t you? You can tell.” It’s almost like the Lord is saying, “You’re working really hard and you’re not filled, are you?”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 15:41 Yeah. President Nelson called it, in his talk, the hollow substitutes that we sometimes seek after, and President Nelson said, “We seek happiness where we cannot find it.” That just seems to be what’s happening. It’s, again, these people of the past, they live in different times and they have different contexts, but human nature doesn’t seem to change across dispensations.

  16:09 The things that vex human nature in the past are the same ones that vex us today, and therefore, the solutions that they find are the solutions we’ll find, as well. They’re going to find great solutions in listening to Haggai and following him.

Hank Smith: 16:23 I can see the application already coming. It’s so plain to see.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 16:29 Then jump to verse 10 to 11. Haggai here is going to make a reference. He’s going to call about the, “You want dew, but the Earth has stayed from our fruit. There’s drought upon the land, upon the mountains on the corn, the new wine, the oil.” He, in essence, is going to make connections here to Deuteronomy 28, to those curses.

  16:51 If you’re a covenant people but you’re not living the covenant, these are some of the curses. There’s those blessings and curses in the book of Deuteronomy, and as I read it and studied it, there seems to be a connection there, that he’s hearkening back to what they would’ve seen in the five books of Moses with Deuteronomy, in particular.

Hank Smith: 17:10 Pointing out something that they’re going, “Oh yeah, we are under this condemnation.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 17:14 Exactly. It might be a little bit like President Benson saying, “Hey, let me recall what the Lord said in Section 84 in the Doctrine & Covenants that we need to remember the Book of Mormon.” And here he’s maybe saying, “Hey, remember when Moses said that if we don’t live up as a covenant people of God, we’ll suffer these consequences?” And he seems to be pointing those out.

  17:35 The great thing is, unlike a lot of the Old Testament where their reaction is, “Let’s stone the prophets and drive them out,” the people here humbly respond. They’re a great example to us in verse 12. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, you get the two great leaders there. “With all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord.

  18:11 With this righteous response, the Lord says in verse 13, He says, “‘Remember, I am with you,’ saith the Lord.” And in verse 14, He stirs up the spirit of Zerubbabel, and also of Joshua the high priest, and at the end of verse 14, “And they came and did work in the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God.” They get right after it within a matter of few weeks.

  18:35 Again, I can’t help but make the church history connection here of when the Lord rebukes the saints in Kirtland. If you remember in Section 88, the Lord tells them to build a house of God in Kirtland, Ohio, and six months later, they still haven’t done anything, and the Lord rebukes them like, “Why haven’t you built My house?” There’s this theme.

  18:56 Again and their response here is a Hyrum Smith response. If you remember Hyrum right after that revelation comes, he goes and starts chopping down weeds. He’s like, “I’m going to make it happen.” And in a lot of ways, Zerubbabel and Joshua, they do the exact same thing, as do all the remnant of the people.

John Bytheway: 19:13 Are we still on the first prophecy accusation?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 19:16 Yeah. This would still be that accusation. Yeah, I should probably say Haggai 1 is all still this first prophecy.

John Bytheway: 19:23 Okay.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 19:24 Chapter two is going to break down the other three prophecies.

Hank Smith: 19:27 I really like that Hyrum Smith story.

John Bytheway: 19:29 Yeah, there was that delay, and it sounds like, “Look, Cyrus the Great let you go back to rebuild the temple and you stalled.” I love how it says, verse four, what did you call it? Your posh houses.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 19:44 I was going to call it your Hank Smith houses, but I didn’t want to embarrass him on this in front of everybody.

John Bytheway: 19:49 Some people get to live in Mapleton. Not all of us do.

Hank Smith: 19:55 For the record, Tony lives a quarter mile away from me.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 20:02 There’s some truth there, though. Back to, “We need to consider our ways,” if I am spending all my time and caring for my own home and building it up and making it nice, which there’s nothing wrong with that, but if I’m omitting caring about the Lord’s home, spending my time there, I find wonderful things to decorate my home, can I make sure I’m finding names to take to the Lord’s home? If we’re not doing those things, the Lord might be saying to you and I, maybe we should reconsider our ways a little bit.

Hank Smith: 20:34 The application is coming so quickly, I don’t want to pass it by. I think you’re exactly right, Tony. If you’re going to make the bridge to 2022, you’d say, “We need to reconsider our priorities.” Where does the temple fit in? Are we, in the same way in verse six, doing a lot of work but not really being filled? Is there, maybe not a curse like you said in verse 11, but a feeling of something’s missing in my life? Then let’s go to verse eight. Go up to the mountain, then.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 21:04 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 21:04 Go up to the mountain and let’s test the Lord’s promises, here. As you were talking about how the people responded, I thought of all the other prophets in the Old Testament must be thinking, “Oh, lucky.” Because often it’s, “Prophets, prophesy not. Get out of here. We don’t want to hear from you.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 21:19 I know.

John Bytheway: 21:22 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 21:22 We don’t want to hear this.

Hank Smith: 21:23 This response is so humble and good. They get to work.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 21:26 Before we go to the second prophecy, make sure in verse five and seven of chapter one, kind of with what we’re talking about, where the Lord uses that rhetorical question or that rhetorical phrase, anyway. “Consider your ways,” He says in verse five, and again in verse seven, “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, ‘Consider your ways.'” And I don’t think we should see that negatively. The concept of repentance is constant reevaluation and constant realignment.

  21:53 I actually like to use that word when I speak in particular to younger people, that repentance is realignment. If this is where God wants us to be and this is us and we’re trying to be in line with Him, and sometimes we drift, and it’s natural. We all do that. I know I do often. And then our job is to consider our ways and consider our ways compared to the Lord’s ways and reevaluate and realign. That’s really what repentance is at its heart, is a simple realignment.

  22:22 I actually think that invitation to consider our ways is hopeful and it’s a loving thing. It’s not a condemnation. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that these wonderful Israelites, these Jews, they see it as a great thing for them to do, not a condemnation. They respond so well to it.

John Bytheway: 22:39 I think that our S and I brothers and sisters read this every year at the chartered course of the Church in Education, the great constitution of seminaries and institutes.

Hank Smith: 22:49 Right. J. Ruben Clark.

John Bytheway: 22:50 Yeah, J. Ruben Clark. And I love that metaphor at the beginning where the mariner, when they’ve been at sea, the fog has come in, the clouds, they haven’t been able to get their bearings, and they’ll take their first opportunity when the sky is clear to see, “Okay, where are the stars? Where are we? Who are we? What’s our course?”

  23:08 And that talk, he began it like that, which was a great way to say, “Okay, now wait, who are we? Where are we going? What are we supposed to do?” And get, what’s the phrase you used Tony? Realigned. “Let’s realign what we’re doing, reset our course, remember what’s most important, what’s less important.” And I like that metaphor of somebody at sea.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 23:28 Of a mariner at sea.

John Bytheway: 23:30 That looks at the stars and says, “Okay, let’s get this back on track.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 23:33 Yeah, “Let’s realign, let’s reevaluate, let’s reprioritize, let’s repent.” And this is something we all need to do. Without being overly personal, my wife and I just recently… In every phase of life you’re in, we’ve sat down and just said, “Hey, we’re running a little to and fro in certain places and we’re a little overburdened. What really are our goals that we’re seeking? What’s our motives? Let’s examine our hearts. Let’s take things to the Lord. Let’s find where we have maybe inadvertently or unconsciously and maybe sometimes consciously drifted and let’s recenter, reprioritize, realign.” And we all need to be doing this. There’s great promise and hope in doing so.

John Bytheway: 24:17 And we need to react the way these people did, too. When a prophet tells us to do that, don’t go on a guilt trip, but just say, “Yeah, I got to look at this and I’m going to realign and fix this.”

Hank Smith: 24:28 I like what you said there, both of you. We can keep this positive. We like to keep followHIM as a shame free zone. We don’t feel shame. We can look forward. The Atonement is a gift. It is not a guilt trip. As I have read chapter one, I’ve thought to myself, “You’re right. I am not in the temple enough. I’m truly not in the temple enough. I need to be in there more often.” Here I am considering my ways and saying, “Yep, it’s time for me to act like Zerubbabel and get to the mountain.”

John Bytheway: 24:57 The new emphasis with the new children and youth program is that one of the tokens of belonging they give to every one of the youth is a Temple recommend holder, and I was really touched by something that President Steve Lund said about that, because somebody said, “Wait, so the holder is like a new scouting award or something?” And he said, “Oh no, the recommend holder isn’t the award. A recommend in the holder, that’s what we’re going for.”

  25:24 And to imagine how unique any young person is who has a recommend, and then this chapter’s, “And uses it,” this chapter’s reminding, “Have a recommend, but then go use it.” Imagine young people going more often to the temple and the power and strength they’ll get from that moving forward. Yeah, get the recommend holder, get the recommend in the holder, and then get you and the recommend and the recommend in the holder to the temple.

Hank Smith: 25:50 Tony, you said something about them losing their zeal. They get back, they built a little bit, they built the altar, they put back the foundation, but then they lost their zeal a little bit. I just wondered in my head if I lost my zeal after we had this pandemic where the temples were closed, and such a longing to be in the temple. Oh, wanted to be back in the temple, wanted to be back in the temple. Then the temple’s reopened and we flooded the temple. And then I wonder if we lost a little bit of that zeal.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 26:16 Yeah. And that’s a great question for each of us to ask personally. And I love that verse where it says, “Who can say too much of the Lord? Can we ever glory enough in His name?” It makes me wonder the same with the temple.

Hank Smith: 26:31 Yeah, that’s Ammon in the book of Alma.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 26:34 And it makes me think of the same with the temple. Who can say enough of the Lord’s House? Who can glory too much, or who can go too much? I’m not sure it’s possible to say, “Yeah, I worship the Lord too much in His temple.” I’m not sure that’s been something that’s ever led very many people into forbidden or bad paths.

John Bytheway: 26:56 One of the things that gave me a lot of peace during the pandemic was to have general conferences that were more of a not open to the public type of thing, but to have new temples announced during the pandemic let us know that a prophet with the gift of seership was saying, “We’re going to get through this. In fact. We’re going to build temples, we’re going to need more.”

  27:18 And I don’t know about you guys, but I just thought, “Look at that. We’re in a pandemic.”

Hank Smith: 27:22 Still going.

John Bytheway: 27:23 We’re wondering what’s going to happen, and here we are announcing new temples. This is going to be temporary and we’re going to move forward and we’re going to keep doing the work of the Lord in the temples.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 27:33 Very good.

Hank Smith: 27:34 I wrote off to the side of my chapter one, “Watch out for hollow substitutes.” I think that’s another application we cannot miss. If we’re not careful, we can fill our lives with hollow substitutes for the Lord’s House.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 27:47 Yeah, we can. And trying to find happiness where it just isn’t found. It doesn’t satisfy. We’re constantly left unsatisfied. There’s never enough things, there’s never enough money, there’s never enough pleasure, there’s never enough entertainment, there’s never enough fun. It’s an insatiable part of our appetite that, once we figure that out, that’s when we start to say, “Oh, I understand why Jesus says, ‘I’m going to give you a type of peace you can’t get anywhere else.'”

Hank Smith: 28:17 John, I’m sure you thought of, is it Jacob? Why do you labor for that which cannot satisfy? 2 Nephi 9

John Bytheway: 28:24 Yeah, he was giving his own Consider your ways type, “How’s this working for you? You’re not getting there.”

Hank Smith: 28:30 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 28:31 “And have you noticed that you’re not getting there?” And I think all of us sometimes can sit down and say, “Okay, when have I felt the most at peace? When have I felt the most like I was on a good path? And consider our ways, that way, how do I get back to that?”

  28:45 But when Alma, in Alma five, that tremendous chapter when he says, “There was a time when you were so thrilled about the gospel, it made you want to sing. Remember when you felt to sing the song of redeeming love? Can you feel so now?” It’s such a great chapter because he’s talking to members of the church, but they’ve lost their zeal, as you put it, Hank. “Do you feel that way now? And if not, why not?” Alma five is just an awesome kind of a conference talk, I think, that asks that same question.

Hank Smith: 29:19 Can I read just a paragraph from the manual that adds even another interesting insight to this? It says, “But it wasn’t just the Holy Temple that needed rebuilding. In many ways, people were spiritually in ruins, and rebuilding a holy people takes more than hewing stones and aligning them to build a temple wall. Today, temples bear the inscription ‘Holiness to the Lord,’ and those words apply not just to a building, but to a way of life.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 29:46 That’s funny. I marked that exact same thing out of the manual, Hank. I thought that was a great part of the introduction to it.

John Bytheway: 29:53 Oh, I want to say I think it was Sister Elaine Dalton, maybe, said that more that we go to the temple, the more the temple is in us. If you’re going to build this physical temple, but then you’re going to build your own spirit, the temple becomes part of you and part of your life.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 30:08 This might be a good time to move onto the second one of expectation, because the second prophecy that Haggai is going to touch on moving into Haggai 2, we build up all these hopes like this. We reget our zeal, we reprioritize, we refocus, and then we kind of get let down a little, or we stumble or we trip. It’s kind of like where we say, “I’m going to get back in shape physically,” and then six weeks later we’re like, “I’m not quite doing so hot.”

Hank Smith: 30:35 This isn’t working as fast as I’d hoped.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 30:37 And in a way, that’s kind of what happens in Haggai 2, with the second prophecy. The second prophecy, which I want to call expectation, is Haggai 2, and it’s going to go from verse one through verse 9 or 10. Basically, what’s happening here is the people have gotten to work within a month. The Lord is helping them and encouraging them, but their work isn’t quite there yet.

  31:03 Look at verse three. Haggai says, “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” Translation: “Good effort, good start. But this is nothing compared to what Solomon’s temple looked like. We’ve got to do this better.”

  31:28 And the people are sad, too. And some of the commentaries that I read on this and some of the scholars of Haggai say there were likely exiled Jews who had returned who remembered Solomon’s first temple, and now they’re coming back 70ish years later and they’re going, “Oh, man. Oh, this isn’t cutting it. This pales in comparison.”

  31:48 Now, he’s going to try to raise their sights, like, “No, we need to make this as grand or grander, better than Solomon’s temple even was.” And if you look at verse four, “‘Yet now be strong, oh Zerubbabel,’ saith the Lord, ‘and be strong, oh Joshua the high priest.'” And look at the end of verse four, “‘For I am with you,’ saith the Lord of Hosts.”

  32:11 Verse five, “According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt so my spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye not.” What does that have echoes of right there? Be strong. Don’t fear. I am with you.

Hank Smith: 32:24 And his name’s Joshua, too.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 32:26 Right? And his name’s Joshua.

Hank Smith: 32:27 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 32:27 You just can’t help but make a connection here to Joshua 1, where the Lord is helping Joshua, telling him to be strong, to have courage, that I am with you, just like how the Lord is with those who came out of Egypt into the promised land, you’re now coming out of exile back into the promised land, and the Lord’s going to be with you to help you. Isn’t that a great connection there?

Hank Smith: 32:50 A play off of his name there is wonderful. And Joshua, the original Joshua, he faced quite a daunting prospect, as well.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 32:58 Yep. And then in verse six, the Lord gives this great phrase, “‘Yet once it is a little while and I will shake the Heavens and the Earth and the sea and the dry land. I’ll shake all the nations and the desire of all the nations shall come and I’ll fill this house with glory,’ saith the Lord of Hosts, ‘The silver is Mine, the gold is Mine,’ saith the Lord of Hosts. ‘The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former,’ saith the Lord of Hosts. ‘And in this place will I give peace,’ saith the Lord of Hosts.”

  33:40 There’s the end of the second, kind of raising the sights, raising the expectations, and some just great one-liners there in the second prophecy, this idea of, “I’ll shake the Heavens or the Earth.” That’s one of the phrases that does get cited by early church leaders, of how the Lord will move Heaven and Earth or cause things to happen to fulfill His promises.

  34:05 And you get verses like Doctrine & Covenants 21:6 and Doctrine & Covenants 35:24. Those might be some good cross references where the Lord says things like, “I will cause the heavens to shake for your good.” That’s a play off Haggai’s words, there. And then you get in verse eight, where the Lord is reminding them and us, everything is His. He is the giver. Everything that we have is His, so not only can He give us everything that He has to make it possible, but also everything that we have, we’re stewards and we should give to Him.

  34:40 There might be a dual reminder here in verse eight that, “The silver and the gold is Mine. Like the Lord’s saying, “Hey, if you want to make this better, maybe there might be some applications to consecration here. I give of the great things that I’ve given you to the furthering of My cause. Dedicate those means, those talents, those time to furthering the work.”

Hank Smith: 35:02 And actual treasure, right?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 35:05 And actual treasures that you have.

Hank Smith: 35:07 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 35:07 It doesn’t have it in the footnotes, but I’d cross reference that over to Section 104, where the Lord in that section of the Doctrine & Covenants repeatedly reminds the saints, “All things are mine. They are mine, they are mine, they are mine.” I think He says it four times in that section. There’s just some good application there to, obviously, principles of consecration, principles of tithes and offerings, so that the Lord can fill His house with glory and that He can create places of peace for us through the Holy Temple.

Hank Smith: 35:39 All right, that promise of verse nine is fantastic. “The latter house will be greater than the former, and I can give you what you’re missing. I can give peace,” which you go back to verse six is what they were missing. Chapter one verse six. “You eat and you have not enough. You drink, you’re not filled. I can give you what will fill you.”

John Bytheway: 35:59 “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former,” and we go back to verse three. “Well, some of you saw the first one. Are you seeing it now?” So it’s like, “Listen, if you’ll just do what you’re supposed to do, I’ll make it even better than the average thing you’re envisioning in verse three or you’re building in verse three. I’ll make it better.” Tony, it might be helpful to tell our listeners. The first temple we call Solomon’s temple.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 36:24 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 36:24 That temple gets destroyed. Cyrus sends them back. They’re rebuilding Solomon’s temple. What was the name of the temple when Jesus came?

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 36:34 It’ll end up being known as Herod’s temple, but Herod, in essence, is going to improve, expand the temple mount in large and build up this temple that Zerubbabel and Joshua will oversee being rebuilt.

Hank Smith: 36:48 This is the beginning of the second temple period, right?

John Bytheway: 36:51 Right. I think that might be helpful. The last time I was in Jerusalem, I saw in one of the shops there, you can buy little models of the second temple. And a funny sign on it said, “Buy the second temple model now before the third temple is built and prices go up.”

Hank Smith: 37:08 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 37:10 We’re anticipating someday a third temple, I suppose.

Hank Smith: 37:13 This temple is actually destroyed in 70 AD, so it’ll be in 500 years from this time.

John Bytheway: 37:20 Yeah, that Jesus prophesied, “There won’t be one stone upon another.” That’s way in the future, but that’s the second temple.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 37:27 But that would be good. Just, kind of like you said, Solomon builds the first. Destroyed. This is the one that will be rebuilt by Zerubbabel and Joshua, and then Herod will enlarge and expand. But it’s the second temple period. As Hank said, it’s the beginning of the second temple period. But we know it as Herod’s temple, is what they’ll often call it in Jesus’ time.

Hank Smith: 37:45 Man, that promise in verse nine can be applied to your future can be greater than your past.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 37:54 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 37:55 “And I can give you peace. If you’ll realign yourself,” as we’ve been talking, “realign yourself with me, I can give you a better future than you’ve had in the past. And maybe the past was great, but I can give you something better.” I love that promise of “I can give you something better. Trust me.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 38:09 I do, too.

John Bytheway: 38:10 That line, “In this place, will I give peace,” I’m sure you and many of our listeners will agree, where’s the most peaceful place you’ve ever been in your life? I know what I would say, and I know what you guys would say. And that’s a place where I get more clarity, more direction. It’s like the best place to consider your ways that I can think of, is to be there and to feel so much of the world just outside and away. I love that phrase, “In this place, will I give peace.” And I have found that promise answered again and again for me.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 38:48 Again, the manual has a wonderful connection with what you guys are bringing up in verse nine. With “The glory of this latter house will be greater than the former,” the manual has a good connection with the Provo City Center Temple. Watch that little video clip they have on there. Look at that. Many of your listeners are familiar with the story of that building. Some aren’t.

  39:06 It was a tabernacle. It wasn’t a temple originally, it was a tabernacle, an old pioneer tabernacle that accidentally, through no malicious intent on anyone’s part, accidentally burnt down. And President Monson announced that they were going to rebuild it, and not just rebuild it as a tabernacle, but a temple. And there’s just wonderful metaphor. And it is. The glory of that house now is greater than the former. And what a great metaphor for, I think it was Linda Burton who gave a great talk where she said, “Personally we go through similar things where we suffer loss, often through no fault of our own. And through the Lord’s divine promises, He can redeem, He can rectify, He can restore, He can reclaim, He can recompense in ways that we can’t even fathom.”

  39:56 With some of the injustices or unfairnesses or losses that we experience in mortality, the Lord is a restorer, that’s one of His central titles. He’s a restorer. He’s a restorer of lost blessings, of lost hope, through this fallen world, and He can make the future greater than the past.

John Bytheway: 40:17 Hank, don’t you give a talk about that? I’ve heard you give a talk about it.

Hank Smith: 40:22 Yep. I did a talk on CD. Do you remember CDs, John? I don’t know if you remember CDs. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 40:27 CDs. Certificate of a deposit. No, that’s not it.

Hank Smith: 40:30 Yeah, these old CDs that you used to put in your car and you could trap your kids in the car and make them listen to your talks, which I have done with both of you, by the way. I’ve trapped my kids in the car and had them listen to your talk. But I did one. I called it Trial, Blessing, or Both. And I used that story of the Provo Tabernacle. And this is one of those points where you can use Isaiah literally. Remember Isaiah said, “The Lord can give you beauty for ashes.”

John Bytheway: 40:54 I was just going to say that. Literally, beauty for ashes.

Hank Smith: 40:57 With that temple.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 40:58 Yeah, beauty for ashes.

John Bytheway: 41:00 And make it better than it was before. I was yesterday teaching Book of Mormon, and we were talking about the loss of the stolen 116 page manuscript.

Hank Smith: 41:10 Right. Yep.

John Bytheway: 41:12 And the Lord said, “It’s okay, I’ve got this second record and it will throw greater views. And it’s something that you thought was a loss, it came back, it made it even better in the end.” Kind of one of the things the Lord does, like you said. He’s such a restorer, He can make things better than they were.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 41:27 Yeah. That’s one of my titles. Obviously, there’s so many names of Jesus, but one of my favorite titles is a restorer. Jesus is a restorer. Well, should we go on to the third prophecy?

Hank Smith: 41:39 Yes. Let’s do it.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 41:41 Right around verse 10 starts the third one, “In the fourth and 20th day of the ninth month in the second,” so you can see they started in the sixth month. Now it’s the ninth month. We’re three months later. “Came the word of the Lord to Haggai the prophet.” The third one is verses 10 to 19. If I could summarize this one, this is going to be the real invitation, kind of what we were just saying. It’s not just about rebuilding a temple, but it’s about rebuilding our lives.

  42:04 And this is going to be a call for greater holiness. And in this, Haggai is going to appeal to the priests who obviously know the book of Leviticus. And he’s going to give them some prompts in verse 12. “If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt, doth touch bread or potage or wine or oil or any meat, shall it be holy?” And the priest answered and said “No.”

  42:28 They’re going to some Levitical laws here of what makes things clean and unclean. They’re like, “Just like how if you have this meat that if it touches something unclean, now the meat’s unclean,” then he is going to say in 13, “If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any part of these, shall it be unclean?” And the priest answered and said, “Well, it shall be unclean.”

  42:49 And now he is going to make the connection to them. Then answered Haggai in verse 14 and said, “‘So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord. ‘And so is every work of their hands. And that which they offer there is unclean.’ And now I pray you consider from this day and upward, from before a stone is laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord.”

  43:15 And then he is going to go back to some of their sufferings they had in verse 17, and then 18 tells them to, “Consider again from this day upward, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn? Yea. As yet the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree has not brought forth fruit. From this day will I bless you.”

  43:41 Now, if we’re missing there, in essence what he just said is, just like how in the book of Leviticus, if something is clean touches something that’s unclean, that is now unclean, if you’re unclean as you’re building this temple, you’re going to make the temple unclean. You need to cleanse your heart, purify your life, live as holy people as you’re working on this temple and coming to this temple.

  44:09 And remember that what brought the problems in the past was that you weren’t being holy, so if you want the blessings of the Lord, not only to make His house holy, but to make your life holy, and then you’ll find the Lord pouring out His blessings. That seems to be the crux of the third prophecy of Haggai, which is why I call it invitation.

Hank Smith: 44:29 And Tony, I’m going to harken back to church history for you, wasn’t it, if I remember correctly, last year, it was the building of the temple that created a holiness. It was almost as if the Lord said, “I want you to take the three years to build this Kirtland Temple,” and by the time the three years was over, the building was ready, but the people were also ready through the building.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 44:52 And then the Lord pours out that Pentecostal endowment on them. But it almost was the process of building it. And at the same time, in the Doctrine & Covenants in section 88, the Lord repeatedly, he gives them the word sanctify. Sanctify. Sanctify yourselves, become more pure and holy. And you see a similar thing, here. Rebuild the temple. Don’t just build the building. Build it in your lives. Be holy, because that’s where the blessings will really come.

Hank Smith: 45:22 They had gotten started on the building, and now the Lord’s like, “Let’s work on you.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 45:25 Yeah, exactly. Line upon line.

Hank Smith: 45:28 I like that.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 45:29 That was the third one. That’s the invitation. That kind of leads to this fourth one, which is the shortest prophecy, verse 20 to 23, which is the celebration, or in other words, it’s coming at the same time as the third one, but it’s going to be a celebration of what is going to happen. And it’s a promise that the Lord will really reestablish a Davidic line and that a king will come, and Zerubbabel is going to be a type or he’s going to be a shadow of the future king of Israel.

  46:03 You’re seeing this, like, “Let me accuse where you’re wrong. Let me raise your sights. Let me give you an invitation to holiness. And I want you to prepare yourself to receive the Lord. We need to prepare a people to receive Jesus.” And in these verses, you see in verse 20, the word of the Lord comes to Haggai. 21, He wants to speak to Zerubbabel, the governor. Again, “I’ll shake the Heavens and the Earth.”

  46:28 22, “I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I’ll destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen.” And he gives these promise that the Lord eventually is going to conquer. He’s going to come and set up His kingdom. And then in verse 23, there’s some powerful application there. “‘In that day,’ saith the Lord of Hosts, ‘will I take thee, oh Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel,’ saith the Lord, ‘and will make thee as a signet.'”

  46:57 And a signet, if you look at that footnote that’s in your references, “‘I’ll make you as one having authority, for I have chosen thee,’ saith the Lord of Hosts.” And there’s two ways to look at this. You could look at Zerubbabel as a type and a shadow of the future king and kingdom through Jesus, which I think is how a lot of scholars might interpret it.

  47:20 But as Latter-day Saints, I look at this as a type for us also, where the Lord is saying, “I need to prepare a people who are ready to receive the Lord. You are a chosen and a royal priesthood as going back all the way to Moses. You’re to be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests and priestesses.” Moses calls it a kingdom of priests. Joseph Smith, when they’re building the temple, says that the Lord intends to make you a kingdom of priests.

  47:54 People who have authority, who have been washed and anointed and consecrated and set apart from the ways of the world, who have entered into a holy order of the Son of God, an order of people or a class of people who have given their lives to God, to dedicate themselves to His will. And that these are the people the Lord needs to be prepared to receive Him.

  48:21 You’re just seeing that direct application here, of them getting ready to receive Jesus. And now we have prophets today telling us, “Sanctify yourselves. Center in on the temple. Become a covenant people. Cleave to your covenants. Be ready to receive the Lord.” There’s a wonderful pattern being reemerged in our day. I just think I would be remiss if we didn’t see what Haggai has promised the people, that they’ll have peace, that they’ll have rest, that they’ll have power. And it’s all centered on the temple.

Hank Smith: 48:54 That they’ll become holy.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 48:57 They’ll become holy. And you guys have heard me say this before, but I love Abraham chapter one, verse two, when Abraham says that he desired the blessings of the fathers, and the blessings of the fathers, as has been interpreted by church officers and authorities, these are the covenant blessings of exaltation that are only found in the temple.

  49:22 And Abraham says, “I became a rightful heir, a high priest, somebody chosen, part of a royal covenant people.” And then I love what Abraham says. Abraham says that he wanted greater happiness, greater peace, greater rest, greater knowledge, and greater strength. Abraham 1:2 is so awesome with the temple, because I don’t doubt that we can find some measure of peace, some measure of happiness or some measure of rest, but it ultimately won’t satisfy.

  50:03 The invitation here is, Do you want greater peace? Do you want greater rest? Do you want greater power? Greater power to detect the deceptions of the adversary? Overcome the trials and tribulations of mortality? Greater knowledge, greater ability to hear the voice of God? Greater connection with the ministering of angels? Greater ability to understand the Lord’s ways?” That’s what the temple’s offering us. That’s what endowment is.

  50:33 Endowment, as I’ve said before, is not a ceremony. Endowment is a power. The ceremony or the presentation of the endowment that we participate in is an authorized ritual to open up and facilitate the power. The power of godliness is found in these ordinances, but we have to live our lives in such a way by adhering to these covenants and concepts in the temple that, line upon line and bit by bit, they bring that into our life, this greater peace, this greater happiness, this greater knowledge, this greater rest, this greater connection to God.

  51:17 And we would be remiss if we didn’t re, back to realign, reprioritize ourselves on those promises that are made through the Holy Temple and the endowment.

Hank Smith: 51:28 I think that’s worth repeating there, Tony, that you said there’s a difference between the endowment, the power that we get, and the presentation of the endowment.

John Bytheway: 51:36 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 51:37 This comes from your amazing BYU devotional. I hope everyone after listening to this episode of followHIM, you can go to YouTube or you can go to…

John Bytheway: 51:46 Speeches.byu.edu.

Hank Smith: 51:48 Yeah. And you can look up Tony’s devotional called “We Need an Endowment.” He says very similar things here, that the endowment isn’t something you take out the first time you go to the temple. It’s a power that comes into your life gradually as you take part.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 52:04 Yes. Yeah. And that’s a fundamental shift because, back to expectations and invitations that we’re talking about with Haggai here, somebody might have the expectation that, “Oh, I go to the temple and I’m endowed.” And they might walk out three hours later and they might not feel substantially different after going through the ceremony for the first time.

  52:26 But the invitation is to repeatedly return to the temple, to repeatedly understand the covenants and the concepts that are symbolically presented and packaged, almost like a metaphor for us, a giant parable for us to decode, and then for us to implement those covenants and concepts in our life. That is when the power of endowment, the spiritual power, bit by bit builds within us, and we start to gain the power to overcome this world.

  53:05 You mentioned my devotional, We Need an Endowment. I got that line from when Joseph Smith was talking to the Quorum of the 12, and he said, “You need an endowment in order that you may be prepared and able to overcome all things.” And that is the same invitation to you and I, that the power of endowment enables us, through the grace of Jesus Christ, through our covenant connection to Him, to overcome this world.

  53:37 And that’s why the power of endowment is different than the presentation. We have to receive endowment in the same way that we receive the Holy Ghost. Hands are laid on your head after you’re baptized, and you’re given a divine injunction to go receive the Holy Ghost. It’s a process by the way we live, and in the same way we participate in the ceremony of the endowment, and that opens the pathway for us to receive the fullness of the Holy Ghost.

  54:07 That’s what Joseph calls it or prays for in Section 109 when he dedicates the Kirtland Temple. As we live and implement those, we will get greater power to conquer the challenges we’re facing.

Hank Smith: 54:19 Tony, this might seem a little bit odd, but I’m actually going to quote you and your devotional while you’re sitting right here. You said, “Power and capacity don’t come in a single class. We wish they would, but they simply can’t. We must consistently put in the work. Becoming endowed with divine power is a little bit like going through a university program or degree. Just because we’ve been accepted doesn’t make us educated. The education comes slowly, even painfully,” especially when everything is due at the same time around finals, right?

  54:47 “Rarely does learning come dramatically or all at once. Most of it comes almost imperceptibly over time.” This sentence here is really the crutch of what we’re saying about going back to the temple over and over. “The tuition of education, especially a temple education, is paid by persistence.”

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 55:08 That’s the line you probably wrote, Hank.

Hank Smith: 55:10 Yeah, that was the one I helped you with.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 55:12 That’s right. Hank was good enough to review and help me with that script, so if that’s a good line, you probably wrote it, my friend.

Hank Smith: 55:18 Is that what we’re getting at there? The endowment comes from returning, the power comes from returning over and over.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 55:26 Yeah. Returning and living, implementing those. As you and I live, our covenants power will come into our life.

Hank Smith: 55:35 It’s not necessarily what happens in the temple, it’s also what happens outside the temple in my life.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 55:40 Most definitely.

John Bytheway: 55:41 You’re both reminding me of that idea of receiving the Holy Ghost of being a process. Not as much an event, but an ongoing. The more I ponder this verse, the more it’s climbing the charts in my top 10. Section 50 verse 20, “That which is of God is light and he that receiveth light and continueth in God.” I love those three words. Just continue in God. “Receiveth more light, and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”

  56:12 It’s that process of continuing in the endowment that continues. Thank you for making that distinction. The presentation of the endowment is not the endowment. I wrote down, “The endowment is the receiving power over time in that process.” Great stuff.

Dr. Anthony Sweat: 56:30 And President Nelson, again, man, we are blessed with a prophet of prophets. In his talk, The Temple is our Spiritual Foundation, he said this, back to reconsidering our ways and laying foundations, “It is now time that we each implement extraordinary measures, perhaps measures we have never taken before, to strengthen our personal spiritual foundation. The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith and our spiritual fortitude.”

  57:00 And then this is him teaching this concept. “As we keep our covenants, He endows us with His healing, strengthening power. And oh, how we will need that power in the days ahead.”

John Bytheway: 57:15 Wow. Please join us for part two of this podcast.