Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello, welcome to followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the incredible John, by the way. We have a podcast called followHIM. And every week we have decided to do a small little clip called followHIM Favorites, where we pick out our favorite part of this week’s lesson. And John, we’re looking at a Doctrine and Covenants sections 49 and 50. What is your followHIM favorite for this lesson?

John Bytheway: 00:26 Oh, it’s very hard to pick Hank. There’s some great stuff in both of these. I’m looking at section 50, verse 21 and 22. Therefore, why is it that you cannot understand? It sounds like we’re being a little bit dense. If the Lord has to start out a verse like that. Why is it that you cannot understand and know that he, that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth, receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth. Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together. And what I like about this is we just learned that the listeners have a responsibility, not just the speaker. We can’t say, this speaker’s boring. I will be on the couch in the foyer, which in our building is turned upside down for Covid. But you have a responsibility too.

01:12 And I’ll never forget something that Elder Bruce R. McConkie said once. He said, we come into these congregations and sometimes the speaker brings a jug of living water that has in it many gallons, and he pours it out on the congregation and all that the members of the church brought was a single cup and that’s all they took away. Or maybe they had their hands over the cups and they didn’t get anything to speak of. And I thought, whoa. So that’s–those verses tell me, I gotta show up with a jug and catch everything I can and ask the Spirit to tell me everything the Spirit wants because there’s what the speaker says. And there’s what the spirit can teach you while you are honestly trying to listen. So, I love this section that talks about, hey, the listener and the teacher both have a responsibility.

Hank Smith: 02:00 Ooh, I’m gonna share that with my teenagers. Family night: You have a responsibility.

John Bytheway: 02:05 Go up with a jug to home evening.

Hank Smith: 02:07 Right? Yes, please. And I like the end of that verse that you can tell you’ve been in a class with the spirit if everyone feels edified, built up and rejoiced together.

John Bytheway: 02:17 And you rejoice together. That was a great class.

Hank Smith: 02:19 Yeah, there’s a good feeling there. My followHIM Favorite for this week is gonna be back in section 49, which is given about a group called The Shakers. And John, these are a little literal group of people who live close to the Saints in Ohio. Who were–to show how religious they were they would often shake their bodies would shake. They would dance and move and some of these Saints are gonna go over and talk to these people. And so the Lord has a message for them. And I’ve noticed that no matter who it is that the Lord is talking to, he seems to pretty much say the same thing, which is verse eight, repent. Verse 13, repent. It’s all about repent. He says it again in verse 26, repent, be baptized, get the gift of the Holy Ghost.

03:11 And you’ve said this before, that throughout the Book of Mormon is the first principles of the gospel over and over. So I think if there’s anything that we could focus on as teachers or if you’re sitting there, if as a seminary teacher going, I don’t know what to teach. I know what to teach, teach ’em to repent because that seems to be the Lord’s favorite subject is repentance. And repentance is a good thing. It’s a positive thing. That’s something that I’ve learned over the course of our podcast this year, John, is that repentance is in a positive group with faith, the Holy Ghost, with baptism. These are all positive things. So repentance is a positive thing.

John Bytheway: 03:52 Yeah. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: repentance, perhaps the most hopeful and encouraging word in the whole Christian vocabulary.

Hank Smith: 03:59 Yeah. Let’s repent. Let’s take it. Yeah. It’s all about, you know, it’s a commandment to improve That’s a great idea.

John Bytheway: 04:06 Changing and improving and the fact that it’s even possible and that the Lord invite us to tells us, Hey, you can do this. I’m gonna help you.

Hank Smith: 04:13 Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. It’s a hopeful word. Well, we hope you’ll join us on our podcast. followHIM. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Hopefully you will find you on the next episode.