Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with my friend, John Bytheway. We are the host of a podcast called followHIM. And every week we do a little snippet called followHIM Favorites where we get to choose one thing out of this week’s lesson to focus on. We’re here with the incredible Dr. Alex Baugh this week. Welcome Alex.

Dr. Alex Baugh: 00:23 Thank you very much.

Hank Smith: 00:24 Yeah, so let’s take a look at the lesson. It’s sections 121, 122, and 123. John, you get to go first. What’s your followHIM Favorite?

John Bytheway: 00:34 Well, again, it’s always hard to pick something but I love, at the very close of 123 this little metaphor which I think Joseph Smith uses, maybe got it from the Book of James, the footnote is there, but he said, “You know brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm.” Now you know Hank I love to talk about my dad. He was on an aircraft carrier in World War II, and that is a very large ship, but it has a rudder.

John Bytheway: 01:05 We are living in a time of storms and winds and waves. And listen to how this verse finishes, a large ship has benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm by being kept workways with the wind and the waves. And when you have a helm, you have a rudder, it implies you’ve got a course, a destination, a purpose, you know where you’re going.

John Bytheway: 01:31 And it’s funny, I have a canoe in my garage and that’s usually what it does. It just hangs in my garage. But the safest thing to do, if you encounter a big wave in a canoe, the safest thing to do, you probably know this, is to go right at it. If you try to go sideways, it’ll tip you over. But if you have a course, a destination, a purpose, you are kept workways with the wind and the waves. Without that, you’re nothing but driftwood. And if you want to find homework assignment, go find the talk of President Thomas S. Monson. He gave about the German battleship, the Bismarck and how they finally sunk the Bismarck and guess what they hit? The rudder. And as soon as they hit the rudder, it couldn’t steer. And they were able to pound it until they sunk it. But I love this idea, we’re in a time of storm and wind and waves, but we have a purpose, a course, a destination, which the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us and we can be kept workways with the wind and the waves, so that’s my favorite.

Hank Smith: 02:33 That’s great, John. The adversary is going to go after the rudder, the purpose, right? And try to attack that. Try to get rid of that. My followHIM Favorite is kind of the entire thing. So I’m going to look at the very first verse.

John Bytheway: 02:47 Read all of it for us, Hank.

Hank Smith: 02:48 Yeah, we’ll just start at the beginning. The very first verse to the very last verse. If you look at section 121, verse one, it starts out with Joseph pleading with God, “Where are you? Where is the pavilion that cover thy hiding place?” Meaning where are you going to step in? Are you going to help us? And it finishes, this entire lesson finishes with section 123, verse 17, same Joseph Smith, who sounds really different. He says in verse 17, “Dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power.”

Hank Smith: 03:23 And I know a lot of us feel like we’re in section 121, verse one, God, where are you? And we want to feel like section 123, verse 17, let’s cheerfully do everything that we can, that we have control over. So I think the homework, John, we’re given a lot of homework this week, but the homework here would be what’s in between those two verses? Study everything that’s between section 121, verse one and section 123, verse 17 and see if you don’t make that same change, go from that feeling of God, you’re not helping, where are you? To I can do this. I know I can do this. In fact, I can do it cheerfully. All right, Dr. Baugh, what would be your followHIM Favorite?

Dr. Alex Baugh: 04:08 Well, you’ve picked 121 and 123 you two, so I’ll go 122 and that’s the first two verses. And to kind of think that a president of the church is in jail is not a good thought. I can’t imagine President Nelson being put in jail for his beliefs and for what he has done. And Joseph Smith, of course, is even worried about that. He, one time, in one of his letters from Liberty Jail, he wrote his wife and said, “I hope you’ll still accept me.” Basically, what he’s saying is I’m a convict and convicts don’t have very good reputations.

Dr. Alex Baugh: 04:53 But I think what’s so significant is that the Lord knows who Joseph Smith is and that he’s a good man and that he’s a prophet. And he reminds us of that in section 122, where he reminded Joseph that you’re still a prophet no matter the accusations made against you when he said, “The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name and fools shall have the in derision and hell shall rage against thee, while the pure in heart and the wise and the noble and the virtuous shall seek counsel and authority and blessings constantly from under thy hand, the righteous know Joseph Smith was a righteous and good prophet. The wicked will despise him and basically say he’s not a true prophet and he’s not a good man.”

Dr. Alex Baugh: 05:43 And the Lord acknowledges Joseph is his prophet and his anointed, and always will be. That rest of the section talks about how God would remain with him and that he would hold his priesthood and his influence for the eternities. So I’m grateful that even though Joseph Smith might be labeled a convict, I think he’s a pretty good prophet. In fact, the prophet of prophets of this dispensation and the Lord acknowledges that in section 122.

Hank Smith: 06:14 Wow, that’s awesome, Dr. Baugh. You can either be in category of verse one. You can be a fool that holds him in derision, or you can be pure in heart and wise and noble and virtuous and seek blessings under his hand. We still do it today, don’t we? We still seek for Joseph today. Well, we hope you’ll listen to the full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, but if not, please join us next week for another followHIM Favorites.