Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to followHIM, 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 followHIM.

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 loyal co-host John Bytheway. Welcome John.

John Bytheway: 00:31 Thank you. It’s good to be loyal.

Hank Smith: 00:33 Yes. You are loyal. You are absolutely loyal in every way. We want to remind everybody before we get started to come find us on social media on Instagram and Facebook, please. There’s lots of extras on there. Maybe you haven’t seen. We have a website, followhim.co, followhim.co, and we would love for you to rate and review the podcast. I think I covered it all there. John. Big week this week, Section 135 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Who’s joining us, John?

John Bytheway: 01:03 We’re so glad to have S. Michael Wilcox back with us again, and we’ve enjoyed having him before. I hope we’ll have him again. In fact, Hank, I hope we’ll have him again when we do Old Testament and New Testament, and the other testament. and hope we’ll have him back again, everything. I love his perspective and his beautiful way of putting things. And he has a very timely book recently called Holding On, that was, I think, published this year 2021. And I thought this is the most up to date bio that I could use to introduce Brother Wilcox.

John Bytheway: 01:42 S. Michael Wilcox received his PhD from the University of Colorado and taught for many years at the Church’s Institute of Religion adjacent to the University of Utah. He has spoken to packed crowds at BYU Education Week, has hosted tours to the Holy Land, to China and to Church History sites and beyond. In fact, he mentioned Antarctica when we were preparing, and it’s really hard to board the buses there, but it’s a wonderful tour. Michael has also served in a variety of callings, including bishop, counselor in a stake presidency, written many articles and books. He and his late wife, Laurie are the parents of five children. So we’re really glad to have you back. Thanks for joining us again.

Dr. S. Michael …: 02:22 Thank you. It’s fine. I can’t think of two people I’d rather chat with than the two of you, really.

Hank Smith: 02:28 Oh.

John Bytheway: 02:29 Thank you.

Hank Smith: 02:29 Well. That means dreams do come true because when… Yeah.

Dr. S. Michael …: 02:32 Yeah. And to talk about Joseph and Hyrum, what could be a better way to spend the morning?

Hank Smith: 02:37 When I was a young seminary teacher, I can’t tell you how much I loved us being taught from Brother Wilcox. I would love it for hours. He would come and just help us learn the scriptures as young seminary teachers. And it was a joy. It really was. I’d never wanted it to stop. Eating was a burden as Parley P. Pratt would say.

John Bytheway: 03:04 I have cassette tapes of CES Symposiums.

Hank Smith: 03:08 Explain to some of our listeners what a cassette tape is, John.

John Bytheway: 03:10 Yeah. They used to have a BYU every August, I guess, a Church Educational System Symposium of speakers. And they’d give you a bunch of cassette tapes afterwards. And boy, one of my favorites, Brother Wilcox was you just did a whole bunch of things about Peter, a whole bunch of lessons from Peter.

Dr. S. Michael …: 03:30 I do remember. Yeah, Peter. I love Peter. He’s so human.

John Bytheway: 03:34 Yeah, that was a great cassette. So many insights.

Dr. S. Michael …: 03:36 And never was humanity so great.

John Bytheway: 03:38 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:40 John, this week’s a little bit different in that we’re going to actually have two guests this week. We’re having Brother Wilcox for Section 135, and then our friend Richard Bennett will be here for Section 136 and that’ll be in our second part this week. But like I said, we are in Section 135 and there may be no more important section event in the history of the Church in the Latter Days in Section 135. So Brother Wilcox, how do we want to approach this? If you were saying, Hey, we want to get the most we can out of Section 135 before we jump into the verses-

Dr. S. Michael …: 04:19 Well, you can get the history in a lot of places. I always hate to include Higbees and Fosters and Laws and the Expositor with the beauty of Joseph Smith and Hyrum. So I like to just take section 135, and not even the history of 135, because everybody knows it. They know what Hyrum said, they know what Joseph said. It’s written by John Taylor. What does Section 135 teach me personally? Joseph taught us a lot of things in the last part of his life. And I’ll answer that question just a second. And you’ve looked at some of those things is in the previous conversations you’ve had. Section 127, he teaches us to minimize our problems. We don’t live in a world where people minimize their problems. And Joseph says in 127, “As for the perils which I am called to pass through, they all seem but a small thing to me.” It’s all become a second nature.

Dr. S. Michael …: 05:30 Joseph didn’t feel like a victim, did he? Even in Carthage. He’s going to take that attitude right into Carthage to the last moments of his life. He taught us to live joyfully. He taught us the spirit, you go to Section 128, these last great sections, and he asks that wonderful question, “Now, what do we hear in the gospel we’ve received?” And then he answers it. I suppose you talked about that. “A voice of gladness.” He taught us to minimize trials and to live joyfully that the gospel was about joy and gladness, that he sings the new song. He sings the song of redeeming love in the last part of Section 128. That he takes into Carthage, that same powerful idea.

Dr. S. Michael …: 06:23 I think Joseph would say to us, “I didn’t go to Carthage for you to be miserable. I didn’t go to Carthage for you to be burdened under excessive expectations of perfection. I didn’t go to Carthage for you to be full of guilt and sense of inadequacy. The gospel’s about joy and happiness.” I think Jesus would say the same thing from the cross. “I didn’t die to make you miserable.” It’s about joy. It’s a gospel of joy. So those ideas that lead up, the sections that lead up, Section 132: Eternal Marriage. The Danes say, “When two people will not love each other forever, their love isn’t worth talking about, let alone worth celebrating.” And so Joseph ends his life with, “Minimize your trials. Live in joy. Commit to one another. Love is eternal.” These are things that were worth dying for in Carthage. So I hate to talk about Fosters and the Higbees and The [Nauvoo] Expositor and Governor Ford. I just almost hate to put Governor Ford in the same sentence, and the same period with Section 135.

Hank Smith: 07:55 I like that.

Dr. S. Michael …: 07:55 So people can read about it, but to me where I got all started, Section 135 Joseph after teaching us so many beautiful things is now going to teach us, he and Hyrum, how to die, and what it is worth dying for. That’s kind of what I-

Hank Smith: 08:21 Let’s do it.

Dr. S. Michael …: 08:21 I would go. And it’s not negative. It’s not a negative thing. The one thing that everybody shares in life, we all have different experiences, but the one thing we’re all going to share is we’re all going to face death. There’s a Hindu great classic set of riddles, where one of the gods asked a king a number of questions, and he has to answer them and get them right. And the last question is,  “What is the greatest wonder on earth?” And the answer is every day people die, but nobody wakes up saying, “Today it may be me.” So we want to be ready. Hamlet says that, “There is providence in the fall of a sparrow.” If it’s not today, it will come. The readiness is all. And when we get to Section 135, he’s ready, they are ready. And he teaches us how to be ready. The last great lesson of Joseph and Hyrum is how to be ready. And so that’s kind of where I usually go, but we can certainly talk about other things if you want.

Hank Smith: 09:42 No, no, no. I want to go this direction. In fact, it would be a good thing because we have a little bit of a sister podcast that I’ll throw out there. Our friend, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat has a podcast and it’s called The Standard of Truth. And I think Gerrit did, oh goodness, a few hours on the history of the martyrdom. I think it’s his fourth, fifth, even a bonus episode there. So we can encourage people to, hey, if you want to know about Governor Ford and John C. Bennett and all of these infamous characters who has led up to the martyrdom of these two great brothers, then there are plenty of resources out there. But since we have Dr. Wilcox here, John, let’s let him take off. Let’s-

John Bytheway: 10:32 Absolutely. And I love this approach already. I’m going well, what a wonderful way to look at this. Joseph was ready. Hyrum was ready. What do they teach us about… This is a great way to look at it.

Hank Smith: 10:45 About being ready. Yeah.

Dr. S. Michael …: 10:46 It’s a beautiful section. There’s just a lot of beauty in it. And I brought a lot of stuff, I don’t know how much we will use that I usually ponder and think about when I come to Section 125. The ending of this magnificent man and what he teaches us at the end of his life.

Hank Smith: 11:08 President Hinckley was not a big fan of Thomas Ford. He would speak of that often, about how he felt the governor had betrayed Joseph. And there’s a great story that I heard from Sister Susan Easton Black. She said that at one point President Hinckley was visiting Springfield, Illinois, and asked where the grave of Thomas Ford was. And they went to show him and he pulled over. And apparently he got out of the car, walked over to the grave and just gave it a lecture, gave the headstone a lecture. And they said, we didn’t know how long this was going to last. John, have I told you this story?

John Bytheway: 11:56 No.

Hank Smith: 11:56 They said, “We didn’t know how long this was going to last, as he’s out there just kind of pacing back and forth and lecturing this headstone.” And then they said the window of the car rolled down and Sister Hinckley said, “Let it go, Gordon. Let it go.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 12:15 John Taylor mentions the governor, but he doesn’t give his name. He just says, “The broken faith of the governor of Illinois.” He wouldn’t even say his name. They were-

Hank Smith: 12:27 So that’s always just been a story that I’ve enjoyed of Sister Hinckley saying, “It’s okay.” Maybe we could all do that too. Let it go, everyone. Let it go.

Dr. S. Michael …: 12:36 Maybe we got to. We need to forgive Governor Ford too.

Hank Smith: 12:39 Yeah. If you are just brand new to our podcast, go back and listen to our… John, you remember Section 64 on forgiveness that Mike was here with us last.

John Bytheway: 12:49 Beautiful. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 12:50 How much we learned about God being, “A delightful forgiver.” All right. Well, I guess Mike, we’re going to basically hand the reins over to you and say what you want to do.

Dr. S. Michael …: 13:00 Oh, that’s a dangerous thing. You know the last great lessons of Jesus focused on the same thing. I love those words, they’re from Hamlet, the readiness is all. The readiness is all, whenever it comes. Jesus’ last lessons, he also taught us how to die. He died in forgiveness. You think about what he said from cross. He died in forgiveness. He died in comforting others. He died in obedience to his Father. We just look at so many wonderful things, sometimes at the end. Beginnings are wonderful things. The First Vision is a beautiful thing. The beginning. Carthage is a beautiful thing. It’s a terrible thing. I’ll maybe share a line from a poem by Yates that I think about when I come to the end of section 135, but it’s a beautiful thing also. Beginnings and endings are both lovely things, and in that sense they teach us.

Dr. S. Michael …: 14:22 So how does Joseph Smith and how do Hyrum go? Well, I’d start in verse 4. We’ll come back to verse 1 and 3 and talk about what they died for, because that’s the second question I always think about when I come to this. In verse 4, when Joseph went to Carthage to deliver himself up to the pretended requirements of the law. I mean John Taylor’s angry. Section 135 is written in pretty much typical 19th century, a little bit hyperbole, but he’s upset by rights. Two or three days previous to his assassination he said, “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter.” Now I don’t want to go that way, but I want to live so that whenever it comes, I can say at the end of my life, “I am calm as a summer’s morning. I have a conscience void of offense towards God and towards all men.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 15:41 Wouldn’t it be lovely to live every day, and I sense Joseph and Hyrum saying to us across the age of the century, “Live your life in such a way that if it came tomorrow…” Right? The Hindu thing, the greatest wonder is that everybody knows people die every day, but nobody believes it’s going to be them. The readiness is all. I want to live my life so that every morning I’m calm as a summer’s morning with a conscience void of offense towards God and towards all men. Then he says, “I shall die innocent.” And I know he is meaning in that a number of things. I know he is meaning innocent of breaking any law.

Dr. S. Michael …: 16:43 He went to Carthage first on a charge of riot, if we want a little history. They paid a $7,500 bail to get everybody out of jail. They were leaving. They were going to get back to Nauvoo. And then they changed the charge to treason for which there was no bail, which puts him in the jail. They were not going to let him leave Carthage. So, “I know I shall die innocent,” means, “I’ve not really broken any laws,” but I also like that idea we are born innocent in life. He teaches that back in Section 93. We are born innocent. He overturns the whole idea of Original Sin. We are born innocent. I should like to think that we will die innocent.

Dr. S. Michael …: 17:37 My wife just before she died, said something beautiful to me. She was a typical LDS woman. She lived with a lot of inadequacies and guilt and things, like we all do. But she said, “For the first time in my life, I feel no guilt. I feel no shame.” She died innocent. And I think that’s the way God wants us to come back into his presence. I think things happen. And in those last moments, I think there’s a final baptizing if we’ve tried hard, if we’ve lived the best we can. I don’t think we go into the Spirit World carrying anything. I think we leave it and we die innocent.

Dr. S. Michael …: 18:36 There’s two things that I wish John Taylor had put in here from Carthage. One of them is the letter that Joseph writes to Emma, where he says, “I am resigned to my fate.” I think Joseph sensed he was going to die. Great men generally sense it. Lincoln had an interesting dream. He sensed the end was coming. Martin Luther King, Jr. sensed the end was coming. Gandhi sensed the end was coming. Joseph sensed the end was coming. And he writes that to Emma. “I am resigned to my fate knowing I have done the best I could.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 19:23 And we want to live that way, that every day we can say… Joseph wasn’t perfect, but he did the best he could. And when you do the best you can, you die innocent. I believe that’s true of all of us, I believe it was true of my wife, I’m certainly hoping it will be true of me.

Hank Smith: 19:52 Mike, I wanted to mention one thing that I think you taught me before, it’s also that same type of attitude from the Savior when Judas criticizes Mary. Do you remember he’s being anointed and-

Dr. S. Michael …: 20:09 I do. I love that story.

Hank Smith: 20:11 He says, “She has done what she could.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 20:14 What she could. Yeah, Mark 14. “She has done what she could.”

Hank Smith: 20:18 Yeah.

Dr. S. Michael …: 20:19 And that’s what he’s saying. Maybe at the end, I also brought Teddy Roosevelt’s. I got just about everybody here that helps me create the emotion and the power that I like people to get out of Section 135, that I try and get out of it. The second thing that I wish John Taylor had included again from the history was one of Joseph’s last desires. Do you remember what that was? He wanted to teach the Saints one more time. I think readiness is always desiring to do a little more good with your life. When we come to the end, we always want to do a little more good. Dickens in A Christmas Carol says, “No life is sufficient for all the good of which it is capable.” We always want to do a little more good. Joseph just wanted to little more good. We want to live every day that way.

Dr. S. Michael …: 21:32 It’s Moses. I call it the Mount Nebo moments. There’s Moses up on Mount Nebo, he can see the Jordan River and the Promised Land. And he pleads with God, “Let me do a little more Lord. I just want to take them across. I just want to see that goodly mountain and help my people get to that goodly mountain.” And Moses died wanting… Translate it whichever way you want, died wanting to help people see the “goodly mountain.” Joseph Smith died wanting to help people see the goodly mountain. “I just want to talk to them one more time.” I mentioned Martin Luther King, Jr., one of my favorite people, one of the great Americans. I think it’s interesting in that America has a lot of holidays, but only one is an honor of an individual. And that individual we chose to honor as a holiday in honor of a person is Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. S. Michael …: 22:43 And he talked about David, another person who just wanted to do a little more good. He just wanted build a temple. He wasn’t able to build a temple. I think Joseph would’ve loved to have taken the Saints west. I think he would’ve loved to have seen the Nauvoo Temple finished. I think he would’ve loved to have seen them in a situation where they were safe from their enemies. “I just want to do a little more.” It’s a very human emotion. And Martin Luther King, one month before his death, his assassination in Memphis, talked about David’s desire to build a temple and not being able to finish it. And in the scriptures, the Lord says to him, “It was well that it was in your heart.” It’s just good that there was in your heart this desire to want to do more. Just to do a little more, help them see the goodly mountain. And so he says in a speech called “Unfulfilled Dreams.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 23:46 So many of us in life start out building temples, temples of character, temples of justice, temples of peace. And at so many points, we start, we try, we set out to build our various temples. And I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable. We are commanded to do that. And each of you this morning in some way is building some kind of temple. The struggle is always there. It gets discouraging sometimes. It gets very disenchanting sometimes. Well that is a story of life. And the thing that makes me happy, I think Joseph died happy. I think Jesus died happy. I think Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane was also he loved life, he loved the people around him. He would have liked to have lived another year and taught another year. This is a quality great people experience. They are never satisfied. They always want to do a little more. And if that hunger is in me, that’s a good sign the readiness is all. I’m ready.

Hank Smith: 25:07 I was just going to say, Mike, it reminds me of my wife’s mother, my mother-in-law and her last few weeks alive. She was suffering with cancer and it hurt her to hold a needle, but she still wanted to finish some quilts for her grandchildren. And so she would just hold that needle and it would hurt her to hold it, to pinch it, and each stitch was getting harder and harder, but she’s trying to get out every little piece of goodness.

Dr. S. Michael …: 25:40 We all want to be useful. Yeah. We just want to do… It’s a very common thing for great people, and for all of us, common people.

John Bytheway: 25:51 Just reminds me. You’re quoting Shakespeare and all these great men, and I’m reminded of wisdom. I got from a refrigerator magnet.

Dr. S. Michael …: 26:03 There we go. 

John Bytheway: 26:05 Somewhere I saw, “You only live once?” And that’s question mark. “You only live once? No, you only die once. You live every day.” When I think of the hymn, Have I Done Any Good In the World Today? I don’t know about you guys, but I always think of President Monson, because he just always seemed to be finding someone else he could serve and reach out to and send a note to or whatever. And one time I was at a time out for women and a sister held up her phone and showed me, she got an alert every single morning that said, “Who needs me today?” And it didn’t say, does someone need me today? It just said, “Who needs me today?” And then she would find something. She would kind of pray about that and find something she could do, even if it were a simple thing like a text message or a phone call or something. But I really love this idea of doing the best you can every day and kind of that mindset and that hunger.

Dr. S. Michael …: 27:10 And being joyful. Like I say, minimize your trials, pass through. Joseph says the trials I call to pass through. Those are Eve’s words, right at the beginning of history. It is better for us to pass through sorrow, but we pass through it. Anyway, let me just finish this thing with-

Hank Smith: 27:29 Yeah, please do.

Dr. S. Michael …: 27:31 … Martin Luther King. He says, “The thing that makes me happy is that I can hear a voice crying through the vista of time saying, ‘It may not come today or it may not come tomorrow, but it is well that it is within thine heart.'” It is well that you are trying. You may not see it, the dream may not be fulfilled, but it’s just good that you have a desire to bring it into reality. It’s well that it was in thy heart.

Dr. S. Michael …: 28:03 I think Joseph felt that way, and if I can live that way, I will die innocent. I will die calm as a summer’s morning, I will die with a conscience void of offense towards God and towards all men. And more important, I will live that way. So he is teaching us some wonderful things in some of his last phrases, some of the last words we get from Joseph Smith. The letter to Emma here in Section 135 and some of the things that he said to those men who were around him. we go to Hyrum. Hyrum also teaches us some of those same things. He turns down a page in his Book of Mormon to the 12th chapter of Ether. One of the great moments of my life was being able to hold that Hyrum’s book of Mormon and open it to the page that he turned down.

Dr. S. Michael …: 29:10 And Hyrum’s final message to us is a quote from the Book of Mormon. So he takes the scriptures to express his emotions as he faces these last moments of his life, and he ponders the way he’s lived and what may happen to him in Carthage. So we go to verse 5, he’s quoting Ether. Moroni is speaking, “It came to pass, I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles, grace that they might have charity.” That’s not a bad way to live our lives. Praying even that our enemies, in this case, might have grace that they might charity. “And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me, if they have not charity, it mattereth not unto thee, thou has been faithful.” I think one of the great things I learned from Hyrum here in his quotation is it doesn’t matter what others do. What matters is that you have been faithful.

Dr. S. Michael …: 30:30 If I could just get that into the mind of a lot of Latter-day Saints I love who are wrestling with various things. It doesn’t matter whether others have charity or not, whether they understand you or not, how they treat you or not, whether they’ve offended you or not. In this case, they’re going to kill him. What matters is that we have been faithful. And I think that’s the last conversation of Jesus with Peter and John the Beloved at the end of the New Testament, John, Chapter 21, after Jesus asks Peter, if he loves him. And Peter answers three times that he does love him. And then Jesus tells him, “At the end of your life, you’ll be crucified. Follow me.” It’s a very ominous, “Follow me.” He’s in the same place where Jesus first told him to follow Him on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Dr. S. Michael …: 31:35 That first follow me was follow me to learn, follow me to teach. Now he’s saying, “When you are at the end of your life, if you feed the sheep, if you do what I am asking you to do, they’re going to do to you what they did to me. They’re going to crucify you.” Which has got to be a heavy burden for Peter to carry all his life. He knows that’s coming. Well John is following behind, John the Beloved, and Peter turns around and Peter is like I say, so magnificently human. We’re always interested in everybody else’s business. And he says, “What shall this man do?” Now, you can’t get two wider ends of a continuum than a man who’s going at the end of his life die of crucifixion, Peter, and a man at the end of his life is not going to taste of death, John. That’s pretty wide difference.

Dr. S. Michael …: 32:32 And Jesus says to Peter, “If I will that he tarry til I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.” That’s what I call the last follow me of Jesus. And the last follow me is saying it doesn’t matter what other people do. It doesn’t matter what happens in their life. That’s between me and them. What matters is how you have followed, that’s it. And the Lord is saying that Hyrum grabs that idea. “I pray they’ll be charitable. I pray that other people will be good, that they’ll treat me well. But it doesn’t matter how they treat me, what they say to me, how they offend me, I will follow.” The Savior is saying, “Follow thou Me.” You’ve been faithful Hyrum. And that’s an important way to live our lives.

Dr. S. Michael …: 33:32 It’s a very hard lesson to learn because we always are letting other people impinge on our faith and how we believe and how we follow. And Jesus saying to Peter, and Hyrum turning that down is grabbing that principle and telling us at the end of your life you just want to be able to say at the end of every day, no matter what people do or say to you, I just want to always able to say today I followed. I followed. I followed in spite of opposition, I followed in spite of criticism, I followed in spite of unanswered prayers, that I followed in spite of unfulfilled dreams. I followed. I followed to the very end.

John Bytheway: 34:20 This reminds me of… You’re quoting Ether, which is Moroni who abridged it, right?

Dr. S. Michael …: 34:28 Right, yeah.

John Bytheway: 34:29 And then later when Moroni wants to share with us, “Hey, this is the transcript of a talk my father Mormon gave. And here’s a couple of letters from my father.” And in Moroni 9:6, which is an epistle of Mormon. I love this beginning of verse six. Now my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently.” And it just reminded me of that same thing. That we can’t focus on them. “Notwithstanding them, let us do this.” And that’s exactly the same point, I think. And here’s the cool thing. This is Moroni. He always seemed to feel, “What are the Gentiles going to do? They’re going to mock, and please bless them with grace so that they won’t.” And then he repeat that thing from his father in Moroni 9.

Dr. S. Michael …: 35:25 Yeah, wonderful, wonderful cross reference. Things that are important for us to learn in the scriptures God repeats. He repeats it. He says, “I don’t want you to miss this, because it’s such a key to life.” We go back to that fifth verse, “Wherefore the garment shall be made clean.” And then these words, “Because thou hast seen thy weaknesses, thou shall be made strong even unto the sitting down in the place, which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.” I think there is readiness in seeing our weakness. I’m grateful that that is in there because I certainly have seen my weaknesses.

Dr. S. Michael …: 36:24 I go back to that address by Martin Luther King. He says, “I don’t know this morning about you, but I can make a testimony. You don’t need to go out this morning saying that Martin Luther King is a Saint. Oh no, I want you to know this morning that I’m a sinner like all of God’s children. But I want to be a good man. And I want to hear a voice saying to me one day, ‘I take you in and I bless you because you try. It is well that it was within thy heart. I accept you. You are a recipient of my grace because it was in your heart, and it is so well that it was within the heart.'”

Dr. S. Michael …: 37:16 Just that idea. We’re trying, we’ve seen our weaknesses. I know my weaknesses. I’m going to carry weaknesses into the next life. But I think God is pleased that I’m aware of him and I’m trying, and that in those mansions he’s prepared I think he says, “We’ll take care of those in time, Mike. We’ll take care of those in time.” It’s not just all mortality. I go back to that fifth verse again with Hyrum. He said, “I bid farewell unto the Gentiles, yea, and also unto my brethren, whom I love.” Readiness is in loving people. To come to the end of life and have love.

Dr. S. Michael …: 38:17 There’s a passage in King Richard III, one of Shakespeare’s plays. Richard has lived a very selfish life. He’s lived a murderous life. He’s lived a life for power. And when you live a life like that, when you live a life without loving, you end up this way. I use it as a contrast to Hyrum bidding farewell to his brethren whom he loves until we shall meet before the judgment seat of Christ. Anyway, this is what Shakespeare writes. Richard is at the end of his life. He’s going to die in battle the next day. And he says, “I shall despair. There is no creature loves me. And if I die, no soul shall pity me. Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself find in myself no pity to myself?” What a sad ending to die loving no one and being loved by no one, not even loving yourself. No one that you hope to meet again in the hereafter.

Dr. S. Michael …: 39:47 Prophet Muhammad was once asked, “What will help you in the hereafter?” And he gave a number of answers. “Knowledge that you have taught was one of the things that would help you in the hereafter. Charity that you have given”. But also I loved his last one, “The prayers of a child in your behalf, a righteous child in your behalf that you have raised.” So the readiness is all, and we live in readiness every day. And one of the readiness is that we love and that we are loved and that we have expectations of meeting those we love again in the hereafter.

John Bytheway: 40:43 And what a blessing to just believe that that’s possible. I mean, that that love will continue, that our relationships will continue. I’m just trying to imagine what it would be like not to believe that they continue. I think of my mom and dad every day. My mom passed away in December, and thankfully I just, I totally expect to see them again and to feel that again. And Hank you’ve lost people, and Michael you’ve talked about that. So glad that there’s that expectation there.

Dr. S. Michael …: 41:30 Yeah. I think we want to die in love. There’s a beautiful scene in Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. All the women, certainly American women have grown up on Alcott’s Little Women. When Beth died and she dies in love. She dies saying, “I don’t mind going.” I think probably again, I relate this to Jesus and to Joseph. She says, “I don’t mind dying. I don’t mind going, I’m going to a good place, but I shall miss you.” She says to her sister, Jo, “I will miss you even in heaven.” And I think Hyrum says that. “I say farewell to my brother and whom I love, and I will miss them.” I once went to the temple, thinking about Laurie, and I think about her all the time, every day. And kind of asked her, “Is it beautiful where you are??” And felt that answer, “You are not here.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 42:52 “Are you happy, Laurie?” And felt the answer, “I miss you.” And I think that’s true. I think Hyrum and Joseph, I think those on the other side miss us, love us just like we love them. We want to die with those relationships intact, husband-wife, parent-child, friends, brothers. I think it was the grace of God that he let Hyrum go with Joseph. I sensed John Taylor sensed that power when he says, “In life they were not divided, in death they were not separated.” Hyrum got to go with the brother he loved. Joseph got to go with the brother he loved, and there would be those on the other side. There’s readiness if we love and we want to live in love. The beautiful thing about the Latter-day Saint faith is that we have enshrined as our highest ordinance in the most holy and sacred of all places eternal love.

Dr. S. Michael …: 44:11 Latter-day Saints take serious what love itself by its very nature demands, that it be eternal and everlasting and not ending. So I love that, “My brethren whom I love.” And then the last thing I get from Hyrum is at the judgment, “All men will know my garments are not spotted with your blood.” Now that’s kind of a metaphorical language. I think what I get out of that particular phrase is Hyrum is saying I was not part of the problem of humanity and earth life. I was part of the solution. I don’t want to go feeling that I’ve left somebody hurt, that I’ve hurt somebody by my actions, my decisions.

Dr. S. Michael …: 45:10 Now we’re all going to do that, we’re going to bump up against each other and we’re going to hurt one another, but we want to be a healer. Camus wrote at the end of one of his books, “If I can’t be a Saint, I want to be a healer.” I want to be part of the solutions to Earth’s problems. I don’t want to be part of the cause of Earth’s problems. I want to go saying at the Judgment, nobody’s blood is on me, okay? And by blood, I don’t think… Like I said, it’s a metaphorical language. I have been part of the solution to human suffering, I have not been part of the problems.

John Bytheway: 46:01 When I was a kid in seminary at Highland Seminary, I don’t remember who it might have been. I had Larry Gelwick for when I was 16, the Highland rugby coach. He recruited me heavily for obvious reasons. But somebody showed us-

Dr. S. Michael …: 46:21 Star player.

John Bytheway: 46:22 That’d be me. I was about the size of the ball, but anyway. Somebody showed me George Albert Smith’s Creed. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that before, but there’s something about like 10 statements or something. And I just remember a couple of them. One of them was, “I would be a friend to the friendless,” which had a big impact on me in high school. And another one that reminds me of, “My garments are not spotted with your blood,” “I would not be an enemy to any living soul.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 46:56 They’re dying that way. I mean they’re hated, but I don’t think they hate. I’m going to change the subject just a little bit. It’s interesting to me the song that Joseph and Hyrum wanted sung, A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. It’s so intermingled with the martyrdom that it’s hard to talk about the martyrdom and not think about that song. And there’s a message in that song that seems so appropriate to think about when we talk about people giving their lives, sacrificing their lives for something they believed in.

Dr. S. Michael …: 47:42 Now, when you give your life for something, that doesn’t mean what you gave it for is true. Sometimes we say that they seal their testimony with their blood. That’s true, I’m not trying to belittle or diminish that. A lot of people have died for things that may not have been the best things to die for. But what it does say in the case of Joseph and Hyrum and many others is that they are sincere. He’s not a fraud. He’s not a deceiver. He’s willing to give his life for this. He is sincere.

Dr. S. Michael …: 48:24 And A Poor Wayfaring Man teaches a wonder lesson in all of the verses, except the introductory verse. I won’t go through the entire hymn, but what it teaches is that there really is in the eyes of God, no such thing as sacrifice in the way that commonly we think of sacrifice. Benjamin in the Book of Mormon, got that message where he said, “I can’t thank God, and I can’t serve him enough. Because when I thank and I serve, he gives more.” So here at the end of their lives, these two men that have given and sacrificed and suffered so very, very much, and there’s this exclamation point of truth contained in A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief as a statement about their lives. And the verses say, “You gave me bread. I give you the bread of life so that I never hunger. You gave me water. I give you living water, so you’ll never thirst anymore.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 49:54 I mean, I could read the lines, but I think people know if you take that hymn out and look at it, “I give him my couch. The stormy night, I gave him my bed to lay in my home. He gives me Eden. I concealed my own hurts and wounds to heal him. I healed his body. He healed my broken heart.” It’s hard for me to read those and think about them. That’s why I’m not reading it. I read this I’ll start crying when I read, A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, especially when I was just in Carthage a few weeks ago. Not because Joseph and Hyrum died, but because of the message that God is giving him that hymn to them and to us.

Dr. S. Michael …: 50:52 And then the last part. I give my life. He asked if I for him would die, which is exactly what is asked of those two men. And I give him my life and the Savior says, “He gave me his life.” I speak His name without shame before the world, and he speaks my name without shame before the father.” Earlier in the Doctrine and Covenants, Jesus says, “I will stand before the Father and say, this is Michael Wilcox, my brother, my friend.” He calls them friends all through the Doctrine and Covenants. “… who believed in me. Accept them father into our presence.” So I look at those lines, the message of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, so appropriate and I say, “Where is the sacrifice?” Whatever I give, God gives back greater. He gives back in higher intensity. And so yes, they gave their lives, but what they got was greater than anything we can ever give. That’s how we’re ready when we understand that truth.

John Bytheway: 52:25 That’s beautiful. It reminds me a little bit of, “How do we feed these 5,000?” “Well, bring what you have, and I will multiply it by a thousand.”

Hank Smith: 52:41 Right. Or the Brother of Jared, right? The Brother of Jared. “Here’s my idea. Rocks. Let me give you light, right? I will give you light.”

Dr. S. Michael …: 52:52 And there’s no greater example than Joseph’s whole life. People sometimes criticize him and he was human, but I say of Joseph as I say of Peter, never was humanity more magnificent in so many ways. Joseph brought his five loaves and his two fishes. Joseph brought his stones, his molten stones. Joseph brought his little barrel of flour like the widow Zarephath, and the little cruse of oil. He brought the vessel of oil in another Old Testament story. He brought his five loaves in his two fishes and God multiplied them.

Dr. S. Michael …: 53:44 And what God did with this boy, was magnificent. Not perfect, but magnificent in all that he did. Joseph and Hyrum are teaching us about living so that the readiness is all. We also learn what did he die for? And I think that’s a very specific thing that is taught in Section 135 and therefore would have a very specific application as to what I’m supposed to do with it.

John Bytheway: 54:29 Please join us for Part II of this podcast.