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 follow him.

Hank Smith: 00:19 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith, I am here with my incredible co-host. Let me describe him for you. He is a green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit. John, as I was reading the Book of Jeremiah preparing for our lesson, I just could not help but see your face when I read, “A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit.” But correct me if I’m wrong, John, I’ve known you long enough. You don’t like olives.

John Bytheway: 00:54 I don’t. I pull them off my supreme pizzas and hand them to the children, but I do resemble the bark of an old olive tree, gnarled, old.

Hank Smith: 01:04 Yes.

John Bytheway: 01:05 That’s where you saw my face. It was that part, right?

Hank Smith: 01:08 That’s true. Olive trees can live a very long time.

John Bytheway: 01:14 Well, I hope that’s prophetic.

Hank Smith: 01:15 Yes, you will live for very long time, right? It’s 500 years. Like I mentioned, John, we are in the Book of Jeremiah and I got to be honest, this transition from Isaiah to Jeremiah takes my knowledge from, “Hey, I feel like I know a lot,” to, “Oh, my word, how little do I know about Jeremiah.” And I think maybe our listeners feel the same way, so we needed to bring someone in who could help us make the transition from Isaiah that we’ve been studying for five weeks to Jeremiah, who maybe some people have never studied before. Who’s going to help us make this transition?

John Bytheway: 01:57 This is so fun for us, Hank, because we have been friends with John Hilton III long before we ever… I think before the word podcast was invented, probably.

Hank Smith: 02:07 I think so. Yep.

John Bytheway: 02:08 And so it’s fun to have John with us again. He’s been on here before. We love his book, Considering the Cross, and I’m glad to have him here because I think you’re right, Hank. I think most of us, what we know about Jeremiah is oh, he was a contemporary of Lehi and that’s about where it ends. So let me give you a quick bio. John Hilton, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He has a master’s degree from Harvard and a PhD from BYU, both in education. He’s the author of The Founder Of Our Peace, and of course Considering the Cross more recent, and many other books, audio recordings, articles. He loves teaching, reading, snowboarding, traveling, serving, spending time with family. He and his wife, Lani, have six children. He also has a podcast called Seeking Jesus, which is really good and I hope our listeners will listen to that. We love having John here with us again. So what should we call you today, JIII and I’m JB or something like that, so we don’t get mixed up?

Hank Smith: 03:09 JB, JIII. You got it. In my text messages back and forth, I usually call him JHIII. And then I always have to throw in, he’s so great, they’ve made three of him. He really is that great.

John Bytheway: 03:22 Well, Hank, I remember you telling a story about John that he had heard President Nelson say something about China and John just decided to learn Chinese on his own. It wasn’t his language he learned on his mission and he just started studying it. And is that true, John? Are you pretty fluent in, is it Mandarin?

Dr. John Hilton III: 03:43 It’s true. Yeah, I can’t read or write in Mandarin, but I can hold a conversation and do a little talking. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:49 That’s John. That is John to a tee. But also, maybe I’ve shared this before. I’ve had people in my family pass away over the last few years and who’s at my door? John Hilton. He mourns with those who mourn, I’ll tell you that. John, we’ve been friends a long time. It feels like since the 1900s, it really does. It feels that long. John, how do you want to approach Jeremiah knowing, I think, that a lot of our listeners, this maybe really first time through, I don’t know a lot about this, I want to know something, how do you want to begin?

Dr. John Hilton III: 04:26 So I want to begin with two words, get excited. It’s so funny, I think, to have a book of scripture that we really just don’t know that well. Jeremiah is the longest book in the Bible and it’s probably one of the ones that we know the least, but I want to give you just upfront for those of you who are deciding like, “Do I even want to listen to this episode?” Let me just give you a few reasons why I think you’ll really want to study Jeremiah. First of all, I personally love lesser known Bible stories and Jeremiah is full of them because we don’t read it, so we don’t know the stories, but they’re fun. Also, Jeremiah has some powerful teachings that can help us come closer to Jesus Christ.

Dr. John Hilton III: 05:04 Another reason why we really want to own Jeremiah is because of his connections to The Book of Mormon. If you think about it, my guess is first Nephi, chapter one is the most frequently read chapter in The Book of Mormon, which makes first Nephi, chapter one, verse four, one of the most frequently read verses. Let me just read it to you. “Before it came to pass in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, King of Judah, my father Lehi, having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days, in that same year there came many prophets, prophesy unto the people that they must repent or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 05:39 Jeremiah was one of those prophets and it mentions Zedekiah by name. Well, three quarters of all the references to Zedekiah in the Bible are found in the Book of Jeremiah. So in other words, if you want to really know what Lehi’s Jerusalem is like, what’s Nephi’s Jerusalem like? You want to read Jeremiah. It’s our best source for understanding Jerusalem in the time period of Lehi. And not to get overly exuberant, but Jeremiah’s writings are also on the brass plates. Nephi studies them. He says, first Nephi, chapter five, once they got the brass plates, they said “they contained the prophecies of the holy prophets from the beginning even down to the reign of Zedekiah and also many prophecies which were spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 06:25 And several hundred years later, another prophet named Nephi, Nephi, the son of Helaman, is going to talk about Jeremiah. He says, “We know that Jerusalem was destroyed according to the words of Jeremiah. Oh then why not the Son of God come according to his prophecy?” So in other words, Book of Mormon prophets are studying Jeremiah, so why not us?

Hank Smith: 06:47 Absolutely. And you’re talking about context here, John, that I think most people need to understand. Let’s just do a brief cursory history here. We lost the northern kingdom of Israel in 721, 722 BC. 130 years later or so we lose the southern kingdom of Judah and that is the time of Jeremiah, right? Right during that same time period. It fits right in like a puzzle piece with The Book of Mormon, because that’s the same time The Book of Mormon begins.

Dr. John Hilton III: 07:17 Exactly. And we only got maybe one or two chapters about this back in second Kings was we talked about the fall of Jerusalem, but now Jeremiah is all in this time period, a few decades before starting in the reign of Josiah. All the way down, Jeremiah will see the fall of Jerusalem.

Hank Smith: 07:35 So Lehi gets to leave town and Jeremiah gets to stay.

Dr. John Hilton III: 07:40 Yeah, there’s some powerful lessons we can learn from that. Sometimes you get to be the Lehi, but sometimes you’re the Jeremiah.

Hank Smith: 07:47 And you stick around. I can see there are two mission calls sitting side by side and he’s like, “Oh, really? I got to stay here and witness the fall of Jerusalem.” Where Lehi is on the way out.

Dr. John Hilton III: 08:02 So I also want to say up front maybe there’s probably some good reasons why we don’t know Jeremiah as well as maybe we could. First of all, large chunks of the Book of Jeremiah are him preaching to the people and the main message is repent or perish, but he might take five chapters in a row to go through that same message over and over again. And so as modern readers, maybe that might feel tedious sometimes to some people.

Dr. John Hilton III: 08:27 Another trouble with Jeremiah is the book doesn’t appear in chronological order, so we would have to rearrange the chapters to read it as a straight through storyline. And we can put this in the show notes, johnhiltoniii.com/jeremiah. I’ve put the chapters in a chronological order. So if you’re interested in saying like, “I want to read the book chronologically.” But some of you are like, “Well, man, I don’t know if I want to read the whole book of Jeremiah, a bunch of chapters there.” Here’s my biggest tip for studying the Book of Jeremiah, and that’s to watch the movie called Jeremiah. It stars Patrick Dempsey. Have either of you guys ever seen it?

Hank Smith: 09:00 I don’t think so.

Dr. John Hilton III: 09:01 It’s so good. It’s available for free on YouTube, so if you just go on YouTube and put Jeremiah, I also link to it at the johnhiltoniii.com/jeremiah page. It’s not 100% scriptural, but a lot of it is scriptural. And when you see these scenes, some of which we’ll talk about today, all of a sudden Jeremiah comes to life in a new way. So I definitely recommend the Jeremiah movie and if you’ve got teenagers, that could be a fun movie to watch as a family one Sunday afternoon.

Hank Smith: 09:26 That’s great. Thanks, John. I didn’t know about that.

Dr. John Hilton III: 09:29 So maybe we can just dive in with Jeremiah chapter one. And just so you guys know, sometimes I’ll be quoting from the King James version, sometimes I’ll be quoting from the New Revised Standard version. And often today I’ll be quoting from the New Living Translation. The New Living Translation is designed for sixth graders. And I think that sometimes when you’re approaching a book like Jeremiah, that’s really unfamiliar, it can be helpful to read it at a sixth grade reading level because then some of the complicated parts you’re just able to get through and understand more easily. And honestly, it’s hard to love a book of scripture if you can’t really understand what it says.

Hank Smith: 10:04 And it doesn’t do you a lot of good to read Jeremiah and not get a single thing out of it. So yeah, go pick up one of these alternatives.

Dr. John Hilton III: 10:12 So let’s just dive in to Jeremiah chapter one, picking up just the very beginning. These are the words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the priests from the town of Anathoth and the land of Benjamin. The Lord first gave messages to Jeremiah during the 13th year of the reign of Josiah. That’s about 630 BC. The Lord’s messages continued throughout the reign of Jehoiakim. Josiah’s son until the 11th year of the reign of King Zedekiah, another of Josiah’s sons. In August of that 11th year, about 586 BC, the people of Jerusalem were taken away as captives.” So these first four verses are just introducing us to the timeframe of Jeremiah’s life and prophesying.

Hank Smith: 10:54 The time of the captives, John, 586.

Dr. John Hilton III: 10:56 And so Lehi’s leaving Jerusalem approximately 600 BC. Jeremiah is there a couple decades before that, he’s there a decade after that. So that’s part of the reason why this is so exciting. This is really Book of Mormon context.

John Bytheway: 11:09 But that means that we’ve taken a jump from the timeframe of Isaiah, doesn’t it? Even though it’s just one page away?

Dr. John Hilton III: 11:17 Yeah, that’s a great point. So that’s one of the reasons why I think it is helpful how we studied second Kings a few months ago, so we can kind of see where it fits in the storyline. Isaiah’s in the time around the scattering of Israel with Assyria being the dominant tribe or dominant country. So now we’re jumping forward a century. Babylon is the new superpower, so that’s a great point. From Isaiah to Jeremiah, we’ve jumped forward in time.

John Bytheway: 11:42 We fast forwarded about a hundred years.

Hank Smith: 11:44 I would say this is an absolutely crucial skill if you really want to understand the Old Testament is the way it’s set up. You’ve got the Torah, The Five Books Of Moses, then you have the history, then you have the writings, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and then you have these prophets, Isaiah through Malachi. Each of these prophets, correct me if I’m wrong, John, but each of these prophets fit somewhere back in that history that we talked about and they didn’t put them in order. Of course not, you can’t put them in order, you can’t make it easy for us. They put it in order of length of how long these books are, and stuck them back. So you’ve got to know your history in order to know what the context is for the prophet who’s speaking.

Dr. John Hilton III: 12:32 Really well said. And that is a great scriptural skill.

Hank Smith: 12:34 Because if you’re thinking, oh, we’re continuing on past the time of Esther, we’re not, we’re going now backwards to where do we have the verses, the actual scriptures this would fit in?

Dr. John Hilton III: 12:45 We’re basically here between second Kings 23 to 25. So if you were to go back and read these chapters of history, that would give you some additional context for Jeremiah.

Hank Smith: 12:56 When Jeremiah is alive in what he’s doing. Okay.

Dr. John Hilton III: 12:59 We’re actually about to get much more, like there’s more histories and stories about this time period in the Book of Jeremiah than there is in those couple of chapters in second Kings.

Hank Smith: 13:08 Got it. Okay. So we’re going to get more stories, not just preaching.

Dr. John Hilton III: 13:14 Correct. That’s my favorite part, actually. It’s the stories. So we’ve kind of set up a little bit of the context and background. Probably the most famous verses in Jeremiah are chapter one verses five and six. God calls Jeremiah saying, “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” And I just love this assurance from the Lord, “I knew you before you were born.” And by the end of today when we get to Jeremiah chapter 29, we’ll look at another verse where the Lord says something similar and maybe put those together at that point and talk more about this principle. But God has special plans for each of us, not just Jeremiah. I think it’s interesting though that Jeremiah doesn’t feel up to the mission. He goes on to say, “I can’t speak, I’m a child.”

Hank Smith: 14:03 “Oh Lord God, behold I cannot speak for I am a child, don’t choose me.”

John Bytheway: 14:10 You kind of see a pattern there. I look at the footnotes. You’ve got Exodus four 10. So what did Moses say?

Dr. John Hilton III: 14:15 “I’m slow of speech, I’m slow of tongue.”

John Bytheway: 14:17 What did Enoch say?

Dr. John Hilton III: 14:20 “I’m only a lad. All the people hate me.”

John Bytheway: 14:22 “All the people hate me.” What did Isaiah say? “I’m a man of unclean lips, I dwell on…” And you see, I love that it’s not, “Oh yeah, I got this.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 14:33 I knew you were going to call on me.

John Bytheway: 14:36 Yeah, this is beyond what I’m able to do and a lot of us maybe can relate to that. I can’t do that. So I like that, how consistent that is. And the footnote 6A there lists Moses and Enoch. And I wrote in Isaiah six because I thought it wasn’t exactly the same, but he just said, “I dwell with the people of…” Well, what did he say? I am undone. I mean that’s…

Dr. John Hilton III: 14:59 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 15:00 I’m coming apart. I can’t do this.

Dr. John Hilton III: 15:02 But then in verse seven, just like in the same pattern that you’ve highlighted, the Lord responds, “Say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all whom I send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid.”

Hank Smith: 15:12 Be not afraid.

Dr. John Hilton III: 15:14 “Of their faces. For I am with thee to deliver thee.” This is so applicable, right? You and I were going to receive some kind of calling, we don’t feel up to the task. And the Lord says, “You can do this. Be not afraid. I am with you.”

John Bytheway: 15:27 The thing I loved about that was the Lord didn’t say, “Moses, you’re great, you’re awesome, you’re so great.” He just said, “I will be with you.” And I thought, what a great… That’s very consistent. “What else do you need if I’m with you? I’ll be with you.” It’s almost like, “It’s good that you’re sensing your inadequacy, but I will be with you.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 15:44 And if we jump down to verse 17, we hear more of that kind of the Lord saying this, “Get up and prepare for action. Go out, tell them everything I tell you to say. Do not be afraid of them. For see, today I have made you strong like a fortified city that cannot be captured like an iron pillar or a bronze wall. You will stand against the whole land, kings, officials, priests, and the people of Judah. They will fight you, but they will fail.”

Hank Smith: 16:09 Wow. What a pep talk.

Dr. John Hilton III: 16:11 Yeah, seriously. “I am with you. I will take care of you.” And I just love these words if you’re like me and sometimes you get afraid, you’re fearful and you collect scriptures that give you strength, that Jeremiah chapter one is full of powerful reassurances from the Lord that strengthen Jeremiah and can strengthen us as well.

Hank Smith: 16:30 Absolutely. If you’re feeling discouraged, if you’re feeling like I’m not up to the task, come to these verses and go slow through them, read them. This is what my daughter writes on her mirror with her dry-erase, “I am with thee, said the Lord, I will deliver thee.” Jeremiah one, five. In my study of the Bible, I don’t see a lot of references to a premortal life. I feel like there is kind of a clear one here. Am I proof-texting there? “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 17:04 I don’t think that’s proof-texting. I think it’s fair to say that’s one of our best biblical examples of a reference to the premortal life. I think that’s totally fair. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 17:13 Yeah. And if I could add something to that, Dr. Robert Millet that we’ve had on our podcast taught me that, don’t use the phrase preexistence because other religious traditions use that and they don’t mean the same thing. They think that maybe we preexisted in the mind of God, but this sounds like more than that. And ever since that, I’ve done what you two just did, call it premortal life or premortal existence. This sounds like more than just you existed in the mind of God. This is, I knew thee, you had a character, you had a competency before you got here. And I think it sounds a little more than just you preexisted in my mind.

Hank Smith: 17:54 Absolutely. I just wanted to make sure we hit that and I wanted to see what our expert had to say. And well, I feel vindicated that our expert likes my take on that, but I think when you run into maybe what you see is a reference to the premortal life in the Bible, take note of that because it’s not often.

John Bytheway: 18:13 Yeah.

Dr. John Hilton III: 18:13 So the next several chapters, Jeremiah two through six are primarily focused on Jeremiah’s preaching to the people and warning them to repent. And I thought we would just sample a few of these verses along the way before we get to the next big story in Jeremiah seven. So in Jeremiah chapter two, verse 13, we read, “For my people have done two evil things. They have abandoned me, fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.” So John, Hank, I know you guys both lead tours to Jerusalem and so forth, you’ve seen a bunch of cisterns. Why would a cracked cistern be such a big deal?

Hank Smith: 18:54 Oh, a cistern is going to… That’s the only way to survive. You’re going to have your rainy season and then comes the dry season. And if you do not have water storage, I almost said food storage, you don’t have water storage it’s certain death. You need water to survive.

Dr. John Hilton III: 19:13 Yeah. So the Lord’s saying you’ve done two things wrong. Number one, you’ve abandoned the true living water. And number two, your replacement, it’s cracked. There’s no salvation in there for you.

John Bytheway: 19:24 Yeah. And I like that. It’s not just that you need water, it’s living water versus cistern water. Cistern water is subject to stagnation because it’s holding still, living water from a spring. That’s the pool of Siloam, that’s where Jesus sent the man to wash right at the beginning of John nine, which is living water because it comes from a spring.

Dr. John Hilton III: 19:44 Now, here’s a PG-13 passage that since it’s in the Book of Jeremiah, I thought it was fair to read, it’s Jeremiah 2, 24, the Lord says to Israel, “You are like a wild donkey sniffing the wind at mating time. Who can restrain her lust? Those who desire her don’t need to search for she goes running to them. When will you stop running? When will you stop panting after other gods? But you say save your breath, I’m in love with these foreign gods, I can’t stop loving them now.” Jumping down to verse 27, we see a similar idea, “To an image carved from a piece of wood they say, ‘You are my father.’ To an idol chiseled from a block of stone they say, ‘You are my mother.’ They turn their backs on me, but in times of trouble they cry out to me, ‘Come and save us.’ But why not call on these gods that you’ve made? When trouble comes, let them save you if they can, for you have as many gods as there are towns in Judah.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 20:37 So the Lord is using these different metaphors to say, “You guys are not faithful to me.” And this is a key theme throughout Jeremiah, he’s highlighting idol worship, stop turning to other gods and focus on the one true God. That’s the theme we’ve seen throughout the Old Testament.

Hank Smith: 20:52 I love all these metaphors.

John Bytheway: 20:54 Yeah. Can you just tell us which translation you just used there?

Dr. John Hilton III: 20:59 So that’s the New Living Translation. That’s when I mentioned that’s at a sixth grade reading level. So again, I think it’s helpful when you’re reading some unfamiliar texts to kind of make the meaning plain.

John Bytheway: 21:08 I do like verse 17, which ends when he led thee by the way, I had to underline that one. But you don’t have to.

Hank Smith: 21:14 I was just going to say, John, these are pretty extreme metaphors, but sometimes subtle doesn’t seem to work. So let’s just flat out say it, would you rather have this beautiful living water or this nasty rancid water in a broken cistern? Would you go rather chase through lust other gods, or do you want the God who is sitting here waiting for you? Would you rather call a stone a father or a mother and see what it can do for you? These are aggressive metaphors. I guess you can say. You can’t miss the point.

Dr. John Hilton III: 21:47 Which gives us some context for Book of Mormon times. Why are the people angry with the prophets? Why do people seek Lehi’s life? The prophets are being very bold, Jeremiah is a great example of being bold and speaking out against sin. So if we flip the page to chapter three, we see one of Jeremiah’s favorite words and the word is backsliding. I don’t know about you guys. I did not hear the word backsliding very often growing up. It means to fall back into sin basically, but Jeremiah uses this word more than all other scriptural authors combined. So when you hear the word backsliding, think Jeremiah. I’ll just read a few examples.

Dr. John Hilton III: 22:24 Chapter three verse 12, “‘Return, thou backsliding Israel,’ saith the Lord. ‘And I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful.'” Verse 14, “Turn, oh backsliding children.” Verse 22, “Return, ye backsliding children and I will heal your backsliding.” And I just love this. All of us are going to backslide, we’re all going to fall back into temptation at time. But the Lord is saying, “I’m merciful. Come, return to me. We can make things work.” And I love that.

John Bytheway: 22:53 It’s kind of fun to imagine that King James translators sitting around, “Behold, what shall we use? What word shall we use here? The old translator, I suggest backsliding.”

Hank Smith: 23:05 It’s returning to sin.

Dr. John Hilton III: 23:07 Just falling back.

Hank Smith: 23:08 You feel like I’ve gotten out, here I go and then back in. And that can be discouraging. But here it says the Lord over and over, “I’m here, I’m here. I can redeem you, backsliding Israelites.” I have been in my life before, I think a backsliding Israelite. Gave something up, got rid of it entirely and then it came back.

John Bytheway: 23:30 I think we talk about the pride cycle a lot in The Book of Mormon. And I guess this is a different metaphor, kind of for the same thing. You’re returning or you’re going back to an old way of living that you had conquered before.

Hank Smith: 23:42 Yeah, the Savior told a great parable about this when he said there was a house that had an evil spirit and they casted the evil spirit out and then it returns with seven of its friends because the house wasn’t full of anything else. The sins returned with even more sins, with even more friends. That would be an example, right John? Of backsliding back into what you were before.

Dr. John Hilton III: 24:06 Let’s maybe jump ahead to chapter seven. Let’s get back into the storyline and we’ll kind of read through it, but this is one where if you can watch the Jeremiah movie, this scene will come alive for you in ways you’ll never forget. But in Jeremiah chapter seven, Jeremiah goes to the house of the Lord, so he is at kind of this temple complex area and he’s preaching. First he offers hope if we look at verse five, he says, “If you truly amend your ways and if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the orphan, the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, if you do not go after other god’s, I will dwell with you.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 24:41 I mean, so that’s a promise. But Jeremiah goes on to say, “You’re probably not going to do this.” And through Jeremiah the Lord says, “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal and go after other gods that you have not known and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say, ‘We are safe.’ Only to go on doing all those abominations?” In other words, what the Lord is saying is, “You guys think that because you have the temple here with you that everything’s okay, you can do all this bad stuff. And it’s like, ‘Oh, we got the Lord’s house with us, it’s fine.'” And he’s saying, “No, that is not.”

Hank Smith: 25:18 That is not okay. You can’t do all these things and then come stand before me and think, “No big deal, everything’s fine.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 25:26 And so this is where we get a really powerful line. Through Jeremiah, the Lord says, “Has this house which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?”

Hank Smith: 25:37 Interesting.

Dr. John Hilton III: 25:38 “Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people.” And maybe there’s two things we can unpack here. Let’s do the harder one first. What’s this reference to Shiloh? So the Ark of the Covenant had been in Shiloh and Shiloh was destroyed. So it’s kind of like the Lord is saying, “Look, maybe the people of Shiloh, they thought they were all good because they had the Ark with them, but Shiloh was destroyed. Now you in Jerusalem, you think, ‘Oh, we’re all good. We’ve got the temple with us.’ No, you will be destroyed. The Ark won’t protect you, the temple won’t protect you if you are not living up to the covenants.” And that helps to see why. The other one that’s probably a little more obvious is Jeremiah’s use of this phrase, “Den of robbers.” What’s that reminding you guys of right off the bat?

Hank Smith: 26:25 I’m thinking of Jesus in the temple. He says, “You’ve turned to my house into a den of thieves.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 26:31 Yeah. So clearly Jesus is alluding to Jeremiah when he says this is a den of thieves, den of robbers. The den of, and then robbers or thieves, it only appears in these two passages, so it’s a clear reference. So now maybe with understanding that extra context from Jeremiah and Shiloh, we can see that when Jesus says, “You’ve made my house a den of thieves,” it’s sort of a subtle threat or implication. “Remember how Jeremiah said the same thing? Remember what happened to the temple in his day? The same thing is going to happen to your temple, you people here in Jerusalem that I’m talking to.”

Hank Smith: 27:03 Wow.

Dr. John Hilton III: 27:03 Does that make sense?

Hank Smith: 27:04 Absolutely. And it only hits home if one, you know your scriptures. And two, it tells me Jesus knew his scriptures. Sometimes we don’t notice how well Jesus knows his scriptures until we’re reading the Old Testament going, “Hey, that sounds a lot like something Jesus said.”

John Bytheway: 27:21 It looks like those references are both there footnoted below Matthew 21:13 and Luke 19:46.

Dr. John Hilton III: 27:29 Yeah. If we just go a little bit further in Jeremiah chapter seven to verse 27, this has got to be one of the most all time discouraging passages of scripture to the person receiving it. So the Lord says to Jeremiah, “You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.” I mean, how does that sound like a discouraging mission call, right? You’ve been called to labor in such and such a mission. No one will listen to you.

Hank Smith: 27:55 No one will listen to you.

Dr. John Hilton III: 27:56 They will reject every word you say, but have great experiences. You go.

Hank Smith: 28:01 Go for it.

Dr. John Hilton III: 28:02 And Jeremiah, he’s already been preaching for years and he’s going to go on and preach for decades longer. And that’s I think a great kind of subtle message from Jeremiah. I mean seriously, think about it. Sometimes you work hard at something and then you don’t see the results. You plan to have this really spiritual track and it gets canceled by COVID. There’s all sorts of things that we work really hard on and fail. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to fail. When I’m doing something, I want it to go awesome. And probably Jeremiah did too, but the Lord tells him, “Look, it’s not going to.” And for me, I think that’s really an important message for us. Sometimes we’re going to fail and just because we’re working hard and doing what God wants us to do, it doesn’t mean everything’s going to turn out perfectly.

Hank Smith: 28:43 Yeah. What verses were that? Was that John?

Dr. John Hilton III: 28:45 That was Jeremiah 7:27.

John Bytheway: 28:47 I don’t have a reference, but I heard that someone had confronted Mother Teresa once and told her, “You can’t possibly save all these people that you’re trying to save and give them some dignity in death and everything.” And I, like you guys, just totally admire Mother Teresa. She said, “Well, we’re not called to be successful in all things. We’re called to be faithful in all things.” And that’s what Jeremiah was doing. He was doing what he was asked.

Dr. John Hilton III: 29:14 And sometimes we might not realize the personal cost to Jeremiah. If we jumped over to Jeremiah chapter 11, verse 21, the people of Jeremiah’s hometown, they tried to kill him. They said, “Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord or you will die by our hands.” And then just a few verses later, chapter 12, verse six, we learned that even Jeremiah’s family members had abandoned him. So it’s not just that he’s working hard, but he’s got a good support group. He’s working hard and he’s abandoned by the people of his hometown, he’s abandoned by his family, but he still keeps pressing forward. So in Jeremiah chapter 12, verse one, and again the context, his hometown’s abandoning him, his family’s abandoning him. Jeremiah, he cries out in anguish to the Lord. He says, “Okay, you’ll be right, Lord, when I lay the charges against you, but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why are all those who are treacherous, thriving?”

Dr. John Hilton III: 30:11 And I love how Jeremiah starts out as a complaint. He’s like, “All right, God, I know you’re going to correct me, but hear me out, let me give my complaint anyways. My life is terrible and all the wicked are doing great. What’s going on?” And I can sympathize with Jeremiah, right? He didn’t want to be called to be a prophet. He told the Lord, “I’m a child.” You would think that God’s going to respond back to Jeremiah in a really comforting way, but it’s actually, he gives him kind of a challenge. Look in verse five, the Lord says, “If you’ve run with the footmen and they’ve wearied thee, how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how will thou do in the swelling of Jordan?”

Dr. John Hilton III: 30:50 In other words, the Lord’s pep talk is, “Jeremiah, this is just the beginning. I mean, you’re still in the foot race and it’s about to heat up.” And I think that’s a powerful scriptural phrase for us to ponder, “If you’ve run with the footmen and they’ve wearied you, how could you contend with the horses?”

Hank Smith: 31:05 I automatically thought of Mormon at the end of Mormon, where if you read Mormon, not Book of Mormon, but the little book of Mormon inside the Book of Mormon, he says that he prayed, “Not withstanding their wickedness, I had led them into battle, I had loved them according to the love of God, which is in me. My soul has been poured out in prayer unto God all day long for them. Nevertheless, it was without faith because of the hardness of their hearts.” He goes on later to say, “I was without hope.” In Mormon chapter six, he laments the loss of these people. So are these callings of, “You are going to move forward, you’re not going to see success. And by the way, you’re tired now? Oh, just wait. Just wait, it gets worse.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 31:52 Hank, I think you’ve picked up on something that’s really powerful and I think we really can see connections between Mormon and Jeremiah. And this would be like a great thing to kind of study side by side and look at more connections. I mean, they’re both called to preach to their people and in some ways they both fail. Jeremiah and Mormon both see their people destroyed.

Dr. John Hilton III: 32:14 I love that insight that you just shared and we could probably find additional parallel connections between Mormon and Jeremiah. But I think again, that’s telling us sometimes God’s going to send you on a mission and it’s not going to succeed. Sometimes you’re going to knock on that door or minister to that sister for 30 years and not get the outcome you hope for. But Jeremiah and Mormon, they’re right there with you.

John Bytheway: 32:37 It’s one of my favorite lessons because when Mormon says this to Moroni, he says, “But we can’t cease to labor. We have a labor to perform while in this tabernacle of clay.” You remember the verse, “Not withstanding their hardness, let us continue faithful.” It’s not about what they are doing, that’s a little bit out of your control, but let us continue faithful with what we’ve been called to do.” And I love that little thing that Mormon did there, not withstanding their hardness, it’s not about them, it’s about us doing what we were called to do.

Hank Smith: 33:09 I remember many times as a seminary teacher, doesn’t happen as much at BYU, but knowing when that kid walked out of my class as a senior, that was probably the last time he was going to see the inside of a church building.

John Bytheway: 33:23 And taking responsibility for it.

Dr. John Hilton III: 33:26 Yeah. And just going, “Ugh.”

John Bytheway: 33:29 “I wish I could have found a way.”

Hank Smith: 33:30 I wanted to reach you, I know grandma and grandpa, and mom and dad have been praying. I know how that road ends too. I’ve done this enough times, I know how this road ends. It’s a heartbreaking thing, but to realize here is validating that it’s happened to the greats of the past, to Jeremiah, to Mormon, even Abinadi who doesn’t see the success maybe of his call.

Dr. John Hilton III: 33:56 And I love that phrase that you used, it’s validating. I really think it is validating for us to remember. And there’s lots of examples, maybe some lesser known people remember Com in the Book of Ether. He fought against the robbers much, but he didn’t prevail against them. Or Nephi, the son of Helaman, it says he went to the land northward, he did preach the word of God and they did reject all his words. That’s probably not the kind of thing that your daughter wants to write on her mirror. That’s not the verse that makes it to the mirror, but in some ways I think it could be as a reminder to us that it’s okay to fail.

Hank Smith: 34:26 Yeah. Jesus in his own hometown, John. Jesus in Nazareth is rejected by his own hometown. And according to the Bible, never returns. It’s a heartbreaking moment, it reminds me every time of Isaiah saying, “The Lord will be acquainted with grief.” Jeremiah, Mormon, and all these others we’ve been talking about are those who have been acquainted with grief. It is definitely part of this work.

Dr. John Hilton III: 34:52 So in Jeremiah chapter 12, Jeremiah was kind of pouring out his heart to the Lord, and the Lord kind of responds like, “Hey, step it up.” But if we jump to chapter 15, there’s a similar passage and the Lord responds more gently.

Hank Smith: 35:04 To all those faithful Sunday school teachers, seminary teachers who are out there, who are trying their best to get through to their classes and to know that sometimes it doesn’t work out. If you’re in that situation, you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the best in the Lord’s work. Sometimes despite your very best efforts, they do not hear. It’s also a helpful reminder to me, and I bet it has been for both of you, to realize they have a Lord, they have a Savior, and I’m not him. So though they might be lost to me, they’re not lost to him.

John Bytheway: 35:48 And you never know, they may hear something that was Alma, “I remember my father to have taught the people concerning Jesus Christ, the son of God who could forgive sins.” And my mind caught hold upon this thought. And that’s such a wonderful verse that see somewhere back there, he heard what his father was saying and-

Hank Smith: 36:06 You never know what might stick.

Dr. John Hilton III: 36:09 So let’s look at Jeremiah chapter 15:15. Jeremiah says, “Lord, you know what’s happening to me. Please step in and help me. Punish my persecutors. Give me time, don’t let me die young. It is for your sake that I’m suffering. When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart’s delight. For I bear your name, Lord God of Heaven’s armies. I never joined the people in their merry feasts. I sat alone because your hand was on me. I was filled with indignation at their sins. Why does my suffering continue? Why is my wound so incurable? Your help seems as uncertain as a seasonal brook, like a spring that has gone dry.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 36:50 Take a moment to unpack that, like if you felt that way. I just love Jeremiah’s raw emotion. It’s like those verses you quoted, Hank, from Mormon where he said, “My soul was filled with anguish.”

Hank Smith: 36:59 Yeah.

Dr. John Hilton III: 37:00 You can just sense that. But in verse 19, the Lord responds with encouragement. He says, “You must influence them. Don’t let them influence you. They will fight you like an attacking army. I will make you as secure as a fortified wall of bronze. They will not conquer you, for I am with you to protect you and rescue you. I, the Lord, have spoken. Yes, I will certainly keep you safe from these wicked men. I will rescue you from their cruel hands.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 37:28 Things can be excruciatingly difficult, but I love Jeremiah’s open, honest conversation. He doesn’t just beat around the bush. He’s like lays it all out with the Lord and then he receives comfort from the Lord.

Hank Smith: 37:41 This is something we learned about in the Book of Job, that even a prayer of frustration is an act of faith. Even a prayer of, “I’m upset, this is not going the way that I thought it would go.” That is still an act of faith. You’re still calling out to God. And God knows how you feel, so you might as well be open with him. He won’t be shocked that, “What? What are you saying? I can’t believe you’re saying these things to me.” It’s okay. I love Jeremiah’s prayer. It reminds me of Joseph Smith. Where are you?

Dr. John Hilton III: 38:17 As we keep moving forward? Jeremiah’s main message is that the people of Jerusalem are going to be destroyed if they don’t repent. Another message that he returns to a few times has to do with the gathering of Israel. Let’s jump over to Jeremiah chapter 16, starting in verse 14. We read, “Therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said as the Lord liveth who brought up the people out of the land of Egypt, but the Lord liveth who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of north and out of all the lands where he had driven them, for I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.”

Dr. John Hilton III: 38:56 And let’s just maybe pause right there for a minute. So basically the biggest miracle of all times has been-

John Bytheway: 39:01 The Exodus.

Dr. John Hilton III: 39:01 The Exodus, right. Coming out of Egypt. But now the Lord’s saying, “There’s going to be a new miracle that takes place and that’s going to all of a sudden relegate the Exodus to be one of the, not the greatest hits of all times. Now it’s the gathering of Israel, the return of these tribes.”

Hank Smith: 39:16 People won’t be talking about the Red Sea anymore.

John Bytheway: 39:19 Right in the Come Follow Me manual it quotes President Nelson, “You are sent to earth at this precise time to help gather Israel. There is nothing happening on this earth right now that is more important than that gathering. The gathering should mean everything to you.” So that’s a perfect place to remind us of what President Nelson taught.

Dr. John Hilton III: 39:39 On that note, if we just keep reading, we learn a little bit about maybe our role in this verse 16. “I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord. They shall catch them, and afterward I will send for many hunters and they shall hunt them from every mountain, from every hill and out of the clefts of the rocks.” That could be an illusion to our role as hunters, fishers, gatherers taking part in this most important effort that’s taking place right now. You can kind of feel with that quote that you shared, President Nelson urging us to fulfill our part in the gathering of Israel.

John Bytheway: 40:12 This verse means something to me and my family because I went on what we might call a fisher mission where people were friendly to us, they wanted to listen, they invited us into their home in the Philippines, I could throw a net over the side and find people to teach. And my son went to what we might call a hunter mission, which is one at a time and where teaching opportunities were difficult and hard to find. And it helped as we discussed back and forth in our letters that some are called to fisher missions and some might be called to hunter missions. And they’re a little different, but they’re all part of this great gathering. So that’s an application of course, but that verse means a lot to us and our family for that reason.

Hank Smith: 40:56 I love it.

Dr. John Hilton III: 40:57 That’s beautiful.

Hank Smith: 40:58 This to me speaks Book of Mormon language that Nephi, Lehi, and Jacob, they’re living the scattering. So is Jeremiah. He’s living in the scattering. They’ve just a hundred years previous, the northern kingdom of Israel was taken captive, gone. They’re seeing, living, or almost who have lived in the destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah. And this has to be a comfort that one day I’ll bring everybody back. It probably won’t be tomorrow, but one day. One day I will bring everyone back. And it seems to me the more clearly I read The Book of Mormon, or the more carefully I read The Book of Mormon, I see Nephi and Jacob holding onto that promise probably more than anybody else in the book.

Hank Smith: 41:51 After Nephi and Jacob, they kind of lose it a little bit, you don’t hear from it much in Mosiah or Alma, you don’t hear from it much in Helaman. Then all of a sudden in third Nephi, Jesus brings it back up. He’s like, “Oh, do you remember? You are scattered Israel. And I made a promise and I’m going to keep it.” So is this the comforting message to Jeremiah, John, that you are living in the days of the scattering of Israel, but one day I will bring it all back, I will fix it all?

Dr. John Hilton III: 42:19 And I think that’s interesting, how you said it’s probably not going to happen tomorrow. So for Nephi and Jacob, I love how they’re able to still have hope in things that may not even happen in their lifetime, that did not happen in their lifetime. And so to me, there’s a clear message. Maybe there’s some problem in my life right now that actually is not going to be resolved in mortality. But Jacob, Nephi, Jeremiah, they’re having hope for future events. If I can have that eternal perspective, that’s a game changer.

Hank Smith: 42:47 Yeah. And it will be huge, isn’t that what the Lord’s trying to say in these verses, John? That this gathering will be huge. It will be so big that no one’s talking Red Sea anymore, everybody’s talking the gathering.

John Bytheway: 42:59 What was Isaiah told? You’re going to have to enlarge the place of your tent because this house of Israel will be breaking out on the right hand and on the left, and you’re going to have to strengthen your stake. This gathering’s going to be big.

Dr. John Hilton III: 43:10 Yeah, it’s like this new super heroes movie is so big, no one’s even going to be taught, like Marvel’s going to be a thing of the past once you see this new movie that’s coming out like that kind of thing.

Hank Smith: 43:20 When we talk about hunting them out of the mountains and of the hills and of the holes of the rock, how many people listening today to our podcast are thinking, “That was me at one point”? In verse 16, the Lord says, “I will send fishers and hunters into the mountains, into every hill.” That’s a high percentage word, every. “Every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.” I bet this hits home a little bit for the both of you having missionaries just returned. John Bytheway, tell me your kids went where?

John Bytheway: 43:53 My oldest daughter went to Lyon, France. My son went to the call said Copenhagen, Denmark, but then said serving the Iceland mission region. And he’s currently teaching Icelandic in the MTC. And then my daughter was called to Tahiti, but because of COVID spent about the first half of her mission in Tucson and then finished in Tahiti. So amazing.

Hank Smith: 44:14 And John Hilton, you have a couple of missionaries.

Dr. John Hilton III: 44:17 Yeah, my son Levi just got back from the Georgia Atlanta North Mission. And my daughter Anne Marie is serving in the England Leeds Mission speaking Mandarin.

Hank Smith: 44:26 Wow. There’s something about Jeremiah 16:16 that to a parent of a missionary sings, your children, and even all of us, we did this back in the 1900s, went into the hills, and mountains, and rocks, and went looking. Isn’t it similar to the Savior saying, I leave the 99, I go find my one out there. So any missionary listening, this is you. What did President Nelson say, John? You are part of something huge, something big, bigger than the parting of the Red Sea.

Dr. John Hilton III: 45:02 And I think it’s fair to say that even if you’re not a full-time missionary, all of us are part of this. We are all right now on the mission to be fishers, and hunters, and gatherers, whether we’ve got a name badge or not.

John Bytheway: 45:12 And President Nelson might add on both sides of the veil, which it just expands the whole thing in amazing ways to the Temple.

Hank Smith: 45:20 To think it all started out with six little members of the church in upstate New York is a fun little thought, right?

John Bytheway: 45:26 It’s only a little hand of priesthood, you see here this evening. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 45:31 It’ll fill the earth.

John Bytheway: 45:35 Please join us for part two of this podcast.