Hank Smith: 00:05 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another FollowHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the amazing and incredible and perfect John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:13 If you’ve been following FollowHIM Favorites this year, you know that we take a single question from each week’s lesson and try to talk about it for FollowHIM Favorites. Well, John, the question for this week is from Jeremiah, Chapter 36. This is out of the “Come Follow Me” manual.

Hank Smith: 00:29 It says, “The Scriptures have power to turn me away from evil.” And it talks about how Jeremiah was recording his prophecies in a roll of a book, on a scroll. And it says, “So it may be that they, the people, may return every man from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity.”

Hank Smith: 00:47 So tell me, how did the scriptures turn someone away from evil? I want to read my scriptures, and I also want to turn away from evil. How do they have to do with each other?

John Bytheway: 00:57 I think sometimes it’s not even exactly the words that we read. Some of these chapters in the Old Testament, as we’re all learning are, you really have to slow down. They’re hard to understand.

John Bytheway: 01:08 Have you ever heard that old saying, “If you want to talk to God, pray, if you want God to talk to you, read your Scriptures?” Just the fact that you are opening your heart to God by reading the Scriptures, that right there is going to bless you. We all know that when Satan tried to tempt the Savior, that the Savior answered each of those temptations with a verse of Scripture.

Hank Smith: 01:30 Yeah, he quoted Scripture.

John Bytheway: 01:32 Yeah. Sometimes those verses really will help us fight temptation. We’ll remember things. But I think the very active just trying to have God in your life, it just gives you the Holy Ghost. It gives you the spirit of the Lord, and that will always help you.

John Bytheway: 01:46 Whether what you read necessarily is exactly what helps you, or the act of trying to understand what the Lord’s trying to say to you, that itself will help you too. What do you think?

Hank Smith: 01:58 I think you’re absolutely right. I did a talk one time, called Temptation Killers, and Temptation Killer Number One was the Scriptures. I used that example you used from Jesus’ life, that he quotes Scripture in the face of temptation.

Hank Smith: 02:12 I encourage the audience to find temptation killing scriptures and memorize them, whatever those might be, like when Moses says, “Who art thou? I am a son of God.”

John Bytheway: 02:22 That’s a great one.

Hank Smith: 02:23 From the book of Ether. “And Moron did that which was wicked in the sight of the Lord.” It helps you go, “I don’t want to be like Moron. I don’t want to do what’s wicked in the sight of the Lord.”

Hank Smith: 02:35 Or Joseph of Egypt, when he said, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” So find some temptation killers in your scriptures and memorize them.

Hank Smith: 02:43 I remember Elder Scott saying, “A memorized scripture can become like a close friend, there when you need it. In the time of need, it will show up next to you as a close friend.” I always needed more friends in high school than I had. So that was really helpful, to have a couple close friends at my side.

Hank Smith: 03:00 And I think you were right about, that maybe it’s not about understanding every word. But it’s trying to get into that same spirit that the author had, when they wrote the Scripture. If you can try to get into that same feeling, I call it like being in the zone.

Hank Smith: 03:17 When you’re reading your scriptures, and maybe you don’t understand every word, but you’re feeling something. I think that feeling can carry you through the next day of, “I want to keep this spirit.”

John Bytheway: 03:28 Yeah. You’ll remember Oliver Cowdery, in Section Six? Oliver Cowdery had to get a revelation to tell him that he’d already received a revelation, which tells us that sometimes you don’t understand revelations, sometimes you don’t understand the scriptures. But the very act that you were there, trying to understand, is a protection.

John Bytheway: 03:49 I love what you said, “Have some verses in your head that help you.” Have some positive ones, too, not just that say, “Don’t do that.” But one of my favorites is First Corinthians 2:9. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for them that love him.”

John Bytheway: 04:06 It just says, “No matter how wonderful or beautiful you can imagine it, it’s better what God has prepared for them that love him.” That motivates me to love God. And part of loving God is, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” so …

Hank Smith: 04:19 Yeah, I think so. I think, the more you can get in tune with the Spirit, and that comes from reading scripture. Again, when I was first reading scripture, I remember, John, when I was young, it was mostly me just looking for good thoughts, good quotes.

Hank Smith: 04:33 I didn’t really understand every verse or every word, but I would find a good phrase, and I would mark it. Usually, on every page, you could find a good phrase, a good quote, or a sermon in a sentence, as you like to call it.

Hank Smith: 04:45 As you do that, over and over and over, you’re going to get more in tune with the Spirit. And as you get more in tune with the Spirit, believe it or not, sin is going to look less and less attractive to you. Remember what the people of King Benjamin said? “We have been changed by the Spirit. We have no more disposition to do evil.”

Hank Smith: 05:03 It’ll change the way you look at sin. You’ll look at something and go, “You know what? That doesn’t seem as good as it once did to me.” And that’s because of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost can actually do that for you.

Hank Smith: 05:14 So I would say, get into the Scriptures, look for those words and phrases. If you’ve never done it before, look for those power words and phrases. Keep doing it every day. And as you do, you’ll become more aligned with the Spirit. You’ll feel that attractiveness towards things that are really good and holy.

John Bytheway: 05:30 Yeah, I had a class from Gerald Lund, who was Elder Gerald Lund, a member of the Seventy for a time. And he talked about some of our approaches to try to get people to read the scriptures.

John Bytheway: 05:40 He said, “There’s bribery, there’s guilt, there’s,” he called it “the medicine approach.” “You’re not going to like this, but it’s going to be good for you.”

Hank Smith: 05:48 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 05:49 But the one thing, it just came to me, that I loved was, he called it, “There’s another approach, and that is the approach the scriptures themselves use.” And he called it promises.

John Bytheway: 06:00 I actually have a handout I give to some of my classes, and say, “Fill in the blank. What is the promise here of scripture study?” The fun thing that they all recognize, they’re not, “Read the Scriptures, so some day in the next life, you’ll have a reward.”

John Bytheway: 06:13 It’s right now type of things. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” When I read the Scriptures, my path is lighted. I know better where I should be going, what I should be doing.

John Bytheway: 06:24 One that comes to mind, First Nephi 15:24. Nephi is explaining, to his brothers, Lehi’s dream, Nephi’s vision of Lehi’s dream, right? What is that rod of iron? It’s the word of God, “and whoso would hold fast unto it, they would never perish.”

John Bytheway: 06:39 And never is a strong word, isn’t it? “Neither could the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them.” I mean, fiery darts. How’d you like people shooting arrows at you?

Hank Smith: 06:48 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 06:49 Would you like it any better if the arrows were on fire? But if you’re holding on, you’ll never perish. What a strong promise, and those can build us up.

John Bytheway: 07:02 Elder Lund’s approach was, there are promises from scripture study, that instead of guilt, shame, bribery, medicine, there are promises, and look for those. Those are kind of fun, too.

Hank Smith: 07:14 Oftentimes, we say, “Read the scriptures, and it’ll help you stay away from evil.” And you might not understand it, but keep doing it.

Hank Smith: 07:21 It’s like the farmer who plants a seed, the Savior says, and doesn’t know how it works, but he keeps doing it. And he knows that at the end, it works. He eats.

Hank Smith: 07:31 So don’t give up on it, even if you don’t know exactly how it works. You’ll learn more about how it works as you do it, as you keep at it, as you keep getting back into those Scriptures.

Hank Smith: 07:41 I would say, just add one more little thing, John, is that you can write your own scripture. As you pick up your pen, and ponder the things of God, and start to write in your journal, perhaps, that can become scripture for you.

Hank Smith: 07:52 It can become the things of your soul. So I’ll add that in, too. Just think about writing your own.

Hank Smith: 07:57 Well, we hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. We’re with Dr. Michael Wilcox, who you will just absolutely love, for these sections. And then, join us next week, back here for another FollowHIM Favorites.