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: 00:20 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith, and I am your host. And I am here with my co-host, who is the master and the scholar, John Bytheway. You are a master and a scholar. Did you know that?

John Bytheway: 00:34 Hank, I bought a PhD from the University of Mayberry.

Hank Smith: 00:38 University of Mayberry.

John Bytheway: 00:39 That’s right.

Hank Smith: 00:40 I need one of those. Barney Fife, is he the one… Did he hand the diploma over? How would he say it, John?

John Bytheway: 00:48 “Oh, here you go. You earned a degree.” They’re not exactly an accredited school. It’s hard to get accreditation when your professor’s names are Goober and Gomer Comer.

Hank Smith: 01:01 Well, John, that comes from Malachi chapter two, but it’s actually not a compliment. It says, “The Lord is going to cut off the master and the scholar.” So I don’t know how we’re going to understand the book of Malachi, John, without some help. So who is with us to help us understand this book?

John Bytheway: 01:18 I’m excited, you’re excited, our listeners will be excited to have back with us Dr. Barbara Morgan Gardner. She was here last year, helped us with Section 84. She’s the author of The Priesthood Power of Women. And Barbara, I’m just going to read your bio out of the back here and then you can update it if there’s anything that needs to be updated.

  01:39 Barbara Morgan Gardner is an Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. She holds a master’s degree in education and leadership and foundations and a PhD in instructional psychology. She did post-doctoral work at Harvard University. She was Institute Director at Boston, Massachusetts, serving more than a hundred universities and colleges in the area, and acting as chaplain at Harvard and MIT. She continues to serve as the chaplain at large in higher education for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She and her husband, Dustin Gardner, and their two daughters live in Utah. Welcome. Thanks for coming back again.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 02:21 Thanks, John. It’s great to be here with you guys.

Hank Smith: 02:23 We love having you here. We don’t call her Dr. Morgan Gardner around here, we call her Barb, if that’s okay.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 02:30 That’s preferable for me, thank you.

Hank Smith: 02:34 Okay, good. Barb, this week we made it to the end of the Old Testament. John, can you believe it? We made it all the way to the end.

John Bytheway: 02:41 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 02:41 It seems like just yesterday we were starting out in Genesis chapter one, and here we have made it to Malachi. And so many listeners have made this journey with us. First of all, we need to say thank you to all of those who made this journey with us. And we need to finish really well, which is why we brought you in, Barb, we need to finish on top. So where do you want to start with this book? What do our listeners need to know? How would you approach it? Let’s hand the reigns over to you.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 03:06 I love this book. I was here last time with you guys doing Doctrine and Covenants Section 84, and believe it or not, Malachi and Section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants have a lot in common, which for me, makes me very happy. This is a great tie-in from the Old Testament. It brings in the New Testament, but it is strong in Doctrine and Covenants and also in the Book of Mormon. Malachi is found in all the Standard Works, Pearl of Great Price, as well.

  03:31 We’re talking priesthood in here, we’re talking temple, we’re talking falling away from the laws of God. We’re talking allowing God to prevail, holier and higher ways. If some of these sound familiar, it’s not only Section 84, but it’s also 2022 President Nelson. So it’s fun to see this tie-in from Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and now, Living Prophet. Malachi was clearly a great prophet, so fun, totally inspired, speaking for God as His messenger, which is what Malachi means, “my messenger.”

John Bytheway: 04:04 I’m so glad you said that, and let’s talk about that a little bit more. Jesus shares the book of Malachi with the righteous among the Nephites and Lamanites, because Malachi lived after Lehi had already left, but he felt it important enough that he shares this with the righteous in the new world. And then, why is it in the Pearl of Great Price? Because Moroni quoted parts of it to Joseph Smith, and a little bit differently, which I’m sure we’ll talk about today. So I think it’s just kind of interesting. I don’t know of another book like this that is mentioned in all of the Standard Works. That’s kind of a fun little factoid there.

Hank Smith: 04:38 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 04:39 There’s a reason, and it’s a serious reason. As we see in the Doctrine and Covenants, Section Two, the importance of Elijah as being referred to in Malachi. The whole world will be utterly destroyed if it’s not for what happens in this book, the prophecies of Malachi. Pretty amazing, yeah.

Hank Smith: 04:54 Barb, I was listening to The Bible Project this morning, and it seems that the background for this book is that the people have come back from exile, they’ve been back from exile for a while, and exile didn’t change anything. The hope was come back, rebuild the temple and be God’s people. And it seems that that’s not happening, that the people were corrupt before the exile, and now after the exile, they’re also corrupt. Am I on track when I say that?

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 05:21 Very much so. It’s very much like me and the Lord, like all of us, although in this case we’re talking about this covenant people, we know in our day that this covenant will be fulfilled in these final days. But in this day, yes, we have these people who are coming back, just like John was saying, we’re talking 470, 440 BC. They’ve already had the temple destroyed. The temple’s been rebuilt. They’re there now. It seems that we’re going to be excited to see these wonderful Israelites be obedient and come back to the Lord and be a covenant keeping people. And right off the bat, the Lord is going to talk to them about temples and covenants.

  05:57 And we’re looking at it and saying, “Come on.” We’re living in this day now where we’re seeing this real emphasis on covenants and being a covenant keeping people and being on the covenant path and all these things. And you can see that although we want this so badly for them, they aren’t willing to do it.

  06:13 I think probably the hardest part for me in this book, in a sense, is the terminology that they’re using where they’re questioning the Lord and acting as if they are doing what the Lord would have them to do. But as you see in verse 14 of chapter one, for example, it says the Lord calls them deceivers. It’s like they’re giving 99%, but the Lord requires 100%. And so, they question the Lord, but in reality, the Lord gave 100%, and He wants his covenant people to also give 100%. It’s the reality of our life today. It is hard to give all. They’re just holding back a little bit. They have their favorite sins or they have the ways of thinking that they can deceive the Lord, and the Lord will not be deceived. And that’s a hard thing for all of us.

Hank Smith: 06:53 Yeah. I noticed that in my reading, is that there’s this conversation going back and forth, and their attitude towards Him is a little scary to me. It started out right in verse two. “‘I have loved you,’ saith the Lord.’ And you do respond with, ‘When have you loved us?'” I’m like, “Oh, wow.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 07:08 And that’s an issue that we have today. I look at that verse, it makes me just so sad. You see it’s just so poignant, “‘I have loved you,’ saith the Lord.” And then, their response, “When? Prove it. We’re not seeing this love.” So it reminds me of Elder Renlund when he says, “The greater the distance between the giver and the receiver, the more the receiver develops a sense of entitlement” also has profound spiritual implications he talks about, and I think that that’s what they’re seeing here. They’ve lost this closeness to the Lord, and in so losing them, they have this entitlement. They’re not able to see how much God loves them because they’ve separated themselves from God. Therefore, they can’t even feel the love that He has, and it’s eternal and perfect.

  07:47 Their definition of love becomes a different definition of love than God’s. They’re wanting, it seems, God to give them the blessings associated with the covenants without keeping the covenants. They’re kind of spoiled in a sense. And God is a true gentleman. He wants to create a future God. He doesn’t want to create spoiled children.

Hank Smith: 08:05 That’s great.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 08:06 And it seems like they’re being spoiled and He’s wanting them to become like Him. And they don’t understand that His love really is meant to help them become like Him, and He’s not going to budge.

Hank Smith: 08:15 Wow. I’ve got to read you this. It reminded me of April, 2021 General Conference. This is President Oaks. He said, “In a Saturday evening meeting at a stake conference many years ago, I met a woman who said her friends had asked her to come back to church after many years of inactivity. But she could not think of any reason why she should. To encourage her, I said, ‘When you consider all of the things the Savior has done for you, you have many reasons to come back and worship and serve Him.’ I was astonished when she replied, ‘What’s He ever done for me?'” And then, he answers, “What has Jesus Christ done for each of us? He has done everything that is essential for our journey through mortality toward the destiny outlined in the plan of our Heavenly Father.”

  08:57 And he goes on in this talk, “What has our Savior done for us?” That struck me in chapter one, verse two, “I have loved you” and they respond with, “When? When have you loved us? What have you ever done for us?” Wow. And He has to remind them of their heritage. He has to go all the way back to tell them about Jacob, about Israel, the original Israel.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 09:17 I love that quote. I love that talk from President Oaks. It reminds me of this play that’s written by W.H. Auden. He has this little quote, which this kind of love and what they’re seeming to want, I think is very well wrapped up in this little statement. He says in the play, “Oh God, put away justice and truth, for we cannot understand them and do not want them. Leave thy heavens and come down to our earth. Become our uncle, look after baby, amuse grandfather, escort madam to the opera, help Willie with his homework, and introduce Muriel to a handsome naval officer. Be interesting and weak like us and then we will love you as we love ourselves.”

  09:54 It’s that idea of trying to bring God to our level of love instead of allowing ourselves to be transferred, in a sense, through the atonement of Christ to His kind of love. Love is hard. The more obedient we are, of course, the more our capacity is to love. God has said to us, “Love me in two ways. Keep my commandments and feed my sheep.” And these people are not willing to do either those things, but yet, they’re wondering why God isn’t showing His love to them. But in reality, He is. They just can’t see it because they’re not willing to keep His commandments. They’re blind to reality because of their distrust and disobedience.

John Bytheway: 10:29 One of the things this whole year has just impressed me with how God is the opposite of detached. He keeps coming back after His children and keeps inviting them to come back. And I’m afraid, I’m too much a natural man, I would at some point just throw up my hands and walk away, but He never does. He keeps coming back and inviting them to get back on the path and repent and everything. I guess I should have noticed that before, but I just really this year noticed He won’t leave us alone in the positive way of that. He keeps inviting us back and offering repentance.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 11:04 John, you’re the same way. So much of this, as a father to their children, you will never give up on your children. And they may not appreciate and they may compromise and say, “Dad, you’re not really loving me.” But you know, as a parent, that you are loving them in this case, not perfectly like the Lord, but you’re loving them to the best of your ability. And they may come back with that, “You don’t really love me,” but in reality, you will never give up on your children.

  11:27 I think that’s the beauty of learning to be parents is we don’t give up. Of course, there are times when you have to have boundaries and things, and that’s a different ballgame. God is God. He’s able to perhaps have a different law than we are, but just like Him, I think we are taught we just don’t give up. And there’s not an age that all of a sudden, we stop being parents. We love, we care, and we don’t give up.

  11:47 And we hear excuses, too. This reminds me, this is personal on this side, but I remember after we adopted our two children, my oldest daughter was really struggling. And things were so great and life was good, and we were helping her on the swim team and doing her math and getting her homework done and just giving her some assignments and trying to help her grow and become the kind of person that she needs to be. And one day, she just broke down. She was just in tears. She was just young, eight, she just says, “You don’t love me like my birth mother loved me.” And I remember saying, “Allie, what do you mean by that?” And she said, “My birth mother didn’t require anything of me. I could watch movies all day. I could eat whatever I wanted to. I didn’t have homework. I didn’t have to go to school.” The list went on and on and on.

  12:30 And of course, I was very positive about her birth mother, but to me, I just said, “Allie, I show you I love you by what I expect of you and who I know you’re going to become. And I’m going to be on that path with you. But I don’t show my love for you by not requiring things. I show my love for you by seeing that you are a future goddess, daughter of God.” So we’ve had a number of discussions in our family about how we show love and what love really looks like, and use the scriptures to use God’s love in that. And this is a great example of that, I agree, John, really good.

John Bytheway: 13:02 Our friend, Brad Wilcox, who’s been on the program, he’s so good at these little statements. He said, “A God that is asking nothing of us is making nothing of us.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 13:12 Amen.

Hank Smith: 13:13 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 13:13 And He asks a lot, but that’s because He wants to make us into something better than what we are.

Hank Smith: 13:19 I really like that. That’s a positive spin on chapter one and chapter two, because as I read chapter one and chapter two, I thought, “Oh, my goodness. He is telling them everything that they are doing wrong.” They are bringing sacrifices to the temple, but the sacrifices are polluted. They are sick and…

John Bytheway: 13:38 Blind and lame.

Hank Smith: 13:40 They’re supposed to bring these firstlings of their flocks here, the best that they have, and it seems they’re bringing polluted, terrible sacrifices, and the Lord is calling them out on it. But I like that. He’s going to require it of them because He loves them.

John Bytheway: 13:52 I just thought maybe we should talk about why, because lots of people I know are blind and lame and sick, myself included. So why is it that that would be a polluted sacrifice? I guess it’s because what that sacrifice is pointing to. And the sacrifices were supposed to be unblemished, firstborn, the best of the flock because they were all pointing us to Christ. And is that why the Lord would be unhappy with that kind of a sacrifice?

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 14:21 If all they had to offer, I think it’s their heart and their soul. They’re offering not their best. He’s saying, “You have these sheep. You have what I’ve asked you to offer, but you’re not offering your best. You’re offering what is worth less to you.” It’s not a statement on how good or bad the sheep are, it’s how good or bad the intention and the motivation is of the people.

  14:42 It’s the Elder Maxwell quote, where we talk about often, where he talks about the willing heart and the willing mind, Doctrine and Covenants, “the broken heart and the contrite spirit.” There’s not a broken heart here and there’s not a contrite spirit. These are not people who are offering, putting their animal, as he says, on the altar. These are people who are putting their compromise on the altar. They’re giving second best of it. It’s not a real sacrifice.

  15:01 Again, I think the point, a lot of this, is they’re willing to sacrifice something. They’re willing to do the Cain sacrifice, but they’re not willing to do the Abel sacrifice. They’re willing to give a piece of it, but they’re always holding something back. And He doesn’t want them holding back. It’s the whole we have to give away our sins to know God.

Hank Smith: 15:17 Yeah. Wow. I just wrote that above chapter one. “You’re not offering your best.” Automatically, all the application came, which I really don’t want to talk about, so can we move on? How many times do we do that same thing? “You’re not offering your best. You’re offering something. Thank you for offering something, but it’s not your best. It’s not what I’ve asked for.” Yeah, John, go ahead.

John Bytheway: 15:38 This is from the Old Testament Student Manual, Volume Two, which is 1 Kings to Malachi. In Malachi 1:7, it speaks of the table of the Lord, that’s that altar. “The altar, or table of the Lord, as Malachi called it, was the place of intercession, peacemaking, expiation, penitence, and sanctification. That which was consumed by its flames had in a figurative sense been consumed by God, and was therefore understood to have been accepted by Him. In as much as the sacrifices they made for the people typified the coming sacrifice and atonement of the Son of God, the only acceptable sacrifice was that which was spotless. They were mocking God by offering sacrifices to the Lord with sick, blind, and lame animals in calling them acceptable.” And here’s what it gets to the heart of it. “They had no reverence for what they were doing.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 16:29 Exactly.

John Bytheway: 16:30 So I think that’s what you’re saying. The reverence part of the whole thing, their heart wasn’t in it. They were doing what they were supposed to in a way, but their heart wasn’t in it, as you said.

Hank Smith: 16:43 You guys are both making me super uncomfortable, because man, the application is just going through my head. But keep going, keep going, please.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 16:50 I was just going to throw in that heart analogy that you just mentioned. Their heart is not in it. That’s what you see in chapter two, verse two. “If you will not hear and if you will not lay it to heart,” this idea of heart goes throughout… Again, this is a theme that’s going throughout these scriptures, is their heart isn’t in it. They can say whatever they want to, they can compromise, they can show by their actions in some way that they really are looking forward and trying to become like Christ and trying to do what He’s asking to do. But it is clear by this sacrifice alone and other things that he’s going to talk about in here that their heart is not in it. They are not converted to the gospel. They are not converted to Jesus Christ. They are making a mockery of the atonement of Jesus Christ, which you can’t get much worse than that.

  17:31 And then, the sad part is that they are asking the Lord, “Show us your love” and they’re mocking Him while they’re doing it. It’s a sad symbol of what’s really going on, especially at an altar, where altars are always symbolic of Jesus Christ and His atonement.

Hank Smith: 17:45 And the priests are in on it, too. Barb, isn’t that where the Lord’s like, “Hey, it’s not just the people coming to the temple, it’s the people working in the temple.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 17:52 Exactly. I think that that’s one of the sad parts here, is these priests are supposed to be among the most righteous, but they’re allowing it to happen, too. I feel like we have to be careful with that. I think for the most part, especially in our day, the leaders of the church and especially those in the temple, they are the most sanctified, holy, blessed people. But I think that this is a warning that, “You are the leaders. You’re the ones that are supposed to be setting the example. And even you are mocking the things of God.” It’s a warning to every person that’s in this, that the atonement of Jesus Christ and covenants are not to be mocked.

  18:26 The irony, for me, is back to verse two, was “I have loved you.” The Lord just starts it out, “I have loved you.” And then, they’re questioning His love, when in reality, they have questioned His love by their actions.

Hank Smith: 18:39 I noticed the Lord said, “Take what you’re giving me and try giving it to somebody else and see how they like it.” He says in verse eight, “Offer it to the governor. See if he’s pleased with what you’re offering me.” What would you call this? The double standard that they’re offering? “This is my best. I’m offering my best.” And He’s, “You’re lying. You’re deceiving. You’re a deceiver. This is not your best.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 19:00 It’s like Elder Harold B. Lee talking about with his mom always telling him that, “You need to clean the corners first.” It’s kind of that idea. Give it all. Give your very, very best. Be sincere. Be real. Don’t hold it back. How many of us so often will think we’re giving our best, but in reality, we’re cutting corners to the Lord. I think about I hope I’m not, but if I’m cutting corners to giving my heart and soul to the Lord, then I am.

  19:25 And none of us are perfect. And I think that that’s partially, Hank, that’s the struggle that each of us has, is we all know that we have our favorite sins. We all know that we’re holding back some things. I think the difference though, is our intention is to give it all to Christ, to become better through the atonement of Jesus Christ, where at this case, it looks like they’re making a mockery and they’re intentionally trying to deceive. That’s the distinction. And I think that’s critical to say to ourselves, “Lord, is it I? Am I holding back? Is there something with me or am I blaming and saying, ‘No actually I’m really good.'” There’s just a complete difference in how they’re responding to the love of the Lord.

Hank Smith: 20:00 So this isn’t weakness that He’s going after. This is open rebellion. They’re knowingly doing these things.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 20:07 Clearly. When you use the word deceiver, you know that you’re openly doing it. And that’s the frustration of deceiving. That’s verse 14. That is Satan’s tactic. And that’s why I say 100%. They are 99%, which is the danger of it. And it’s the danger for all of us in deception, when people are trying to deceive us, the key is you’re trying to get so close to what is right, but that 1% is what makes the deception. But the dissension is intentional.

John Bytheway: 20:33 Thank you for saying that, getting so close to it. Look at this phrase in verse four, “the border of wickedness.” It’s like-

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 20:40 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 20:40 … you’re right there on the line. I used to hear that story in Deacon’s quorum when I was a kid about the guy who would drive the truck up Farmington Canyon. It’s really got some windy roads with a big drop off right next to it. And the story was always, somebody was hiring the driver and, “Well, I can drive within six inches of the edge and never go off.” And the next applicant said, “I can drive within two inches and never go off.” And the guy that got hired said, “I stay as far away from the border as I can.”

Hank Smith: 21:13 “I stay far away from it.”

John Bytheway: 21:16 I remember hearing that story a lot. And this idea of the border of wickedness and getting really close but not quite there, that reminded me of that story.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 21:24 And you see that in verse 9 where He says He’s partial. And then, I think it’s even more frustrating when you see verse 17, “You have wearied the Lord with your words, yet you say, ‘Wherein have we wearied Him?’ And then, when you say, ‘Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He is delighted in them,’ or ‘Where is the God of judgment?'”

  21:40 They’re not willing to accept responsibility for their actions. They’re trying to twist what is evil into good and what is good into evil, as we see all the time happening in the Book of Mormon. And they just keep adding to it. You just continue to see that they’re blaming the Lord and not willing to grow up. They’re just not willing to be mature. Spiritually mature is lacking here, and the Lord is trying to prepare the people for the temple and for the second coming. And they clearly aren’t ready because they will not take responsibility and they will not turn to the Savior. They want cheap grace and that’s what they’re looking for. They’re not willing to put in the effort.

  22:14 Elder Maxwell has a statement. He says, “Sadly, too, a few envy the wicked. Still others complain that the wicked seem to get away with it.” The idea of they’re complaining that they get away with it. You’re complaining about it? It’s just kind of a weird… We want to be that way.

John Bytheway: 22:30 Oh, I think that exact thing is coming up in Malachi three. “You have said, ‘It’s vain to serve God. What prophet is it that we’ve kept His ordinance and walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? Now we call the proud, happy. They that work wickedness are set up. They that tempt God are even delivered.'” That is exactly what you’re saying. “Look, the wicked are getting away with it. What does it profit us that we’re serving God?” That they’re asking that very thing.

Hank Smith: 22:53 What verse is that, John? I love that verse.

John Bytheway: 22:56 Malachi 3:14-15. I love these. I seem to remember, was it Glenn Pace that came to BYU and talked about these verses? You could probably look it up. But “The proud are set up.” I love the words. “The wicked are set. They’re set for life. They that tempt God are delivered.” And then, verse 16, I love how, “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. The Lord hearkened and heard it. A book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord and thought upon His name. ‘And they shall be mine,’ saith the Lord of hosts. ‘In that day when I make up my jewels, I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Then I have to insert laughter in here, “Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.” It’s like, “You’ll see.” There’s an eventually in there somewhere. “But one day you’ll see and discern between the righteous and the wicked.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 23:50 I agree. It’s just kind of a sad, frustrating way of thinking. “They have been so wicked and they’re still blessed?” And we’ve heard that so many times around.

John Bytheway: 23:58 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 23:59 We hear that from teenagers, we hear that from ourselves. “Why do they get to sin and still be blessed? Why are they getting away? Why were they able to not make covenants until they were 80 and all of a sudden get blessed? Why didn’t they have to work hard and then receive?”

  24:11 The question isn’t, “Why didn’t they, and then they get blessed?” It’s really the opposite. “How much more could they have been blessed had they been obedient? And why are we jealous of wickedness?” Then the Lord, He just kind of ignores it and just says, “You know what? In the long run, they will be my jewels. We’re talking eternal life here, people. We’re talking you have no idea what I am going to give you.” Section 84, “I’m giving you everything. So yeah, you may see temporarily that some people that are not being obedient are getting blessed, but in reality, they will be my jewels. You who are obedient will be my jewels. You’ll have everything that I have. You become heirs of all that I have.” Don’t worry about complaining because you didn’t get a nice car. You’re going to have mansions.

John Bytheway: 24:50 And this all starts with comparing. When you said that, I thought of the parable of the laborers and the vineyard. “Well, these guys just barely started work and then you’re paying them the same.” Things go south when we start to look sideways. “Well what about them? What about them?” Instead of looking at where we are with the Lord, we look to the side. Prodigal son, there’s the same kind of a looking, “Well, well,” sideways type of a thing. And this starts out with, “Well, look, look. It’s vain to serve God because look at the wicked.” But thank you for saying that, because should we ever be jealous of the wicked, as if wickedness was happiness?

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 25:29 Yeah, but sometimes we do. I don’t know why, but it seems to be kind of a common thread. And again, this is so comparable, it’s so real for today. We look at that and just wish, “Oh, I wish I had more money. I’m paying all this money for tithing and I don’t have a mansion. Or I’m keeping the sabbath day holy and I don’t have all the blessings of the sabbath. They have a new boat and a new yacht.” It’s just this idea of, “They’re getting all these things and I’m getting nothing.” But it’s the reality of we need to look into the eternities and be blessed.

  25:58 So we were talking about this wickedness and craziness, we forgot… We jumped ahead of verse one, which is actually one of my favorite verses in this whole book, just because of my love for the prophets. It just says, “The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi,” that idea of the burden of the Word of the Lord and that burden.

  26:16 I watch our current prophet today, President Nelson, and I look at past presidents, and we read about presidents even beyond them and prophets and leaders of this church and Enoch, dealing with some of these wickedness of these words that are against him. Jesus Christ himself like being called the carpenter’s son and just this mockery that these prophets are constantly having to deal with. And I just think that “burden of the Word of the Lord” is a real burden. They speak as prophet, seers and revelators. They don’t speak for themselves. Elder Holland has talked about this, when it comes to he is going to say what the Lord is having him say. He’s speaking for God. In the footnote, it talks about the keys of priesthood. It leads us to that.

  26:58 Responsibility for a prophet, we are taught right in Section 43 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which I love this tie-in here. In Section 43, we’re talking about other people trying to take the place of Joseph Smith and being able to teach and make sure that we understand doctrine. Section 43, I’ll just read that really quick. I love this because there is so much deception that’s happening in the early days of this church and that Satan is trying to get himself in.

  27:20 But in 43:3, where the Lord, we’ve had this Mrs. Hubble, we call her Mrs. Hubble trouble. In the past, we’ve had Hiram Page with the rock, and the Lord is establishing His church and He says, “And this ye shall know. As surely that there is none other appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until he be taken if you abide in me.” There is none other. The prophet has the burden of being the spokesman for God. And I think in Malachi, that is part of this burden that he’s expressing. “The Lord loves you, and my responsibility is to tell you no matter how right and how justified you think you are, I have to speak for the Lord here, and it is a burden.”

  27:59 You guys probably remember President Nelson when he came to BYU a few years ago, and he talked about all the truths that the students needed to know. That Marriott Center was packed, and he gave that talk on law and love and he gave these truths. And I love this where he says, “Truth number one is you are sons and daughters of God.” This is a prophet speaking to young adults. “Truth number two, truth is truth. Truth number three, God loves every one of us with perfect love.” And then, tying into this verse, he says, “Truth number four, the Lord, Jesus Christ, whose church this is, appoints prophets and apostles to communicate His love and teach His laws.”

  28:34 And then he continues, “Sometimes, we as leaders of the church are criticized for holding firm to the laws of God, defending the Savior’s doctrine and resisting the social pressures of our day. But our commission as ordained apostles is to go into all the world to preach His gospel and to every creature. That means we are commanded to teach truth. In doing so, sometimes we are accused of being uncaring as we teach the Father’s requirements for exaltation in the celestial kingdom. But wouldn’t it be far more uncaring for us not to tell the truth, not to teach what God has revealed?” And then, “It is precisely because we do care deeply about all of God’s children that we proclaim His truth. We may not always tell people what they want to hear. Prophets are rarely popular, but we will always teach the truth.”

  29:16 And then, in that context, going back to Malachi, then he says in verse two, “I have loved you, saith the Lord.” That’s the burden of the prophet. And then, “You may misunderstand, but God is love.” And that’s the whole beauty of it’s the law and love. We’re seeing this problem with law and love, and this real struggle that people are having, thinking that God is going to compromise His law to show them His love. And He’s saying, “No. We need to learn to love like God does.” Malachi will tell the truth because he’s speaking for God, who is… I love that burden. But it’s a heavy burden that leaders of the church are always given from the days of Adam and Eve.

John Bytheway: 29:52 Do you know what it reminded me of? Another example is in the Book of Mormon, where Jacob says, “I’m weighed down about what I have to talk to you about today. Some of you have come up here to hear the pleasing Word of God which healeth the wounded soul. And instead, I have to reprove you in front of your wives and your children and place daggers in their mind.” But that was the burden and he didn’t shy away from that. He told them like it was.

  30:15 Elder Christofferson gave a talk in 2015 called Why the Church? I took that apart and put bullet points on every reason why we need a church. And one of them was to be in a position to be reproved of sin and error. And it’s wonderful to be able to know I will have a bishop, I will have a prophet, I will have church leaders who can say, “Don’t do this,” or “You need to stop doing this” or “You need to be warned against this” and not worry about whether they’re being popular or not.

Hank Smith: 30:45 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 30:46 Okay. So we’re looking at Malachi two now, and we’re talking about the heart again. So this idea of the heart is critical. I don’t know that we realize that that term heart is used over a thousand times in the scriptures, just heart, and what that means. And when we’re talking about heart, it’s typically being converted and a covenant keeping people. So he’s talking about the heart and he’s talking about people really being converted not just in their mind, but really giving themselves 100% to the Lord.

  31:11 Then he’s talking about this covenant that he made with Levi, and he’s talking about the covenant that has been broken. That actually brings us back to Section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants, where in Section 84 we see that Moses was given this priesthood and the Lord was trying to get him to be able to bring His people unto the Lord and to enter into His rest, but they refused. So we’re talking about this covenant, and we’re talking about specifically these people who receive, and it talks about this in verse 26. “And the lesser priesthood continued which priesthood holdeth the key of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel.”

  31:44 But before this, Moses is trying to get his people to receive the power of godliness. He’s trying to get them to receive the key of the knowledge of God. He’s trying to help them to make these ordinances. Here we’re seeing that this covenant is being broken and he is referring in the sense to these days of Moses. Then he is talking about the priests and how the priests, really, their responsibility is to teach knowledge and to teach this law and be examples of this law.

  32:08 I think about our day and the role of priests, but not just priests. The Lord has said in our day we need everyone. And specifically, we’ve heard women, the call from President Nelson to women to speak up and speak out regarding the truth, and to be those who have the priesthood authority that has been given to both women and men through one who has priesthood keys, and then the covenants that we have made with the temple to be those who are righteous leaders of the church and be these examples. And then we’ve been asked by the prophets, more so in our day than ever before, to speak and teach and be examples of the covenants and especially the temple.

  32:43 So we have many talks recently where we have Elder Bednar and President Oaks and President Nelson and women leaders of the church trying to help us to understand the temple, the importance of the temple, and then speaking openly about it. That’s been a huge prophetic priority in the last few years.

Hank Smith: 32:58 So Barb, let me make sure I’m clear here. So in chapter two, these priests have corrupted the covenant of Levi by not teaching truth. Their hearts are not in it.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 33:09 I think what they’re trying to say is, In every day since the day of Adam, the Lord has tried to bring people into His presence. So we see that with Adam, we see that with Moses, we see that here with Malachi. He is trying to bring people into His presence. This is this covenant that He is trying to make. He’s talking about the people of Levi, their responsibility and their humility in bringing this forward. We see this then especially with Moses, where He says, “You are not keeping this and therefore you have lost this. You have lost this Abrahamic covenant. You have lost this ability to be with me. You have lost the higher order of the priesthood, which is the patriarchal order of the priesthood. Because you’re not willing to keep this covenant, these things are lost.”

  33:46 And then, He’s saying to them, “As priests, you are not doing this. And because of that, you are being kept away.” It says in verse nine, “You’re partial in the law. You’re not willing to go all the way up. You’re not willing again to be able to give it all. You have lost the ability to be,” and it’s going to talk about this here in the future, “you’ve lost the ability to be sealed for eternity with your spouse. You’re making a mockery of the covenants that you have made, especially when it comes to marriage and family. And because of that, you are not going to be able to have this eternal life.” It’s not funny to the Lord.

  34:16 And that’s what happens in Section 84 as well. The Lord is explaining to Joseph Smith in this case, Moses was not, His people were not obedient. The patriarchal order of the priesthood had been passed down from generation to generation, from the prophets. And because the people were not willing to be obedient, they also lost this covenant. They lost this ability to enter into the presence of the Lord.

Hank Smith: 34:36 Wow.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 34:36 And as we see in Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, we entered into this presence of the Lord through marriage. Then you see this very part at the end where he is talking about, “You’re cut off from the Lord because you are marrying outside of the covenant. And you’re cut off from the Lord because you are taking lightly the covenants you have made with God and you’re divorcing your wives for seemingly very petty reasons.” And that’s kind of what he’s saying here. It’s all about this covenant. It’s about eternal life. It’s about helping people come unto Christ and become like Him. This is very temple. So these are temple covenants, this is temple terminology. It’s about families. It’s about the sacred covenant between a husband and wife and becoming eternal parents, that they’re mocking, and you can see that He is not happy.

Hank Smith: 35:16 Man, that really makes that chapter one, verse two question, “When have you loved us?” so heart wrenching when you find out what’s been going on. They could have had all these blessings, but like you said, they’re cutting corners. And not only that, the priests are taking part in this and they’re breaking hearts. They’re dealing treacherously with the wife of their youth. The wives of their youth, they’re divorcing for seemingly petty reasons. Wow. No wonder Malachi says this is a burden to share.

John Bytheway: 35:48 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 35:49 I think in our day sometimes, we, especially because of our culture and things, don’t understand the seriousness and the covenant we make regarding marriage. You go through the history of Joseph Smith, and he’s told that eventually Elijah will come and he’s going to restore this priesthood. And then, we continue on through the Doctrine and Covenants and we start seeing that the church is being restored. But eventually, you get to about Section 36, 38, we start hearing about the temple. But eventually, as you get to Section 84 and then 95 and then Section 110, you start seeing the keys being revealed in the Kirtland temple, and then it culminates with Section 132 with celestial marriage and what they’re going to be receiving. And then you get into later sections that are going to come along. But it is this line upon line teaching to Joseph Smith from the Lord about the importance of the temple and about the importance of marriage.

  36:40 And I think it’s significant, right in the middle of the last book of the Old Testament, the Lord is saying, “Marriage and covenants regarding husband and wife and families are critical, and you are mocking it as much as you are mocking me.” You cannot mock marriage without mocking Christ, and you cannot mock Christ without mocking marriage. You have to have them both. If you are making a mock of either, you’re destroying the purposes of God.

Hank Smith: 37:05 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 37:06 We laugh about marriage and we have a lot of stories, and we all have stories about marriage and things that we can do to make it better, but it comes right down to it, marriage is very serious to the Lord. That relationship between a husband and wife is critical to Him.

Hank Smith: 37:17 When you talked about chapter two, verse nine, it made me think of this quote from Larry W. Gibbons way back in 2006, but I still remember it. He quotes both Elder Maxwell and Marion G. Romney. He said, “Elder Neal A. Maxwell spoke and expressed this thought that bidding Babylon farewell is actually one of our challenges, that too many of us like to keep a summer cottage there. We cannot keep one foot in the church and one foot in the world. One reason is the world and the church are rapidly diverging. We’ll lose our balance.” And then he quotes Marion G. Romney, which is just a beautiful quote. He said, “We know that no man can serve two masters. Some, I fear, are attempting to do what President Marion G. Romney described as trying to serve the Lord without offending the devil. You have been partial in the law. You’ve had one foot in but not the other.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 38:09 Yeah. This is a touchy subject for a lot of people. Even as a religion professor, I have students asking all the time as I teach The Eternal Family class, “Is it okay to be dating somebody out of the church? Is it okay to be marrying somebody outside of the temple?” And my answer is always, “What is the purpose of life? What is the desire from our heavenly parents to us? Why are we even here? It’s to become like them.” And that doesn’t mean that you can’t date necessarily other people of other faiths. There are many people who have married people of other faiths and have ended up with that person making covenants with the Lord. And I would imagine that they will have eternal life. We’ll let the Lord decide on that, of course. There are many people who are members of the church who are marrying in the faith, but who are not covenant keeping people and who think that just because they married in the temple, they’re going to have eternal life.

  38:54 I am kind of a Pollyanna. I kind of hope all of us will make it no matter what. But the reality is, the Lord is saying, “I have a law and you need to obey it.” I do believe that you can marry outside of the law, but I think you have to be extremely careful in our day. You have to do so knowing that the only way we are going to have eternal life is if a man and a woman make a covenant with God and they keep their covenants. And that’s why it’s so dangerous.

  39:20 And again, it’s not that anybody is perfect, none of us are perfect, but that we are trying to do that. But if we don’t understand the covenants and we’re just simply saying, “I will do my way, my way and not Thy way. And my way is higher than your way, not the Lord’s way.” And we decide that what we do is right, and not the Lord’s, we’re falling into this trap. We’re being deceived.

  39:37 It’s such a hard topic. This idea is very difficult. And the same thing with divorce. There are reasons that people need to be divorced, especially in terms of abuse of some sort, a person being majorly degraded. But in our day and age, it is so easy to just say, “I’m done” for selfish reasons. And that’s where we really have a problem, is people not willing to pay that price.

John Bytheway: 39:58 Or not even to marry in our day, just to kind of live together and not even make a covenant at all. I’ve always had a question about this. If the Melchizedek priesthood was taken post Moses, or during the time of Moses, what kind of marriages were even possible for them? Were they still sealed in the same way?

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 40:19 They couldn’t enter into the highest order of the Melchizedek priesthood, which is the patriarchal order of the priesthood. I don’t know exactly how those marriages were performed and what that meant, but they wouldn’t have been sealed for eternity because they couldn’t enter into that order. There are exceptions, and it talks about some of the prophets, Elijah being one of them. But for those people living at that time, that wasn’t even a possibility because they didn’t have that order of the priesthood there.

John Bytheway: 40:39 Forgive me for digressing, but when Jesus was approached by the Sadducees, and hey, there was with us, probably another Sadducee, a man who died, and his six brothers married this woman. Whose will her husband be? So it sounds like they thought it would be somebody. In Jesus’s time, nobody had the chance to be sealed the way we understand today. Is that right?

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 41:02 Well, we have to be careful, because then Elijah, as we know, he’s talking about Elijah coming back in chapter four. Elijah is also going to come to the Mount of Transfiguration and he’s going to restore these keys to Peter, James, and John. That’s part of what happens at Mount Transfiguration. These keys make it possible for the sealing to take place for them. And of course, Christ has these keys. They are His keys in the first place, so He can perform these sealings as well.

John Bytheway: 41:23 And I figured if The Twelve all had the Melchizedek priesthood, I’ve always thought, “How did people in Jesus’ time have the chance to have a sealing the way we have it today?” And I guess it would only those who receive the Melchizedek priesthood or were able to go through that ordinance in the temple. And the temple wasn’t even… It was kind of an Aaronic priest at temple in Jesus’ time and it was halfway apostate anyway.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 41:47 Right. However, it is important to remember because of Elijah’s return at Mount of Transfiguration, they received their endowment and they received keys, so they were able to perform those ordinances, no question. The prophets of the New Testament don’t talk about it a lot because they are establishing Christ’s church on the earth. And typically, when we’re talking about the highest order of the Melchizedek priesthood, we’re talking patriarchal order, we’re talking Old Testament.

  42:10 Joseph Smith is receiving both the Old Testament church, the Old Testament, which is going to be temple and the New Testament, which is going to be the church itself, if that makes sense. So what we see typically in the New Testament is the ecclesiastical administrative structure of the church that Christ built when He was on the earth. There’s not as much mention there of the temple, but He clearly has those keys and they have been restored through Elijah, Peter, James, and John. But I think what we see in the New Testament is really Christ establishing the kingdom of God on the earth according to His church.

  42:40 Elder McConkie says that Christ had to establish His church on the earth in the time of Jesus in a different way than He did during the time of Adam and Eve, because during Adam and Eve, it was a family organization, government set up. By the time Christ came, it was more of a political setup. And so, He had to change the structure of the church.

John Bytheway: 42:56 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 42:56 But yes, they would have had those keys. Christ himself, those keys belong to Him, so He had the ability to do so. And His First Presidency in the Quorum, The Twelve received that ability through Elijah.

John Bytheway: 43:05 So they must have had the chance to have an eternal sealing the way we would understand it now.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 43:10 Absolutely.

John Bytheway: 43:11 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 43:11 As I was reading the end of chapter two of Malachi, I was confused at what was happening. I didn’t have Barb to explain it to me. So I went to the New Living Translation of the Bible, and it says the exact same thing you’re saying here, Barb. It says, “Judah has been unfaithful, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. The men of Judah have defied the Lord’s beloved sanctuary by marrying women who worship idols. May the Lord cut off from the nation of Israel, every last man who has done this, and yet brings an offering to the Lord.”

  43:45 “Here is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, weeping, and groaning because He pays no attention to your offerings and doesn’t accept them with pleasure. You cry out, ‘Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?’ I’ll tell you why. Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young, but you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit, you are His. And what does He want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart. Remain loyal to the wife of your youth.” And all of a sudden, I’m seeing what you saw here, Barb, is a detestable thing that they were doing.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 44:33 Again, it is Satan trying to destroy families. If Satan is going to try to destroy one thing in our day and age, at any time, it’s what he wants more desperately than anything, and it’s an eternal, united oneness relationship that only our heavenly parents have with each other and with their children. And Satan cannot have it. He chose to rebel. And of all the things that he wants to destroy, it’s the family. And if he can make a husband or a wife, and it goes both ways, if he can make either of them break their covenants, if he can make either of them forget how important the other person is, if he can compromise their selfishness and make them be selfish in any way, to the point, especially, where they’re willing to break their covenants, he wins in a way.

  45:13 And he will, as we’ve been told, when Satan wins, he seems to feel like he has more power. When our Heavenly Father wins, we have more power. And God wants to endow us with His power. He wants us to become like He is. He wants us to become eternal, heavenly parents. And that that’s why these verses of scripture, I believe right in the middle of this last book, are so critical. He is saying, “This is what I want for you. I want eternal families. And you are making a mock of what is so sacred. And you cannot forget.”

  45:41 Just the church website on divorce, it says, “When men and women marry, they make solemn covenants with each other and with God. Every effort should be made to keep these covenants and preserve marriage.” I just want to say every effort. Again, it’s not this 99% effort that He’s so concerned about in chapter one. It’s not the “I’m going to give everything except for what really hurts. I’m going to give everything except my temper. I’m going to give up everything except for my desire to have a lot of money. I’m going to give everything up except for my pride.” They’re saying every effort should be made to keep these covenants and preserve marriage.

  46:12 “When divorce occurs, individuals have the obligation to forgive, lift, and help rather than to condemn.” And then, “The sanctity of marriage and families is taught repeatedly in the scriptures. It has been reaffirmed by modern prophets and apostles.” And I would say every scripture that we have, every book of scripture is a scripture about family. New Testament, it’s about family. Old Testament, it’s about family. Doctrine and Covenants, it’s the family. These are all eternal families that we’re discussing. And the Lord is trying to teach us how to have an eternal family. And Satan is trying to destroy it. Again, this is the end of the Old Testament, the destruction of the family if we aren’t careful.

John Bytheway: 46:44 It seems that this metaphor we’ve been reading about the past many chapters, about the Savior being the bridegroom and the church, or His people, the bride, it just makes me want to make that leap. Well, doesn’t it seem then that that metaphor of marriage is so strong, how can you not believe that our marriages are going to go on in the next life, that they’re eternal?

Hank Smith: 47:07 That’s the one metaphor they choose.

John Bytheway: 47:09 That’s the one metaphor they would choose. Well, of course then, our marriage means something, because Jesus is using that example so often so that our marriages will mean something. It’s so strange that much of the world believes that, “No, we’re separated after this life.” And I think the common explanation is, “Well, we don’t know what it will be like, but I guess it’ll be something better.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 47:32 And I just want to throw out this just because of my own sensitivity to this issue.

John Bytheway: 47:37 Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 47:37 Again, having not been married until I was 40, but also having dear friends that still are not married and the reality of the pain that’s associated with that. He’s not talking about that here. That’s not the conversation. But just for sensitivity to the need to understand that every person will have the opportunity and the blessing of having an eternal family, whether they’re able to have one on this earth or not. And just recognizing that this covenant that they’re discussing here is an eternal covenant, which is partially why it’s so extremely important that we keep it. But every individual will have the chance in eternity. It’s a matter of our desires to be obedient to the covenant of God. And that’s where our opportunities will come in the future is by our motivation. Are we desiring to keep the covenant?

  48:18 And sometimes, I get the question, “But what if I don’t have the desire to marry? What if I don’t have the desire to have what the Lord is asking me to have here?” And I say, my constant reminder is, “But do you have the desire to keep the covenants of God? Because if your desire is to still be a covenant keeping person 100%, then you’ll have all the blessings that God has promised. Even if you can’t make that covenant today, you’ll be blessed because of the covenant in the future. Only God knows what that means.”

John Bytheway: 48:45 Barbara, when King Benjamin talks about when you’re approached by the beggar and you don’t have, but he says, “I would, that you would say in your heart. I want the state of your heart to be, ‘If I had, I would give.'” That helped me when I was single, wanted to be married and wasn’t, because I knew that the Lord knew, “I want that. I’m having a hard time making it happen by myself. But I want that.” And I knew that desire would be counted for something.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 49:11 Amen.

John Bytheway: 49:12 I hope that’s what you were trying to say there. I can back you up on that.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 49:14 Yep, absolutely. Yep.

Hank Smith: 49:17 So Barb, they are bringing in polluted sacrifices. The priests are in on it. They are divorcing their wives and marrying women who don’t worship Jehovah. Please tell me they’re not doing anything else. Are they doing more wrong? Is the Lord going to keep going in chapter three? What else have these people been doing wrong?

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 49:39 I think that there is some reality of what they continue to do wrong. I think the biggest problem that I’m seeing is that they do not understand their complete dependence on the Lord. They just don’t get it. They think somehow that they’re going to do it by themselves. Even the question, we see this and we’ll probably come back to it, but just the question in verse eight that is so famous, “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?” And then He says, “In tithes and offerings.” And I would say the tithes and offerings is a symbol of everything else they have robbed. They aren’t willing to give it all. It doesn’t matter what it is. In this case, He says tithes and offerings. But clearly, we see Him in chapters one and two that they’re holding a lot back.

  50:15 But I think part of the frustration for the Lord is He wants so bad to bless them. This is the house of Israel, the children of Israel, and they will not allow Him to give all of the love He has to give them, because He is a God of principle. He wants so bad to bless. But if they aren’t using their agency, He can’t break His own law. And they aren’t willing to pay their tithing and He can’t bless them with the windows of heaven, as He says. But if they would, He says, “He wants to pour out the blessings that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” He wants to just soak them in blessings, but they refuse. They refuse. So yeah, I think we continue to see some of this wickedness.

  50:52 But I also love, in verse one and two, where He is always talking about Christ again coming to His temple. This is a major theme, the messenger of the covenant. Then in verse two, “But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like a fuller’s soap.”

  51:07 I love that idea of the fire and the soap, both being cleansing agents. And when Christ comes, He is going to cleanse not just His temple, but He is going to cleanse His people and He is going to help them. He’s going to refine them as a purifier does. And for the wicked, it will be hard, and for the righteous, it will be beautiful. But it’s that repentance, that Christ comes with the intention of healing and with the intention of cleaning. And He’s going to come to His people. Our Father in Heaven, and Jesus Christ, wants so bad to just show us His love. Even with all of this wickedness, He’s coming with the intention of helping them, even then, as a purifier and as a healer. But they have to want it. They have to be willing to be cleansed.

Hank Smith: 51:45 I’m writing this in. “He is coming to cleanse not just His temple but His people.”

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 51:49 It’s John 3:16, which we all know. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And then, “He sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him, the world might be saved.” He’s sending His Son to save them, to cleanse them, to love them. They’re mocking it, but He’s not going to let go. He is still going to come. He’s going to cleanse them. “And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Christ,” period. So even now in their wickedness, He still commits that He is going to send, or that Jesus Christ Himself is going to come and He is going to cleanse them. And it’s going to be hard, but He’s not going to give up on them.

Hank Smith: 52:27 He says that, “He will purify them as gold and silver.” Those are valuable things. He still sees them as valuable after all they’ve done.

Dr. Barbara Gardner: 52:35 Yep. And then, verse six, “I am the Lord. I change not.” He is not going to give up on them. He is going to continue on. He’s not going to change. He will purify. He will cleanse. The commitment, His promise is there. He has made the promise and He’s going to follow through, and it’s really up to us. But His intentions are 100% to give us and to give them all that He has. But it’s us that holds back, and that’s where He is coming into this is, “Will you rob me?”

  53:00 It’s not me holding back. I’ve given you everything. You refuse to be blessed. That’s the robbing of God. You’re refusing. You don’t even understand that your robbing of me is really hurting you. I want to bless you, but you won’t let me.

John Bytheway: 53:16 We so often talk about life being a test. And Elder Bednar mentioned in a talk recently that the scriptures never used the word test, they use prove and try. And what’s so fun here is it’s not, “I’m proving you,” the Lord is saying, “Prove me. Try me. Prove me now herewith.” And then, that’s just poetry, “I will open you the windows of heaven.” Wow. He’s asking them to test Him, which is kind of a fun reversal of things. Instead of us getting tested, He’s saying, “Test me on this and see what I’ll do.”

  53:50 Please join us for part two of this podcast.