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: We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: We want to learn and laugh with you as together, we followHIM. My friends, welcome to another episode of followHIM. I am here with my prolific co-host, John Bytheway. Welcome, John.

John Bytheway: 00:28 Thanks, Hank, I’m prolific. I’d love to know what that means.

Hank Smith: 00:32 Yes, you are. You are talented and amazing. In fact, someone asked me the other day what it’s like to do this with you and I said, if you would have told me, see, I was 12 years old when I heard you speak and if you would have said to me that one day, you, young man, are going to do a podcast with John Bytheway, you know what I would have said? I would have said, “What’s a podcast?” That’s what I would have said and I would have said, “That’s amazing.”

Hank Smith: 00:58 John, this is just such a treat. Every week, we get to talk with one of the church’s top minds and we have another chance this week. Tell us who’s with us.

John Bytheway: 01:13 It’s always customary to say it’s good to be here, but I am so excited to be here with Sister Susan Easton Black joining us today. I told my wife, “Hey, guess who’s coming on the podcast,” and she said, “Oh, I took two classes from her. Liked her first one so much, I took it again,” and just love Sister Black. So I’m going to read a short bio from Sister Susan Eason Black here so that you can be better acquainted with her.

John Bytheway: 01:40 Dr. Black joined the BYU Religious Education faculty in 1976. She’s a past Eliza R. Snow Fellow, and is past Associate Dean of General Education and Honors, and director of Church History in the Religious Studies Center. She was the recipient of the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecture Award in 2000. It’s interesting because she was the first woman to receive that award and believe the recipient before her was Hugh Nibley. This is an award that everybody wants and it’s not just the Religion faculty, she has authored, edited, and compiled over 130 books, 300 articles. She currently serves as, oh my goodness, I want to send my kids to your class, Sunday School teacher for the 14 and 15-year-olds and for the state as a Self-reliance Course Teacher. She and her husband, George, since retiring, have served four missions and one of those was a curriculum writer under Elder Tad Callister for the Come, Follow Me manuals that we use here every week. So we are so excited to have Sister Black with us here today.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 02:53 Thank you.

Hank Smith: 02:55 Susan, thank you so much for taking your time.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 02:58 It’s a treat, actually. It’s so fun to see both of you and happy memories.

Hank Smith: 03:03 For those of you who don’t know who Sister Black is, just know that this woman, and I don’t think I’m overstating this here, knows more about Joseph Smith, especially Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo period, than probably any other person on the planet.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 03:22 Hank, thanks. That’s a big compliment. Probably not deserved, but thank you.

Hank Smith: 03:30 In fact, Sister Black, how long have you been studying the history of the Church?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 03:36 I think it started for me, my grandmother was in my home as I grew up, and I would say to her, “I wanted to hear Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty,” and she actually didn’t know those. She left school in Seventh Grade and so she could say, “I can only tell you things that are true. And so she then regaled me with stories of Joseph Smith, and Huntsville, and Carthage Jail, and Pioneers Crossing the Plains. I actually thought in my mind then, and haven’t changed much, that they were such amazing heroes. I mean, who could rise up to be them?

John Bytheway: 04:15 Wow. Just yesterday, as I was looking for a good biography, short biography for Sister Black, I stumbled upon a talk that she and George Durrant gave and I got a backstory to Joseph Smith running for President that I had never heard and understood before. So I read that whole thing yesterday and told my wife and she was like, “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah,” because she had you and she remembers everything. But anyway, I hope our listeners will go find that because it was fascinating.

Hank Smith: 04:47 This week, Come, Follow Me, it starts in sections 37 and 38 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Susan, it’s December of 1830, the church is, what, eight-months-old at this point.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 05:02 Eight-months-old.

Hank Smith: 05:03 Yeah. What’s been happening to this new church, which would help our listeners who are pretty new to the Doctrine and Covenants, some of them, what would help them know what leads up to these revelations?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 05:14 Oh, great. Well, we know that the Church was organized on April 6, 1830. And we’ve got now an eight-month gap as we come to section 37, right? Yeah. So during that time, we know that, no doubt, one of the more exciting parts was the missionaries sent to the borders of the Lamanites, and we had at that time a nation of 26 states. And your farthest Western community was a place named Independence Missouri, having been settled by people from Kentucky, and the Carolinas, and Tennessee. So these missionaries are heading out that way about 1,600 miles from where they started in Fayette and along the trail, we know that they stopped in a place called Mentor and, ultimately, Kirtland. And before they left their three weeks, try and imagine this, they’d baptized 127 people and then they’re off to continue their journey.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 06:16 And so what we’ve got, in the meantime, of course, you’ve got Joseph Smith, a little back and forth between Harmony, Pennsylvania and New York, back and back. As we pick them up today with Section 37, we’re now in Fayette, New York. And it might be interesting to our audience to know that Fayette wasn’t its original name, it was called Romulus and at one point, it was called the Town of Washington, meaning after George Washington. But by 1803 Fayette, New York is Fayette, New York.

Hank Smith: 06:51 These four missionaries. This is Oliver Cowdery, Parley…

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 06:56 Ziba Peterson and Peter Whitmer, Jr.

Hank Smith: 06:59 And the one connection already there is Parley, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 07:04 Parley is a wanderlust person. Where other people are content to be home, you’d say not Parly. He’s up and off and he’s willing to live in a wilderness area by himself, and had actually spent time in the area, and became acquainted with a man who was a minister, Sidney Rigdon. He’d been a Baptist, he’s been a… well, you name it, he hasn’t quite been all of those, but he’s been a Baptist, helps join in almost like a charter member of the Cambellite Group, and The Seeker. For Parley, as long as he’s heading out to the borders of the Lamanites out to Independence, it’s not that far of a leap to say, “Let me go see my old friend, Sidney Rigdon.”

Hank Smith: 07:52 He had been in that community before, comes back with a copy of the Book of Mormon saying, “I’ve been baptized a member of a new church.”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 08:01 And of course, Sidney Rigdon, perhaps at first a little put off, but we’re going to find that Parley actually baptizes his old friend on November 14th of 1830. So by the fall, therein Kirtland and Sidney becomes one of those many, over a hundred that are baptized in by these missionaries.

Hank Smith: 08:22 Yeah. I don’t know the number of members in New York, but that’s got to be… are we doubling the size of the church with this Ohio?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 08:30 We probably have doubled it because when the church is organized, you have 63 members, we can name by name and who knows if we’ve got them all, they’re in Colesville. But then you have those meetings in Palmyra, and those also meeting in Fayette, and there’s some up in Waterloo. In other words, the Church is growing, but definitely, with those baptisms, it appears almost we’ve doubled the Church.

Hank Smith: 08:55 How would you say that as a missionary, John? How did you do in your mission? Well, I doubled the size of the Church. I think that’d be okay to say. That’d be all right.

John Bytheway: 09:05 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 09:06 I don’t know much about Ziba Peterson or Peter Whitmer, Jr. We have talked quite a bit about Oliver, of course, and they’re going to make this 1,600-mile journey on foot.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 09:17 On foot. You’d say for Ziba Peterson, he doesn’t stay in the church, and you go, “What’s up with Ziba?” Apparently, he seems to have a little bit of difficulties along the way, but he ultimately ends out in California in a town called Dry Diggins. I remember when there was a gold rush, right?

Hank Smith: 09:36 Right.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 09:37 And in his part, it was Dry Diggins, but he’s credited in California with being the first Sheriff to actually hang a man once it’s all taken over by the US, and hang a man for a crime in his time. And so they changed the name of his town to Hangtown. So if you’ve ever heard Hangtown, USA, it has everything to do with Ziba Peterson.

Hank Smith: 10:01 Wow. One of the original four missionaries. When I do Church History tours, I don’t think we can overstate the importance of this mission and what it does to the future of the Church, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 10:14 Yes, it’s dramatic. What the missionaries did, not only do they make it out to Independence, which we know of as Zion, plans to make it a New Jerusalem, but Kirtland, well, we learned today that the churches in Kirtland from 1831 through 1837, a little bit into 1838, has a huge impact. And if you were to look at the 135 individuals mentioned by name and in the Doctrine and Covenants, where did the majority of them stem from? What do they all most have in common? You’d have to say, Kirtland, Ohio has something to do with these missionaries sent to the Lamanites.

Hank Smith: 11:01 Absolutely. Your friend and my friend, Karl Anderson, likes to say the church was organized in New York, but it was restored in Ohio.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 11:11 Okay, we all Karl. Hey, a couple of things about Peter Whitmer, Jr I think are pretty fun, he is a tailor by trade. And by the time he makes it out to Independence, he’s sewing a suit for Lilburn W. Boggs. So he gets us this, right there on the very front. He also sews a suit for Alexander Doniphan. You get the two key players there in Missouri are also picked up then by these missionaries. They make contact.

Hank Smith: 11:44 Yeah, in about what, in about eight years, those two names are going to become crucial, crucial to the Church.

John Bytheway: 11:51 Yeah. So I might be jumping the gun here, but then is it fair to say that, and the Lord may have had his own reasons, but it seems logical that let’s move everything to Ohio because so many members are there, all of a sudden, because of that mission to the Lamanites? I mean, it makes me think of all sorts of things. Zion’s Camp, that wasn’t what they expected, but some great things happened. Mission to the Lamanites, which wasn’t what they expected, but look at these tremendous members, 120 that they got there. So, is it fair to say that’s why the Lord is now going to start talking about Ohio?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 12:28 Well, I don’t know if I can second guess the Lord here on this.

John Bytheway: 12:31 Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 12:33 But for sure, he knew that in the Ohio, the Saints would receive an endowment from on high and we just needed to get them there so they could have the priesthood power as they went out to share the gospel where you began seeing… I mean, it’s just so dramatic. The numbers that now exponentially increase once they’ve stepped and touched down in Ohio and have those blessings they received in there.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 13:03 If we now move to the content, Section 37, I like this, maybe a little bit of background story. We know that Sidney Rigdon joined the Church, right and is baptized by Parley P. Pratt in mid-November of 1830. We also know that when he finally comes to Fayette, New York that he brings with him or chooses to come with him Edward Partridge, who is a hatter by trade. Edward had a similar experience with Sidney Rigdon in the fact that both men had met the missionaries to the Lamanites, but the difference was Edward Partridge had received a copy of the Book of Mormon. He actually sat on an employee to go get him a copy of the Book of Mormon so could read it. He believed the Book of Mormon, but he wasn’t ready to be baptized. He wanted to meet Joseph.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 14:00 And so with that, you get, no doubt, two friends, both had been of different religious persuasions. You get Sidney Rigdon, who’s a Cambellite, and you get Edward Partridge, who’s been involved in the Unitarian Church. These two friends now travel 275 miles. Now, try and imagine, for that we could probably do it four hours, depending on speeding trips how long we go, but in their case, obviously, days to be able to meet the Prophet Joseph.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 14:36 So one day after meeting Joseph Smith, Edward Partridge, who will live to be a Bishop, a man without guile, who’s like Nathanael, he will be baptized. So by the time we pick up Section 37 in December, you’ve got, no doubt two, men that are baptized and as they’re baptized, Joseph receives this revelation and, in the revelation, Joseph is told it’s time to gather. To gather where? To basically gather to where Sidney and Edward had just come from.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 15:14 So what you get is this amazing doctrine of gathering. It’s first introduced in Section 37. But you realize, if you’re going to gather something, you had to scatter it, right? It’s like kids playing Legos on the floor, you scatter them, and then somebody’s got to gather those up, and you hope it’s them or maybe it’s mom or dad, somebody else comes in. So I think first we need to say, well, what is scattered? And what would you two say?

Hank Smith: 15:48 Oh, I love it. I’ve often said this to my students. Listen, if we’re going to talk so much about the gathering, we better know what the scattering looks like. So I go through those, the big three kings of Israel, David and Solomon, and then talk about Israel wanting a king, and breaking up right, and falling apart.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 16:08 Okay, so what we know is that the house of Israel then becomes scattered. And then try and imagine, I can’t go many days and leave the Legos on the floor. Try and imagine the Lord is going to wait millennias before He says, “It’s time to gather.” So what we learned about the Lord is He has amazingly much more patience than I do. If the kids have scattered, I want to bring them home. I want them home at Christmas. I want them home for family dinners, right? But suddenly, they’re scattered and now the Lord says, “It’s time to gather,” and the Lord indicates the first place of gathering.

Dr.Susan Easton Bl…: 16:53 And I think that’s so significant. He doesn’t say Hawaii so everybody’s going to be out on the beaches, right? He doesn’t say Florida and we’re going to party on in Miami, right? But He says, “I tell you what, where I want you to gather is Ohio, the land that still has land almost free for the taking. I want you to go to the Ohio.” So then you’re going, “Well, what is Ohio?” I mean, it had been part of the Connecticut reserve, but now it’s its own state, its own entity, and they’re told to come.

Hank Smith: 17:29 My students will sometimes say, “Why is Nephi so obsessed with the gathering of Israel? Why is Isaiah so obsessed with the Gathering of Israel?” And I’ll say, they were living the scattering. They’re in the middle of the Scattering of Israel. Of course, they’re interested in a future gathering that one day, a lot of us just don’t connect. Here’s Lehi and his family being taken out of the Promised Land and sent to a different Promised Land and that’s part of the scattering. They’re looking forward to… what does Jacob say? We’re on an aisle in a strange land, right? We’re far away. And one day, we’re going to go home. One day, we’re all going to go home and here it is, section 37. I don’t know if we can understand the gravity of this moment, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 18:13 It’s a huge moment and I think every prophet, if we had all of the writings, would be talking about… there’ll be the gathering. The gathering starts under Joseph Smith, but what I think is so interesting, it was always a place. So Kirtland was a place of gathering. Independence was a place of gathering. Far West, Nauvoo, Salt Lake, and then with settling missions, the whole Intermountain West. I mean, from Carson down to the colonies in Mexico, it’s gathering, and it’s always been a place until the 1920s. In the 1920s, and Los Angeles, you get Heber J. Grant coming, and he will quote then the Savior’s words found at John 15:19, where he basically is saying you can be in the world, but guess what? Don’t be of the world.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 19:15 So when we describe gathering today, it’s different than they described in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s. If you look at the 19th century, so since the 1920s… I was born at a time where you gather to your ward house, you gather to your stake, you gather to your temple. In other words, you blossom where you bloom. Does that sound familiar to you? Or is that the era we’re all in?

Hank Smith: 19:44 Yep. Lift where you stand, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 19:47 Lift where you stand. It’s a different type of gathering.

John Bytheway: 19:52 When I think about the Saints, especially, so many in the United Kingdom, you got a Nauvoo and you see that British Pageant that they put on, and to gather was a tremendous sacrifice to a place, to an exact place. I feel today it’s gathered the stakes of Zion wherever you are. And that started in 1920 Heber J. Grant. Interesting.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 20:15 So before that, you’re in Denmark, you pick up and move. Other Scandinavian countries, you pick up and move. I think they’re sacrifice and I think as we realize that some don’t choose to do it. I mean, it’s a choice, right? We may say, well, it’s easy to go to Church and take the sacrament, even do it weekly. But are you telling me I’ve got to sell out and everybody knows that if I want to follow a prophet that I’m selling my home and they can get it dirt cheap? I’m going to trade brick and mortar for a wagon where I can stuff everything I can possibly step in, and go 270 miles, and find that I’m moving into a place that’s already crowded. Many are going to live outside of the Kirtland area just because there’s no room. I mean, it’s a huge sacrifice.

John Bytheway: 21:12 Well, I like what you said there about choice because that’s verse four. Let every man choose for himself until I come. This is what I’m asking you to do and you have a choice, but this is what I’m asking you to do. And like you said earlier about, what did you say, 275 miles you can speed in your car, but what was moving your house like back then, your whole household for that far? Just okay, everybody, come to the Ohio.

Hank Smith: 21:39 I was going to say I know that Lucy Mack describes it almost an Exodus of Israel out of Egypt, right? I mean, this is a big thing.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 21:47 Yes, she has and she talks about, hey, we got to get to Buffalo. We got to go on the Canal. We got to go on Lake Erie and end up at Fairport, Ohio. I mean, it’s huge. But what I think is so interesting is that you look at say section 37 and now we go to Section 38, Section 38, I always think this is so interesting because you got the Lord, who’s now basically saying, “Hey, I told you, guys, go to the Ohio.” And the question is, after section 37, did anybody go? And the answer is no. It’s like going to sacrament meeting, and listening to talks, and when you come home, did your life change? You go, “Oh, absolutely not.” So it’s like it went one ear, out the other, and then the Lord now says, “Okay, I’m going to make this more clear.”

John Bytheway: 22:42 Before we leave Section 37, in verse one, the Lord says, “Because of the enemy and for your sakes.”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 22:53 Okay, this is a pretty difficult time in Western New York. The Church is not well-received. There’s persecution. There is even some talk, as we go into 38, that people are even plotting death to some of the leaders of the Church. Very, very difficult time, I think. Now, we live in a society where you can believe something, I can believe something and they’ll just say, “Oh, she’s not on target.” But back then, they had solid beliefs and solid feelings about if you didn’t share those beliefs.

John Bytheway: 23:31 See, I think if they were plotting to kill me, I think, “Okay, yeah, let’s load up the wagon.”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 23:37 It’d give you an incentive, right?

John Bytheway: 23:38 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 23:40 What do you think, Susan, about… I mean, this is a church of a hundred and something people. Why is it getting so much attention from outsiders? I mean, they had new churches coming in, they had Methodism coming in and blossoming. What is it about this group that bothers non-believers so much to start threatening them? Because, I mean, I don’t know it’s a small little group. Is it that they’re threatening maybe to take members of their family and convert them?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 24:11 No, I’m sure the quote sheep stealing was part of the issue. But truth, well, think of the Savior. There’s a lot that will fight against truth and especially if it totally impacts her way of life.

Hank Smith: 24:25 Yeah, and to me, it’s just an indication of a darker force wants to stop this before it can get started, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 24:35 Right. Just nip it in the bud because it’s going to roll forth, fill the whole earth, right?

Hank Smith: 24:39 Right. Remember, the Book of Revelation, when the dragon wants to eat the child as soon as it is born, the moment it is born. It reminds me of that. Let’s stop this before it can even start and here, the Lord is saying, “All right, we gotta move. We gotta get out of here. You’re in trouble.”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 24:58 Well, section 38, notice it said a Conference of the Church. So I want to say something about conferences. We know about conferences. We gather, we listen. We either gather in, we listen on television, some kind of electronic device now. But the Church organized in April, and the first conference is in June, and their second conference is in September, and their third conference, what we’re talking about in Section 38, is January 2, 1831. And I think we’d all go, “Hold it. We know that the conference was not held in June, September, January.” Conference has to be held the first week in what?

Hank Smith: 25:40 In April.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 25:41 October.

Hank Smith: 25:41 And October.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 25:43 Perfect. So that conference being held in April and October did not start until the saints move to Nauvoo and it’s interesting that the April and October had everything to do with parading. What would happen? You get Nauvoo is like the hub of a wagon wheel and you’ve got 23 little communities that Joseph founded on the Illinois side in the river, and then you can find 15 on the Iowa side. And when do they all gather? They gathered for parading and it was a military parading because every man, 18 to 45, is in some kind of a military unit. In this case, we called it the Nauvoo Legion. So when was the time to gather them? It was always April would begin it, that was your first parade. Obviously, bigger parade is July 4th. But when was the last parade? The first week in October. Since that time, we have celebrated conferences, for the most part, in April and October.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 26:52 So with that, we are now at the third conference on January 2nd of 1831. So notice, Section 38 is the first Revelation given in the year 1831. We now start off the place where the Revelation, where the conference is being held, is Peter Whitmer, Sr’s farmhouse there in Fayette, and one of those attending was Orson Pratt. Orson Pratt, as he described as they’re meeting for this conference, he said, “The whole Church in New York, we all met in the one room,” and no one there took notes. So we do not know what goes on. The secretary can make or break you, right?

Hank Smith: 27:37 Yeah.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 27:37 And sure enough, it was a disaster with the fact that no notes were kept. All these historians were like, “Where are the notes?” But we assume it was business as usual, passing of sacrament. We know that Joseph Smith was sitting at a table in front of them. We also know that he asked Sidney Rigdon to be the scribe. And then Joseph received a revelation and what we have now in section 38 is what Sidney wrote down on that occasion. Just thinking about it, you realize how fast we all talk. Can you imagine Sidney going, “Hold it. The last words I got were… would you mind”?

Hank Smith: 28:22 Go back, go back. Slow down, slow down.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 28:25 So can you imagine how slow Joseph would have had to have spoken? I mean, Sidney did not know Pitman Shorthand, which was starting to be big at that time. But he’s going to write it out longhand word for word. We’re talking about a long process to be able to get out the entire section 38, which is, by the way, much longer than section 37.

Hank Smith: 28:51 Yes. You got to wonder if Sidney and Edward Partridge knew what they were getting into when they took that trip from Ohio to New York, that they would be sitting recording a revelation.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 29:03 Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing opportunity for Sidney Rigdon as well as all those that sat there and listened. Well, getting into this section, we know that the first seven verses that the Lord is introducing Himself. Then we get into what is the crux of it. But He wants him to know that He is a great I am. In other words, He’s Jehovah. He’s the God of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the God today. He knows all things. He made the world. He’s a great creator. In other words, He establishes who He is and that He even indicates I’m in your midst, but you cannot see me.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 29:51 So what you get is He wants everybody to know it isn’t just Joseph Smith winging it and that this message is a revelation from Jesus Christ. He even talks about the atonement in those first seven verses. What He wants them to know is that, hey, if you’re going to call yourselves my disciple, then when you receive a law, you have to do the law. So the question is, what’s the Lord noticing about these people? What He’s noticing, He then repeats, and repeats, and repeats, and repeats.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 30:34 Your pivotal verse, if you’re looking for what’s the bottom line, it’s verse 32, where He says, “For this cause, I gave unto you the commandment that you should go where? I’m telling you, you need to go to Ohio.” Then He explains why. It’s easy to talk about history and say who, what, when, where, but also, all of a sudden, you get the why. Who, what, when where was not moving them into action. You are to go, but now He gives you the why. And He says, “You go to Ohio and there you will receive the law.” We can look at Kirtland alone. What do you have, 48 revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants? In other words, hey, you’re going to get my law. But then He says, “There you shall be endowed with power from on high. And from that point, man can be sent for, to gather this great House of Israel.” And telling it by the end, every man, warn his neighbor.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 31:39 And so as you conclude with the last verse, “Go ye out from among the wicked. Save yourselves. Be clean that bears the vessels of the Lord.” As I look at Section 38, I say, “Here’s Section 37. They’re told, “go to the Ohio,” and no one budges, right? No one’s packed a barrel, a suitcase. No one said, “I wonder if I’m going to need this for my trip.” And all of a sudden, Section 38 just pounds the nail and go there. And now here’s why, you’re going to get my law. You’re going to be endowed with power from on high. You’re going to have power as you go out to gather the House of Israel.

Hank Smith: 32:22 I can’t help but think of how I’ve done this in my own life. I get a feeling, a prompting, something, and I go, “Huh, that’s an interesting prompting,” and then I just go about my day. And then almost, you can feel the Lord going, “Okay, are you going to do it? Let’s follow up here. Let me tell you again.”

John Bytheway: 32:45 I have a question about the timing of mentioning Enoch and the timing of Moses seven being completed. It wasn’t just before this revelation and then the Lord mentions the Zion of Enoch in verse four.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 33:00 Right. In other words, it’s so obvious the Lord knows what’s going on. He’s not an absentee father that just occasionally checks in, email, I don’t know, something, but He is aware of what’s going on, where Joseph is in the translation. And He’s also aware, you gotta get out and you got to get out now.

Hank Smith: 33:24 Susan, do you think in verse 32 that you mentioned, go to Ohio, I’ll give you my law, and there you’ll be endowed with power, is that the Lord starting to hint at a temple?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 33:34 It sure could be because you look at the Kirtland Temple and you get the keys of the Restoration. I mean, if we were looking at the blessings they’re going to get there, the temple, the restoration of priesthood keys, Moses, Elias, Elijah, we’re going to get the Office of Bishop, First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, Seventies. I mean, all this law and the organization to move forward the Church to gather Israel, I mean, it’s just all there. They need to go.

Hank Smith: 34:10 I think one indication that the Lord is very serious about this is we’ve talked in previous episodes how crucial the Joseph Smith translation is to the restoration and the Lord in Section 37 says stop, almost as if we’re pausing the restoration until you move.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 34:27 I think we’re looking at the Peter Whitmer Farm. Peter Whitmer, I mean, there’s been 20 revelations where you can directly put Fayette and assume they’re at his farm house, right? And we know the Witnesses, Three Witnesses see the Angel Moroni in the place. I mean, such a significant place. But Peter Whitmer, when he sells out, he’s selling out for bottom dollar. He gets 2,200 bucks for his farm. And then if you were to say, did the Church acquire the farm back, they eventually got the farm in 1926. And then during my lifetime, I can remember all of the General Conference, since we’re on General Conferences.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 35:13 The one I most remember was in 1980, they had restored that Peter Whitmer Farmhouse and Spencer W. Kimball was the prophet. And suddenly, you think you’re going to get it from the tabernacle, it’s going to be broadcasted to the world, and you get this great, great prophet, Spencer W. Kimball said, “Hey, I’m standing up right in the now restored Peter Whitmer Farmhouse and I’m going to conduct and speak from here.” I don’t know, I just think it’s just such a marvelous place.

Hank Smith: 35:48 That was the 150th anniversary, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 35:51 150th anniversary.

John Bytheway: 35:53 I remember that. I was a teenager and I remember President Kimball in that farmhouse of Fayette. That was amazing because that’s the only time I ever remember  General Conference not being from the Tabernacle in my memory.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 36:06 Same in my memory also.

Hank Smith: 36:08 So I wonder, we’re only nine years away from the 2030.

John Bytheway: 36:15 Where are we going to come from?

Hank Smith: 36:17 What’s going to happen?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 36:18 Who knows?

Hank Smith: 36:18 What’s going to happen? I think at one part where we’ve quoted this quite a bit in the church, I think, is in verse 27, the Lord says, “Be one. If you are not one, you are not mine.” The idea of unity in this Church, he talks about everyone esteem his brother as himself because some people are going to be more well off than others to move. And it’s this idea of you are a family, you’re a group, you’re a team, move together. I imagine some would have the means to pick up and go and others would say, “How am I going to get there?”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 36:52 Right. I think that was dramatically felt and John Whitmer, who ultimately becomes a Church Historian, wrote that there was a great division because you get those that are saying, “I want to go,” and those that, just like you’re talking about, that can go and have the means and those that do not. Are you willing to help your brother? And I think that’s always the question even today.

John Bytheway: 37:21 I’m looking at here we have one of Jesus’s parables that we don’t find anywhere else in verse 26 about the twelve sons. I’ve never seen this parable before, but he has 12 sons and is no respecter of them. And he says to one, “Be clothed in robes and sit thou there,” and the other, “Be thou clothed in rags and sit there,” and he looked at upon his sons and saying, “I’m just. I’ve given this unto you as a parable.” And then the be one, and if you’re not one, you’re not mine. Right after talking about the Zion of Enoch, talking about this oneness, I also think-

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 38:01 You could almost say it’s a precursor to the Law of Consecration, right?

John Bytheway: 38:06 When you consider, when I teach this, I love to say, “Okay, if we’re not his, what are the alternatives?” They’re not very good. There’s really not any good alternatives to that. It’s like will he also go away? Well, where would we go? There’s no good alternatives. Sometimes if Satan’s going to try to get us, sometimes it’s from the outside in, but sometimes it can be from the inside out and trying to cause dissensions in our Ward’s branches, things like that. And that’s where this, this counsel of being one is such a protection for us, to forgive and to be forgiving, to extend mercy and to ask for mercy. I think that’s one of those quotable things in Section 38 is the be one. And I think maybe the other one. If I can skip ahead, is if you are prepared, you shall not fear. We say that one a lot.

Hank Smith: 38:59 Yeah, I was going to say there’s another phrase we hear a lot. In verse 37, Susan, you can speak to this if you’d he says, and this to me is so… it’s just said in passing, but it might have just been a punch in the gut. “They that have farms that cannot be sold, let them be left or rented as seemed to me good.” You work your whole life on a piece of property, you build it up, you do everything you can and the Lord says, “Yeah, leave it. Walk away from it.” To me, maybe it might be better off to not have much because then I don’t have much to leave.

Hank Smith: 39:38 But if you’re the Whitmers, they’ve spent time and effort, even the Smiths have spent time and effort cultivating these acres, chopping down… who was it, John, that was telling us about chopping down too hard a hardwood tree? Steve Harper, remember? He said, “I don’t know if you’ve ever cut down a hardwood tree, but it is not easy.” And here they’ve done acre after acre of acre and now the Lord says, “Yeah.”

John Bytheway: 39:58 And then you have to go, and here we are a third-party observing from the future going, “Don’t get too comfortable in Kirtland either. Oh, don’t get too comfortable in Nauvoo.” And then it’s scorched earth policy in Salt Lake, right? We’re going to burn this to the ground before we’re going to let you take it.

Hank Smith: 40:16 Susan, what’s it for these people to just walk away from their land, their homes?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 40:23 I think it’s even more than land. I think, for many of them, they’re going to be walking away from families. Their mothers, fathers that hadn’t joined the Church, nor been baptized. So I think it is taking them from the known to the unknown, and it’s your ultimate faith, trust in the Lord, that His promises will be fulfilled. But I like what John is saying, they’ve got to have unity to pull that off. It can’t be backbiting, murmuring. We’re going to give you a real chance here.

John Bytheway: 40:59 With what Susan said, there’s a really nice story in the Come, Follow Me Manual about Phoebe Carter and her 21-year-old telling her mom I’m leaving. “Are you sure? And if you find out it’s not true, will you come back?” As you were saying, “It’s more than just leaving your piece of land. It’s your family, your background, and your history.”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 41:21 Because many, obviously, Western New York was settled long after you get the 13 Colonies. But nevertheless, like Martin Harris, he’s a second generation and say, in his case, when he leaves, he leaves his wife and, no doubt, most of his children behind. To leave, the sacrifice is huge and I think would give any of us pause.

Hank Smith: 41:47 I think one thing we do, and I have a tendency to do this, I’m sure neither of you do, but I think, “Well, of course, you got to move. How are we going to get to Salt Lake and have the Conference center and the Jazz? Don’t you see?” They don’t. They don’t know about Utah, they don’t know about Nauvoo, they don’t know about Independence and if we forget that, if we forget their point of view, we’ll lose the sacrifice because they don’t know how this is going to turn out.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 42:15 Also, I think it’s just so significant, is that you don’t say Joseph Smith staying around to help hey, you got to go, you got to go. So if you were to say, “Who’s the first Latter-day Saint to bring his wife, family in and to leave that area to go to Ohio,” it’s Joseph Smith that arrives around the first of February of ’31. So then you have these other people. Will they follow? And you always think of mom and dad saying, “Come on, come on. We can’t go without everybody in the car.” But try and imagine the Bishop, we can’t go and then the Bishop goes. The question is, will you follow? Because now, it’s between you and the Lord, right? I mean, Joseph had his brother Hyrum and he had Newel Knight going around encouraging people to pack up and get ready. But Joseph’s out of there.

Hank Smith: 43:14 So he’s serious. He’s gone.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 43:16 He’s serious. The Lord wants him to go there and he’s going. But then you’ve got to also realize Joseph doesn’t have property to sell like the Knights or the Whitmers. I mean, he’s not encumbered that way. He’s more free to move on out.

Hank Smith: 43:32 Wow. And Emma’s pregnant, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 43:34 Right. And I really it when he arrives in Kirtland, he goes up to the  Newel K. Whitney Store and he sees Newel K. Whitney, a man he’s never met before, and he says, “Newel, thou art the man,” and Newel goes, “Oh, you have the better of me, sir. I can’t call you by name.” And Joseph says, “I’m Joseph, the Prophet. You called me here now. Now, what do you want of me?”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 43:55 So you get Newel and his wife, Elizabeth, praying for the prophet to come and you get this tension. The people in New York, they’ve got to get ready, they got to organize and you get Thomas B. Marsh with the group, Lucy Mack Smith, Martin Harris. I mean, it’s going to take a month to get out of there and you’ve got an April going, you’ve got it all the way into May, going with Martin Harris, bringing the last group. But as newspaper editorials describe the period, they said it looked like the whole world was moving to Kirtland. Of course, the major exaggeration, but they are going to come despite the fact, the sacrifice.

Hank Smith: 44:39 The Church is not going to get the Smith Farm back for another a hundred or so years.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 44:45 Right.

Hank Smith: 44:45 Right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 44:46 And it’ll be through the efforts of Willard Bean.

Hank Smith: 44:49 Willard Bean.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 44:50 Willard Bean, great man. The Fighting Parson who will be instrumental in getting that that land. So the places we always call the cradle to the restoration. It’s been a process of having them then acquired by the Church. Wonderful place to go visit. If you haven’t seen them, it’s a treat.

Hank Smith: 45:12 Yeah, it is really fun. Verse 39, it seems, the Lord says, “If you seek the riches, which is the will of the Father to given to you, shall be the richest of all people, for you shall have the riches of eternity.” And then he talks about the Book of Mormon, “Beware of pride, lest you become as the Nephites of old.”

Hank Smith: 45:30 To me, as I’ve studied the history of the Church, there is, and I think this is profoundly difficult to be honest, I like building the kingdom of Smith and trying to, to build enough to retire and have a comfortable life, and it seems that these early Church members are going to be asked to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, almost to the point where it’s, do you want to have material or do you want to be a member? Because you almost can’t choose both because you’re just always constantly giving, and giving, and giving? Why do you think the Lord talks about the Book of Mormon there? I haven’t seen that in the earlier sections, but these Nephites of old, right?

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 46:13 Right. I think he’s trying to show us the… we always call it the pride cycle. You’re humble, you’re forced to be humble. The Lord blesses you, you get the riches of temporal things, and then you get pride. And then all of a sudden, you’re in trouble, you don’t keep the commandments. And then back you go, you’re humble, and forced. It’s a constant circular event and something I think all of us need to be aware about that affluence, you’d say, it has its benefits, but it also has with a great concern that we always need to remember the sense of unity and who needs help.

John Bytheway: 46:54 Probably that’s where President Benson’s that monumental talk to me, April of ’89, “Beware of Pride”. I think it was Harold B. Lee said, “That what we have right now is the test of gold. We don’t have the same material type of tests, it doesn’t seem, at least for some of us.” I want to be careful how I say that because there’s people all over the world suffering, even members of the Church. But President Benson in another place said, “Do what prosperity can do to a people? It can put them to sleep.” And he said, “We must be shaken and awakened from a spiritual snooze.” I love that idea of a spiritual snooze button because we reach over and push the snooze button and I’ll get my act together sometime.

John Bytheway: 47:35 But here bringing in the Book of Mormon and have you noticed that pride cycle? You’re doing this. So be careful. I’m with you, Hank, how hard this would be to move a family back then with what they have? And I don’t know how well-acquainted people are with the Book of Mormon back then. Maybe you can speak to that, Susan. How they have it? Are they reading it? Are they thinking, “I got to go back and read that now. What did the Lord just say?”

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 48:03 I’m not quite sure by December that you’ve got a lot of readers of the Book of Mormon. One thing, copies are hard to get. They’re expensive. Obviously, they’re printed, but you don’t see a lot of people quoting from the Book of Mormon in the New York period. You can pick them up much more in Kirtland. And then, obviously, as time goes on, their familiarity. Did they understand the pride cycle we do? Probably not as great.

Hank Smith: 48:33 Was it Brigham Young who said, when they come up to Salt Lake, he said, “My greatest fear is that this… “

John Bytheway: 48:39 “My greatest fear, this people will stand robbing, mobbing, and persecution and be true, but my greatest fear is that they can’t stand wealth. They’ll get rich in this country, wax fat, kick themselves out of the church, and go to hell,” he said.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 48:52 That sounds like his exact quote.

John Bytheway: 48:54 That’s Brigham Young. I show that to my students and say, “How many of you had a nightmare last night that you got rich and just woke up in a cold sweat?” Oh, it’s terrible, Brother Bytheway, I got rich. I’m so glad to wake up now to reality that I’m not rich.” And yeah, persecution, robbing no problem there, but I’m afraid that they can’t stand wealth. That’s a fascinating statement.

Hank Smith: 49:18 When he says be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord, do we know what the vessels of the Lord mean? When I read that, I think that sounds Old Testament-ish. Sounds ancient temple.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 49:29 Yeah, sounds like the Old Testament. Try and imagine, the same hands that pass the sacrament, that break the sacrament bread, you just can’t hold a can of beer and smoke a cigarette. I mean, you just got to be clean, whatever we call the vessels of the Lord, for not just yourself, but for those who are there to partake of it and hoping for a great spiritual experience.

Hank Smith: 49:55 Yeah, that’s wonderful. I think back in the Old Testament, it would mean if you’re going to carry the tabernacle, be clean. But today, it’s if you’re carrying the trays of the sacrament or anything else that we use in the church.

John Bytheway: 50:09 I mean, it’s you. My body is a temple, the Holy Ghost can dwell with you, so in a way, you are the vessels of the Lord and so be clean.

Hank Smith: 50:17 Interesting in verse 42, He says, “Go ye out from among the wicked.” Almost symbolically, they’re leaving New York and it’s almost this idea of we’re leaving Babylon and I’m going to go into Israel, right? What is the old Babylon? We bid thee farewell, right? And I’m willing to go. I’m willing to follow the Lord. I would think that a lot of these people, in their minds, they’re going to live in New York and die in New York, that they’re going to stay there forever and the Lord changes plans. We are going somewhere else. The sacrifice is immense. Here you and your husband have served four missions, it’s somewhat similar, right? Get up and move. Get up and go.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 51:03 You just get up and go if you want the blessings.

Hank Smith: 51:06 Yeah, you get up and move.

Dr. Susan Easton Black: 51:07 You get up and move.

John Bytheway: 51:09 I think, just one more thing that I just love is that is, Susan, you emphasized 32 is kinda, “Okay, listen, I told you before, all of this is a preface. I told you before, go to Ohio.” But I love the promise there. You’ll be endowed with power from on high and from thence, whosoever I will, shall go forth among all nations. I mean, I bet Karl Anderson has those verses marked because he’s sure he’s the resident expert on Kirtland.

John Bytheway: 51:38 But I think I’ve mentioned this before, so forgive me, but there’s a painting right inside of the Kirtland visitor center of Joseph and Oliver in the Kirtland Temple with these angels coming one at a time and bestowing keys. I love it. They look on Joseph’s face and I think that endowed with power from on high because we know that it’s not the full endowment, but the Kirtland Temple was a step towards that and everything. The amazing things that happened in Kirtland, I guess we’re seeing because we’re looking backward and seeing that going, “Yeah, you got to get to Kirtland because some amazing things will happen there.”

Hank Smith: 52:17 Yeah. John, you’ve mentioned that painting before. I talked to Alex Baugh, who will be on our podcast coming up here in the next couple of weeks, and he said that that painting was done by Gary Smith, who is the brother of his mission companion. So I just thought we’d give out the proper credit on the painting because I think I credit it to Walter Rane.

Hank Smith: 52:40 Please join us for Part II of this podcast.