Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with my co-host John Bytheway and the incredible, Dr. Richard Bennett. Welcome to both of you.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 00:10 Thank you.

John Bytheway: 00:10 Thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:12 Follow Him Favorites is where we take a tiny piece of this week’s lesson and just do a little clip on it, hoping that those who hear this will want to join us on our full podcast. So John, Doctrine and Covenants 136, what’s your Follow Him Favorite?

John Bytheway: 00:31 Oh, so many things here I’m looking at. Oh, I can’t choose one. I’m looking at verse 22, where the Lord reminds everybody who he is. “I am he who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. And my arm is stretched out in last days to save my people Israel.” And sometimes it’s nice to have that reminder.

John Bytheway: 00:54 Listen, if I can lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, I can help you when you’re having a bad day in junior high school. I help you when you can’t get your locker open. My favorite definition of junior high school was given to me by Hank. He said junior high is just a bad idea. Let’s take the most insecure people in the world, put them all in the same building for a few years and see who survives. But this idea of, hey, I can do this. I am he, I am the Lord, I’m your God and I am going to help you. And don’t forget the power that I have. So I have power to help you too. In our little problems, our big problems, we have an ally.

Hank Smith: 01:35 I like that, John. And he goes on to say, “Let your words edify one another.” I think we could do that better in our quorums and classes, don’t you? Let your words build.

John Bytheway: 01:44 Reminded me of… Oh, what’s the one we covered, is it 101? No, 107 and all your conversations and all your doings and edify one another. We’re always building.

Hank Smith: 01:54 Choose to build. Yep. My Follow Him Favorite is going to be verse 28, where the Lord says, in this trek west, these pioneers, right? I remember singing in primary. The pioneer children sang as they walked, walked, walked, walked, walked and walked, walked, walked, walked, and I thought, that’s all pioneers must have done is walked. But it says here they can praise the Lord with singing and with music and with dancing. And as Dr. Bennett has taught us our full podcast, we hope you’ll join us there. That they had a lot of good times on the trail west.

Hank Smith: 02:29 There was plenty of heartbreak, plenty of sorrow, but they had a lot of fun. They sang, they danced, they had feasts and dances and bands and that’s okay. I love that. They made the best of a very, a very sad situation. And we can do that too. We run into sad situations in life and we can still make the best out of it. So to me, that’s my follow him favorite. Let’s turn the time over to Dr. Bennett. Dr. Bennett, what’s your Follow Him Favorite for section 136?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 03:02 Well, I think I’ll focus on verse 41 because it’s one of the very, very few verses in all scripture where the Lord tells us or asks us twice to listen to what he’s going to say. So when you get this sort of verse, it’s just bristling with importance. And above all, if you have to boil this whole section down to one phrase, this is it. So now listen, notice how he gets our attention. Now, therefore hearken, the word hearken means to listen very carefully, really listen to this. O ye people of my church. Latter Day Saints, all of us. This is a message for not just church history, but it’s a message for us right now. And ye elders, listen. Here comes again, listen together, individually and collectively, I’ve got a message for you. And what’s the message? It’s five words, you have received my kingdom.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 04:14 Now that was tremendously significant to the saints when they were going through Iowa and winter quarters and all the challenges we’ve talked about in this podcast today. Some of whom are wondering, where are we going? Who’s in charge? Why am I suffering? How come so many deaths? Why are the children suffering? What about all these others who are claiming to be the leader of the church? What about church history? Has this been a whole made up mass? So what’s going on? You have received my kingdom. In other words, I still love you. The gospel’s restored. We have a living prophet. It’ll be okay. As president Hinckley said, “It’ll work out.” You’ll find your place if you follow your God and the gospel of Jesus Christ being what it is, is the great message you have it as it says in that verse. That’s my message.

Hank Smith: 05:20 Yeah, that is absolutely wonderful, Dr. Bennett. He has called this section, the sunshine of a new day for the church. We hope you’ll join us on the full podcast so you can hear all about this section, but if not, that’s okay. Come join us next week for Follow Him Favorites.