John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to Part II of this week’s podcast.

Dr. Steven Harper: 00:07 Joseph F. Smith’s an old man in October 1918 when he sees the series of visions that we have described for us in Section 138. In fact, he’ll pass away about six or seven weeks after this revelation is received.

Hank Smith: 00:30 Steve, can you give us a little history of Joseph F. Smith? Tie him to the Missouri period a little bit, if that’d be okay.

Speaker 1: 00:37 Yeah. Who’s his father again, and all that stuff.

Dr. Steven Harper: 00:40 Joseph F. Smith was born in 1838 in what was at that point the worst year in the life of his father, Hyrum Smith. He was blessed by his father while his father was in jail at Liberty, Missouri, as an infant. His mother Mary took him to the jail where his father blessed him. His uncle, Joseph, the prophet, was there.

Dr. Steven Harper: 01:08 And Joseph F. Smith grows up maybe more wounded by death than just about anybody that I know of in history. Think about it this way. He’s five-years-old when he sees the bullet-hole in his father’s face, sees him lying there in a pine box, and I mean, you can smell his decaying body by now. And they’ve tried to shove cotton in his cheekbone, but you don’t get over that sight. That’s such a traumatic experience that you don’t get over it.

Dr. Steven Harper: 01:54 And it’s not very many years later that his mother passes away. They make it safely across the plains with Joseph’s siblings, but his mother passes away when he is in his early teens. She gets a lung infection and it takes her. So by his early teens, he’s an orphan.

Hank Smith: 02:13 That’s Mary Fielding, right, Steve?

Dr. Steven Harper: 02:15 Yes. Mary Fielding Smith, a heroic figure in the Restoration: the mother of a prophet, the grandmother of another. What a woman. And she instills her son with some serious feistiness that is one of his best attributes. But before it becomes a strength, it is a weakness for him, and he does not get along well with others, always.

Dr. Steven Harper: 02:44 And he is a traumatized youth, and his stepdad, Heber Kimball, and Brigham Young, the prophet, they know who he is and they love him and they look after him. And as you know, at age 15, when he’s 15, that is, they send him on a mission with an older family member to look after him. They send him to Hawaii.

Hank Smith: 03:10 Is it true that he beat up his teacher, and they said, “We got to send this boy somewhere with all this energy”?

Dr. Steven Harper: 03:15 Yeah. It’s disputed a little bit. The exact nature of the fight with the principal, I don’t know for sure, but I’ll tell you this: he is an angry kid. He is an angry teen. He is angry at the wagon company captain who said his mom and the kids were just going to be a burden on him for the rest of his life. I mean, I think when he is an old man and a prophet of the Church, he’s still mad at the guy.

Hank Smith: 03:46 Wow..

Dr. Steven Harper: 03:46 Yeah. So I like that about him. I like that Joseph F. Smith becomes… I mean, nobody is more hurt, traumatized, devastated by death, and therefore nobody is more blessed, strengthened, hopeful by Section 138. Do you see how it works? If anybody longed deeply for this revelation, it was him, and so I just love that the Lord gave it to him. And I love that he could grow into the long-bearded old prophet who has such a tender heart, from the long-haired, angry-look-on-his-face youth who Brigham Young sent on a mission to Hawaii so he could learn the Gospel and learn to grow up.

Dr. Steven Harper: 04:47 And it took him a while. He was a violent and frustrated young man. His first marriage did not work out because he was immature and unprepared and needed to grow up. And he did. He continued to grow up, and continued to apply the principles of the Gospel. He married again, married wonderfully well, and began to have children.

Dr. Steven Harper: 05:16 Some of his children died. In fact, I think 13 of his children passed away over the years. And in the early days of 1918, early in that year, a young apostle and a recently returned mission president from the European mission, Hyrum Mack Smith, Joseph F.’s oldest son, has an appendix burst and dies. And not long after that, his wife dies, leaving several children.

Dr. Steven Harper: 05:51 And this is devastating to Joseph F. Smith, and it’s just one more in a long life of devastating deaths. And he’s on record saying how much these deaths of his loved ones hurt. And we might think, “Well, wow, you know the plan of salvation. Why do they hurt?” But they do. He’s wounded by death in a way that I have experienced a little bit in this last year of my life, so I’m beginning to have a little better sense for what Joseph F. is saying, but I’m sure I haven’t even come close yet to the trauma and the woundedness, the pain and grief…

Hank Smith: 06:31 Over and over.

Dr. Steven Harper: 06:32 Over and over. So here he is now, late in life. He’s the mature prophet, and he knows very well that God has a plan to save those who never heard. He knows that Joseph Smith has taught that. He knows that Brigham Young taught it. He knows that Wilford Woodruff taught it. But he also knows that there’s not a lot of revealed knowledge about it, and he wants to know. He wants to know exactly what the situation of the dead is. Where are they? What are they doing?

Dr. Steven Harper: 07:07 He has some questions, including, as he reads and rereads the scriptures very carefully, how in the world did the Savior preach the Gospel to the dead and have any kind of success when he was there for hours and his three-year ministry on Earth yielded comparatively few converts? That’s one of the questions he has after he sees his First Vision, we might say, of redemption for the dead.

Dr. Steven Harper: 07:36 So that’s the setting for 138. It comes the day before General Conference in October 1918, and he’s been sick for almost half a year. Nobody expects him to show up at [General] Conference, and he does the next day, speaks briefly and says, “I have not been alone. I have lived in communication with the Spirit of the Lord,” which is a massive, wonderful understatement given what we now know about what he’d been seeing the day before.

Hank Smith: 08:10 And Steve, I think the Saints of 2020 have at least somewhat of an idea of 1918, right, because there was a pandemic.

Dr. Steven Harper: 08:22 Yeah. The last time there was a global pandemic, before ours, was in 1918. This era that comes at the end of World War I was called, at the time, the Spanish Influenza. And all due respect to COVID-19, the Spanish Influenza was exponentially more devastating. Conservative estimates say 50 million deaths worldwide. There’s almost nobody who doesn’t know somebody who’s taken by it. There are children who walk the streets alone, orphaned overnight because their parents have been taken, and it kills people badly too. It’s a real devastating toll.

Dr. Steven Harper: 09:13 And this of course is on the heels of the First World War, which kills 9 million or so people. This is devastating. Think about it this way. The day that the prophet Joseph F. Smith receives this series of visions is the day that the German Chancellor communicates with US President Woodrow Wilson, seeking an armistice, right? That’s how closely connected the end of World War I is to this series of visions. The world has been afflicted by death and devastation in a way that, to that point in time, had never happened before, at least not in recent memory. And October of 1918 is the deadliest month in American history still to this day: almost 200,000 people wiped out in one month of American history.

Hank Smith: 10:09 And the population of America compared to-

Dr. Steven Harper: 10:13 –comparatively smaller.

Hank Smith: 10:14 … compared to now. Yeah, just this much smaller population. Oh, goodness. As of this recording, COVID-19, we hit 5 million deaths, and you said 50 million deaths and that’s a conservative estimate.

Dr. Steven Harper: 10:27 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 10:28 My goodness. Death is everywhere.

Dr. Steven Harper: 10:31 It is everywhere, and everybody’s thinking about it, right? Everybody’s wondering, where are the dead? As George Tate, this wonderful humanities scholar at BYU has shown in a brilliant essay he wrote about it, everybody on the planet, almost, is wondering about death. It’s not just Joseph F. Smith. But the answers that people come up… For most people, there are no answers.

Dr. Steven Harper: 10:57 And many of the dead, there’s no closure in that sense we talk about it, because lots of these World War I casualties are never recovered. There are people dead at sea. There are people blown to bits. There are thousands upon thousands of people on the battlefields of Europe who are never, ever recovered. Families never see their loved ones again in any form. They don’t get to bury them. They don’t get to visit their graves. They don’t even know where a grave, if there is one…

Dr. Steven Harper: 11:29 So there’s this terrible, gnawing feeling of a void caused by death and disease, war, and everybody is feeling it in one sense or another. This is the same year that Arthur Conan Doyle in Britain will write a book called New Revelation where he’ll advocate spiritualism. He’ll propose a solution to this gnawing absence by saying you can commune with your dad through spiritualism, and smart and talented and great people will be drawn to that very much.

Dr. Steven Harper: 12:11 It’s understandable, but it’s not the revealed answer. Right? Joseph F. Smith at the same time is seeking and receiving much more Christ-centered revealed answers to the terrible questions that everybody is asking: where are the dead, and what processes and plans has the Lord put in place for their salvation and redemption?

Hank Smith: 12:40 Truman Madson tells a great story about Joseph F. Smith visiting Carthage Jail as an adult, and just breaking down and saying to Charles Penrose, “Get me out of here, Charlie. Get me out of here.” Right? The blood of his father is still on the floor and just dried into the floor. And everyone listening has been affected by death in some way. You don’t have to feel like, “Oh, I haven’t been that affected.” Right? But everybody has felt this. The wonderful Sorensen family, who sponsors our podcast, had this occur in their family in January. John lost his mom recently. I lost my brother and my father in the last year. Steve, you lost two brothers.

Dr. Steven Harper: 13:30 I did, over the last several years, and my father earlier this year, and when my oldest brother was killed, surprisingly, in a terrible car accident, I found myself in a deep longing for knowledge. I read Section 138 over and over and over. I wanted to know where he was and what he was doing, and I to this day am incredibly consoled by verse 57 in this section: “I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation-

Dr. Steven Harper: 14:03 In this section, “I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from this mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead.
And then listen to this line, “The dead who repent will be redeemed through obedience, to the ordinances of the house of God.” That is a really beautiful, restored truth.

John  Bytheway: 14:35 Wow.

Hank Smith: 14:36 And that can fill the void. You talk about Arthur Conan Doyle, who just wants to fill the void, but can’t, and this revelation can fill the void. Sorry, John, what were you going to add there?

John  Bytheway: 14:48 I think it was at the funeral of elder Richard L. Evans, who used to be the voice of “Music and the Spoken Word”. He was actually a member of the Twelve, but he was the Lloyd Newell of the time. That was the voice of “Music and the Spoken Word.” And I think it was Joseph Fielding Smith that said that… I just remember the one phrase, “They are simply transferred to other fields of labor when they die.” And, that sounds like they continue their labors. And, before my dad passed away, he had Parkinson’s disease and some other things. And when he could still talk to us and communicate pretty well, I remember giving him a blessing once and he turned around and looked at me and said, “John, I think I’m going to hell.” And I couldn’t tell if he was joking or what. And I was like, “Dad”, and he said to teach and I was like, “Oh, okay, yeah, that’s a good one, dad.” And I–

Hank Smith: 15:47 –He did, really?

John  Bytheway: 15:48 Oh, my dad had such a sense of humor. But, I think that he was so looking forward to continuing his… Because he loved it, he was a convert to the Church, but he loved teaching and he was looking forward to being able to do that again.

Dr. Steven Harper: 16:04 That is a great story. I love that is-

Hank Smith: 16:08 John, I have the quote here. You’re right. It’s the funeral for Richard L. Evans. You can find it on the Church’s website.

John  Bytheway: 16:14 “In the case of the faithful Saints. …” I think it starts like that.

Hank Smith: 16:18 Yeah. He says, “Life and labor and love are eternal. And Brother Evans is now assigned to continue his work in the Spirit World. Until that day, when he shall come forth in a glorious immortality to receive his place. He held the Holy Priesthood in this life and was ordained to … a special witness of the Lord’s name. And may I say for the consolation of those-”

John  Bytheway: 16:38 That’s it.

Hank Smith: 16:38 “…who mourn and for the comfort and guidance of all of us that no righteous man is ever taken before his time, in the case of the faithful Saints, they are simply transferred to other fields of labor. The Lord’s work goes on in this life, in the world of the Spirits and in the kingdoms of glory where men go after their resurrection.”

John  Bytheway: 16:57 So I like to joke that my dad is serving in the Hell, Spirit Prison Mission, and that my mom joined him last December and now they’re companions, so. And the work goes on. They just got transferred.

Dr. Steven Harper: 17:13 Yeah. I bet he was pleased about that companion reassignment.

Hank Smith: 17:18 Yeah, I think so. I’ve always thought that Nephi and Isaiah must be teaching together and Isaiah’s like, “Kid, you got to stop the gushing. Right. I’ve signed everything. You’ve seen, you’ve given to me. Let’s just keep teaching, okay?”

Dr. Steven Harper: 17:36 Or maybe Isaiah starts and he does the First Principle and then Nephi has to translate it for the investigators, to make sure it makes sense.

Hank Smith: 17:47 “What did he say?”

Dr. Steven Harper: 17:48 “Let me say that a little more plainly.”

Hank Smith: 17:52 All right. Well, let’s go back to verse one. Walk us through this revelation, Steve. I’m excited now.

Dr. Steven Harper: 17:58 Well, there are two sections of the Doctrine and Covenants like this. And what I mean by that is most of the sections don’t tell their own story. You have to have a heading to figure out the who, when, where. This one tells its own story, right? On the 3rd of October, 1918. And, that’s because the two sections that do that are not revelation texts that are somehow conveyed by the Savior into Joseph’s mind or Joseph F. Smith’s mind. Their visions, their series of visions. So what you have here is the visionary describing the series of visions and they’re delightful. I mean, these are great sections. So-

Hank Smith: 18:42 So, 76 is the other.

Dr. Steven Harper: 18:45 So, Joseph F. Smith is sitting in his room at his home, downtown on South Temple Street in Salt Lake City, pondering over the scriptures. These first several verses tell us what the recipe is for revelation. If you want to get revelations, here are some things you should do. Immerse yourself in the scriptures, ponder them, reflect on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world. Think about the love that was manifested by the Father in sending his Son to redeem the world. So that, through the principles of the gospel, mankind might be saved. When you do that, you situate yourself for more light and knowledge. Joseph F. Smith knew that well, and he knows how to do this recipe. So, well-

Hank Smith: 19:43 If someone says to me, how come this doesn’t happen to me? Well, when was the last time you were sitting in your room, saturating yourself in scripture, reflecting on the great Atonement of Christ, right? When’s the last time you took time away from Netflix? And, when was the last time you took away from ESPN to sit and just ponder and immerse yourself. John would say, marinate yourself.

John  Bytheway: 20:07 Marinade in it. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 20:08 Marinade in it. So, I love this. Steve, it’s a recipe for revelation and it’s a pattern. It comes in Nephi’s life, right? I sat and pondered and I was carried away by the Spirit.

Dr. Steven Harper: 20:20 The Lord maketh no such thing known unto us. Well, have you asked him? No.

Hank Smith: 20:27 Have you tried the recipe?

Dr. Steven Harper: 20:29 No, I didn’t think about that. Notice verse 5, right? He was engaged. He uses powerful verbs throughout. I was engaged in this thinking and my mind brought back to my thinking, scriptures that he’d read over and over. He’s read about Peter and about Paul and what they’ve taught about redemption for the dead. And, he focuses specifically on The First Epistle of Peter and a couple of key passages there that he paraphrases and quotes from about how Christ went to the spirits of the dead, taught them so that they could be judged just like they were living in the flesh, even though they weren’t anymore. But, these are a few words in 1 Peter, what do they mean?

Dr. Steven Harper: 21:21 Joseph F. Smith knows that the gospel is somehow preached to the dead, but he wants more than the few verses in 1 Peter. He really wants to know the details and he’s seeking that more than ever before. And he’s pondering these things he says in verse 11, and as he puts all this together, his past scripture study, immersing himself in the scriptures and in the Savior’s Atonement and in God’s love, a seeking and now he receives. The eyes of his understanding are opened. The Spirit of the Lord rests upon me, verse 11 says, and he sees, “The hosts of the dead, small and great.” He sees they’re gathered together in a place, an innumerable company of righteous dead.” These are people who are faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived on earth, they have offered sacrifice in the Savior’s, in similitude of the Savior’s Atonement.

Dr. Steven Harper: 22:27 They departed this life firm in the faith of a glorious resurrection. They were filled with joy, gladness and rejoicing because they realized that the day of their deliverance had come. They’d been waiting for the Savior to come and rescue them. And, here it is, right? So Section 45 of the Doctrine and Covenants tells us that, even righteous people who die think of the period of time between their death and resurrection as bondage, apparently because they don’t get to progress, they don’t get to go on to the next phase. So, even those who live in the hope of a glorious resurrection, it’s sort of like us in a holding period, right? We don’t want to stay there forever. We know it’s not forever, but we’re eager to get on. So, these folks are very, very happy and they rejoice. In verse 18 says, that, “The hour of their deliverance from the chains of death, the son of God appears and declares liberty to the captives who had been faithful.”

Dr. Steven Harper: 23:28 He preaches the everlasting gospel. And then one of the key insights of Joseph F. Smith revelation is verse 20, to the wicked, he did not go. He doesn’t go to the wicked nor to the rebellious. There are a whole bunch of people left in a prison part of the world of the dead. And this leads Joseph F. Smith to think more, wonder more, right? Verse 28 tells us, I wondered at the words of Peter when he said that the son of God preached to the spirits in prison who were disobedient back in the days of Noah. How is it possible? Joseph F. Smith wonders for him to preach to those spirits and perform the necessary labor among them in so short of time. And here he is thinking, the Savior was on earth for three years and had relatively few converts. How is he supposed to go for less than three days into the Spirit World, and make any headway among the infinite, leaving more vast number of people there.

Dr. Steven Harper: 24:37 And that’s when the next chapter of the revelation comes to him. He realizes as the Lord reveals to him that Jesus doesn’t go himself to the wicked and disobedient. But verse 30 says, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, “Clothed with power and authority commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them who were in darkness, even to all the spirits …  and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.” George Tate, who I mentioned earlier, in his really brilliant article about this revelation in the various contexts of it. He drew attention to the way that verse uses what we might think of as military terms. Right? Imagine that the world has just declared. Not yet, even in fact, we’re a month and a week away from declaring our ministers to World War I, when this series of visions is given. And so, we’ve got armies all over Europe that have been commissioned and.

Hank Smith: 25:42 Organized.

Dr. Steven Harper: 25:43 Organized.

Hank Smith: 25:44 Yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 25:44 And I think brother Tate was particularly sensitive, Professor Tate. I thought it was insightful the way he said, look at that language and notice that Jesus is putting together his army to do his work in a way that contrasts with the way the armies of this world go about their work.

Hank Smith: 26:05 Yeah. It’s an army of construction, not an army of destruction. Right?

Dr. Steven Harper: 26:12 Very cool. Isn’t it? An army of salvation, I like being part of that army. I like going to the temple and feeling like I’m in this battalion and I’m called to the work. And, I would curl up in the fetal position if I was actually asked to go to any sort of a physical battle, but I’m all in the war that we’re anxiously engaged in for souls and for redemption. And, the war that manifests the love of God and the redemption of Jesus Christ, that’s my kind of warfare. And I’m excited that we’ve got a prophet here who’s seeing the visions of the Lord revealing this campaign.

Hank Smith: 27:00 Yeah. And your temple clothes are your uniform, clothed with power and authority, right? I’ll put on the uniform. That’s great.

Dr. Steven Harper: 27:08 Indeed. Truly. The chosen messengers, verse 31 says, “Went forward to declare the acceptable day of the Lord and proclaim liberty to the captives,” right? They’re going to liberate the Spirit Prison, lots of prisoners of war being held, and these soldiers are going to let them go free. That’s their great work is to liberate the captive. Isaiah taught about this, he prophesied this great day. And, as you know, Section 128 of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph F. Smith, exults that the Lord has ordained before the world was a plan that would make it, so that the prisoners could go free. And this is not long after he’s emerged from months in that hell hole in Liberty, Missouri. He knows better than ever in his life what it’s like for the prisoners to go free. And, there’s this wonderful medieval Christian tradition about the harrowing of hell. And this is where Jesus goes into the world of the Spirits and-

Dr. Steven Harper: 28:03 And this is where Jesus goes into the world of the Spirits and breaks down the prison door and punches Satan right in the face, and liberates the captives. The art that depicts this is really great stuff, and I love it. There’s this wonderful tradition of artwork that shows hell sometimes in the form of a giant monster or a dark prison, and Jesus goes into it and opens the monster’s mouth or breaks down the door. In one painting Satan is being squished under the door of the prison and the captives are being liberated by Jesus.

Dr. Steven Harper: 28:44 And this teaching is pervasive in medieval Christianity. It survives Augustine. He can’t kill it. But it doesn’t survive very well with the Protestant Reformers, and it takes Joseph Smith to say, “You know, that gospel that was taught by Peter and Paul, that was right.” And this vision, this series of visions restores that truth and then expands greatly what we know about it. It tells us so much more than we knew before, about how the gospel is preached to the dead and who does it.

Hank Smith: 29:23 I’ve wondered, Steve, if someone on the other side, someone in Spirit Prison thinks they’re in hell. Maybe thinks there’s no out of this. I am here for eternity, and maybe there is no one who knows that there’s no way out of here. This is hell, this is forever, and to have that moment where hell opens up and says, “You can come out. Come out of there.” I just think maybe in Spirit Prison, they didn’t know it was coming. And to think of that moment, when you find out that there’s a way out of here.

John  Bytheway: 30:04 Speaking of doctrines that taste good, right? Section 19, I remember as a teenager reading that. “I did not say the punishment would have no end. I said it was endless punishment because endless is my name.”

Dr. Steven Harper: 30:19 Oh, yeah.

John  Bytheway: 30:21 This idea of burning in hell for a trillion years, I mean, the worst way I could think of to die is to burn to death and then to the trillionth power and it goes on forever. And it’s Section 19, oh, and this same kind of a thing that you just mentioned, Hank, is-

Dr. Steven Harper: 30:38 Here comes the Lord. Yeah.

John  Bytheway: 30:40 Doctrines that really taste good.

Hank Smith: 30:42 I think that’s why we… Steve is …  about a great movie. And I think this is a great movie. This is where the door is kicked open and there’s Gandalf riding over the mountain on the third day, and here comes salvation.

Dr. Steven Harper: 30:57 I’m with you either way, right? Whether these folks have no hope whatsoever, total despair, no knowledge that redemption is on the way, that redemption has got to be the greatest. And let’s say they do, somebody has informed them rescue is on its way, but think how long they’ve been there and how much despair. It is like a prisoner of war who’s been there a mighty long time and you could easily just lose hope and become completely in despair. And then here comes the forces that have been organized by the Son of God, preaching redemption and resurrection.

Hank Smith: 31:38 It’s the All-Star Team.

Dr. Steven Harper: 31:39 Yeah.

John  Bytheway: 31:40 The All-Star Team, right?

Hank Smith: 31:42 And we start finding out who’s on this team.

Dr. Steven Harper: 31:44 “Our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters,” verse 39 says, “Who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God.” That is a restored truth that is very delicious. That’s uncommon as you both know. The rest of the Christian world does not talk about our glorious Mother Eve. Eve is the problem. And I’m thankful to know. I’d like to know who these faithful daughters are. We get a lot more men named by name, Noah, Seth, Abel, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Ezekiel-

Hank Smith: 32:22 Oh my gosh.

Dr. Steven Harper: 32:23 … Elias, Elijah, Joseph, Hyrum, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and other choice spirits who are reserved to come forth.

Hank Smith: 32:32 All the prophets who dwelled among the Nephites.

Dr. Steven Harper: 32:35 Yeah. Right? I mean, all those Book of Mormon prophets.

Hank Smith: 32:41 A veritable who’s who.

Dr. Steven Harper: 32:41 Yeah. My goodness.

Hank Smith: 32:42 I read those passages and I think, “Yeah, that’s impressive. I don’t belong there.” But verse 57-

John  Bytheway: 32:51 Dad, who’s your mission president? I wish I could ask him.

Hank Smith: 32:53 Yeah. Who’s your zone leader?

Dr. Steven Harper: 32:57 As I was saying a bit ago, when I get to verse 57 I think, “Those are my people. That’s where I fit.”

Hank Smith: 33:06 I want to line up with that group.

Dr. Steven Harper: 33:08 Yeah. Let me be a junior companion in that company-

Hank Smith: 33:11 For those men and women. Yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 33:14 And I will be grateful for the assignment.

Hank Smith: 33:17 Yeah. Who’s your zone leader? Who’s your sister training leader?

John  Bytheway: 33:19 Oh, just Esther.

Hank Smith: 33:24 Yeah.

John  Bytheway: 33:24 Yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 33:26 So think about verse 39, “Our glorious Mother Eve with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages.” One of those I would guess is Susa Young Gates. She was a dear friend of Joseph F. Smith and a couple of weeks after the revelation she visited him at his house and he said, “Susa, you gotta see this.” And he showed her the text of the revelation. She was thrilled with it. She felt it was a great privilege to see it before the whole world got to see it. And she wrote about it beautifully and talked about what a difference it would make. She had her own frustrations trying to persuade the Saints how important it was for them to find the names of deceased ancestors and do their temple work. And she thought these series of visions would be the greatest impetus, she called it, in getting them to see the vision, to catch the vision. I can’t imagine that she’s not one of the faithful daughters over there, continuing the work she did here on earth for decades. And she’s just one of many undoubtedly.

Hank Smith: 34:35 Makes you want to get to the temple, doesn’t it?

Dr. Steven Harper: 34:37 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 34:37 And line up with these people and help them out and-

Dr. Steven Harper: 34:40 “Shall we not go on in so great a cause?” This is the cause that was being talked about. And certainly it’s what President Nelson keeps emphasizing to us, the gathering on both sides of the veil.

John  Bytheway: 34:53 The cause.

Dr. Steven Harper: 34:53 This is it.

John  Bytheway: 34:54 Yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 34:56 This is it.

John  Bytheway: 34:57 The greatest work you could ever do. The reason you’re here. Yeah. President Nelson, I love how he has been emphasizing over and over the work of salvation. This is the greatest work you could be involved in. This is why you’re here.

Hank Smith: 35:12 Wouldn’t it be cool? And look at verse 51. These are the people the Lord taught. So imagine Isaiah being taught, Ezekiel being taught, Eve being taught by the Lord and gave them power and they are going to go on and continue their labor. That’s just so beautiful. Such a fun revelation.

John  Bytheway: 35:38 Oh, I think I was exactly thinking that surrounded by so much sadness related to death, Joseph F. Smith, to see all of this and what this must have done to his heart and his spirits, the hope, the joy, the anticipation all coming together. Yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 35:58 So it’s November 19th when he makes the journey between the world he was in and this world, six weeks after these visions. Nobody knew better what to expect and nobody, I’m guessing, was more delighted to get involved in the work on that side.

Hank Smith: 36:17 He had a tour before he went.

Dr. Steven Harper: 36:22 And like me, I think he’s saying, “These are my people. Those are my people.” I’m looking forward to the day when it’s my turn to get a call to that field and to go to work there.

Hank Smith: 36:35 Yeah. Man, it is a wow, John, it’s a wow section.

Dr. Steven Harper: 36:44 Let’s say a couple more things about it. It’s really beautiful to me that the gospel that is taught to the dead is the exact same gospel taught to the living with this wrinkle that the ordinances are offered vicariously and the covenants are available. You can make and keep them on the same terms and conditions you can make and keep them in mortality. So exact same gospel, no difference except that the work is done… The ordinance work done by proxy. And then maybe one of the most vital things about this section is how Christ-centered it is and how potent Joseph F. Smith’s witness of the Savior is. I was saying earlier that there were lots of people, C.S. Lewis is writing poetry at the same time, expressing this longing for the dead. He’d been in World War I, He’d been injured in World War I. Arthur Conan Doyle, lots of people, lots of people. Some of the poetry, In Flanders Fields, and lots of people are coming up with… They’re either expressing the longing or they’re offering a solution to it of some kind or other.

Dr. Steven Harper: 38:09 And of all those possibilities, Joseph F. Smith’s is the most Christ-centered, and it declares his witness over and over. And it’s a sensory witness, right? If we read every verse, we’d notice him saying things like, “I saw. I heard. I beheld.” And then at the end here, he says, “I bear record and I know that this record is true, through the blessing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Even so. Amen.” This is a series of revelations. Jesus Christ is at the center of them. He is the answer. He’s the resolution to the problem of death.

Dr. Steven Harper: 38:54 His plan is the one that resolves the problem of death. He’s the one who organized his forces and commissioned his officers and sent them into the world to preach his gospel. It’s His Atonement that redeems the dead, as well as the living. It’s His ordinances and covenants that provide the redemption, and Joseph F. Smith never lets us forget that. The other alternatives, Arthur Conan Doyle’s book New Revelation is hopeful. Its goal is to satisfy that longing for some answer, for some voice from the dead, but it doesn’t offer a Christ-centered plan of redemption like Section 138 does.

John  Bytheway: 39:45 I was just thinking of a phrase Sheri Dew used in a talk once, where she said, “The gospel reaches across the street, across the world and across the veil.” And that we can have an impact here in temples. That we can have an impact over there is kind of an amazing thought, isn’t it?

Hank Smith: 40:10 It reminds me of 2 Nephi 9, when Jacob finds out that you don’t have to stay dead forever. He just exclaimed, “O, the greatness of our God.”

John  Bytheway: 40:21 “O, the greatness of our God.”

Hank Smith: 40:22 There’s so many exclamation points in that chapter, right?

John  Bytheway: 40:25 I call that the “Os and Woes Chapter.”

Hank Smith: 40:28 Yeah.

John  Bytheway: 40:28 Because it starts with a bunch of “Os” and then it goes to a bunch of “Woes.”

Hank Smith: 40:32 Right.

John  Bytheway: 40:32 But that’s one of the doctrinal, 2 Nephi 2, 2 Nephi 9, Alma 34. Big-

Hank Smith: 40:40 Big doctrine.

Dr. Steven Harper: 40:41 He talks chapters.

Hank Smith: 40:42 Yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 40:42 He talks too about, “The awful monster of death and hell.”

John  Bytheway: 40:46 Death and hell, yeah.

Dr. Steven Harper: 40:46 And that’s exactly how medieval Christians depicted death and hell as an awful monster. And Jesus defeats the awful monster.

John  Bytheway: 40:56 Hey, could we mention something? Because verse 56 kind of sounds like now we’re going into the premortal existence.

Hank Smith: 41:04 Gives us a little glimpse into… Yeah.

John  Bytheway: 41:07 Yeah. It gives us that past-present-future. I mean, “Even before they were born, they, with many others, received their first lessons in the world of spirits.” I’ve heard people say you don’t really gain a testimony, you remember it. That is interesting.

Dr. Steven Harper: 41:22 It is. That phrase in verse 55 about, “The noble and great ones chosen in the beginning,” links us to the Abraham 3 passage. So what scholars call in fancy terms “intertextuality” here between Abraham 3. We’re meant to remember what we learned in Abraham 3 and bring it forward into this text to inform what we’re reading here.

Hank Smith: 41:48 Right. Steve, when you were talking earlier about the arbitrary God, if you don’t include a premortal life, not only do you have an arbitrary God, he created you to be damned. You didn’t even sign up.

Hank Smith: 42:03 He created you to be damned. You didn’t even sign up.

Dr. Steven Harper: 42:05 That’s the sovereignty thing. I’m sorry if you weren’t elected to be saved, that’s tough luck.

John  Bytheway: 42:11 This is serious…

Hank Smith: 42:11 And I created you only to damn you. You didn’t even get a choice in the matter. At least in the premortal life, we have a God who says, do you want to go or not? There’s agency again, want to have this opportunity or not? So a premortal life, though only a glimpse of it we have here, is crucial to our understanding of the character of God.

John  Bytheway: 42:30 It tastes good.

Dr. Steven Harper: 42:31 Well said.

Hank Smith: 42:32 I think, Steve, it was your podcast earlier where you said, repent relentlessly. Was that you?

Dr. Steven Harper: 42:40 Yeah, I believe in that. I try to practice it as best I can.

Hank Smith: 42:46 It’s not perfection.

Dr. Steven Harper: 42:48 No, this revelation, both [Section] 137 and [Section]138 teach us that it’s the desire of our heart that matters. We signal to the Savior what we want Him to do for us by repenting and the living can repent. The dead can repent. It’s the desire that we manifest by repenting that tells Him how we’ve exercised our agency. And then He applies His Redeeming Sacrifice to us in the degree and proportion that we want, that we hope for, that we seek. Never against our will.

Hank Smith: 43:30 It’s a beautiful try again gospel. Try again, try again. Honestly, try again. Honestly, try again. It’s not a be perfect gospel. It’s not a plan of perfection. It’s a plan of, it’s a gospel of repentance and redemption.

John  Bytheway: 43:44 I just love airplanes, you know this about me, Hank, to a degree that’s kind of…

Hank Smith: 43:50 Yeah, let’s see. What would we call it? It’s to a degree of obsession.

John  Bytheway: 43:57 Obsession.

Hank Smith: 43:57 Let’s say that one.

John  Bytheway: 43:58 Yeah, I love airplanes, and so I have loved this repent relentlessly and how this relates to things President Uchtdorf has talked about or Elder Uchtdorf repeatedly. About that an airliner is off course most of the time, but it puts the wheels right on the numbers of the runway because it just keeps getting back on course. The autopilot keeps steering it back on course.

Hank Smith: 44:23 Little correction.

John  Bytheway: 44:25 And it’s a good analogy. Constantly making corrections.

Dr. Steven Harper: 44:29 Airplanes are repenting relentlessly.

Hank Smith: 44:37 Steve, is there anything that you had on your mind that we haven’t…

Dr. Steven Harper: 44:40 Yeah, boats. Airplanes are nice, but boats, right? Jesus loved boating. Remember that.

Hank Smith: 44:48 Okay. I can talk about boats. Section 123, “You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm, in the time of a storm.”

Dr. Steven Harper: 45:00 There you go.

Hank Smith: 45:00 “By being kept workways with the wind and the waves.” Or is it Helaman, without sail or rudder or without anything wherewith to steer her. They’re driftwood. They’re not boats. And James, the ships though they be great, a very small rudder keeps them on course.

Dr. Steven Harper: 45:18 Very good. Now we’re talking. Scriptures are full of boats.

John  Bytheway: 45:22 What other vehicles can we throw in? I’ve appreciated verse 26 a lot. I think when I first got into my mission field, I heard a lot of my companions talking using the phrase, “Let’s bind the Lord.” “I the Lord am bound when you do what I say.” And if we just do this and this and this, all these people will join the Church.

John  Bytheway: 45:46 And we could test that theory, was the Savior perfectly obedient? Because verse 26 is sobering, and it allows for agency. “Notwithstanding his mighty works, and miracles, and proclamation of the truth, in great power and authority.” I mean, who could give a sermon better than the Savior and the Spirit that accompanied him? There were but few who hearkened to His voice and rejoiced in his presence and received salvation at His hands.

John  Bytheway: 46:16 And I think missionaries could beat themselves up. “I didn’t do that well enough. I didn’t do that good enough. And if I had only been this, maybe more would’ve listened.” Well, not everybody even listened to the Savior. So you do the best you can.

Dr. Steven Harper: 46:31 John, I think you’re right on here. I remember reading Elder Oaks saying, “Be careful making goals based on someone else’s agency.”

John  Bytheway: 46:39 “Someone else’s agency.” You set goals on what you’re going to do, not on what others will do.

Dr. Steven Harper: 46:44 Yeah, he just said a missionary’s goals ought to be based upon the missionary’s personal agency and action, not upon the agency or action of others. Very simple statement. But I think you’re right to use the Lord as an example there. He was perfectly obedient and did not, I don’t think people did not listen.

John  Bytheway: 47:04 That’s Elder Oaks’s talk called “Timing,” right? I think that helped. I sent that to my kids when they were on missions and hopefully some more will go too, but…

Dr. Steven Harper: 47:16 Thinking if I was more obedient, I would be getting more people somehow.

John  Bytheway: 47:20 Or if I said that better, if I would have talked better. And well, some even didn’t listen to the Savior in the way he would’ve, as he invited them to.

Dr. Steven Harper: 47:30 That’s insightful.

Hank Smith: 47:32 Dr. Harper, Steve, you’re just an incredible mind. We love having you on our show. I think our listeners would love to hear a little bit more about you just on the personal side of how do you be a faithful scholar, right? How do your faith and your scholarship come together, your education and your faith?

Dr. Steven Harper: 47:54 That’s a great question. I’ve been thinking lately, what is my highest value? What do I value most of anything? And I cannot, I have a prize for first place and it’s truth and love. I can’t put one of those in front of the other, but they’re both to me the most desirable above anything else.

Dr. Steven Harper: 48:26 I’ve been wanting to know the truth about the restored gospel for my whole life and had a revelation of that. The first one I can remember when I was probably 19, just about ready to go to the mission field.

Dr. Steven Harper: 48:43 Having read the Book of Mormon for myself, I knelt and not very eloquently, but very sincerely just in my own mind, asked the Lord with real intent and faith in Christ and a sincere heart, if the Book of Mormon was true. And received an impression in my mind that said, “You already know it’s true,” along with a feeling in my heart that was a deep and abiding desire to affirm that thought.

Dr. Steven Harper: 49:14 And there’s never been a day since that I can think of that I have not felt to affirm that thought. I’ve read a hundred books since then and the Original Manuscript and the Printer’s Manuscript, what remains of the original. So I know a lot more facts now. I know lots more stuff about the Book of Mormon, but the testimony of it is no stronger or weaker today than it was that day.

Dr. Steven Harper: 49:46 And that truth is my bedrock. Joseph Smith is therefore a prophet. He was called by Jesus Christ. He was a mere kid. He didn’t think much of himself, except his highest value was truth. He just wanted to know the truth and he wanted to live the truth. He wanted to be true to himself.

Dr. Steven Harper: 50:10 And I love him for that. I think some people think I just love Joseph Smith because he’s cool. He was really athletic and a good wrestler and stuff, and I couldn’t possibly care less. I don’t care if he has buck teeth or whatever else. Chronic halitosis, which he may very well have had. I don’t know, but I don’t care. I care whether he revealed Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, and his true gospel.

Dr. Steven Harper: 50:44 And I’ve been on a quest to know the answer to that question for at least 30 years. And I know, I do know by the power of the Holy Ghost, that the revelations are real. They’re true. I believe Section 137. I believe that he saw, Joseph Smith saw in vision his brother Alvin because Jesus wanted him to, because Jesus had some restoring to do. And he needed Joseph to ask the question that Section 137 answers.

Dr. Steven Harper: 51:20 And I believe that Joseph’s nephew, Joseph F. Smith, as an old man who lived a difficult life and one that was devastated by death over and over, I believe he was prepared by the Lord to receive a series of visions in the last several weeks of his life that give us more knowledge of Christ’s work of redeeming the dead than any other source that’s ever been revealed.

Dr. Steven Harper: 51:51 And if anybody is seeking truth, I want them to know about these revelations, these sources. They’re so beautiful, desirable. And as you know, there are people who go to great lengths to undermine them, fight against them. I don’t know why. I can’t figure out why you would want to undermine Section 137 or 138.

Dr. Steven Harper: 52:21 So I guess what we can say is that as Moroni prophesied, “Joseph’s name will be known, is known for good and evil,” everywhere. What an unlikely prophecy that was in 1823, but we live in a day where it’s literally fulfilled. So even in that, Joseph is a true prophet.

Hank Smith: 52:45 And he has, I would say, no greater defender than Steve Harper. Anyone who wants to take down the Prophet Joseph Smith has to go through the testimonies of some great people, and the front line is going to be Steve and Jennifer Harper.

Dr. Steven Harper: 53:01 You know, you can… The thing about personal testimony is you can reject it, but you cannot refute it. I’m grateful for that. It’s widely rejected, but for me, it can’t be overturned.

Hank Smith: 53:22 The blind man in John 9 said, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I know not.” Here’s how much I know.

Dr. Steven Harper: 53:28 Here’s what I know. Here’s what I know.

Hank Smith: 53:31 And Steve, thank you for sharing with us what you know.

Dr. Steven Harper: 53:35 My privilege.

Hank Smith: 53:36 How did we get this job?

John  Bytheway: 53:37 Yeah, I know. I’m so blessed. I just am thinking of my dad. You can’t take this away from me. I just saw the gospel change him. I witnessed it. I watched it. I watched it change him and thinking of him now continuing his labors, as verse 57 says, just gives me a lot of hope and a lot of joy, a lot of love, like you said, and that’s truth.

Hank Smith: 54:12 Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Steve Harper and my O Come All Ye Faithful, co-host John Bytheway. Thank you to all of you for listening. We’ve had a wonderful year with all of you. We have a couple more episodes left for you this year.

Hank Smith: 54:32 Thank you to our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen and their wonderful children and grandchildren. Our production crew, Lisa Spice. She does so much work for us and she’s all behind the scenes. Kyle Nelson, Jamie Nielsen, David Perry, and Will Stoughton. We love you, and we hope all of you will join us for our next episode of followHIM.