Hank Smith: 00:00:00 Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:00:04 I think it’s pretty remarkable, actually, that Moroni didn’t dumb it down for 17-year-old Joseph. I think it’s a nod to his maturity, or at least to Moroni’s view of Joseph, to say like, “I think you can handle this, kid. Let me give you the nuggets that are going to be little seeds in your soul that over time are going to germinate as the Restoration unfolds.” I think Joseph continues to have insights about this evening for the rest of his life.

Hank Smith: 00:00:34 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith, and I am your host and I’m here with my co-host, John Bytheway. John, I would describe you as glorious beyond description, a countenance truly like lightning. Honestly John, I read that in Joseph Smith’s history and I thought, that’s John Bytheway right there.

  00:00:55 Actually, John, I thought of you when Joseph Smith said, “I was guilty of levity.” I know someone just like that. John, you’re in good company.

John Bytheway: 00:01:05 “John, you’re guilty of levity too.” Thanks, Hank. I appreciate that.

Hank Smith: 00:01:10 Hey, John, joining us today is a good friend, someone who’s been with us many times before. His name is Dr. Scott Woodward. Scott, the lesson today is about Joseph Smith and Moroni. We went through with Dr. Heward, through the First Vision. We talked to Dr. Dirkmaat last week about the Smith family, and now we come to this pivotal point in Joseph Smith’s life. Tell me what you’re looking forward to today.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:01:35 Our study this week is about what we would call Joseph Smith’s Second Vision. First Vision is very famous. We know it by that name, but he literally called what we’re talking about today, his Second Vision, or a vision he had of an angel of God in his bedroom. The angel is going to unload some really, really important things that basically frame the entire work of the Restoration to a 17-year-old kid. It’s pretty remarkable.

Hank Smith: 00:02:01 So fantastic. After having spent now a full year studying the Book of Mormon, and now to come back to this point, there’s a sense of excitement. This is the beginning of something huge.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:02:16 We can appreciate the book that Moroni is going to direct Joseph toward, where he didn’t understand the significance of the book in the hill near his home, but maybe we do a little bit have that advantage as we read this story.

Hank Smith: 00:02:29 Yeah, and when you see Moroni being a little abrupt with him, a little bit strict with him, you can think, well, I actually know what we have, high stakes. Just so everybody knows, Scott teaches up in the thriving freezing metropolis of Rexburg, Idaho. Scott teaches in the religion department up there, Scott, PhD in…

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:02:50 Instructional psychology and technology.

Hank Smith: 00:02:52 Beautiful. I think our listeners would love just a quick description of the Woodward family.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:02:57 Well, I hit the jackpot when it comes to my spouse, married the Sara former Swalberg. She’s the best. We met at a little youth camp called EFY back in the day. We were fellow counselors. Now, we’ve got five kiddos. Our oldest is serving a mission now, Elder Woodward in Tacoma, Washington, and then we got four still at home: Isaac, Ellie, Lucy, and Benjamin. Just living the dream here in Rexburg.

Hank Smith: 00:03:24 Well, we love your family. Thank you, Woodward family, for letting us borrow your incredible father today. Let me read from the Come Follow Me manual. The lesson is entitled, The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn to Their Fathers. “It had been three years since God, the Father, and his son Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith in the grove, and Joseph hadn’t received any additional revelations since then.

  00:03:46 He began to wonder whether the Lord was displeased with him. Like all of us, he had made mistakes, and he felt condemned by them, yet God still had a work for him to do. The work Joseph was called to do is connected to what God asks of us. Joseph would bring forth the Book of Mormon. We are invited to share its message. Joseph would receive priesthood keys to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers. We can now receive ordinances for our ancestors in temples.

  00:04:14 Joseph was told of prophecies that would soon be fulfilled. We are called to help fulfill those prophecies. As we take part in God’s work, we can expect to face opposition and even persecution, just as the prophet did, but we can also have faith that the Lord will make us instruments in his hands just as he did for Joseph.” Wow, how wonderful. How many people listening think maybe I’ve made too many mistakes to be useful to the Lord? This beautiful manual says not at all.

  00:04:45 Scott, where do you want to go? Where should we start? Should we go to Doctrine Covenants 2?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:04:49 This week’s kind of fun, because Doctrine Covenants 2 is just an excerpt from this history. I was thinking maybe we could take D&C 2 in stride when it comes up in the history. We’ll just stop and camp there. Any listeners who are wondering, where are we covering D&C 2? It’s just going to be right in the middle. We’re just going to have a little Doctrine Covenants 2.

Hank Smith: 00:05:08 It’s part of the story.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:05:09 Exactly. Let’s pick it up in verse 27 of Joseph Smith’s history. Here’s what he says. This is three and a half years after the First Vision. “I continued to pursue my common vocations in life until the twenty-first of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three.” Do you guys remember the 21st night of September?

Hank Smith: 00:05:31 That sounds so familiar.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:05:34 Sometimes I’ll play that song with my students and I’ll say, “Listen to the lyrics. It says, ‘Do you remember the 21st night of September?’ Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away.”

Hank Smith: 00:05:48 Moroni.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:05:50 How true that was on this particular evening. He says, on “the twenty-first of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, all the time suffering severe persecution at the hands of all classes of men, both religious and irreligious, because I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision.” A little further down, he says he was “persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed me to be deluded to have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner to have reclaimed me—”

  00:06:23 For those three years, there’s going to be some serious persecution. Lucy Mack Smith, his mom, tells us a few things. In fact, when he was still 14, we’re not sure if we could place this before or after the First Vision, but in light of what Joseph is saying here, maybe after, she said that, “There was an incident which occurred,” I’m now quoting her, “which alarmed us much, as we knew no cause for the same.”

  00:06:44 She said, “Joseph was out one evening on an errand, and as he was crossing the door yard on his return, a gun was fired across his path, with the evident intention of shooting him. Joseph sprang to the door, much frightened. Upon ascertaining that he had received no injury, we went immediately in search of the assassin, but could find no trace of him that evening. The next morning, we found his tracks under a wagon where he lay when he fired, furthermore that the balls which were discharged from his gun were lodged in the head and neck of a cow that was standing opposite the wagon in a dark corner.”

  00:07:19 The only thing that saved Joseph’s life was the cow as maybe he was drawing the beat on Joseph as he’s walking, and just as he pulls the trigger, Joseph had walked behind the cow or something like that, or alternately, the cow saw what was happening and made a mad dash to save Joseph’s life. I don’t know, but there you go. There’s the first martyr of the restoration right here is the family cow. We got to laugh or we’re going to cry, but someone tried to kill Joseph here.

  00:07:47 One other account by Thomas Taylor, he was a resident of nearby Manchester there. In a later interview, he recalled that “rascals at one time took Joseph Smith and ducked him in the pond that you see over there.” He said, “Just because he preached what he believed and for nothing else,” so ducking someone in the pond, he is holding them underwater until they almost can’t breathe, and pulling them up, and then doing it again.

  00:08:10 Statements like this help us understand what Joseph is talking about, about the persecution that he suffered because he continued to affirm that he had seen a vision. He continues Verse 28, “During the space of time which intervened between the time I had the vision and the year eighteen hundred and twenty-three—having been forbidden to join any of the religious sects of the day,” he said, ” I was left to all kinds of temptations; and, mingling with all kinds of society, “

  00:08:34 ” I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God.” In his 1832 history, he said, “I fell into transgressions and sinned in many things, which brought a wound upon my soul,” which we can’t help as we read this history to say, “Well, what were his youthful temptations? What kinds of society was he mingling with? What were his foolish errors, his weaknesses, his foibles?”

  00:09:06 The truth is we don’t have a complete picture of that, but one interesting account from 1859, an interview that Martin Harris did, says this. Martin said, “That Joseph said that the angel told him that he must quit the company of the money diggers, that there were wicked men among them. He must have no more to do with them. He must not lie, nor swear, nor steal.” Does this mean that Joseph was lying, and swearing, and stealing? Not sure. At a minimum, he was tempted to do so, because some of the people he was hanging out with certainly were.

  00:09:42 He continues, he says, “In making this confession, no one needs suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature, but I was guilty of levity,” which sometimes we’re guilty of as we’re talking today, right on this show.

Hank Smith: 00:09:57 Is that a bad thing? I didn’t know.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:10:00 Yeah. If you look up levity in Joseph Smith’s dictionary, it’s talking about someone who’s just always joking. They have the chronic inability to be serious. They make light of serious things. Joseph says he had a problem with that, and I can relate. I have a problem with that, too.

  00:10:18 He’s sometimes associated with jovial company, he says, “Not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been.” He says, “But this will not seem very strange to anyone who recollects my youth and is acquainted with my native, cheery temperament.”

Hank Smith: 00:10:36 He’s a happy kid.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:10:37 He’s a happy kid. Sometimes took it a little too far is what he seems to be saying here.

Hank Smith: 00:10:42 That could be my autobiography title: Sometimes Took it a Little Too Far.

John Bytheway: 00:10:48 Yes, totally. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:10:50 He says, “In consequence of these things, I often felt condemned for my weakness and imperfections.” What youth can’t relate with that? What 40-something can’t relate with that? That’s me. He says, “So it was about this when on the evening of the above-mentioned 21st of September, after I had retired to my bed for the night, I but took myself to prayer and supplication to almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies, and also for a manifestation to me that I might know of my state and standing before him, for I had full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation as I had previously had one.”

  00:11:25 In fact, in his 1835 account, he said, “I was very conscious that I had not kept the commandments, and I repented heartily for all my sins and humbled myself before God.” I like those words too. “While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase, until the room was lighter than at noon day, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.”

  00:11:54 What follows here, I think, John, is the most detailed description of a resurrected being anywhere in scripture. It is remarkable. He talks about his clothing. He says he has this loose robe of exquisite whiteness. He says it was beyond anything earthly he had ever seen. He said his hands were naked, his arms were naked also, a little above the wrist. His feet were naked, as were his legs a little above the ankles. His head and neck were bare. He said, I could tell he was only wearing this robe. I could see into his bosom, there was nothing else. This is how resurrected beings dress.

  00:12:26 He said, “Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning.”

Hank Smith: 00:12:36 Bam.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:12:37 No artist has captured this. All the artwork of Moroni, he’s always kind of tan with some nice silver hair or something like that. It’s like, he’s not tan. He’s like lightning. He says, “The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person. When I first looked upon him, I was afraid, but the fear soon left me. He called me by name.” “Joseph,” first word from Moroni, like in the First Vision. His 1832 account actually adds a little line here. It says, “He called me by name and said that the Lord had forgiven me my sins.”

  00:13:12 That’s the very answer Joseph was seeking in his prayers that evening. That’s why he originally engaged. “Then he said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni, that God had a work for me to do, and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.”

  00:13:38 Right out the chute, Joseph learns that he’ll become a very divisive figure. People will tend to either praise the man or vilify the man. I think it’s safe to say that this prophecy has been and continues to be fulfilled every day. Whatever you think about Joseph Smith, you got to at least give him credit for getting this prophecy right.

Hank Smith: 00:14:00 Absolutely. I wonder if he thought, what? Why would someone in some faraway place in the world, how would they even know anything about me? Maybe Moroni says, “Well, wait till Facebook. You have no idea.” Scott, we shouldn’t be surprised when we hear evil spoken of Joseph Smith.

  00:14:23 I know when you first encounter it can kind of take you back. What? I’ve never heard anything like this, but then you come back to this prophecy, evil will be spoken. Not bad, not I think he’s a little shady. It’s evil will be spoken of him.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:14:40 Yeah. He’s either the worst charlatan who pawned off this elaborate religious scheme in order to get some self aggrandizement, and money, and power, whatever, or he’s a prophet of God. He is that divisive. It’s hard to come down in the middle on Joseph Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:14:58 Just imagine if you’re riding on a bus or something, and some 17-year-old sits next to you and says, “Do you know what? In a couple of hundred years, people of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people will be talking about me,” and you’d probably want to move to another seat on the bus.

  00:15:16 Like you said, Hank, I like to say, you hear something bad about Prophet Joseph Smith, what you’re really saying is Moroni was a prophet, aren’t you? Got that exactly right. Hank, we’ve talked about this before. All I wanted to know is what church to join. That was all I wanted to know.

Hank Smith: 00:15:33 I didn’t want this.

John Bytheway: 00:15:34 Look at what’s happening.

Hank Smith: 00:15:36 Scott, some people make it their full-time job to speak evil of the prophet. It creates a motivation that is surprising.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:15:47 Some people have found a decent career to speak evil of Joseph Smith. Yeah. There’s some people who feel uncomfortable in their faith, and this gives them reason to make a full exit out of the faith if they’ve been Latter-Day Saint in the past. It certainly does a good job keeping people from the church, because they don’t want to be associated with something weird or scandalous like that of Joseph Smith.

  00:16:09 Yet there’s others of us that spend our entire career teaching the teachings of Joseph Smith, studying the revelations of Joseph Smith, talking about the complexities of his life. He is certainly not someone who is infallible. All through his story like we’re looking at today right now, he’s repenting throughout his life consistently. He’s making mistakes, sometimes errors in judgment, sometimes whoppers. You’re going to talk soon enough about the loss of the 116 pages.

  00:16:38 We’re going to talk about the failure of the Kirtland Bank. There’s going to be some difficulty with plural marriage, and on, and on, and on, and he’s not perfect. There are some low hanging fruits or easy ways to try to vilify him, but some of us take time to look at the whole story, and try to see it all in the context. We spend our career speaking good of this man, believing in his revelations, and trying to help others to do so as well. As we do so, the fruits are amazing.

Hank Smith: 00:17:06 Scott, I love it. When we hear evil spoken of the prophet, I like to think to myself, well, I need to even that out. I need some good. I’m going to go jump on my own social media and talk. I’m going to speak good of him instead of just saying, “Wow. Yeah, Moroni was right, a lot of people speaking evil. I think I better come onto the other side. Speak some good.”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:17:27 There you go. You can be part of the fulfillment of this prophecy. Go speak some good about Joseph today.

Hank Smith: 00:17:33 Scott, church history spoke to you as a young man. You’ve studied him. You’re not an old guy, Scott, but it’s been decades. You’ve taught it, you’ve studied it, and this hasn’t been a side hobby. This has been your daily bread walking life. Someone can’t do that, Scott.

  00:17:50 Someone listening can’t take nine, 10 hours a day for the next 30 years to study the prophet, but I’ve got you right here. In all of that, Scott, is he what he claims to be? You’ve read it. You’re a trustworthy guy. Is he what we think he is?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:18:06 I don’t know if I’m going to solve this for everybody who’s listening, but I am convinced that he is a good man and a prophet of God. There’s a lot of assumptions we bring to what a prophet of God is, and sometimes Joseph will violate those assumptions that we have, but it’s never a deal breaker. He’s imperfect. He’s going to repent of his sins a lot, which acknowledges that he’s sinning. He’s making a mistake. I used to think he was almost like a demigod.

  00:18:32 When I was just a teenager. I’m like, “This guy is the best.” Nobody can kill him. Sometimes he would bear his chest and guns would misfire and it’s like, “This is so awesome.” As an adult here, with hopefully a little more experience and studying him more carefully, he’s a prophet. The way that the Lord describes him in D&C 124 is a weak instrument through whom God was able to do this work. I think that that’s perfect. He’s a great blend of how God works through humans to do divine things.

  00:19:01 In the work of Joseph Smith, you’re going to find both the human and the divine marvelously mixed together.

Hank Smith: 00:19:07 Isn’t that true for all of us?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:19:09 Yeah, hopefully a little more divine than human. My track record’s not so good. 2% divine, 98% human, something like that.

John Bytheway: 00:19:19 I just remember one time, hearing a talk by Elder Neil L. Andersen talking about Joseph Smith, grabbing from the library, a book called They Knew the Prophet. I was driving to Boise, and I had six CDs in that set, and my car still has a CD player. It was what Elder Andersen suggested, talk to people who actually knew him.

  00:19:41 I’ll tell you, by the time I got to Boise, I thought I knew him too. I thought he was delightful. He wasn’t a great businessman, but he was charitable. It was such a fun window for me to do what Elder Andersen suggested. Talk to people who actually knew him if you want to know about him.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:20:00 That one’s gold. Yeah, Remembering Joseph by Mark McConkie, and that’s really just a compilation of people who knew him. I agree. That’s historical gold is to find firsthand accounts of people who were there, who saw him, who knew him, who were involved with Joseph as a businessman, as a family man, as a civic leader, and as a religious leader.

  00:20:23 That’s probably going to be the best material you can get to get close to Joseph, as well as reading his own writings. I think through those two means, you can get a pretty good pulse of the man.

Hank Smith: 00:20:36 One thing that I’ll bring up that hits close to my heart is it hurts me to see someone bully someone who cannot defend themselves.

John Bytheway: 00:20:46 It’s easy target when they’re not here.

Hank Smith: 00:20:49 John, anybody, anybody can pick on someone who is dead. If you’re out in the playground, and you see someone picking on someone who cannot defend themselves, that should make you upset. That should make you go over and say, “Hey, that is unfair.” It is easy. Can we say it again? It is easy. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to criticize someone who is dead. They’re not here to defend themselves.

  00:21:14 Before we move on from that, Scott, you and our other fantastic friend, Casey Griffiths, how many hours could you give us, Scott, of just this period of Joseph Smith’s life? I think you said you brought a hundred pages of notes here today.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:21:29 Yeah, 109.

Hank Smith: 00:21:31 Yeah. 109, not 160, though. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:21:32 It’s growing. It’s even growing as we go here.

Hank Smith: 00:21:36 Scott, tell us what you and Casey have been doing, and I hope all our listeners will take note of this. This is a fantastic resource this year.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:21:44 Yeah, so Casey Griffiths and I have started a podcast called Church History Matters. It’s about two years old now, where we’ve been dealing with difficult, challenging episodes in our church’s history. As of this year, 2025, we are pivoting to spend a year on the Doctrine and Covenants. We’re going to go through the context of every section. We’re going to go through the content.

  00:22:06 We’re also going to hit any controversies that might be in any section of the Doctrine & Covenants, or the history surrounding it, and then we’ll do the consequences, the aftermath of each section. It’s like some other Come, Follow Me offerings that are out there, but we think our little twist that we’re bringing to the table is that we’re going to hit the controversies head on if there are any in that section. We’re going to tackle it and spend time there.

Hank Smith: 00:22:28 I’m here on the website. It’s also, you can get it wherever you get your podcasts. In fact, right on my podcast library, I like to listen to followHIM, it’s one of my favorites. Then right there next to it, Church History Matters. As I look at the website, I’ve got a series of episodes on the First Vision, a series of episodes on the Book of Mormon coming forth, of plural marriage, race, priesthood, and the temple, another series, Revelations and Translations, another series, Church Finances, another series.

  00:22:58 This, for anyone who says, “I struggle with church history,” this is one of the first resources I give to them, not only because it’s full of incredible content, but you just like Casey and Scott. The way they interact, they poke fun at each other, which is just fantastic. Maybe that’s where you’re guilty of. Maybe you and Casey are jovial.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:23:20 I do associate with jovial company. I do.

John Bytheway: 00:23:25 I would say that you both have a native, cheery temperament. You can see it in your countenance and Hank, I don’t know if we can repeat this thing enough, that we view these other faithful podcasts as our friends and our colleagues, and we’re so thankful they are there and that we can point others to them.

Hank Smith: 00:23:45 These are my friends. We are on the same team. This is not about us. This is about the gospel, the Lord, and moving the work forward. We do have competitors, but it’s not each other. We have competitors who want to take down the prophet, criticize what we love. Those are our competitors, Scott. We want to be the good speaking of the prophet and the restoration.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:24:11 Yeah, that’s why it’s so fun to team up with you guys, and appreciate you having me on the show and those really kind plugs for our podcast. That’s amazing. Thank you, and so much admire what you do, and I frankly would love more people to get involved in producing great content. Yeah, we need it. Same cause.

Hank Smith: 00:24:30 Beautiful. All right, Scott, let’s keep going. We’ve got the prophecy, good and evil are going to be spoken of you, kid. Get ready.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:24:39 Then Moroni turns his attention to the book. This is where Joseph first learns of the Book of Mormon. He said, “There was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from which they sprang. He also,” the angel, “said that the fullness of the everlasting gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants.”

  00:25:06 He also said there were two stones in silver bows, and these stones fastened to a breastplate constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim, deposited with the plates, and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted seers in ancient or former times, and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.

Hank Smith: 00:25:25 Wow.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:25:26 A very succinct description here of the plates, what’s on the plates, and then the interpreters that are included with the plates. These stones constituted seers, sometimes we call them seer stones, two stones that were included with the plates, which will be added to a couple other stones Joseph had as well, maybe we’ll talk about a little bit later, for the purpose of translating this book.

  00:25:49 “After telling me these things,” Joseph said, “Moroni commenced quoting the prophecies of the Old Testament,” as if these prophecies are somehow relevant to the book he just mentioned and the work that is going to commence as a result of that. He says, “He first quoted part of the third chapter of Malachi, and he quoted also the fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy, though with a little variation from the way it reads in our Bibles,” he said.

  00:26:16 “Instead of quoting the first verse as it reads in our books, he quoted it thus,” and Joseph quotes then Malachi 4, and there’s only one little tweak. Let’s see if we can catch it here. He says, “For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble,” so far, this is exactly how it reads in the Old Testament, “for they that come shall burn them up.” There’s the tweak.

  00:26:41 Moroni tweaked it. Instead of saying, “The day that comes shall burn them up,” he said, “for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” This warning to the wicked here is about being connected to the eternal family. We’re going to find this out more in the next verses he talks about.

  00:26:59 When he says they’ll be left without root, we’re talking about their ancestral heritage, or without branch, we’re talking about hope for descendants, which is really interesting, actually, when you think about this in contrast with the Book of Mormon, whose title page says that its purpose is “to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever”, connecting the children of Israel to their roots, and showing the promises made to their fathers anciently as they had received the gospel fullness, so that their posterity in the future becomes a major focus of the restoration.

  00:27:37 Cool, interesting juxtaposition as you think about no root, no branches, and then this Book of Mormon is meant to connect people to their ancestors, and to help them have a glorious future as part of the eternal family of God.

John Bytheway: 00:27:50 Isn’t it interesting that when Jesus himself appears in the Book of Mormon, what chapters of Malachi he quotes again?

Hank Smith: 00:28:00 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:28:01 It’s those two.

Hank Smith: 00:28:03 I think Anthony Sweat told us a couple of weeks ago, John. You show up in the middle of the night and start to read the Old Testament to a teenager. What did he say? No wonder you have to come four times.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:28:17 Yeah, yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:28:19 One thing that I learned last year, John, from, do you remember Dr. Josh Sears when he was with us? He talked about the covenant consciousness, the Abrahamic covenant consciousness after the Savior’s death really disappears, the Lord has a covenant he made with Abraham. As Christianity moves on, and does really important work, and the Bible is preserved, but what Dr. Sears told us is watch for that covenant. It’s gone.

  00:28:47 The only person who really hasn’t forgotten about it is the Lord himself. We often talk about the restoration being a restoration of the Savior’s New Testament church. Scott, correct me if I’m wrong here, but there’s not a lot of New Testament here. This is a restoration of the Old Testament covenant, which has been long since lost.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:29:08 Yeah, that’s right. There are a couple of New Testament passages that Moroni quotes, but it’s funny when you go look at those, like Acts chapter 3, it’s actually the Acts paraphrase of a Deuteronomy prophecy, which is so interesting, right? The church is certainly a restoration of some New Testament elements, but to say that that’s it, that’s all that it is, is woefully incomplete. It begins here with Old Testament in Book of Mormon.

  00:29:35 Then there’s going to be New Testament elements added with John the Baptist, and Peter, James, and John who come later, and then there’ll be some modern that have never existed in any ancient churches that are also added. What we get in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in this dispensation of the fullness of multiple times, multiple times periods, is something that has never existed in quite this form before.

Hank Smith: 00:29:57 Beautiful.

John Bytheway: 00:29:58 In verse 39, “He shall plant in the hearts of the children,” not just turn the hearts, but, “Plant in the hearts of the children, the promises made to the fathers.” There’s that Josh Sears thing that he talked about. This is, oh, what are those promises? Well, that’s the Abrahamic covenant, right? The restoration of the gospel was in fact, Robert Millet said, the restoration of the Abrahamic covenant.

Hank Smith: 00:30:20 If I could go back to the mission field, I would’ve loved to have known that. I would’ve loved to have thought, oh, yes, I do want to bring up this idea of the New Testament church, but man, I wish I would’ve understood the Abrahamic Covenant is maybe, like you said, Scott, fullness of times. I shouldn’t have just focused on the time. I wish I would’ve understood that. What book did you write, John? What I’d wish I’d known?

John Bytheway: 00:30:45 All of my books start that way, because I’ve just been dense my whole life.

Hank Smith: 00:30:50 What I’d wish I’d known back when I had the chance to know it.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:30:54 I think it’s pretty remarkable, actually, that Moroni didn’t dumb it down for 17-year-old Joseph. I think that’s a nod to his maturity, or at least to Moroni’s view of Joseph to say, “I think you can handle this, kid. Let me give you the nuggets that are going to be little seeds in your soul that over time are going to germinate as the restoration unfolds.”

  00:31:15 I think Joseph continues to have insights about this evening for the rest of his life. We’ll see some in Nauvoo. I’ll quote some a little bit later today, some Nauvoo insights from Joseph, that are directly connected to this evening. In fact, maybe we could go there. Should we go there right now?

Hank Smith: 00:31:32 Keep going. Yeah, take us.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:31:34 In verse 38 and 39, he then goes to the fifth verse of chapter four of Malachi. He says, Moroni quoted it a little different than it reads in our scriptures now. He said, “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood.” This is not in the original Malachi. “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”

  00:31:57 Then Joseph says, “He also quoted the next verse differently and said, “And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.” Lots of little Moroni tweaks in there from the original. It’s important to note that these verses, verse 38 and 39 of this history, are later extracted from this history, and then added as Doctrine and Covenants section 2.

  00:32:25 This happens not until 1876, when 26 additional sections, several of which are related to priesthood and temple, are added by Apostle Orson Pratt under the direction of Brigham Young. In fact, at the same time this section was added, it’s important to note, Section 110 was also added, which records the fulfillment of this prophecy, when Elijah actually appears in the Kirtland Temple, which is cool.

  00:32:50 This passage is probably singled out among all the others because of its important priesthood and temple themes, and I would add because of how effectively it frames our understanding of the entire plan of God in the latter days. Maybe this is a good time to pause the history for a couple minutes and go through these verses more carefully. Does that sound like a good idea?

Hank Smith: 00:33:11 Absolutely. Let me make sure I understand. Doctrine & Covenants 2 was added much later. It wasn’t in the Book of Commandments we’re going to see printed during Joseph Smith’s life?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:33:23 Correct.

Hank Smith: 00:33:23 It’s added at the same time as Doctrine Covenants 1-10, which are kind of bookends that I’m going to send Elijah the prophet section 1-10, “Hey, guess what I just said?”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:33:33 Elijah came.

Hank Smith: 00:33:34 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:33:35 Section 109 was the Kirtland Temple dedication, and then 110 is, look what happened here.

Hank Smith: 00:33:45 April 3rd, 1836.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:33:47 I would like to propose two holidays in our church. That’s September 22nd, let’s call it Book of Mormon Day, when Moroni is meeting with Joseph and giving him the Book of Mormon.

Hank Smith: 00:33:58 In fact, let’s do the 21st and 22nd, take two days.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:34:01 Excellent. Make it a whole weekend. I would like to propose the 3rd of April, 1836 as well, when Elijah comes, because that changes the world.

Hank Smith: 00:34:10 Everyone prep for Scott’s 200-year celebration. He’s going to hold a huge party on April 3rd, 2036 at his house, if you want to give your address, Scott, everyone who wants to come, come to the…

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:34:23 There will be Shasta, and I haven’t planned the rest of it, but it’s going to be good.

Hank Smith: 00:34:29 There’s going to be Shasta.

John Bytheway: 00:34:30 Starting to get a little warmer in Rexburg on April 3rd, right?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:34:34 Yes, it is.

Hank Smith: 00:34:35 I’ll come up. I’ll be there, Scott.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:34:37 Please. Wonderful.

Hank Smith: 00:34:38 Now, you want to turn us to Doctrine and Covenants 2? Is that where you want to…

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:34:42 Yeah, let’s just pause here and go over to section 2, and let’s just walk through it carefully, because there were several passages that were quoted to Joseph that evening, but only one of them has been singled out and put into the Doctrine and Covenants. Maybe this one deserves a little extra attention. Let’s talk about verse one for a second. Again, let me read it.

  00:35:00 “Behold, I will reveal unto you the priesthood,” says “I, the Lord, will reveal unto you the priesthood,” who the you is is ambiguous in the text, ” by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Here’s a promise that before the second coming of the Lord, he will reveal the priesthood, whatever that is, by the hand of Elijah. This is that prophet that was taken to heaven without tasting death back in the Old Testament.

  00:35:27 Now, when the Lord said he was going to reveal the priesthood through Elijah, he seems to be talking about something calculated to unite the entire family of God together. Now, this is alluded to in verse 2, the next verse, when he says quote that “He,” I don’t know if that’s the Lord or Elijah here, it’s ambiguous, “that he shall plant in the hearts of the children, the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children will turn to their fathers.” Okay, let’s unpack this. This is pretty dense.

  00:35:55 There are three groups here in D&C 2 that we need to keep clear in order to understand the message. The first group is the children. The children are the living descendants of the house of Israel. The children are living people, just keep that in mind. These are the living descendants. The second group is the fathers. These are the fathers of the children, or in other words, these are the ancient covenant ancestors of the house of Israel to whom God made certain promises.

  00:36:23 The third group is called their fathers, which are those ancestors of the living children who never received the promises made to the covenant ancestors of Israel. One bit of essential background knowledge here that is just assumed in the text is that anciently, God promised covenant Israel that if their descendants were ever scattered due to wickedness, they would one day, at some point, be gathered again as God’s people in the kingdom of Christ.

  00:36:52 This is Deuteronomy 30, it’s Ezekiel, it’s Isaiah, some passages there, that this is being summarized here. By the very end of the Old Testament, Malachi making this prophecy, and Moroni giving a little extra twist for clarity here, is saying that the promises that are made to these fathers about the one day reconstituting of their posterity who are scattered is going to be one of the biggest deals in the history of the world.

  00:37:20 In fact, intriguingly, this promised gathering extended not only to the living descendants of ancient Israel, think about this, but also to their countless dead descendants. Now, how on earth would that happen? How could both the living children and their dead fathers be gathered into the family of God in the last day? This is a quandary that is very difficult to unravel. The Lord is explaining here in verse 2 that it’s going to happen in essentially two steps. Follow this carefully.

  00:37:49 He says, step one, “he will plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers,” meaning the living descendants of the ancient covenant fathers are going to be given the same ancient promises that are made to those fathers, which includes becoming heirs in God’s kingdom, with the promise of eventually ruling this world in righteousness with all other heirs under Christ the King of Israel.

  00:38:14 These are several prophecies I’m putting together. It’s the promises made to Abraham. You mentioned Abraham, yes. Also, the promises made to Israel at Mount Sinai and Moab in Exodus and Deuteronomy, and the Davidic Covenant, the promises of the Davidic Covenant that are outlined in Second Samuel, and in other places in Psalm, Psalm 89, probably the best place is Daniel 7, talking about the prophecy of the coming of the son of man when he comes to earth, he’ll rule the world with the Saints forever and ever. His kingdom will be established here.

  00:38:44 All these promises are going to be planted in the hearts of the children in the latter days, the living descendants, somehow, that they can become heirs of this kingdom, and that they can rule and reign with Christ as members of the house of Israel in this kingdom. As will later become clear, the process by which this happens is the process of living people receiving Christ through the everlasting covenant, and through especially the work we do in modern temples.

  00:39:11 Again, this is not all being explained in all the detail in section 2 here, but the seeds are here that are going to be developed, that are going to germinate over the course of Joseph Smith’s prophetic career. The Lord then describes the second step of the gathering as that of the hearts of the living children who’ve received these covenant promises themselves turning to their fathers.

  00:39:35 This, Joseph Smith will later come to learn, is a slantwise reference to the work that the living children are going to do on behalf of their dead fathers in the temples of God in the latter days, particularly the work of sealing children to their parents, and parents to their children. For instance, let’s just fast-forward to Nauvoo, when this picture is very clear to Joseph Smith.

  00:39:57 He taught there that Elijah was going to be sent, not just to bless the living, he said, but also so that we the living can redeem our dead, and connect ourselves with our deceased fathers, and seal up our dead to come forth in the first resurrection. Do you see the development that’s happened in Joseph Smith’s mind by Nauvoo here? He’s putting the pieces together and connecting this to the temple.

  00:40:22 According to Joseph in Nauvoo, he says, the role of Elijah, the prophet, was to reveal both the keys and the covenants required to seal, he said, “to seal the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers.” He summarized the keys and the covenants as the sealing power of the kingdom. Once Elijah reveals the sealing power of the kingdom, the gathering of both the living and their dead fathers into God’s family kingdom is possible, which is like, wow, this is where this is going.

  00:40:57 It’s pretty remarkable to note the work that’s happening in modern temples today, this sealing power of the kingdom is used every day in temples to seal children to parents and parents to children back throughout the generations. If you think about what that’s creating, it’s pretty remarkable that a heavenly network is being created, where the human family is being linked together as one united eternal family. I can’t shake the feeling that that sealed network of interwoven eternal relationships actually forms the structure of heaven.

  00:41:34 That’s what heaven is made up of, those relationships. Sometimes the end result of all of that sealing is called the Kingdom of God. Sometimes it’s called the House of Israel. Sometimes it’s called the Patriarchal Order, or sometimes it’s just called what it’s being called here in section 2, the Priesthood.

Hank Smith: 00:41:55 John, do you remember, you and I just talked about this a couple of days ago, Dr. Rebecca Clarke talking about fourth Nephi, and heaven, and it wasn’t angels, it wasn’t harps.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:42:05 It was relationships.

Hank Smith: 00:42:07 Scott, I’m about to admit to something that may be very embarrassing. I once knew a seminary teacher who was actually teaching seminary and didn’t know there were two Moronis in the Book of Mormon. It was news to him. It’s okay. It’s okay that we’re all learning. Scott Woodward, I have read this verse, I don’t know how many times, at least in the hundreds, and you just showed me that it says the fathers, and then the second one is their fathers.

  00:42:37 John, am I not a good student of the scriptures?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:42:42 Scott, did you see that at what? 15? You’re like, “Well, actually, I was studying my scriptures at 15.”

Hank Smith: 00:42:47 I’ve always just reversed the two, children to fathers, and then just flipped it around, fathers to children. What you’re saying is these children are the living, us. The fathers are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of these ancient Israelite Covenant people: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah. Their fathers are my ancestors, the ones I can then gather on the other side. Scott, how have I not seen that?

John Bytheway: 00:43:20 I’m in the same club, Hank.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:43:22 Okay.

John Bytheway: 00:43:23 I’m guilty of reading too fast sometimes.

Hank Smith: 00:43:28 Scott Woodward, I love you and hate you for showing me this, but I adore you. It’s something I will… You’ve done this every time we’ve come on, by the way. Scott, tell me what it was like to notice that. Was that a long time ago for you? How come I…

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:43:43 I read slow, John. I read slow. That’s not a great thing. I envy people who read fast, but I read slow. I don’t know, Hank, when that clicked.

Hank Smith: 00:43:52 That changes the verse. That really does.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:43:54 It frames the entire work of the Restoration, doesn’t it?

Hank Smith: 00:43:57 Right.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:43:59 It’s about living people receiving these covenant promises, and then turning to their dead ancestors and giving them to them as well, so that we can unite the entire family of God.

Hank Smith: 00:44:08 What you said earlier, leave them with neither root or branch, I know that one. That’s ancestors, roots, posterity, branches.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:44:19 This is the opposite. This is God’s solution. The wicked will not be part of this, he’s saying, the wicked will not have roots or branches because of their own choice, because of them rejecting this. This is God’s vision for the human family ultimately to unite us all together. When Christ comes in the Second Coming, this is before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, we need to at least start this work.

  00:44:41 Then when He comes, we’re going to continue this in earnest through the millennium, making all these linking connections, helping everyone through baptism, all the way up through temple marriage to become heirs of the kingdom of God, and then ready to rule and reign with Christ as kings and queens, and priests and priestesses, as scripture says, and help us be ready for the post-millennial forever, when the Father comes, and the earth is presented to him, as the revelations say, and this earth becomes sanctified, like all the ordinances that we do are bending toward this end. Joseph Smith is 17 when Moroni is planting these seeds in his brain.

Hank Smith: 00:45:21 This is how we’re going to start, kid.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:45:23 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:45:24 What a compliment to Joseph.

Hank Smith: 00:45:26 Scott, I personally love, really love when someone shows me things in scriptures I’ve never seen. It’s just a beautiful moment for me. John, how many times has it happened on this show?

John Bytheway: 00:45:38 Well, we thought we were doing Doctrine and Covenants again because we got so good at it, right, Hank?

Hank Smith: 00:45:43 Yeah, we had learned everything. We had learned everything.

John Bytheway: 00:45:47 Can I add something too? Here’s another carefully chosen word in the first verse, “Behold, I will reveal unto you.” Notice he doesn’t restore the Priesthood. You ask your students who restored… Oh, that was John the Baptist. That was Peter, James, and John. How is this revealing the priesthood different than restoring the priesthood?

  00:46:10 It sounds like what Elijah was doing, and help me out, guys, by revealing the priesthood was, oh, I want to use the words of, I think it was Dr. Robert L. Millet who said, “Well, what Elijah did was reveal the greatest use to which the priesthood may be used by mortals on earth,” and that was the sealing them altogether. Elijah showed the grand purpose of the priesthood when we might say it was restored hand to head by John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:46:43 Yeah. I like the idea that Joseph was saying that Elijah restores the keys and the covenants necessary to bring about the end game of God’s plan of salvation. He reveals the plan, and restores the means to accomplish it. There is a revelation and a restoration happening here with Elijah.

John Bytheway: 00:47:03 One of the things I love about this is if you put these side by side, here is the King James version, Malachi, and then you put, here’s Moroni quoting them a little differently. Now, does that mean one is false and one is now true, or could it mean this is true? Here’s a prophet saying, “Let me give you a little more insight here.”

  00:47:28 I think one of the tenets of scriptural, or textual criticism they used to call it, is that the earliest text is the most accurate, but here, we’re saying a prophet can add a little. Scriptures could be more dynamic, not static, to use some jargon-y words, but do you know what I kind of mean there?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:47:46 Yeah. It’s interesting that in the Book of Mormon, when Jesus quotes Malachi 4:5-6, he quotes it the Old Testament way, not Moroni’s way, which I think tells us that that’s an accurate translation. The way it currently is in our scriptures is accurate. The question becomes, can you improve upon an already correct translation? Moroni could say, “I just did.”

Hank Smith: 00:48:10 You might render something differently for a different time.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:48:14 This is the model for Joseph Smith. I think Moroni is his mentor, his earliest imprint on how to handle scripture. I think Joseph comes at scripture with a great degree of flexibility, feeling like the language can be tweaked if it helps add clarity to the doctrine, if it adds clarity to the meaning of what was originally intended, or whatever the Lord wants to say through this text now. I think Joseph felt a great amount of freedom to do that.

John Bytheway: 00:48:42 It’s pretty audacious to come along and say, “Let me improve this,” unless you really are a prophet.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:48:51 Yeah. He’s like, “My angel mentor did that, so he modeled it, so I’m going to feel free to do that as well.”

Hank Smith: 00:49:00 On a much smaller scale, a good teacher can see the audience. A good seminary teacher can see the youth need perhaps this verse rendered in a language they can understand. It’s not the official, “Hey, I’ve got the right way to say it,” but I think it’s a healthy way of teaching. This helps answer a question that I frequently get is why in the Book of Mormon do you have some of Jesus’s sayings?

  00:49:30 Then you go to the Bible, and Joseph Smith’s translation does not match the Book of Mormon? There seems to be a misunderstanding of, “Well, didn’t the Joseph Smith’s translation make that correct? How come it’s now incorrect in the Book of Mormon?” I think doesn’t this discussion help that understanding?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:49:51 Totally. It challenges that assumption that Latter-Day Saints often will bring to the JST. We think that this is a restoration of the original text, but there’s often a lot more going on. Oftentimes, it’s a prophet making clarifying statements in the text, but doing it in a way like Moroni does here, doing it in a way that it seems like the original author said it the better way or the more clear way.

  00:50:14 Again, that’s something I don’t feel totally comfortable doing myself, but I feel like that’s well within the prerogative of a prophet to do that. Joseph felt like, “I could do that,” and he did.

Hank Smith: 00:50:25 Anthony Sweat wrote a book I think should be required reading. It’s called Seekers Wanted. I think I bought more than my fair share of copies. Anthony, if you’re listening, you owe me. Let me read from page 55. “Thus, when the Prophet Joseph recorded Revelations, he wasn’t writing God’s language, but the English words that tried to express what God had given him.”

  00:50:50 Now, Anthony quotes Steven Harper, who we all know. “Records of such revelations are not the revelations themselves, they are but representations captured in our language, so that we might come to understand them if we consider the words carefully and solemnly in light of experience in the Holy Spirit. We make no claim that any scripture is inerrant or infallible.”

  00:51:15 Now, Anthony quotes Richard Bushman, “The revelations were not God’s diction, dialect, or native language. They were couched in a language suitable to Joseph’s understanding,” and then back to Anthony, “Even God acknowledged that the written revelations that came to Joseph were not in perfect final form. In Doctrine & Covenants section 1, these commandments were given unto my servants in their weakness after the manner of their language that they might come to understanding.”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:51:46 Brilliant. Love that whole article by Steve that Anthony’s quoting is, I think it should be required reading as well. It’s called That They Might Come to Understanding. Such a paradigm shifter in terms of, “Well, my assumptions were that Joseph treated scripture like this, or the scripture has this kind of nature,” but Steve’s just so good at thinking through these complexities.

  00:52:08 I think with Anthony’s book and Steve’s article, you’re going to have a pretty good sense of what Moroni is taking some liberties to do here, and we’re going to be okay with it.

Hank Smith: 00:52:17 Yeah, there’s maybe not a correct way. If I ask the Lord, “Which one’s the correct one?” He might say, “Well, all of them. I like all of them.”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:52:26 Yeah. Joseph will quote this same verse in section 128 and he says, I might’ve rendered a plainer translation, but this one suits my purposes today. That’s how he thinks. That’s how he thinks about scripture. He certainly did not pick that up from any of the theological schools of his day. He got that-

John Bytheway: 00:52:44 Exactly.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:52:45 … from an angel. In fact, a really good example of what we’re talking about here where it’s totally different, but both are good, is verse three. We haven’t talked about verse three yet. In our Doctrine and Covenants, it says, “If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming,” but the original Malachi says, “Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Which one’s correct?

Hank Smith: 00:53:09 Which one’s right?

John Bytheway: 00:53:10 They both sound bad.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:53:15 In Moroni’s version, I like the utterly wasted phrase. It really makes it stark, what the Lord is intending here. If that doesn’t happen, what would be the consequences? In other words, the major reason we have an earth in the first place is to provide a place where our family relationships can become eternal as we are sealed into the family kingdom of God. If that doesn’t happen, whether you’re living or dead, but at some point, if that doesn’t happen, then this earth will have been an utter waste.

Hank Smith: 00:53:52 Why even do anything?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:53:54 Why did I even make an earth? Do you know how long it takes to make an earth? Do you know how long it takes?

John Bytheway: 00:54:03 I want those 4 billion years of my life back.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:54:09 It’s pretty revealing to say, “This is why I made Earth, by the way, so that family relationships could be eternalized.”

Hank Smith: 00:54:17 Maybe that’s another way of saying, “My work and my glory, immortality, and eternal life.”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:54:23 It is made up of eternalized relationships. Yeah, we’re getting another element to the story here.

Hank Smith: 00:54:29 Absolutely.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:54:31 Doctrine & Covenants 2 is, in my opinion, just an elegant summary of the entire work of the restoration in the latter days. This is what it’s all about.

John Bytheway: 00:54:40 I love that in verse 33, how Joseph said, This messenger sent from the presence of God, that his name was Moroni, that God had a work for me to do. It’s really nice, in the manual, it says, “It’s one thing to believe that God had a work for Joseph Smith to do. We can look back on his life and clearly see what he accomplished, but have you ever considered that God has a work for you too?” The Aaronic priesthood quorum theme, to me, the first sentence is one of the best.

  00:55:09 “I am a beloved son of God and he has a work for me to do.” Like Joseph, like Moses, I love that it doesn’t say, “I’m a beloved son of God and he’s wondering if I might make some contribution anywhere at some point.” It says, “No, he’s got a work for me to do.” What a wonderful thing, to get something like a patriarchal blessing or to have this articulated here and say, “What is that work that I’m supposed to do?”

Hank Smith: 00:55:38 John, in the manual, you’ll see a link to Elder Bednar’s talk With the Power of God in Great Glory. I think everyone this week, go over and read this. Elder Bednar is talking about Elijah coming, just as Scott mapped out for us. He talks about a statement Joseph Smith made months before he died. The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead. He has a work for me to do or a responsibility.

  00:56:11 Well, Elder Bednar goes on, and Scott outlined so well the connections we make with our family, this heavenly network of relationships, and Elder Bednar adds, and Scott, I’m sure you’d be right in line with, he quotes the Savior, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. “We take,” this is Elder Bednar, “the Savior’s yoke upon us as we learn about, worthily receive, and honor sacred covenants and ordinances. We are bound securely to and with the Savior, as we faithfully remember and do our best to live in accordance with the obligations we have accepted. That bond with him is the source of spiritual strength in every season of our lives.”

  00:56:52 The connection in the network, Scott, I think you’d say, is the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to connect people together.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:57:01 That’s right. The purpose of receiving the ordinances and making the covenants for us is to be… Like baptism, it brings us into the family of Christ. This is a connection with Christ. Paul says, “We’re baptized into Christ.” Then as you go through the ordinances, washing and anointing is connecting us to Christ, to be able to be with him, rule with him, endowment, covenants with Christ. We reenact the story of coming back into his presence with the Father, and then eternal marriage being linked together in the new and everlasting covenant through the power of Christ, to be able to make that enduring beyond the resurrection.

  00:57:38 Every ordinance is focused on Jesus and is meant to connect us with him, is my understanding. That’s what this is all about. Yet because of his, hesed, because of his covenantal, unrelenting love for us, he’s going to continue to reach out. The story of the restoration is that God is now reaching out. He is setting his hand again the second time to recover Israel. We’re starting to get up into the lofty prophecies, but I think what we’re seeing is the character of God.

  00:58:06 The character of God is He’s not going to give up on us, and if we don’t give up on him, nothing will ever go permanently wrong. That’s a powerful promise. That’s a hope that keeps me going. I want to believe it, Hank and John. I want to believe that deeply when times are toughest.

Hank Smith: 00:58:22 My wife and I had a discussion as we were walking out of the temple one day, and this is Smith chapter six, verse one, right. This is not the doctrine of the church, but it was fascinating to us that we walked in with cards with names on them, people we wanted to help, people we wanted to serve. While we were there, we walked by the prayer roll, and we wrote down names. Our hope is that those names go up to those on the other side.

  00:58:50 John, I know you had something to do with this quote from Elder Holland. If you’re listening today and you’re thinking things are all going wrong, a great statement from Elder Holland, don’t underestimate your family on the other side of the veil. When someone says, “You and what army?” You can say, “Actually, they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” Is that why Wilford Woodruff said, “If you actually knew what was happening here, you would never leave?”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 00:59:22 Yeah. I don’t have personal experiences with that, but I know Joseph Smith taught that. He said that the spirits of the just are blessed in their departure to the world of the spirits. They’re not far from us. They know and understand our thoughts, and feelings, and emotions, and they’re often pained therewith.

  00:59:40 President George A. Smith, he once said, “Know this, that those who are on the other side are just as anxious about us. They are praying for us and for our success. They are pleading in their own way for their descendants, for their posterity who live upon the earth,” which is another powerful, comforting thought.

Hank Smith: 01:00:02 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost. Do you remember that, John? Derek Sainsbury said that. He said, “So maybe my angel mother is speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost.” I love that thought. I love how you say that, Scott. I sure hope that’s true. If it’s not true, it should be.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 01:00:23 I do. Yeah. I hear people tell stories about getting messages through the mail, and I just think, man, I’d like to have one of those one day. I just haven’t, but I’m aware of these quotes and I hope that’s true. Yeah. For sure.

Hank Smith: 01:00:33 Maybe your great-grandfather say, “Who do you think taught you all this?”

Dr. Scott Woodward: 01:00:37 Who do you think showed you all that?

Hank Smith: 01:00:40 Coming up in part two of this episode.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 01:00:42 The Age of Enlightenment was brought about in large part through the works of people like Isaac Newton. You know what’s funny? Isaac Newton had a seer stone man, like there’s a biography of him called Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. He’s right there on the dividing line between the Age of Enchantment and the Age of Enlightenment. Isaac Newton is believing in seer stones, and he’s propounding super cool mathematical equations, and he’s not separating those as different. They’re both magic.