John Bytheway: 00:00 Keep listening for part two with Dr. Steve Harper, Doctrine and Covenants section 18.

Hank Smith: 00:07 You can take that to Mosiah 15, where Abinadi is teaching about the atonement of Jesus Christ. When his soul is making an offering for sin, he will see his seed. That’s his motivation.

Dr. Steven Harper: 00:23 This is why. How’s that for joy in your posterity, parents know the immense joy that comes when they sacrifice and when their children are the beneficiaries of that sacrifice. That there’s nothing like that joy. You guys have felt it, tasted it. There’s nothing like it. Well, here we’re learning that that’s akin maybe in a tiny foretaste, but that is akin to what Christ experiences. When we repent, it brings him immense joy because we get back into the Father’s presence on conditions of repentance and then we formalize this faith and repentance cycle, faith in Christ. We believe he can save us repentance to signal to him that we want him to save us. We formalize that by making a covenant and of course that is gonna be the subject that we turn to next. In the revelation we’re gonna learn that we take upon ourselves the name of Christ and then that is gonna be repeated a dozen times in the back half of this revelation.

  01:30 And the Lord is gonna tell the apostles when they’re called, your job is to tell the whole world to repent. You’re called with the same calling as Paul, my apostle. Tell everyone to repent. Tell them the reason to repent because it brings immense joy to Christ. And when you go and tell everyone to repent, your joy will be great. If just one soul repents, your joy will be great. Here’s something I noticed on my most recent reading of this revelation that I had not noticed before. It was delightful to notice it. I had assumed like you guys have, I’ve read this hundreds of times and I have heard in my head the rationale going something like this. If it so be that you should cry, labor all your days in crying repentance to this people and you only bring one soul to me, great will be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father.

  02:25 And now if your joy will be great with one soul, you bring in the kingdom of my Father, then it’ll be exponentially greater if you bring many souls to me. So what’s wrong with my reading? My assumption is not what it says. 

Hank Smith: Yeah, I You missed a couple words. 

Dr. Steven Harper: It says the exact same words about receiving joy in the kingdom of the Father with one soul as with many souls. I’m kinda locked into this mindset where if one is good, 10 is better. I don’t know how your mission experiences were, but that’s how we thought about it. In my days, I’m ashamed to say this, we even reduced souls to baptisms. That’s what we said. How many baptisms did you have? Oh, what a tragedy. To talk like that. How many souls did you help come to Christ is a better question and we can probably even do better if we don’t think of it quantitatively.

  03:25 This revelation I thought was talking quantitatively. It’s not, let me read it again. 15 and 16, if it so be, here’s the rationale because of what we just read about what Christ is and who Christ is and what Christ does in his suffering to bring people to him on conditions of repentance. He experiences great joy in any soul. The repentance. So we are called to cry repentance, and if it so be that we should do that all our days and only one soul repented, we would have great joy with them in the kingdom of God. And if that crying repentance should result in many souls being brought, we would have great joy with them in the kingdom of God, there’s not an increase of joy. There’s not a, if one soul is good, 10 souls is better. If one baptism is good, a hundred baptisms is a better mission.

  04:32 I wish I had noticed that earlier in my life. We live in a culture that commodifies things, including people, God does not, or at least not in the same way we do. We commodify people by saying, if you can hit a home run once every 14 times you try, you’re worth a lot. God does not do that. I’ve sometimes resorted to a gimmick to try to make this point. You guys wanna play my game with me? You don’t have to say this out loud. If you want to, it’s fine, but there might be negative consequences. But make a list in your head of souls that are worth more in God’s sight than yours. It easily becomes a heuristic. Heuristic is a fancy term for when we answer a complicated question with a simpler question. So we could do a variation on that here by thinking that the question is, well, who earns more than I do? Well, I could make a long list of people on that, but that’s not the question. The commandment is, remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. So in God’s sight, whose souls are worth more than yours? John got any names you wanna put out there?

John Bytheway: 06:00 How can you answer that? Because it sounds like every soul is of great worth.

Dr. Steven Harper: 06:08 Yeah. Even a sister in great despair on the Canadian prairies.

John Bytheway: 06:14 Yeah,

Dr. Steven Harper: 06:16 Even the forgotten, the oppressed, the people sold into slavery, the people ravaged. The people massacred at the mill on Shoal Creek, Hawns Mill, even them, especially them. Okay, Hank, tricky question. What about less? Can you make a list of people whose souls are worth less in God’s sight than yours is?

Hank Smith: 06:44 I know I sometimes behave that way, but no.

Dr. Steven Harper: 06:47 Yeah, me too. I’m right with you there. I sometimes act as if some souls were of less worth to God than me. That’s disobeying verse 10. When I’m doing that, I am failing to remember that the worth of souls, every single soul is great in the sight of God. Okay, you guys know what Doctrine & Covenants 88 verse 15 says about a soul. What’s a soul? The spirit and the body is the soul. Let’s do a variation to our game. The body is an important part of the soul. Could you make a list of people whose bodies are worth more to God than yours is? Again, my mind defaults to bodies that are in better shape than mine, or I could make a long list of that. That’s not the question. And the inverse is, could we make a list of people whose bodies are worth less to God than us?

  07:52 There are a lot of people who are sure that their body is not very worthy in the sight of God. Their body is of infinite worth. Their body is glorious, godly, redeemed, beloved, it is of great worth in God’s sight so much that the Lord, their redeemer suffered death in the flesh. He suffered their pain. He knows what it’s like to have a body that they don’t feel like they love or is beloved or a body that doesn’t work the way they wish it did or want it to or will one day. He knows all that. He’s been there, done that. He is the redeemer of that soul. Every single one of them. Those souls are of immense worth, of infinite worth in the sight of God. And my soul is not worth more than theirs and my soul is not worth less than theirs in my heavenly Father’s sight.

  08:57 I will be better off if I behave myself every minute of every day as if every person, whoever lived or lives now or will live is of infinite worth in my heavenly Father’s sight. And if I remember the worth of souls, including their bodies is of great worth and I’ll stop exploiting bodies the way we’re so programmed to do and I’ll stop exploiting souls and I’ll stop belittling anybody or speaking of people as if they’re not of ultimate eternal worth. It will change my entire outlook on myself and everyone else. If I will do the simple commandment in verse 10. Remember, the worth of souls is great in God’s sight. That’s why this revelation means so much to me. I’m not even close to having perfected it, but it has changed my life to try even just to try at verse 10 and then to repent when I fail at it. Because when I repent, it brings Christ joy and then to tell other people about the great joy they can experience and that Christ will experience when they repent. This changes what repentance means to me and helps me discover the joy of daily repentance as President Nelson taught us all to do. That’s the gospel, that’s the rock, that’s salvation. Verse 17 says.

Hank Smith: 10:35 What a great connection from section 88. Don’t you think, John? Remember the worth of souls, bodies, and spirits is great in the sight of God. What a fantastic lesson to those listening. And maybe all three of us who have ever insulted our own bodies or others to hear the Lord say, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t, don’t do that.

John Bytheway: 10:59 I thought about the man next to the pool of Bethesda. For how long had he been there in that condition? Maybe not at the pool, but in that condition 38 years and the Lord found him. And when I’ve been there, I love to read a statement of President Packer about those who care for those who have bodies that don’t work, who are still waiting for the stirring of the water and have been doing so for a lifetime. That’s a beautiful way to think of it and I think it will bless a lot of people to think of it that way. Thank you Steve.

Dr. Steven Harper: 11:41 That’s how Jesus is. That’s how he thinks. He has this sight and in his sight. Every single soul is of infinite worth. It’s why it’s so infuriating to him and frustrating when we treat each other badly because in his sight, if we could just see as he sees that is the worst kind of thing to treat each other badly, our souls, every single one of them is of infinite worth. Why exploit each other? Why belittle each other? Why hurt each other? Spirit or body, soul, mind, any way emotionally abusive, any kind is unacceptable. This is why pornography is such a destructive force. I don’t want people to misunderstand. I know pornography use is pervasive and difficult and there are all kinds of reasons. I’m not trying to get on anyone’s case or make anybody ashamed about that. One thing that could help us overcome pornography in another way of saying it is to do verse 10.

  12:51 Remember that a soul including the souls I’m exploiting if I’m using or making pornography, remember that those souls, remember their worth and then maybe I could find the resolve to change my behavior if I remembered how much each one of those souls cost and what they’re worth and who they are, especially in the sight of their creative, spectacular, heavenly parents who made the ultimate sacrifice for those souls. Even those Truman Madsen in his imitable wonderful, powerful way. He gave this terrific talk on campus at BYU years ago, the Savior, the Sacrament and Self-worth. And he said, I’m not gonna get this perfectly right, but to paraphrase pretty well, he said something like, if souls are of worth or valued in direct proportion to the sacrifice of our redeemer, then we know that in the sight of God, your soul, even yours and my soul, even mine is of infinite worth. That’s a truth that can change a life. That’s a truth that could change the world.

Hank Smith: 14:11 I think we just experienced what Elder Packer said. True doctrine can change behavior, true doctrine. And verse 10 is true doctrine that can literally change your behavior. You’ll see the world differently. I have a quick historical question for you. I hate to throw us in a different direction, but I just wanted to ask real quick. You’ve taught me about Calvinism and Arminianism that’s so prevalent in 1829 and what is the worth of human souls in the 1830s, 1820s, 1830s? Because from what I’ve heard, what I’ve gathered is God does not love human beings. What did you teach us before that? He’s hanging them over the

John Bytheway: 14:55 The flame like a spider.

Dr. Steven Harper: 14:58 Yeah. So you’re evoking the 1741 discourse by the Reverend Jonathan Edwards. Sinners in the hands of an angry God delivered at Enfield, Connecticut. If Reverend Edwards was here, he’d say, guys, you’re misunderstanding me. Don’t mistake. I was speaking about God’s mercy. I was explaining that every one of us deserved to be in the hottest hell for the longest duration possible. And the fact that we’re not right now, the fact that God is sparing us from a well deserved hell fire right now is evidence of his love and of his mercy. It was true that in the sermon Reverend Edwards said, God abhors you. There’s something to that we could find in the restored scriptures. God saying, I’m coming in my vengeance and fury to trample the wicked and spill their blood on my garments. So we don’t want to misrepresent him, but it is true that the restored gospel has a better version of who we are to God than the Unrestored Gospel does. In the Unrestored gospel, which I love, by the Unrestored gospel, I’m throwing a blanket over the rest of Christianity.

  16:10 I love it. I just love the restored gospel version better. And one major reason why is because of what is often called classical theism. Lots of fantastic scholars have been to BYU and have taught us about their versions of Christianity and so forth. We learn a lot from them. One I’m thinking of in particular explained classical theism. This is the basic idea of God that is general to all of what is often called traditional Christianity. Well, in this version, God is everything. We’re not. God is not like us and we are not like God. We can’t become like God. We’re not in any way really the children of God. True the scriptures might say that, but it’s, it’s in some sort of figurative relationship and this version of God has no body parts or passions. This version of God is not material, wouldn’t appear in a grove of trees, wouldn’t wrap you in his arms when you get back into his presence.

  17:20 That’s a part of what you’re asking Hank that is the God of unrestored Christianity. So what God restores through Joseph Smith is those creeds that say that they’re abominable to me. I know we’ve been soft pedaling that sometimes lately, like we’re a little embarrassed that Joseph quotes Jesus in the sacred grove of saying their creeds are an abomination. I don’t think Jesus meant to say, I hate all people everywhere, or I hate all people who are not members of the church. That’s not what he means, but he meant I don’t like the creeds because they give a completely mistaken identity to God and Christ. They say we’re immutable, that we’re incapable of any kind of change. You can’t grow up to become like your heavenly parents and you don’t have heavenly parents. By the way, that’s not part of the unrestored version. You know, you’re not a literal daughter of heavenly parents or a son of heavenly parents.

  18:28 And Christ is not the son, the literal son of God in that same sense that the restored version of the gospel teaches us. So that’s what’s really at stake. Hank, I don’t mean to be overly general, but that’s the difference is that the creedal version of Christianity is based on Greek philosophical ideas that are used to then interpret what the New Testament means about God. Whereas Joseph Smith doesn’t use those creeds as his interpretive lens and he gives us therefore the New Testament and the restored scriptures in ways that have us thinking of God much more literally as our father and Christ as our elder brother who is our Savior and Redeemer. And this changes everything. Everything changes when we have that different understanding. Again, Truman Madsen taught this so powerfully. I wish everybody in our audience was old enough to have heard and learned from Professor Madsen.

  19:39 He was a Harvard educated philosopher who had this unbelievably powerful way of teaching relative numb skulls like myself. The deepest theology there is by telling terrific stories. He did theology by stories and this is one of them. I heard him tell this one at the Yale Divinity School. He was the featured speaker at this really historic conference. It was the first time that anywhere as prestigious as something like the Yale Divinity School was having a conference about the restored gospel. Previously the restored gospel was an afterthought of anything in American religion, but now it was on the scene. And so they invited Professor Madsen to speak and he told this story of a conversation he had, which was characteristic of him with two Jesuit scholars. So two Catholic priests who were very fine scholars, very well educated and as usual he had cultivated with them a mutually respectful relationship.

  20:44 He wanted to understand them and they wanted to understand him because they all loved God and each other. And he told this story of a conversation with him where they were saying, Truman, we love you, we respect you, but we just can’t quite figure out how it is that you think of God in this way that you do like he’s your father and like his whole work is to make you like him as if you could be God. And Professor Madsen said, Latter-day Saints find it hard to think of God in any other way. What is God if not a father who wants his children to grow up to be like him? This is what section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants says. It’s the one that if the Doctrine & Covenants is is grad school, Section 76 is like that second year seminar where you realize now I’m really into grad school.

  21:44 Right? And section 76 is just unpalatable to traditional Christianity. Alright, verse 95 Doctrine & Covenants section 76. God makes the heirs of exaltation equal with him in power and in might and in dominion. So that idea of us being exalted, us becoming like our heavenly parents is repugnant to unrestored Christianity. And it is the crown of restored Christianity. It is what the Doctrine and Covenants culminates in and adds to the restoration. So Professor Madsen is talking to his Jesuit buddies and they’re explaining that just seems blasphemous to us. That seems to put yourself on a par with God. We can’t fathom a God whose job is to make a universe full of people as great as him or as equal to him. And Professor Madsen’s point was, what does a father do? What do heavenly parents do? They raise their children to be as joyful, powerful, happy as possible. And that’s by becoming like them. This really gets to the heart of the difference Hank, between the various versions of Unrestored Christianity at the time of Joseph Smith and the restored version. Yeah, these people are worth saving. Indeed

Hank Smith: 23:13 They are. Absolutely. Why go call repentance. Why spend your time doing that? Because these people, I love them, they’re worth saving.

John Bytheway: 23:24 I don’t know where CS Lewis would fall in all of this, but you guys are familiar with his statement about the fact that we’re living among possible gods and goddesses.

Hank Smith: 23:34 I actually have it right in front of me. I brought it for today. “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the doles, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature, which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Dr. Steven Harper: 23:58 Cool insight, huh? Mere Christianity. There’s a lot of beautiful truth in Mere Christianity. As CS Lewis described it, what I’ve always wished I had the power to do, which you better not try to write a sequel to CS Lewis if you’re not as brilliant a writer. And mine, I’m never gonna do it, but somebody ought to write the book Restored Christianity. He wrote Mere Christianity as a way of saying this is what all of us have in common. This is what the whole Christian world has in common and it’s really beautiful, mere but beautiful, powerful. And I would just love to say I accept all of the mere and I would like to add the restored layers on it and I think you’ll find it just even better. 

Hank Smith: 24:49 When I was in college, I remember my undergrad, I had one economics teacher who drilled in us over and over what is the worth of an item? What someone is willing to pay for it and then we do it the next day. What is the worth of an item? What someone is willing to pay for it. I don’t think he knew that he was influencing my theology. Section 18, what is the worth of a soul? What God was willing to pay for it.

Dr. Steven Harper: 25:20 And that was one only begotten son. The econ profs sometimes emphasize not just willing but able. You can be willing to pay. I’d pay a million dollars for some things, but I’m not able. So God is not only willing to pay an infinite atonement for each soul he’s able to do. It makes you think of that line out of Doctrine & Covenants 60, 64, somewhere in there where the Lord says, I am able to make you holy. That’s another one of those radical understatements from the Doctrine & Covenants about the nature of Christ.

Hank Smith: 26:06 Steve, we’ve had you here for a couple of hours and we have covered these first 16 verses and they deserve that kind of time and study. Let’s make sure we cover, you know, the rest of the section. So walk us through this second half.

Dr. Steven Harper: 26:21 Alright, happy to do so. We noted earlier that if you made a word cloud out of Doctrine & Covenants 18, some of the more prominent words would be Redeemer, joy, repent and name. I think name would be the most dominant one. And of course the name that is meant here that we’re gonna encounter very frequently, beginning in verse 18, is the name of Jesus Christ. There’s something significant. The next premise we might say in this case that the Lord is making for the worth of souls and the value of repentance is the name of Christ. Once a soul has faith in Christ and repents, then the next thing is to take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ, which then just sort of regularizes and formalizes that ongoing relationship. You have faith in me, you repent, you signal that you want me to cover your sins and redeem you from sin and death.

  27:23 I become yours and you become mine. We share my name. If you are in my name, if you are in me, you are perfect. You’re not perfect. Six months after you’ve stopped sinning, you’re perfect. The moment you sincerely make a covenant with God to take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ because you just added yourself to Christ. And we talked earlier about that and Latter-day Saints have got to stop denying this truth. It is a rejection of Christianity and especially the restored version of it to diminish what Christ is capable of doing. Remember, I am able to make you holy. He says me, yeah, you me, you could make me holy. Yeah, it’s done. All that remains to be seen is if you are willing to have faith in me and repent of your sins and formalize it by a covenant. But the hard part is done.

  28:21 As you guys know, Professor Robinson, Steve Robinson taught us all to believe him when he says that, not just believe in the abstraction that it is possible, but believe him when he says he could save even me. We will not be really accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ until we believe that we are perfect in Christ. The very moment we take upon ourselves his name, we become his. It’s like we are the same being we become His. Ask the Father in my name and faith, believing in you shall receive Verse 20, contend against no church. They be the church of the devil. Verse 21 is really where I wanted to go. Take upon you the name of Christ, speak the truth in soberness. Verse 22, as many as repent and are baptized in my name, which is Jesus Christ and endure in that covenant are saved.

  29:15 Behold Jesus Christ. Verse 23 is the name given of the Father. There is no other name whereby man can be saved. The name of Christ everyone verse 24 says, must take upon them the name given of the Father. Sometimes we protest that in our culture today. We don’t want limits. We don’t want somebody telling us what to do. The Gen Zs and others are especially like this. I don’t want anybody telling me what to do. Well okay, that’s fine. But don’t think of it as God forcing you to this end. He’s simply sharing with you the truth that if you would like to come back into his presence, the only way to get there given your inherent sinfulness and mortality is to take upon yourself the name of someone and the power of someone who has conquered sin and mortality. If you wanna be restored to God’s presence, there’s one way to get there.

  30:15 There’s only one road that goes there. And the way is Jesus Christ. It’s frustrating to me when we encounter that spirit in us among us that nobody should tell me what to do. I’m gonna do whatever. Every road leads to Rome. No, there’s one way to return to the presence of God and Jesus is the way, he’s the truth. He’s the life. You don’t have to pick it. You and I don’t have to have faith in that truth. We don’t have to repent as a result of that truth, but it is true and Jesus is the way and his name is the only name under heaven whereby we can be saved. Therefore, if you want to take upon yourself that name, that’s the gist of the second half. Second two thirds of section 18. And then we have here the Lord saying, and this Oliver and David, this is what I want you to tell the apostles.

  31:13 I want you to search them out. It’s your job to find the 12 apostles. You’ll know them because they will desire to take upon them my name with full purpose of heart. Apostles will get this, they’ll understand this importance of the name of Christ and they’ll do it wholeheartedly. Fullheartedly, not halfheartedly. And then the Lord speaks to the 12 in the first person directly to them beginning at verse 31. It’s really quite remarkable. And they’re not gonna be called for another, it’ll be almost six years. This is June, 1829. It’ll be February, 1835. So deliver this message when you find them. When Oliver commissioned them, he used this text and he told them, ever since that revelation was given to me, I’ve been looking for you guys. I’ve been on the search just as the Lord commanded me. Think about that group. The oldest one is 35, the youngest one’s probably 21.

  32:15 They’re sincere, but they’re nothing like the apostles we’re used to that are seasoned and experienced. Those guys had to have that seasoning and experience in the yoke, in the mantle and it, it was a bumpy ride. But this text informed them and it informs the apostles today. They still know this backwards and forwards. I remember as you probably do this terrific talk by Elder Ballard, M. Russell Ballard years ago, right? Was it just last weekend, or was it 20 years ago? Where he invited us to remember the one. If we understood the worth of souls the same way the Lord does, we would never treat anyone he said with disrespect or contempt. These aren’t his exact words, but he was evoking this revelation and the rationale in it and reminding us to remember that the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. For great unto him is the one. I remember that line from Elder Ballard.

John Bytheway: 33:23 Two things. First, I wanna get both of your opinion on verse 20. There’s something that I feel like we can maybe extrapolate from that contend against no church, save it be the church of the devil. In other words, when we say only true church, the easy implication is that everything else therefore is false.

Hank Smith: 33:47 Yeah. That doesn’t seem to be the indication here.

John Bytheway: 33:50 Right? And I love what Steve is saying about this restored version of Christianity and how much we love and share with unrestored Christianity. When I see contend against no church, save it be the church of the Devil, I feel like, oh, there are churches that are not the church of the devil. And I don’t know if we’re using the word church as in organization. I don’t know. I’d love your comment on that.

Hank Smith: 34:18 Yeah, John, I think you go back to what Nephi’s vision where he says, I see two churches only.

John Bytheway: 34:24 That one kicks up a little bit of dust. It’s Church of the Lamb of God and the Church of the Devil. And if you’re not in this one, you’re in that one.

Hank Smith: 34:31 And then earlier in the Doctrine & Covenants, I don’t think we talked about this, the Lord says in Section 10, this is my doctrine, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me the same is my church.

Dr. Steven Harper: 34:45 Yeah. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 34:45 That’s pretty big. I can see the Lord saying, we’re gonna cry repentance, so we don’t have time to go fighting with other churches. That’s not where you’re gonna spend your time. The worth of souls is great. Cry repentance, stay on mission almost.

Dr. Steven Harper: 35:03 Right? That’s a really good way to think of it. I think that’s what it means. Stay on mission. What’s the mission? Every single soul is of infinite worth. Make sure they know that. Make sure they know that the way for them to get all the way back home is to have faith in Christ, repent of their sins and take upon them the name of Christ and endure in that covenant. That’s your mission. Don’t go contending against people and get lost in the weeds or off track. 

Hank Smith: 35:33 Occasionally I get to teach mission prep in my stake. I’ll tell the students, when you argue with someone and you go back and forth, you might win that, but you still lose. Nobody walks away going, that was very uplifting. That drew me closer to the Lord. So part of that, John, is in my mind, easy. The Lord saying that’s fruitless.

Dr. Steven Harper: 35:55 I think we ought to remind ourselves, as you guys have just reminded me in the last few minutes of cross-references or intertextual things we should be mindful of. In other words, when Oliver Cowdery is hearing this from the Lord, he is also privy to Doctrine & Covenants 10, he knows what the Lord has said there about my church in Doctrine & Covenants 10. The Lord does something absolutely fascinating. When Doctrine & Covenants 18 is revealed, we’re still almost a year from the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth. Well, Doctrine & Covenants 10 has come along and in it, the Lord has said my church about half a dozen times, and every time he’s referring to Christianity, to traditional Christianity, that’s my church. And he talks about it affectionately. That’s my church. And he says, I’m not doing all this stuff to undermine my church. I love my church.

  36:55 I’m doing this to save my church. The restoration is the salvation of Christianity. And he says, anybody who is building up their own church, those are the ones that I’m opposing, but I’m not opposing Christians and Christianity, generally speaking. So that’s an important distinction coming out of 10, that’s what the Lord means by church and the restored church of Jesus Christ is gonna be sort of the way he’s gonna go about that work. But we would mistake and misunderstand the Lord if we thought that he’s organizing the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth to once and for all crush all Protestant and Catholic denominations and Orthodox and so forth. That’s not the point. We need to be aware of that when we see verse 20 contend against no church, save it be the Church of the Devil. And then as you guys mentioned, this also reminds us that the Lord has just told Oliver, rely on the stuff that’s written, rely on the Book of Mormon manuscript.

  37:58 And as you both know, and as Oliver knew well the Book of Mormon manuscript has this apocalyptic vision in it where Nephi sees that there are only two churches. There’s the Church of God and the Church of the Devil. And because we typically are not very well versed in apocalyptic, in the genre of apocalyptic writing, it’s hard. It’s very difficult for modern people and people who therefore don’t know apocalyptic ways of thinking to understand that Oliver might have known it or understood it better. To put it simply, we like to think literally and really historically, the Restored Church was organized on April 6th, 1830. And Presbyterianism comes from these people in Scotland in these years and whatever else, John Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century. And apocalyptic doesn’t do that. Apocalyptic is like the writing of John, the revelation at the end of the Bible where we deal in these great big sweeping categories, Zion and Babylon, good and evil, the Church of the Lamb and the Church of the Devil.

  39:10 And Steve Robinson who did understand apocalyptic well. He taught us to stop thinking of this in historical terms and start thinking of it as great big types or things that are true throughout all time, divided into two categories for simple understanding. He famously said, look, in thinking about it, apocalyptically, your membership could be in the church of Jesus Christ and you could still belong to the Church of the Devil. It has a whole lot more to do with who you are in relation to Christ than exactly where your membership records are or where you live in time and space and what church you belong to. So that’s a long way of saying that. Oliver would’ve heard verse 20, with both Nephi’s apocalyptic vision in his head, meaning there’s two churches only one’s the church of God and one’s the church of the Devil. And he would’ve read it with Doctrine & Covenants 10 in his head, which talks about my church, the Savior’s church meaning Christianity, unrestored Christianity, and how the restoration of the church is going to be the salt, the leaven of Christianity generally. So if we wanna understand this revelation the way Oliver did, then we need to know those texts and think about them the way Oliver would. Now how, with that in mind, I’m still not positive what I’m supposed to do with verse 20, I’m still not sure which way or ways I should handle that.

Hank Smith: 40:50 How am I supposed to contend with the church of the devil? Show it to me. I’ll go to battle.

John Bytheway: 40:55 Later on. The Book of Mormon, I believe it’s Nephi too, says he that fights against Zion. That is the whore of all the earth and Zion is the pure in heart. And there’s pure in heart all over the world. The other thing I loved, Steve, that you have emphasized about taking upon us the name of Christ, I’ve been intrigued with the idea of being willing versus being able. How we are always called willing, but God is able, you know, and we can have our heart, right? So we’re willing, but he is able to do his work. I hope that when we hear in the sacrament prayer that we’re willing to take upon us the name of Christ, that we’re thrilled, we’re honored. What an opportunity, who else’s name would you rather put upon yourself? Who has the power to do what he can do? I love the idea and I feel like I want to say I’m not only willing, I’m thrilled, I’m honored. I’m blessed to take upon me the name of Christ. And I’m even more thrilled that I get to come back here next week and try again.

Hank Smith: 42:00 I sure wish I was able. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 42:02 Yeah. I wish I was able, but I’m gonna be willing.

Hank Smith: 42:06 That’s exactly my thought, John, is when Steve was pointing out that name, I thought, you know, when you take on someone’s name, it’s very familial. It’s marriage, it’s children, it’s grandparents. What have you done with my name? Mm-hmm.

Dr. Steven Harper: 42:19 Yeah. Relational signifies a relationship. And in this case, the relationship is a covenant. It’s between us and the father and the father’s promise to us is if you want to come back to my presence, I’ll make that possible. And the way I’ll make that possible is I’ll give you my only begotten son. You, if you are willing, he’s able. And if you guys get together in a covenant, if you take upon yourself his name, he’ll bring you back here to my presence. And that’s what I want. That’s what he wants. The only remaining question is for all of us to ask as an answer is, is that what we want when we go to the most sacred place on the planet in the most sacred setting, and the Lord, as it were, puts the question to us. That’s what the question is. What do you want? Do you want to come back into my presence? I sure do. Good. Because I’ve got an endowment of powerful covenants that will make that happen. If you’re willing, I’m able to bring you back into my presence.

Hank Smith: 43:33 So Steve, we’ve got David and Oliver, and we know Martin Harris is gonna be part of this search committee to find the 12. Then how does the Lord finish

Dr. Steven Harper: 43:44 After verse 36? So between verses 31 and 36, he’s commissioning the apostles. He is telling them their job description and their marching orders. 

Hank Smith: The future apostles, right? 

Dr. Steven Harper: Yes. Future apostles. Right. Almost six years later that they’re gonna be called. That was cool. He called the search committee Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris. Never thought of it that way, but that’s exactly what they are. The word the Lord gives them is search. Search out these apostles. So he shifts back to Oliver and David at verse 37. He’s speaking in the first person, voice of the Savior. Again, search out these 12 who have the desires that I’ve spoken of. You’ll know them by watching them manifest their desires.

John Bytheway: 44:26 And Steve, that’s what you just said. What do you want? I love when I saw that, I thought, yeah, what do they want? You’ll know them by their desires.

Dr. Steven Harper: 44:34 Indeed. When you’ve found them, show them, Section 18, the Lord says, in verse 40, and you’ll fall down and worship the Father in my name and preach this to the world. Tell the world, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. If you summed up everything we’ve learned so far in verse section, you could do it with verse 41, Oliver, what are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to preach to the whole world. And this is what you tell them. Repent, be baptized. Take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ. And then verse 42 starts with one of those rationale words. For. It tells us the reason why Oliver is supposed to preach, repent, be baptized, and take upon the name of Christ. The reason for that is everybody has to repent and be baptized. Everybody, men, women, and children who are accountable, anybody who has been able to choose to act contrary to the will of God needs to be invited.

  45:36 That if they would change their mind and heart, if they would, in other words, repent, if they would decide to turn around and and choose the will of God and formalize that by covenant, then they need to be baptized. They need to show that in the way God has revealed, the Lord says repentance. Another time in verse 44 and I, Jesus Christ, verse 47, your Lord, your God, and your Redeemer, by the power of my spirit have spoken it. Again, if we had a word cloud, the biggest words would be Redeemer, joy, Jesus Christ, repent, name and the name, every time we talk about that, the name is Jesus Christ. And we’d notice that this is two apostles about what apostles do. Apostles tell everyone everywhere to repent. And they explain why they should repent. Apostles take upon them the name of Jesus Christ and they go tell everyone else how they can take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ.

  46:53 They represent the name of Christ in all the world. Just a beautiful text. It changed my life as a punk missionary. It changed the life of one woman who I’ve never seen since, but who on that day knew as powerfully as you can know anything, that she was a beloved daughter of God who had a Savior who made an infinite sacrifice and would do it again just for her. And they would do it at any cost and all costs. It was a really beautiful thing to present, to watch God do that in the life of one of his precious daughters. One soul who in his sight is of infinite, infinite worth. Thanks for letting me talk about this one with you fellas. It’s been a great privilege.

Hank Smith: 47:48 I can see many listeners out there saying, just verse 10, the worth of souls is great in the sight of God, the family that you’re going home to, the children, you’re going home to the spouse that you’re gonna see soon, that will change the way you interact with them this very day.

John Bytheway: 48:09 Your ward members, your neighborhood, your friends, your enemies. I love that. When Enos started to pray, he first prayed for himself and then his heart expanded and he prayed for his brethren. And then his heart expanded and he prayed for his enemies. And I think that realization was coming to him of who everybody is. You know, and hey, if my brethren don’t survive, can you bless the records that the Lamanites will get them one day because their souls are precious, which is what Alma before he went to the Rameumptom, oh Lord, their souls are precious and many of them are our brethren, right? 

Hank Smith: 48:51 I bet Steve can finish this one. Joseph Smith, someone filled with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world. Anxious to bless the whole human race. Been thinking about that one a lot lately.

Dr. Steven Harper: 49:08 Hmm.

Hank Smith: 49:10 Steve, since we have you here, let me ask you just a quick question I think our listeners would be interested in. There’s voices out there who will tell you Joseph Smith was a fraud conman and almost every other evil thing possible here we have someone who has spent their career, you don’t look this old, but it’s, it’s getting up there in the decades. You’ve read his words, you’ve looked at the original documents, I don’t know how many, I mean, you worked for the Joseph Smith papers for how many years PhD in history. And this is what you’ve dedicated your life to, is knowing the prophet Joseph Smith, at least knowing everything he wrote, everything he said, everything people said about him. So if I’m hearing those voices telling me that Joseph Smith is, you know, one of the biggest cons in the history of the world and I’m being taken, and yet here I have someone who has studied literally years, what would you want me to know? The listener?

Dr. Steven Harper: 50:10 Well, one of the first things that comes to mind is that’s a fulfilled prophecy of Joseph Smith. I mean, the fact that this kid who nobody would know, remember that in his own history, he said, I’m an obscure boy. And when Josiah Quincy comes to see him, and Charles Adams, right? These big names from Boston, they come all the way out the Mississippi River to check out this guy Joseph Smith. And when Quincy writes about that years later, he said he had the homeliest of all human names. He had manure on his boots. Why is he somebody that we would go a thousand miles to see? And Quincy does a pretty good job of answering that ultimately without buying into Joseph’s answer where he says, Joseph kind of smiles at him and says, you forget I’m a prophet of God. So the answer is that Joseph Smith reveals Jesus Christ.

  51:14 The reason to study Joseph Smith is because he was picked by Jesus to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ. If not, then none of us care or know who Joseph Smith is. There are a hundred other people named Joseph Smith in New York at the time. None of us know or care a lick about them. And they may have been morally superior to Joseph. They might have been more literate. They might have been more charitable by nature, more whatever. But what they aren’t is handpicked by Jesus to translate his book and to receive his revelations and to deliver them to us. You can come up with all sorts of reasons and you can cherry pick your evidence. You could even find things from Oliver Cowdery to say Joseph Smith was a nasty, dirty, filthy person. What you’re doing there is you’re selecting bits of evidence instead of the totality.

  52:19 And Hank that was generous of you to say, how long I’ve been doing this and how much I’ve done it. Well, what that has given me is a pretty good sense for the totality of the evidence. When you look at the totality of the evidence, you’re not among those people who dismiss him so easily. Another way of saying that is the people who are grinding axes against Joseph, they’re selecting bits of evidence. They’re not telling you the totality. They’re not telling you that the historical record is really compelling. That the people who knew him best believed him most, including Oliver Cowdery, who spent a decade outside of the church disaffected from Joseph and the whole time affirmed. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He translated it by the power of God. I wrote it. Oh yeah. He knows Christ. Oliver wrote a frustrated letter to Phineas Young, Brigham’s brother Phineas was the epitome of a ministering brother. Oliver, you wanna come back to church with me this weekend?

  53:25 Oliver, do you wanna play church basketball with me?  Oliver is just always loving him regardless of what he did and whatever stuff he was saying. Oliver writes Phineas this letter that Oliver doesn’t expect will go public or anything else. It’s not calculating it for public consumption. And this is during the period while Oliver’s disaffected and he’s kind of frustrated. He feels like he’s been disrespected, not given as much credit as he deserves. And in the letter he says, yeah, you’re right. I have been oversensitive on these points. But you would too if you had stood in the presence of Peter with our beloved brother Joseph and received the holy priesthood. That’s Oliver Cowdery saying Jesus picked Joseph and he sent Peter to put his hands on my head and Joseph’s head, I’m an apostle. Or at least I was. I mean that’s the kind of evidence that mounts up. And when you spend your life studying it, you can’t go five minutes and pretend it doesn’t exist. And even if all you have is the Book of Mormon, I don’t know how people go a day and pretend the Book of Mormon doesn’t have some claim on them. It is true. And therefore I need to make and keep covenants. That’s my short answer. I could do a whole semester, but that’s the brief answer.

Hank Smith: 54:54 I quote you often Steve saying, look, Joseph Smith, the farmer. That’s not my interest. My interest is Joseph Smith, the prophet.

Dr. Steven Harper: 55:03 Yeah. And there again, only because Jesus is revealed to us through Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith doesn’t save me. He doesn’t do anything for me except point me to Christ and be the conduit through which Christ restores the new and Everlasting Covenant. Once had a colleague who introduced me to a bunch of students. This colleague studied the Bible brilliantly. They said, I’m a Jesus guy and Professor Harper, he’s a Joseph Smith guy. And I thought, I get what you’re saying, but I consider myself a disciple of Jesus Christ through and through beginning to end. And the book that has the highest concentration of Jesus words in the densest clusters is the Doctrine and Covenants. I’ve been studying it for 30 years and I’m not gonna quit, John. This is a good job. 

John Bytheway: 56:04 Hank. I was excited knowing Steve was coming and it was even better than I imagined. The people who knew him best, believed him most. I love that. I’ll never forget it.

Dr. Steven Harper: 56:15 Thank you brethren.

Hank Smith: 56:16 Yeah I love it. Oliver starts out with what do you want me to do? How can I be most ready? And I think we all get that answer. If you’re wondering, what do you want me to do? How can I be most ready? Section 18.

Dr. Steven Harper: 56:29 Hmm.

Hank Smith: 56:29 It’s brilliant how the Lord can speak to one and speak to all at the same time. Isn’t that something? Well, Steve, thanks for being here. Steve wouldn’t want me to say this, but you can head over to Amazon, just type in Steven Harper. You’ll see quite a few books on there. We want to thank Dr. Steve Harper for being with us. We wanna thank Jennifer Harper for letting us borrow him. We love you Steve. We hope anyone listening who wants to leave a message for Steve, come on to YouTube and leave us a message there. You can go to our website, followhim.co. There’s a place to send us a message there. We will make sure we pass those all on. To Steve and Jennifer. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen. And every episode we remember our founder Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re gonna be in section 19 on followHIM. Today’s show notes and transcripts are on our website. Followhim.co. That’s followhim.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our production team. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Amelia Kabwika, and Annabelle Sorensen.