John Bytheway:               00:00                   Welcome back to part two with Dr. David Holland, Doctrine and Covenants 121 to 123. We don’t get very far in the Book of Mormon before we’re confronted with this idea that Nephi was favored. That’s in first Nephi chapter one verse one. We go, wait a minute, does God have favorites? I feel like as you keep reading, you find out that you choose that status by He loveth those who will have him to be their God, or he favors those. Hank, you’ve heard me make this joke. There’s the Nephites. There’s the Lamanites and there’s the Favorites. The way we respond to God’s call perhaps is how we become chosen, maybe.

Hank Smith:                      00:48                   Yeah. Well, that’s how Elder Bednar took it on. This is The Tender Mercies of the Lord, April, 2005. He references these verses. He says, to be or to become chosen is not an exclusive status conferred upon us. Rather, you and I ultimately determine if we are chosen. He says, please now note the use of the word chosen in Doctrine & Covenants, section 121:34. Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. Why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men. He says, I believe this implication of these verses is quite straightforward. God does not have a list of favorites to which we hope our names will someday be added. He does not limit the chosen to a restricted few. Rather, it is our hearts and our aspirations and our obedience, which definitively determine whether we are counted as one of God’s chosen.

                                           01:47                   He goes on through this talk to talk about Enoch in Moses chapter seven. When I’ve read that same verse, many are called, but few are chosen. It reminds me of what I think is the most disappointing word in Jacob 5 where there’s one last time they’re gonna serve in the vineyard. They’ve brought forth these servants. It almost sounds like these servants were held back. It’s verse 61. Called these servants, and we’ll go labor diligently, and it says in verse 70, they call the servants, and they were, and you’re kind of hoping for a big entry, a big moment of they were amazing. They were the hosts of heaven. It just says, and they were… Do you remember what it says, John? They were few. It’s they were few, but it works. I’ve wondered why. Only a few show up in the allegory. Well then I think Section 121 helps us with that. Two reasons. Their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men. I know neither of you struggle with that. So I would like to know how you have overcome that.

Dr. David Holland:           03:00                   Don’t quote me on this scientifically because it’s just a vague memory, but I recall a description of addiction in clinical laboratory sense. What will the test subject give up in order to get the thing to which they’re addicted? So if you’re testing rats level of addiction, what will they give up in order to get that thing to which they’re addicted? And I think the study actually that I was reading was about Oreos, the addictive power of Oreos, and what rats will give up once they get a taste of Oreos in order to get it. That for me is maybe a kind of measure of where our hearts are, is I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with wealth, but what are you giving up to hold onto it, to get it? I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with the gaining the good opinion of others. What are you giving up in order to get it or hold onto it? When we talk about how do we live in a material world, how do we recognize that to be carnally minded is death, even though we’re all incarnate, I think the question is what are we sacrificing in order to achieve these things? And that’s sometimes a pretty stark illustration of where our heart might be.

Hank Smith:                      04:23                   Maybe both of you’ll remember this, that a man was gonna take his kids to the circus and gets a call in to go to work. He says, no, hangs it up. And his wife says, oh, shouldn’t you go into work? The circus will come again. And he says, childhood won’t. Like, what are you willing to give up? That’s great. Both of you remember Samuel the Lamanite, your riches are cursed because you have set your hearts upon them. You have not hearkened unto the words of him who gave them to. You do not remember the Lord your God and the things which he has blessed you, but you always remember your riches. Remember your stuff.

                                           05:04                   This last half of this section could be a lifetime of study. Let me go through this. Let me not to get down on yourself, but to note areas where you think, Hmm. And I like the final results. David, you talked about confidence and then verse 46, the Lord says, the Holy Ghost will be your constant companion, a scepter of righteousness and thy dominion, an everlasting dominion without compulsory means meaning you won’t have to force it. It will flow unto thee forever and ever. I think that ties back to verse 39, the use of unrighteous dominion. Anything that you want to come to you naturally won’t. You’ll have to force it. It will be compulsory.

Dr. David Holland:           05:52                   Yeah. It sort of gets back to that point that we made in verse 26, in verse 33, about the flow of knowledge or the flow of revelation as the gift of life. Here we see the actual verb flow, and we’ve had it compared to a river that this river is gonna flow forever. That that’s the gift of, you know, applying these principles. There is no dead sea. There is no termination to this, but it goes on and on.

Hank Smith:                      06:26                   Without compulsory means. When I go to the Lord, it’s not under compulsion, it’s, I want to.

Dr. David Holland:           06:36                   Right.

Hank Smith:                      06:37                   I want to go to him.

John Bytheway:               06:39                   That’s the easiness and the willingness that Elder Bednar talked about. It’s that I wanna have easiness and willingness to accept, apply the gospel. You know?

Hank Smith:                      06:50                   Yeah. This is Edward Partridge, first bishop of the church who just gave and gave and gave. He says, I have torn my affections from this world’s goods. I am willing to spend and be spent in the cause of my master. He’s overcome the heart set on the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men. David, we’ve had you here for a little while and we’ve spent a lot of time in this section, but there are two others. What should we do next?

Dr. David Holland:           07:20                   Well, let’s just move sequentially here. As we were saying before about the infinite scale of God’s care and concern, we saw 121 sort of accordion. Sometimes it’s very intimate and personal. Sometimes it’s big and global. Sometimes it’s the particular, sometimes it’s the universal that God can function at all those scales. I recall again, don’t fact check me on this ’cause I don’t know the source, but I remember a course at BYU as an undergrad on the Enlightenment, and we were talking about deism. This idea that God is creator of the universe but is otherwise unconcerned about it, or sets these laws in motion and then lets the clock run for itself. One of the philosophes, one of the enlightenment thinkers that was being quoted in the course, was quoted as looking at the majesty of a sunrise and saying, Lord, I believe and muttering under his breath, but as for madam and her babe, I have my doubts, meaning I can believe the big universe, the creation, but the story of a baby born in a manger was harder for him to believe.

                                           08:34                   For me, the grandeur of the gospel is that God functions at all those scales. Yes, I’ve had that moment when you look at a sunrise or the enormity of the ocean and you’re overwhelmed by the power and possibility of God, and then when you look in the face of your child and you’re overwhelmed by the power and goodness of God, that God is both in the details and in the overarching plan. We’ve seen that sort of accordion take place in 121 to remind us that God is all of these things. Then we transition into very personal things in 122 where he is speaking to Joseph very personally about his name will be had in both derision and in praise.

                                           09:23                   The noble and the virtuous will seek him, but he’s also going to be cast into trouble. That these are the promises that come with discipleship. I was reading in Acts actually a little earlier today just in my personal study, and reminded of those early apostles who were just following the Lord, they were doing their best, yet were called before counsels and judgment. That this is often the lot of those who follow the Lord. And then it gets very, very personal. It’s rendered in the hypothetical, but we know that it’s literal. About being torn from the society of his mother and his brother and his sisters and this heart wrenching if thy elder son, although but six years of age shall cling to thy garments and say, my Father, my Father, if these things happen, it’s not an if, it’s not a conditional. In Joseph’s case, these things do happen.

                                           10:23                   These things did happen. Then this extraordinary promise after the greatest threat of all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open their mouth wide after thee, know thou my son that all these things, it’s interesting that another use of the comprehensive, all, all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. So once again, the comprehensiveness, there is no pain, there is no difficulty, there is no despair that’s beyond the reach of these promises. This is about all because Christ is about all. Therefore fear not what man can do for God shall be with you forever and ever. It’s interesting that this particular section ends on the same note that 121 ends on, which is about God’s power and its combination with our empowerment. You know, thy priesthood shall remain with thee, their bounds are set. They cannot pass.

                                           11:21                   God is in control and within that control, he’s given us the opportunity to retain some agency in all of this and that that cannot be taken away according to the promise. Compared to 121, it’s so brief, nine verses and yet it captures in many ways all the same principles that we’ve been talking about in the longer section and even ends on the same note. God repeats himself intentionally, I had a Mission President used to always say that if you hear God repeating himself, it’s not an accident. Pay attention. These two sections seem to echo one another in a particularly beautiful way.

John Bytheway:               12:02                   I just love that the how long questions are turned into small moments and I think our how longs in life when we approach God, he can turn them into small moments. It’s like I had a sister that I minister to who said that the Lord told her once, I’m gonna turn all of your question marks into exclamation points one day, take our how longs and make them small moments. I think that’s kind of poetic how the Lord does that here.

Hank Smith:                      12:32                   And then that perspective comes the Son of Man hath descended below them all, art thou greater than he? He and the Lord have discussed this back in Section 19 when he said, you taste it to the least degree.

John Bytheway:               12:48                   He’s talking to Martin Harris. Yeah. When I withdrew my spirit.

Hank Smith:                      12:52                   This is section 19 verse 20, and he says, I want you to repent lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken of, which in the smallest yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time, I withdrew my spirit almost bringing back to memory Section 19. The Son of Man hath descended below them all far more than you can even comprehend. I don’t think it’s a trump card, but it’s a principle of leadership I believe I’m not asking you to do anything I have not done myself.

John Bytheway:               13:26                   I know what you’re going through. There’s something nice about somebody else saying, yeah, I’ve been there. David, you brought up Caesarea Philippi, which is just gorgeous, and this idea of descending below all things has its physical component too and being baptized in the Jordan. Isn’t that, if I understand correctly, the lowest point on earth is the Dead Sea. How poetic and elegant is that, that he was baptized in descending literally in the topographical way below all things.

Dr. David Holland:           14:03                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      14:04                   Right above section 122 I have written Ensign article January of ’03, and this is Elder Holland. However dim our days may seem, they have been a lot darker for the Savior of the world.

Dr. David Holland:           14:20                   Hmm hmm. Yeah. Speaking of darkness in section 123, Joseph says, we need to take note of it. This is the lawyerly or historian coming out in him that we need to make a record of these things. Now, partly he’s making a record, obviously as a case against persecution. He talks about making sure that the persecutions that they’ve faced are known to the powers that be. It’s also a reminder that hard and difficult things are not something that we need to shy away from or turn away from. I think we treat our gospel experiences, if it’s supposed to be a summer’s picnic, it’s all the sunshine and roses. I’m reminded of the fact that the Savior himself asked if the cup could pass from him. Nobody was skipping along to Gethsemane. The difficulties and the dark things deserve to be remembered and recorded. In part, he’s making a contemporary argument for the legal value of that record.

                                           15:32                   But for our own learning, if the saints hadn’t been willing to record their experiences, the difficult ones as well as the light ones, our understanding not only of the Restoration, but our understanding of discipleship would be terribly one-sided and not particularly reflective of reality. In verse 16, when he finally gets this point of saying, holding onto these details, holding onto these records may seem like a small thing, but that small thing can guide a large ship when it’s kept workways with the wind and the waves. That’s not just about a legal record at that point. He’s moved beyond the recording of charges against their enemies. He’s talking it seems to me about a bigger principle about being willing to work into the wind in the waves. That that’s how you stay afloat is by paying attention to the difficult things and the easy things. Relatively small act of keeping a record can help you manage that storm. It’s one of the sins for which I feel culpable because I’ve never been a great journal keeper. Partly, I think that’s the historian in me, is I know what people do with journals once you’re gone.

                                           16:51                   So I’ve always been a little bit hesitant to keep one. But holding onto that record, recognizing your story, recognizing the good and the bad, and the beautiful and the ugly, and the way God’s gotten you through it all, which is really what these sections are doing, that this is that little helm that can get our ship through the storms that come. I think it’s interesting again that he’s talking about a very particular call for the, I think, particular legal and political purpose here. Once again, we end up at a very transcendent principle here that I think applies to all of us.

John Bytheway:               17:25                   Yeah, this is beautiful. At the end, I love this line in verse 12, that there are some yet on earth who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it. I’m always reminded of Lehi’s dream when he tastes the fruit and says, where is your mother? Oh my goodness, this is so good. Where is your family? I called to them. They stood as if they knew not whither they should go boom right there. They just didn’t know where to go. So I called to them with a loud voice and said, come unto me and how many are looking, just don’t know where to find it. To me, it’s a very charitable verse and a motivating verse to say, there’s some who are looking, they just don’t know where to find it.

Dr. David Holland:           18:13                   Yeah. In a section that’s otherwise overwhelmingly about some pretty dark and difficult things. Murder, tyranny, oppression, grief, sorrow, bow down, iron yoke, handcuffs, chains, shackles, fetters of hell. This is not the sun shiniest section that you could find. But then there’s this beautiful interjection in 12 that says, there’s goodness out there. There’s a lot of goodness. There’s a lot of good hearts out there too. The Lord’s always trying to help us see both the light and the dark. Joseph talked about that repeatedly. If you lead a man to salvation, you gotta be able to stare into the darkest abyss as well as contemplate the highest heaven. A lot of this first part is about the abyss, and then 12 is about, and there’s a lot of good people out there, and if they hear the truth, they’re gonna resonate with it.

Hank Smith:                      19:12                   As I read these later sections, it seems that Joseph one, is studying the Constitution. He is interested in the rule of law. At times he seems shocked that this is the United States of America where the freedom of religion.

John Bytheway:               19:30                   We’ve got a Bill of Rights. What’s going on?

Hank Smith:                      19:34                   Even runs for president because there’s not a political candidate who’s willing to at least stand up for the Latter-day Saints. If I lean into your history here a little bit, the constitution’s only 55, 56 years old. Is this a common occurrence in 18 hundreds of America? The religious persecution?

Dr. David Holland:           19:55                   Not uncommon. The persecution, for instance, against Catholics could be particularly intense. I work not far from the site of the famous burning of the Ursuline convent just outside of Boston, depended on the nature of the religion. If you were an evangelical Protestant Christian by the time you got to the 1830s and forties, you were pretty safe. That wasn’t always true. Baptists were mercilessly persecuted back in the 17 hundreds. Methodists faced their share of persecution, you know, shortly thereafter. But by the time you got to, you know, mid-century, if you belonged to the evangelical family, you were in pretty good shape. But if you were outside that there could be a price to be paid, particularly if people thought that you were a little bit mysterious. And that’s sometimes the claim that was thrown both at Latter-day Saints and at Catholics that tended to raise a great deal of suspicion and anger.

                                           21:00                   The Latter-day Saints are not alone in facing persecution, but part of the challenge here is that the Latter-day Saints were relatively small. Catholics grow quickly during the 19th century with immigration from Europe and had the numbers to begin to control, you know, certain neighborhoods and certain precincts began to have some say over New York politics pretty quickly, for instance, and until they get to Latter-day Saints don’t have the critical mass to defend themselves in the same way. It’s not entirely unusual, but the intensity and the circumstance of it, I think make for a particularly difficult story.

Hank Smith:                      21:46                   Here these Latter-day Saints, they have to leave the country. They feel. In order to freely practice their religion. The founding Fathers had a different idea.

Dr. David Holland:           21:57                   We could talk for a long time about the First Amendment, but part of the challenge here and this is the famous Martin Van Buren line, your cause is just, but I could do nothing for you. There was a pretty strong constitutional theory about federal jurisdiction that religion was actually the purview of local authorities and that the federal government doesn’t have any right to intervene on matters of religion. That doesn’t really change quite literally until the incorporation of the First Amendment in the 1940s series of cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses and pledging allegiance set off a new doctrine there where the federal government gets more and more involved in religious freedom issues. Now there’s an exception to that, to your question about Latter-day Saints facing particular persecution. One of the exceptions to that is if it’s a territory, the territories were treated differently than the States.

                                           22:55                   Polygamy became an object of federal intervention because Utah was a territory and that’s how you get some Supreme Court rulings regarding polygamy because of the territorial status versus statehood. The question of how does this happen in a constitutional republic, partly that has to do with the way the constitution’s being read at a particular time. And Joseph had a very 20th century reading of the Constitution. He thought that the First Amendment should be federally enforced and protected, that that should involve federal intervention. When the states like Missouri were, he felt persecuting the saints on the basis of their religious faith. But that’s where somebody like Van Buren is coming from saying, not a federal issue. Wish I could do something for you, but sorry, you gotta face the locals on your own.

Hank Smith:                      23:48                   As you get into these later sections, he’s getting himself a little law degree.

Dr. David Holland:           23:53                   Yeah, yeah.

Hank Smith:                      23:54                   He really wants to understand this and go to bat for the Saints.

John Bytheway:               23:58                   I appreciate that perspective. There was always somebody to pass it off to. Well, that’s a state’s rights issue. You’re gonna have to figure that out with Missouri. I can see how a President would do that. We talk as much about states’ rights versus federal rights now as much as we used to. I think, boy, at the time of the first Constitution, it was a bunch of different states, united, but they were, they were their own thing and they wanted to be that way.

Dr. David Holland:           24:27                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      24:28                   Missouri was really far west. Is that complicated as well? Proximity, the

John Bytheway:               24:34                   Vigilante justice out there, right?

Dr. David Holland:           24:37                   Yeah. There probably was a sense of distance that made the federal government perhaps even a little bit more hesitant to wade in. By the same token, the westward expansion and the territories also had a degree of federal power in them. So it’s a complicated history. But I think to John’s point, there was both constitutional theory and political interest in not getting involved.

Hank Smith:                      25:05                   This is Joseph Smith in 1843, so a year before he dies, he says, the Saints can testify whether I am willing to lay down my life for my brethren, if it had been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a Mormon. He says, I am bold to declare before heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves. It’s gotta be breaking his heart.

Dr. David Holland:           25:47                   Of course, after all of that, verse 17 is this beautiful concluding principle that after we’ve done all of this, after we’ve been through all of this, after we’ve done what we can, then we can stand still with the utmost assurance and see the salvation of God. Even when we detail all of the difficulty of the world in which we live and all of the opposition that we face. He’s ending on this note of optimism. He is ending on this note of reassurance, this idea of standing still. Sometimes we get a little frenetic in our thought that we’ve got to fix everything and there’s only so much we can do. At some point, you have to stand still and see the salvation of God.

Hank Smith:                      26:36                   Yeah. I’ve always been interested in the word cheerfully there. I’d be okay if it said dearly beloved brethren, let us do all things that lie in our power. Right?

John Bytheway:               26:49                   No, but you have to do it cheerfully.

Hank Smith:                      26:51                   Yeah. But now cheerfully, same type of verse. This is Mosiah 24. The people of Alma the Elder are praying to the Lord for help in their bondage to the priests of Noah and Lamanites. The Lord tells them, I will ease the burdens upon your shoulders. Then this statement from Mosiah 24:15, the Lord did strengthen them, that they could bear up their burdens with ease and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord. I’m okay with that. They did submit with patience, but it’s that they did submit cheerfully and with patience. I’d be interested in how you both do that. Cheerfully do things. I don’t know if he’s talking that you have to be permanent smile on your face and a big happy button. But there does need to be a measure of enthusiasm. John, how do you do it? John you’re a cheerful person. Does it come natural?

John Bytheway:               27:51                   No. I appreciate the adjectives you, the impossible task you’ve laid out before me these past four years with the adjectives that you’ve given me. I marvel too at that. I marvel and I love it. I go, wow, look at that level to aspire to. But there is a piece that comes when you can say, Lord, I’ve done everything I can think of. There’s a piece that comes when you can hit your knees and say that I’ve done my best. I’ve done everything I can think of and then this awesome statement, then stand still and watch. I still wanna talk about verse 16 too. You know, brethren, I just love this. This outta the book of James. You see the footnote there, James 3:4. He says the same thing. A very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm.

                                           28:41                   And that is to me, the rudder in the time of a storm. Oh my goodness are we living in the time of a storm. But what if we have a rudder, a helm that implies that there’s a course, a destination, there’s President Nelson might say a covenant path. All the winds and the waves out there, with a helm we can be kept workways. We can make progress even in a storm because we have a helm. I’ll never forget President Monson’s talk about the German battleship, the Bismarck. Do you remember that? He talked about how big it was and how the walls were so many feet thick of steel. It was just this incredible battleship and the allies forces pounded it and couldn’t do anything until somebody scored a hit on the rudder, the very small part. And then President Monson, all it could do is steer a circle. The allies pounded it until they sunk it because it couldn’t be kept workways with the wind and the waves anymore. What’s our rudder? I have a canoe in my garage. That’s what it does most of the time, hangs in my garage. But does a canoe have a rudder?

Hank Smith:                      30:03                   No.

John Bytheway:               30:05                   No. I learned back in the Boy Scouts of America days, I learned the J stroke where you paddle and then you twist your oar and hold it and it becomes the rudder. For a second, I’d learned to do figure eights and anything I wanted to as long as I had my oar. But one of the cool things that I learned that I love to equate with this verse is what do you think is the safest thing to do in a canoe when you come across a big wave and it seems counterintuitive.

Hank Smith:                      30:36                   Head right into it right? Don’t turn sideways.

John Bytheway:               30:38                   Go right at it. If you go, oh no. Oh no. Oh no, it’s gonna tip you over. You go right at it. You go up and over. That is being kept workways with the wind and the waves and I love to tell young adults, go right at it. Go right at life and do your best. Do all things that lie in your power ’cause you have a course and a helm and a destination. And then you can say, I’m doing the best I can, Lord, help me out. I love these verses. It’s great life advice.

Dr. David Holland:           31:09                   It’s illustrated by all of the material that we’ve spoken about in the lead up to 16, which is again, these sections, they head right into the wave. They’re not sugarcoating it. They’re not suggesting that we should overlook the difficulties that come in a disciple’s life. We should stare ’em right in the face.

John Bytheway:               31:33                   There are gonna be storms. Here’s my own footnote to Mormon 5:18. But now behold, they are led about by Satan. Even as chaff is driven before the wind or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves without sail or anchor or without anything wherewith to steer her. If we don’t have a sail, we don’t have an anchor, we don’t have a rudder. We are driftwood. We’re just going with the flow. The opposite of going with the flow, yeah, you’re in a storm, but you don’t have to go with the flow. You have a helm, a destination to keep your workways with the wind and the waves. I dunno, I got all aquatic there for a second there, but I kind of,

Dr. David Holland:           32:15                   Yeah,

John Bytheway:               32:15                   I like that metaphor.

Dr. David Holland:           32:17                   I love it.

John Bytheway:               32:19                   You pretty cheerful David?

Dr. David Holland:           32:21                   Um, I think as a principle I am, yeah. I’m optimistic by nature. My wife sometimes calls me pathologically optimistic.

John Bytheway:               32:36                   That’s a good thing to be.

Dr. David Holland:           32:38                   Even given that tendency, I’ve known some long, dark nights of the soul as I think everybody has, where the optimism is hard to come by based on situations you’re facing or circumstances you confront. I think we all need those reminders. Even those of us that might be naturally inclined to certain cheerfulness. These sections are reminders to us that we all need to be called back to that. So I think it’s interesting that 123 ends on that note after everything else that’s proceeded at, remember to be cheerful because even those of us that tend to view the world optimistically, those waves can get pretty big sometimes.

John Bytheway:               33:23                   Mm-hmm. I like the statement of Joseph Smith speaks of his own native cheery temperament.

Hank Smith:                      33:29                   Yeah.

John Bytheway:               33:30                   That’s something I aspire to. Elder Kelly Comstock, one of my mission companions that taught me a ton about just being cheerful. I’m so grateful to mission companions that I just watched him at thought I’m gonna be like him.

Hank Smith:                      33:48                   Maybe it ties back to that confidence we talked about in Section 121. I find that I’m more cheerful when I feel like I’m in control of a situation and that confidence that comes from charity that we talked about earlier. I think that cheerfulness can come naturally when we feel confident. And maybe that’s what the Lord is saying. You can be confident in me and in this work. You feel settled. It’s okay to be cheerful. Verse 13, Joseph Smith, we should wear out our lives. I have noticed that among our church leaders. John, you can go a little bit further back than me. Not too far. I watched President Hinckley wear out right in front of us. I remember President Monson, do you remember President Monson stood up at the pulpit? It was one of his first talks as a president of the church and he’s wiggling his ears. Do you remember his last talk? He can’t even hold himself up. President Nelson going on 101. We watch and their wives, they literally wear out in front of us. It’s a privilege. It’s a hard thing to witness, but it’s a privilege to watch that happen. It’s so inspiring. Didn’t President Kimball hold up his shoes and say, I wanna be like this old pair of shoes. Right. Worn out in service.

John Bytheway:               35:19                   Like you said, David, the first several verses of this 123, look at some of these terms. Diabolical, rascality, nefarious, hellish, hiding without excuse and then we get to the end and it is so inspiring. I guess the Lord knows how to end a talk. Let’s do all the things that lie in our power, then stand still.

Hank Smith:                      35:44                   I’ve often thought that with my children, I need to be pretty cheerful ’cause I’m a billboard for the gospel. You know, I don’t want my kids to go, well, why would I wanna do? David, I have a, a question before we let you go. For me personally, and I know John and I have talked about this at length, we love to hear every testimony, but one of the reasons we do our show is that we like to bring on people who have been taught in the secular world. You have a doctorate degree in history. You are teaching at Harvard, a well known school.

John Bytheway:               36:24                   Yeah, I’ve heard of Harvard.

Hank Smith:                      36:25                   Yeah. Where I’m sure not everyone is a believer, especially a Latter-day Saint believer here. You’ve studied a lot, you’ve experienced a lot. You’re out in a territory where there’s not a lot of people that believe what you do. In some people’s minds, that should be a recipe for losing your faith. Yet here you are a believer.

Dr. David Holland:           36:50                   Well, I do have great appreciation for the secular institutions that have given me opportunity, and through which I have encountered wonderful forms of knowledge and understanding, and I’ve dedicated my professional life to that. But quite honestly, the church will counterbalance everything if we let it. I’ve had the opportunity along that journey to be a bishop and to be a stake president. I actually have two different stakes and to have pretty demanding callings, which at times can feel overwhelming. Sometimes you wonder why the Lord asks of us what he asks. But it’s been the counterbalance in a way. My professional life has never been the entirety of my life because I’ve tried to take seriously opportunities to serve. It’s allowed my secular training and my ministerial life to enrich each other. I’m sure there’s a lot of my educational background that filters into what I’m doing. I’m currently an early morning seminary teacher.

Hank Smith:                      38:11                   Oh really?

John Bytheway:               38:12                   No kidding? Ahh.

Dr. David Holland:           38:13                   I’m sure it comes up there as well. But my point is that the church will create a counterbalance to anything else that is trying to draw all of us in. And I’ve found that enormously helpful. Notwithstanding its challenges, I know that there are times when I’ve had absolutely nothing to fall back on but the Lord and his mercy and his message, and I know that I’ve found him there. I’ll just be candid with you. It felt to me like a providence, like a work of the Lord that you asked me to do these sections, because I won’t get into details, but I’m battling some pretty difficult challenges currently and have wondered sometimes about Job and Joseph. Not that I would compare my little piddling concerns with theirs, but this is a good example of, you know, I thought, well, summer’s busy and it’s gonna be right before the start of the school year.

                                           39:23                   Should I hop on this podcast? Just a feeling that when you have an opportunity to discuss the gospel and share your faith, you ought to take it. That’s sort of my default position. Obviously, you can’t do everything all the time, but back in the relative sunshine of May, you accept an opportunity and then you find yourself in the middle of a storm. Lo and behold, this thing you committed to do happens to bring into your life the very sections that you should be studying, that you should be focusing on in this particular moment. And that’s just been my experience over the course of my life. If you make yourself available, God will give you opportunities to find him. I am grateful to him. I love him and I’m grateful for the chance to discuss his goodness and his power in good times and in bad, and I’m grateful for my testimony.

Hank Smith:                      40:18                   That’s wonderful. David, I actually have one more question before I let you go. I know John’s probably giving me the signal. Let him go. Let him go.

Dr. David Holland:           40:26                   Let my people go.

Hank Smith:                      40:28                   Yeah. Let my people go. Such a blessing to have you here. There is an idea, I think, among some that you don’t wanna learn too much of this history. You don’t wanna learn too much about Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or any of these people. You’ll lose your faith. Yet, as a historian, I’m sure you’ve done a little work here and the historians we’ve had on John, we’ve yet to have one of ’em say, yeah, don’t know too much history. You definitely wanna shy back. What would you say to that myth, David? That someone’s scared of history of the church?

Dr. David Holland:           41:08                   A few things. I think one of them is that my own view is to whitewash or to shy away from history is to rewrite God’s work in the world. The fact that people are blemished and histories are challenging. As we have just been discussing in these sections, God does not want us to shy away from the dark and difficult things. Partly for me, it’s that my testimony is rooted in principles rather than personalities. You don’t see Jeremiah insisting that you believe in Isaiah, that he’s preaching the message, he’s preaching the principles. It reminds me a little bit of the story in John nine, when Jesus is healing the blind man, the critics come up and say, don’t you know that man’s a sinner? And the blind man says, I don’t know. What I know is that I was blind and now I see.

Hank Smith:                      42:10                   Yeah.

Dr. David Holland:           42:11                   Which is to say, I have lived the experience, so when people ask me, was this church leader or that church leader, were they worthy of belief or not? For me, it’s always the Christ’s principle, you gotta live it and you’ll know it. I don’t get too caught up on the relationship of my eternal commitments to the temporal facts of history. And my eternal commitments are based on my own experience of living the principles and seeing the promises fulfilled. I can do nothing else but believe on the basis of my own experience. I could do nothing else but believe. History enriches our capacity to understand how God works, the imperfect ways that human beings try to apply perfect things. Joseph says in 121, what is human nature? You know, it is the tendency of almost all men.

Hank Smith:                      43:06                   Right?

Dr. David Holland:           43:07                   We learn things by studying that history, but I don’t base eternal decisions on temporary events. I base them on my testing of eternal principle. That’s why I believe.

Hank Smith:                      43:21                   I’m so glad I asked you that.

Dr. David Holland:           43:22                   David, you might not know this, but that’s one of Hank’s very favorite verses. The blind man in John nine. I don’t know, but this much I know, I was blind and now I see, and as Hank has taught me, can be such a great answer to so many questions people have. Well, I don’t know about this or that fact of church history, but this much I know, this has changed my life and I have the fruits of it. Thank you for bringing that. That’s why Hank’s smiling so big right now.

Hank Smith:                      43:54                   Oh, I just and that little story to me is so impactful because these are very powerful people telling him, you need to stop.

John Bytheway:               44:05                   They’re gonna kick you outta the synagogue.

Dr. David Holland:           44:07                   Right.

Hank Smith:                      44:10                   And I love that he’s honest. I don’t know about that. He might be. I’ve never even seen him. I was blind this morning, and now I’m not. That’s pretty significant. Yeah. David, this has been a fantastic day with you.

Dr. David Holland:           44:23                   Thank you. Enjoyed the conversation.

Hank Smith:                      44:25                   So much fun to have such a great teacher with such great content. You feel uplifted and edified and I know the Holy Ghost has been here ’cause I don’t want to leave, I don’t want it to end. We have listeners all over the world and we love them and I’m sure that they are grateful, and so we wanna voice that for you. In fact, if you’d like to come onto YouTube and leave a comment, we’ll make sure that Dr. Holland gets those. If you’d like to send a message or you can come over to our website, followhim.co. It’s a wonderful day, wonderful time to be with you. With that, we want to thank Dr. David Holland for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder Steve Sorensen.

                                           45:19                   We hope you’ll join us next week. We have more Doctrine and Covenants coming up on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website. Followhim.co. That’s followhim.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith and Annabelle Sorensen.