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

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:00:03             Now we see why we can embrace a mortality and see that it really will work because we have this understanding that we had a loving God who huddled us up and said, I’m in the midst of you. I know you. I know what I can bless you with. I know what you need. This is why I can embrace the craziness of mortality.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:27             Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my great and noble co-host, John Bytheway. John, you know where that comes from. Abraham 3, the noble and great ones, which you are.

John Bytheway:               00:00:44             Wow. So are you. Well, I think you recognize something my ancestors have long recognized of the nobility and the greatness. No, I’m just kidding. No, I noticed that too.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:57             You are. Speaking of noble and great, John, we have with us Dr. Phil Allred. He’s been with us before back when we were doing the New Testament and he is back. Phil, welcome back to followHIM. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:01:10             Like a bad penny. I’m grateful.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:13             It’s like John Bytheway’s cat. You cannot get rid of it. Phil, we are very excited to have you. You and I are good friends. We get to see each other at work every day, and I’m excited for the listeners to see you again. Phil, John, over the last five to 10 years, Moses chapter one and Abraham chapter three have become more and more critical. I should say I’ve seen how critical they are, where before I thought these are great chapters. I memorized some verses from it for scripture mastery. Now I’m going, Wait, wait, wait. This is … John, you would call it theological dynamite.

John Bytheway:               00:01:49             Yeah, I think there should be a divider in the Pearl of Great Price that says explosives, handle with care or something. Sometimes when people say, how do we get the Book of Abraham? I wanna say, Have you read it? Have you just read it? Because it is so profoundly amazing and doctrinally thick and theologically explosive, like you said. This is exciting to look at it today. I feel the same way, Hank. It’s taken me years to go, Wow, this is really important.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:20             Absolutely. Phil, when I came to your office to talk about this episode, we both started getting really excited about the blessing that these two chapters are. What have you been thinking of since then?

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:02:33             Well, I’ve been impressed in preparation. As you’re prayerful, knowing this venue and the opportunity, I feel like the Lord has really helped me focus as we will today, not only on the theological dynamite, but also on the very intimate and personal level. While we had this galactic, cosmic view in both chapters, revelations that are just astounding, at the same time, there is this very clear and interweaved, consistent, personal touch by the Lord, with the Lord to each of them, as his sons. I’m excited to tease that out together and to see them run in parallel.

Hank Smith:                      00:03:13             Yeah. Just one verse, Moses 1:39 could answer the question that so many children of God on this planet have. Why am I here? Why am I here?

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:03:30             You are my work and glory was the phrase that was very clearly from the Spirit. So it’s not, this is my work and glory, that’s true. But it was very clear to, no, you are my work and glory. And I love that.

Hank Smith:                      00:03:44             That just beautiful to my heart. Yeah. I’ve said this before. I love the Joseph Smith quote. I’ll probably bring it up again. He has made ample provision for your redemption. This is gonna happen.

John Bytheway:               00:03:57             He’s good at his work, right Hank? He’s good at what he does, thankfully.

Hank Smith:                      00:04:04             Wow. Mighty to save.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:04:05             Do you remember it’s in the same talk of that great quote with Brittany Nash, where you guys were talking with her about President Benson saying that the thing that’s gonna startle us most is how familiar his face is to us. In the same talk, he says, You will find out we will know that He, the Father, has not left one thing undone so that we could be saved and exalted. So it dovetails with that, and I just, it’s one of my favorite phrases anymore is, He has not left one thing undone. I’m so grateful for that.

Hank Smith:                      00:04:39             Yeah. John, like I said, Phil was with us year, year and a half ago when we talked about the Book of Hebrews, which is maybe the most difficult book of the New Testament to understand. He walked us through the second half of that beautifully. There might be some new listeners, some people who don’t know Phil. What do we know about him? Did you uncover anything in your private investigation?

John Bytheway:               00:05:03             Brother Philip Allred is a professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University Provo, but prior to that, he taught for 30 years in Idaho. He has degrees in political science and theology. How did you do that? Together he and his wife, Jennifer Lindeman are the parents of three children. He got his degrees in political science from Idaho State and BYU and theology at Notre Dame. How wonderful is that? What was that like being at Notre Dame for theology? That must’ve been wonderful.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:05:42             It was wonderful. To their credit, they were so warm and welcoming to me. They knew I was Latter-day Saint. The real quick thing to say that impressed me most was I had the thicker book, shall we say? Like our, the Quad. There’s a lot of scripture in there. Our book is technically thicker than their book, if you will. Yet I found their goodness, their charity, their desire to be parents and family members in beautiful ways and follow the Savior was just really, really impressive. Here I am. I got the bigger book. I don’t know that I have even an equal soul with so many that I met there, and it was really humbling and inspiring to me.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:26             Wow. Beautiful. Okay, let’s get started. I am very excited about these two chapters and how they can bless lives. The Come, Follow Me Manual starts this way. The lesson is entitled that This Is My Work and My Glory. The Bible begins with the words, In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. But what was there before this beginning and why did God create all of this? Through the prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord has shed light on these questions. For example, he gave us the record of a vision in which Abraham saw our existence as spirits before the world was. The Lord also gave us an inspired translation or revision of the first six chapters of Genesis called the Book of Moses, which doesn’t begin with in the beginning. Instead, it begins with an experience Moses had that provides some context for the creation story. Together, these Latter-day Saint Scriptures are a good place to start our study of the Old Testament because they address some fundamental questions that can frame our reading.

                                           00:07:28             Who is God? Who are we? What is God’s work and what is our place in it? The opening chapters of Genesis could be seen as the Lord’s response to Moses’ request. Be merciful unto thy servant, oh God, and tell me concerning this earth and the inhabitants thereof and also the heavens. Wow. Phil, I’m excited to finally start something that you and I started talking about a couple of months ago. What do you wanna do? Where do we wanna go first?

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:07:55             So excited. Let’s start in Abraham, even though it follows the book of Moses in our Pearl of Great Price. But I think if we begin there, that will give us the chance to talk premortality, which technically is our earliest beginnings that we are taught about. If we turn to Abraham three, it might be fun to begin with a quick traipse through the entire chapter. As I mentioned at the the outset, to see the personal touches before then seeing the galactic views. Verse one, I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which is such a interesting thing, of which he then says, the Lord my God had given to me in Ur of the Chaldees. He’s received this Urim and Thummim from the Lord earlier. But at this stage in verse two, now I saw using this Urim and Thummim, I saw the stars. He’s using this to see like a telescope, I guess in some way.

                                           00:08:50             Right out of the gate, we have the Lord giving him this tool to see things with. In verse three, the Lord said, these are the governing ones. We’ll talk about those specifics in a second. The name of the great one is Kolob. Then this, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God. This is very personal. I got these instruments from the Lord. He said, I am thy Lord. It’s all about Abraham. Then we get some more details in five, and then six says, The Lord said to me, now Abraham. And that’s really cool because he’s using Abraham’s name. This is personal. If we skip to verse 11, he says, Thus I Abraham talked with the Lord face to face. In fact, he said, so we don’t misunderstand. As one man talketh with another. We all know what that’s like.

                                           00:09:36             He told me of the works which his hands had made. Then he said to me, and I love this, My son. My son. And his hand is stretched out. We’re moving between the heavens and out beyond, yet it’s very intimate. It’s very much it’s you and me. It’s you and me and it’s not just you and me like I’m your God and you’re my groveling servant. It’s my son. I know your name. This is us. And then 14. It’s like Abraham’s unfolding these little details as we go along. He says, It was in the nighttime when the Lord spake these words unto me, I will multiply thee and thy seed after thee. Like unto these as if you could number them. Meaning he’s seeing the stars, but he’s now using the sands as another fit metaphor. Isn’t that amazing? Not only are you my son, not only do I know your name, not only am I helping you see things, but I will multiply you and not just you, Abraham.

                                           00:10:37             I will multiply your family. Perhaps some are more familiar than others. In Abraham chapter one, we have this moment where Abraham reveals that he was raised in a very difficult home. It’s almost like a Disney movie. Dad’s got real issues and mom’s gone. You know what I mean? It’s just like, what’s, it’s this classic plot. And not only we’d have no mention of his mother. He obviously had one, but we don’t have any information about her. But dad is dangerous. Dad’s religion. So in one of the great understatements in all of scripture back in chapter one, he says, In the land of the Chaldeans at the residence of my fathers, I Abraham saw, this is Abraham 1:1, that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence. It’s time to go. How understated is that? If you’re not sure why, he points you to the picture next door.

                                           00:11:32             If we pause there in verse two of Abraham one, this is where to me this point that the Lord makes is, I will multiply you and your seed. We go to verse two of Abraham one, he says, Finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me. That’s why I moved. Okay, my family was, wow, I’m being raised by wolves or something here. Now, he says, I found that there was greater happiness and peace available. So he said, I sought for the blessings of the Fathers, meaning these covenant blessings that had stretched down from Adam all the way down through Enoch, et cetera, And the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same. Then he says, Having been myself a follower of righteousness, but then this, desiring to be one who possessed great knowledge and to be a greater follower of righteousness and to possess a greater knowledge and this key to be a father.

                                           00:12:33             Yes, of many nations, a prince of peace, I wanted instructions. I wanted to keep the commandments. Hence, I became a rightful heir. High priest holding this right belonging to the fathers. Now back to Abraham 3:14, The Lord is showing him this amazing cosmic views, but he’s saying, This thing you want, Abraham, I know you. I know you. I know what you wanted. I know what you missed as a kid. I know what you want to provide that you didn’t get. I know that my spirit is upon you in a sense and you get it. I’m promising you I will multiply you and your seed after you. Isn’t that stunning?

Hank Smith:                      00:13:09             Yeah. There we have in chapter one. This is what I was hoping for. So I went after it and the Lord saying, I can do that.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:13:17             I can do that. I can get you that desire. Isn’t that nice? And then he reminds him in 20, The Lord thy God sent his angel to deliver thee from the hands of the priest of Elkenah. That is a reminder that he’s been delivered by the Lord before and that in some ways in verse 15, I’m gonna show these things before you go into Egypt. He’s mid deliverance right now. He’s reminding him, I have delivered you. The Lord has delivered you before. You remember it, you couldn’t possibly forget that moment on the lion couch, but he’s saying, I will multiply thee and thy seed. You are going into Egypt, which is going to be a dangerous situation and we’ll learn more about what Sarah and her trial there. Here’s a man who’s been delivered. He has a salvation history. He’s post deliverance on one hand, but he’s also mid deliverance currently and the Lord is promising and saying, Hey, this isn’t over yet. The gym experience continues where this is full of torture devices and we’re still in process, but he reminds him, we’ve successfully done this before.

                                           00:14:28             I know who you are. I know what you want and I’m gonna help you get it. So if we go past that just a little bit further and go to 22 where Abraham sees these intelligences and in 23, when he is told about these noble and greats of which John was our sterling member, we see that he said to me- Verse 23, he said unto me, Abraham, thou art one of them, thou wast chosen before thou wast born. I know you. We knew each other. This is like that President Benson statement. We know his face. He’s telling him here, even though the veil’s still in place, he’s saying, Oh, we have a relationship. I know you. All of these stars, all these orbits, if you will, they’re all centered in you and me getting you what you really want and me delivering you through all the various things you need help with.

                                           00:15:25             You know, Bob Millet, Robert Millet, such a wonderful Latter-day Saint Scholar for years and continues to be for us, but he in one of his publications had mentioned that in his analysis of the Book of Genesis, that it was quite striking that in the first 11 chapters, you cover such incredible things as the creation and the fall. 2,500 years of history happen in the first 11 chapters. If we were more in our paper scriptures, it’s about 16 pages of the book of Genesis. He said, it’s as if Moses is trying, he’s like in a hurry to get to Abraham. We’re moving past all of these things to get to Abraham, and then what happens? Genesis slows way down. You’ve got a great-grandfather, a grandfather, a father, and a grandson in those four. So it’s only 22% of Genesis. That’s this first 2,500 years and these massive things. But he gets us right to these folks.

Hank Smith:                      00:16:19             This is what the story’s about. When you think Genesis, you think, oh, Adam and Eve. It’s actually, no, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:16:25             It’s more about Abraham. It really is. And not just Abraham, what’s fun about it, and this is where I think Nephi does such a great job of saying in 1 Nephi chapter four when he’s explaining, here’s what I’m doing, chapters four, chapter six, particularly, he’s saying, My fullness of my intent is to get you to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it’s not just the God of Abraham. It’s the God of a grandfather, a father, and a son. It’s the God of a generation of family that’s really significant to think about his, in verse 14 of Abraham three, I will multiply and thy seed. Look at us. Who are we? We’re sitting here doing this podcast. We’re all descendants and tied to, either by adoption or by blood, tied to Abraham. We are the fulfillment right now talking about it. We’re part of this amazing fulfillment of this blessing that God has given to Abraham and he said, I will do this. But he hadn’t done it yet, for Abraham.

Hank Smith:                      00:17:24             Elder Bednar said, We were foreordained in the premortal life and born into mortality to fulfill the covenant and promise God made to Abraham. That is who we are. That is why we are here.

John Bytheway:               00:17:39             He also said, and I love this, that one of the reasons they want missionaries to get their patriarchal blessing first is to see that and to read that. I’m paraphrasing, going on a mission isn’t something you do as much as something you are because you are Abraham’s seed.

Hank Smith:                      00:17:55             I’m interested, Phil and John, in how you both have seen this. Phil, you talked about watch for the personal, but the context of the chapter is very cosmic, right? It’s stars and planets and galaxies. Stunning. How have you seen that play out in scripture and in your own lives that we have a, an incredible Savior who can both say, Look, here is who I am. And it’s big. It’s, it’s very, very big. And at the same time, I can be personal with you. That duality is so important.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:18:35             I couldn’t agree more. Partly what has impressed me about the scriptures is that duality, as you say, this consistent reminder that he is the God of the universe, but that he only brings that up in a sense, I think, to inspire us to believe him. It’s almost like he’s in a constant credibility battle. Like, Hey, can we just kind of think about who I really am here and I’m really trying to help you, but you keep listening to these little voices over here and that this is, they’re not gonna bless your life, but I can do that. In some ways, he suffers a bit of an image issue because of this need to establish, Hey, look, I do have power. I can do my work. I am able to do my work, as we said. That means I am this galactic presence, and yet what’s it all for?

                                           00:19:26             The whole point of it, the, the telos, if you will, of it, this eventual outcome or end, the whole point and purpose of it was this immortality and eternal life of you. You and your family and the seed that will come from. All of that is the point. So I just, I’m so grateful for that. I hope that’s coming through. I hope that comes through always as we read scripture.

Hank Smith:                      00:19:51             And you can’t forget either. You’ll miss a part of him that is crucial. John, you might not remember since you’ve written so many books, but I shouldn’t laugh at that, but you’ve written a lot of books. You wrote a book called Sermons in a Sentence. I just wanted to read a page of that. It says, you wrote, We are accustomed to speaking of our heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in King James English. We pray in thees, thys and thous, scriptural pronouns that provide a bit of distance, a verbal reverence that is appropriate and comfortable. Perhaps this is why Nephi’s intimate phrase, My Jesus stands out. Nephi lost his father and was hated by his brother, so for him, the Savior was both infinite as the universe and as intimate as a friend. James Farrell has written Jesus’ work on our behalf is at once infinite and is so big that he offers redemption to all and yet so small that he offers redemption to me.

                                           00:20:49             Let me bring in one more witness, if that’s okay. This is Elder Neal A. Maxwell. He says, I testify that he, this is Jesus, is utterly incomparable in what he is, what he knows, what he has accomplished, and what he has experienced. Yet movingly, he calls us his friends. Now listen to this. In intelligence and performance, so in what he knows and what he’s done, he far surpasses the individual and the composite capacities and achievements of all who have lived, live now, and will yet live. So put all of us together, all of what we know and have done, and he far surpasses the collective. He rejoices in our genuine goodness and achievement. He probably thinks it’s adorable. I remember hearing Henry J. Eyring, basically a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. He said, When I go into my lab, the Lord must think it’s just cute. Look at me with my little chemistry set. He really, really is proud of me. Then Elder Maxwell goes on and says, But any assessment of where we stand in relation to him tells us we do not stand at all. We kneel.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:22:06             We’re gonna see it again in Moses one, this confidence we can have in him because of his power, his ultimate power, but also the comfort along with the confidence, the comfort that he cares, the comfort that we matter to him, the comfort that somehow little old me is worth all that he has done and is doing and will yet do for us. In fact, to that end, let’s take a look at verse 12 again in Abraham three. Again, I’m kind of deliberately skipping all of the cosmic stuff. It’s not that that’s not significant, but when you had Kerry Muhlestein on four years ago, and I would highly recommend our listeners, that really fantastic from an Egyptologist, right? Kerry and I are dear friends and spent the year in Israel together teaching at the Jerusalem Center. It was remarkable. He really does a great job of talking through the cosmology, et cetera, I defer in many ways to that discussion.

                                           00:23:00             Not that we won’t talk about any of it, but that you do have those wonderful resources that followHIM provided there in this four years ago with Kerry. But looking at verse 12, He, the Lord said to me, my son, my son, his hand was stretched out. Then notice this, I will show you all these, and then I stopped short of the next line. He put his hand on my eyes. He physically touched me and my eyes, and then I could now see what I could see was multiplied. To be able to think celestial as President Nelson enjoined the church, there is a way that the Lord can place his hand upon us and allow us to see what it is about us, about our families, about the environs, about the cosmos. He can help us see. It reminded me of Elder Howard W. Hunter’s great statement. Remember when he said, Whatever Jesus lays his hands upon lives, and that if Jesus lays his hands on a marriage, it lives. He says, If he’s allowed to lay his hands on a family, it lives. I would add to this that the living is in process. Sometimes we’ll look at what’s going on right now and we think it’s the end of the game. We think the clock is over and that we’re keeping score today and it’s done. It didn’t work. Instead of saying, No, no, no. Like he says in verse 15 to Abraham or in 14, I will multiply thee, I will multiply it. That’s a future thing. Thy seed after thee. You’re gonna go into Egypt in 15. You’ve got a life, you’re still living. These promises are gonna be yet fulfilled. We spoke together about Hebrews chapter 11 last time when I was privileged to be with you.

                                           00:24:44             One of those great passages in Hebrews 11 was that Abraham and Sarah, who only get one child between them, they said that they saw themselves as strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They recognized that this earth, which he’s now seeing in the cosmic context of all, of everything, Kolob and you know, that this earth is not the place of fulfillment. This earth is the place for the promises to be made, but to be seen afar off. I’m quoting from verse 13 of Hebrews 11, that they saw them afar off and they were persuaded of them. And then this amazing phrase, they embraced them, which to me suggests some probably ritual aspects to when these promises are made to us. But as we go into the temples and in sacred ways, we get embraced in this promise making, promise giving opportunity that we then leave the temple and go back to our homes and what do we find?

                                           00:25:52             Well, we find incompleteness. We find difficulties. We find heartbreaking things. We find joys, yes. But, amid them, we find opportunity if we’re not careful to doubt the Lord, His power and His promise that he will. But we’ve gotta remember we’re mid-deliverance. We’re mid-deliverance. Could I share one cool thing? I think this is just so beautiful. Allen Bergen, who was part of the faculty at BYU for years, in his book called Eternal Values and Personal Growth. This is back in 2002. He shares about this woman that he counseled. Her name was Laura. She struggled with many things. I just thought this was beautiful. He had a dream, and he said, I was attending a picnic with friends and family, and a large number of people had gathered near the food tables. I saw my friend Laura standing and holding my infant son in her arms.

                                           00:26:47             He was snuggled up to her with his head cradled against her neck. I was thinking how sweet the scene was. When suddenly it seemed as though the trees and fields behind them opened up and I could see into the far distance. I no longer saw the mortal Laura, nor my son. Rather, I saw a different Laura in a celestial setting. She was standing in a somewhat elevated position, and below her were numberless people, almost as far as the eye could see. I perceived through the spirit that they were her children, her eternal offspring. Most of them seemed to be adults, and they were reverencing her. It was an incredible exquisite sight. Though I recognized Laura, she did not look the same as the friend I had seen here on the earth. She looked regal, but not regal in an earthly sense. Her appearance, her stature, her poise, and the look on her face had a refinement, dignity, and power I had never before experienced. She was perfectly serene. She was utterly radiant. There was an infinite peace in her countenance and manner. Her deep joy in the situation was total. There was a sense of absolute security and complete fulfillment.

                                           00:28:08             This is incredible, right? So the last couple things he said, I think you’re so beautiful. Since Laura had previously confided to me many strong feelings of inadequacy and anxiety, I found the contrast striking. It was as though I was seeing her eternal identity unfettered by her mortal deficiencies. Then he said this to conclude, This experience had a tremendous impact on me and on my perception of human beings. I was especially affected by the incredible inconsistency between the brilliant eternal personality I had perceived with this conflicted, distressed, mortal person I had known and counseled. This is the God who works with each of us, who is powerful to save and promise, but for whom is working to comfort us in the meantime, mid-deliverance. Pre-promises all being fulfilled. I love this God. I’m so grateful for him and the hopes I have in him for my family and my hopes and dreams amidst the mortality that is strewn with the needed, you know, torture devices of the gym.

Hank Smith:                      00:29:24             The needed torture devices.

John Bytheway:               00:29:27             I’m still thinking of this verse you gave some emphasis to, verse 14, and I think that’s what you just did. I will multiply thee. Of all the things that Abraham wanted or that we could want or should want, is it, I will give thee many motor homes? Nope, that’s not it. What is it that you would want? It’s posterity. It’s children who will rise up and call you blessed one day. The picture that what you just read, he saw her serenity. I love that.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:29:58             We’re not totally alone in the world, in that the Lord has shared with His people throughout time that they’re, you know, this same vision of things. And we see vestiges, if you will, even though that dispensations have come and gone. The afterlife model for us is a structured heaven, right? It’s organized and ordered. Exaltation is available through the means of eternal marriage, the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, in fact. Now, there are certain Hindu traditions in which spouses may be bonded across reincarnations. Obviously, this is kind of a different way of seeing it, future lives as reincarnations. Their afterlife model is cyclical reincarnation until they reach a point of total non-attachment. We obviously depart there. But there is some interesting notion with some of these Hindu traditions that there’s this bonding of spouses. There are Chinese folk religions, it turns out, that have ancestors featuring as a main part of their family line.

                                           00:31:01             There’s a spirit world parallel, in fact, to earthly life that will continue post that has this expectation that there would be some family association. In fact, Shinto, I had the privilege of serving the Lord for a couple years in the mission field formally in Japan. I became a little familiar with some of the Japanese religions. In the Shinto beliefs, the dead become household gods and they stay connected. They’re right there and they have a big butsudan, they have a big, looks like a big armoire in their rooms and they have the shrine to their ancestors. They’re with them. They don’t have a sharply defined heaven, fair enough, but there is a continuity and presence that is expected. So it’s fun to see this. And of course, the example of par excellence, right, is ancient Egypt. The Egyptians, and of course here, Abraham is intersecting with Egypt.

                                           00:31:54             Spend some time there. Moses, of course, is raised in many ways in Egypt, et cetera. So both of our chapters really have this strong Egyptian connection. That’s all over. In Egypt, the Book of the Dead and all of the tombs and everything, you see this expectation of reuniting with your spouse that paradise is similar to being perfected, having an earthly life that’s now perfected. Almost like the discussion you had with Brittany Nash in section 130 about the same sociality. It’s gonna be coupled with eternal glory instead of the approximate mortal life we’re having. That’s kind of interesting, isn’t it, that there are some vestiges of this notion, but that currently, the fullest perhaps understanding we have, and we don’t know much. But what we do know is family, family, family. That’s wonderful.

John Bytheway:               00:32:43             Everything you’ve just said says that people yearn for that and want that. I think that’s in all of us. How could it be heaven without Kim for me? You know, I gotta. Do I get to keep her? Yeah. Does she get to keep me? Will she want to keep me? is a harder question.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:32:59             That is the big question. Elder Robert D. Hales once said, We have to live in such a way that our families want to live with us for eternity. I was like, Oh, that’s a great point. President Oaks recently, of course, talking about no forced sealings. Every sealing will be this congenial, this is what I want. So I’m with you.

John Bytheway:               00:33:23             You guys remember Elder Glenn Pace. He spoke at BYU once and he talked about a couple of parents and kids in a beat up station wagon and seeing a guy go by with his boat and well, they’re not really happy. And he said the kids were like, yeah, there goes another unhappy fellow dad, right? But he said, we’re beat up in a station wagon with a bumper sticker that says families are forever and people don’t know if that’s a boast or a complaint.

Hank Smith:                      00:33:52             That’s funny.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:33:53             Oh, that is so great.

Hank Smith:                      00:33:54             Yeah. We hope it’s a central missionary message and then some people think, that’s your offering? No, thanks. Yeah. Is that a must? Is that required?

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:34:06             That’s what’s so important about the gospel of Jesus Christ is to recognize that mortality is the time that we experience, in a sense, the crucible where we are stretched on purpose. Then to see family touted by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ as this ultimate epitome of heaven, to see that, but then to know that, yeah, but my family’s a mess. My family’s dysfunctional. I mean, my wife’s family struggled with difficulties that, you know, I shudder to think about what they went through. So many, Abraham himself, nearly at the behest of his father or at least a complicit, child sacrifice.

John Bytheway:               00:34:43             That’s a dysfunctional family.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:34:46             It turns out, right? This is why I needed another place of residence, right? It is a very interesting faithful navigation that the Lord is encouraging us to go on, to see promises yet ahead, but to see very and oftentimes painful effects of the fall playing out right now. So I’ll play with this analogy for a second. If I were to go into a gym, which I try to do sometimes, I’m working on it, right? But if I go into the gym and I walk in, I go up to the front desk and I say, Hey, could you point to where the chocolate fountain is? I think you’re in the wrong place. I know. Okay. Okay. Maybe that’s Tuesdays. That person at the desk is gonna say, did you read this sign on your way in here? GYM, that none of those say chocolate, none of those say pillows.

                                           00:35:36             Well, but they would say to us, they would say, all we have here are torture devices. It’s literally all we have in the gym. Lots of painful things for you. And we got trainers who are gonna yell at you and tell you to tear your muscles and you know what I mean, and get out of breath and sweat and, you know what I mean? And that’s success. If you went to the gym and you tore your muscles and you, you know, well, you did it, you did it right. I think it’s a fit metaphor for mortality. We walked in here and remember, it said, it said fallen world here. It said mortality, which is not eternity, but it is exceedingly significant that we come and tear muscles here so that when the healer, the Healer, not only internally the way he’s designed our bodies, to use this metaphor, but when the Healer, right, with healing in his wings rises, the Son, to quote Malachi, He can now make a physique, make a character, make a daughter of God, make a son of God like Laura was seen by Dr. Bergen. But it means I have to see the telos of mortality.

                                           00:36:40             I have to see the object and end and the point of mortality so that when my family is struggling, and in that great talk by President Oaks, that watershed address in 2000 called the Challenge to Become, where he said, family is unique setting in which this becoming can happen. I don’t know, does that speak to your experiences as well?

Hank Smith:                      00:37:04             Yeah, I would ask you a question. You teach, at BYU, you teach a cornerstone class, so it’s a required class called the Eternal Family. What has that been like in recent years with the young adults that are coming through? They were born after the Proclamation on the Family, in fact, long after a lot of them, 10 years after the proclamation.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:37:25             Yeah. It’s been really interesting to watch the reactions over time because we’re all of a vintage, can we say? We’re of a vintage that when the proclamation was given, I’m guessing you had the same reaction that we did, which is, did we have to make a proclamation about that?

Hank Smith:                      00:37:44             It’s like they said, We gotta proclaim that the sky is blue and the trees are green. Okay.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:37:51             It was pretty wild, right? But it didn’t take long, within a decade or so that we saw social trends in which, as we learned from Elder Andersen talking about quoting from President Nelson’s own experience and being part of the apostolic group that felt inspired and wrote the document that they could see, as Sheri Dew has said, they could see around corners. In fact, President Nelson is quoted by Elder Andersen as saying, we could see it all coming. We could see it all coming. So to your question, I have been watching because I’ve had the privilege of teaching this course for nearly two decades now in its BYU Idaho pre-eternal family form and its current form now adopted by church education worldwide. But I’ve watched students in the cultural zeitgeist in the waters they’re swimming in. I’ve watched them get nervous, like, wait, what are you saying?

                                           00:38:46             ‘Cause this is so different than everything else I’m hearing. To a kind of a come back and seeing, yeah, we saw that, heard that, and I watched people that I know, maybe siblings, aunts, uncles, or whatever, chase after that, and I’m seeing a resurgence of, oh, yeah. We’ve seen the law of harvest playing out and seeing the philosophies of men playing out in people’s lives. I’m seeing more students who are saying, oh, give me the pure doctrine.

John Bytheway:               00:39:15             Reminds me of President Gordon B. Hinckley, was it 60 minutes? Why is the church successful? Well, we serve as an anchor in a world of shifting values. Didn’t he say something like that?

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:39:27             Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that’s great.

John Bytheway:               00:39:29             We are searching some of us what… Give me some absolute truth. Can you give me an anchor somewhere that I can tie to? And that’s maybe what the proclamation does.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:39:40             Yeah, I think it does. I’ve been heartened by the students’ reactions. It’s a battle. This may be a perfect place to talk about something that I think is significant about Abraham and Moses, and that is what they experience, right? We read the scriptures and I know we all feel like, oh, I wish I could have done that. I wish I could have experienced that. I wish that was me. I want him to lay his hands on me and be able to see. I want him to tell me that I will multiply thee, and I want him to send an angel to get me off the lion couch. It doesn’t take too long of honest reflection to realize we actually do have our own salvation histories. There are those moments. Don’t forget that we take a record if we’re wise, we make a record of when the deliverances have come.

                                           00:40:29             Now, a side point to this that I think is significant is, as I was thinking about this moment, I feel like the Lord inspired me to think of it this way. I work with these students, as we all do, and encourage them that all of this information is independently verifiable. I can read it. There’s a book here, but remember Joseph Smith warned, he said, look, you gotta go to God and get your own knowledge. You can’t get it out of books. The books are a catalyst, shall we say. I’m reading about Abraham here and we’ll be reading momentarily about Moses, but that’s their story, that’s their story. That’s not my story. The Lord very much wants us to individually connect with him, not just by proxy. It’s too easy to read by proxy, either our parents or in the scriptures or whatever and go, well, okay, I guess I gotta just trust that.

                                           00:41:23             And instead of saying, no, the invitation there should be curiosity. They experienced this? Well, what would it take for me? I want to know. Nephi listening to his father’s dream and saying, well, I wanna see that. I wanna know. Praying and having his heart soften right there in 1st Nephi chapter two, way before he ever gets these big visions. They are their experiences and we can learn things from them, but they should be invitations to our own faith and study approach that I can independently verify these things are true. And I would just wanna add a quick witness. I read the Book of Mormon in preparation to serve a mission. It wasn’t until Helaman or so, and I hesitate to even share this, but at times, I mean, this is my witness. I get to Helaman. I’m unsuspecting because I’ve just been reading and thinking, okay, I should know these things. I get to Helaman 5 and here comes this mob in to take out these two missionaries that are in prison.

                                           00:42:20             This whole scene, I have the most remarkable experience. It’s better than a vision, but I have a witness that it was real and it happened in a better way than if I had seen a YouTube Book of Mormon YouTube video of it, not a recreation, but the actual video. I had something happen that I can’t totally describe, and it’s the same thing that’s happened to you guys, and everybody else who has submitted themselves to the process of study and faith, that something happened that’s not a story. These are not characters. And I get it, we may use that language here and there haphazardly. I refuse to use those words. I do not ever talk about Nephi and his brother Lehi in this case in Helaman 5. I don’t talk about Moses and Abraham and Sarah and Sarai. I don’t talk about Mary. I don’t talk about any of them as if they’re a story or a character because I have independently verified that I’m going to meet them one day.

                                           00:43:24             They are people and I can’t wait to ask them questions. I’m curious about their lives. I’m like, how buff was Nephi? Like how serious? No, okay. I know. I’m just joking, but I want, there’s things I want to know, right? But that they are real and that these experiences happen to them independently verifiable for each one of us. I am grateful and cheerfully submit that I have a witness of that and I look forward to meeting them.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:53             Phil, one thing you and I talked about a month or two ago as we were discussing this lesson was how crucial our doctrine of a pre-mortal life is. This is actually very unique and very important, more important than I thought.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:44:09             Yeah, exactly. In fact, we mentioned that I was at the University of Notre Dame for some theological studies, and I remember asking a rabbi. I took a class on Judaism. We had a rabbi who was a marvelous instructor, and I remember he had a thing where we would be able to write a question down before class and put it on the board, and we’d take turns. I wrote the question about the preexistence. I said, What’s the Jewish notion of premortal life? It was really interesting because, of course, that’s an esoteric term. I should have known that’s a Latter-day Saint term. I didn’t do preexistence. That would have been, you know, but I thought I’d done better with premortal life, but of course, he just read it as premortal life. Well, that’s the life we’re in right now because we’re, we haven’t died yet.

                                           00:44:52             You know, it’s like, ah, great. But as I was able to circle back around and explain, there’s this sense of like, yeah, that’s not really, that, no. In fact, even the logos, you know, notion for Christianity, John 1, et cetera, there’s really not a lot of understanding about that this is a thing. You can even look at commentaries on Jeremiah 1:5, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee Jeremiah. You’re just not going to get much there. Acts chapter 17, Deuteronomy 32, you’re going to have these passages that we like as Latter-day Saints because we do have prophetic commentary and restoration scripture that helps us with this, including here in Abraham 3. But if you don’t have those, it’s fairly opaque for our brothers and sisters without the restored scriptures and restored prophets. As we talk about that, maybe we can set it up a little bit by deferring to the extended discussion of this with Kerry Muhlestein, who did such a marvelous job.

                                           00:45:51             But let’s take a look at Kolob and take a look at the stars really quick, just to seed then the premortality for a second, because this is how the Lord sets it up for Abraham. In Abraham three here, verse two, that there is one of these stars that he sees that’s nearest to the throne of God. If you skip over to verse 16, you get this notion of, oh, the greatest, their Kolob is the greatest of all these Kokaubeam, all these stars, all these special ones. Kolob, a sense, if we did a Miller’s analogy, Kolob is to X. Well, here we would say, Kolob is to Jesus. Kolob is to Jehovah. Kolob is to the Son of God. He is this governing one. He is the one closest to God, et cetera. Before we turn the pages over to the later verses in Abraham three, we have this interesting distinction of one, Jesus Jehovah, the Son of God is this one.

                                           00:46:47             Now, this one is also among others. Kolob is to Jehovah. The stars are to the noble and great ones. Recognizing that and saying, oh, well, there’s an interpretive tool that there’s a metaphor going here that the Savior is trying to help him understand his deliverer. He’s also helping him understand who he is and confidence in himself and his potential. And he does this with all these analogies of motions and stars, et cetera. And it’s just this big extended object lesson. It’s an object lesson that is transformative. There’s a transformative arc that is laid out before to say, oh yeah, there are differences, but these differences are bridgeable. These differences are transcendable. It’s an exciting object lesson to say, oh, so we’re gonna take you from where you used to be and when you used to be. And we’re gonna now shoot you through, if you’re willing, right, we’re gonna shoot you through this amazing transformative conversion in Christ to become one of these. You started with opportunity and with some capacities for this, and we’re now going to set up a plan by which everyone who is willing can funnel through this amazing plan of salvation, plan of happiness, plan of exaltation.

                                           00:48:07             So if we read verse 22, I, the Lord, now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was. And among all these, there were many of the noble and great ones. There’s that clear tie-in with what he’s been seeing cosmically as the object lesson. Then God saw, now it shifts from the vision that he’s giving Abraham. It shifts to now God as if in the first place, describing what happened to God. God saw these souls. Now it’s not Abraham seeing. Now it’s shifting to, oh, God amidst these souls saw that they were good. He saw potential. He saw great goodness, opportunity, and he stood in the midst of them. Again, we’re in the cosmic realm, but this is very personal. He’s standing in the midst. He’s not standing apart. Think of the beauty of like, no, he’s right in the middle of them.

                                           00:49:00             Okay, guys. So it’s almost got his arms around him and said, okay, all right, here we are guys. Here we go team. And it’s this really fun moment where he says, okay, I got things for you to do. You have things to do. Again, here’s your assignment. This is how we’re gonna coordinate this. We’re gonna do that. He says to Abraham. Isn’t this so beautiful? He says, Abraham, get this, you are one of them. You were there with me. I was doing this with you. It’s just so beautiful. Then we learned there as we go forward, I wanna pause on this first estate. We go from there, verses 24 and 25, there’s the one that’s among them like unto God. This is Kolob, a.k.a. Jesus Jehovah. And he says, We’re gonna go down, there’s space there, we’re gonna take these materials. This is the job.

                                           00:49:42             Go team, go team. And what are we gonna do? We’re gonna go create an earth. We’re gonna go make this place. This is the next sphere of improvement and progression. We’re gonna make this place so you can dwell on it. And the job here is, verse 25, we’re gonna prove you to see if you’re gonna do everything that the Lord, their God would command them. This is described here as a proving ground. This is the gym, if you will. This is the torture devices, all right? We’re gonna run you through. And it suggests that God knew in advance a highly customized training path for each of us. Pretty customized curriculum for mortality for each of us. Therefore, as we get into the gym, we have to be careful not to look sideways at somebody working on a particular machine or a particular muscle group or something and say, well, they’re dumb, they’re weak. Or alternatively, to look at them and go, look how strong they are and this is easy for them and everything.

                                           00:50:40             When I’m working on my machine or I’m getting this exercise and my trainer is taking me through these, it’s so easy to be comparative rather than to be charitable and recognize, oh, they’re going through this customized curricula of mortality as part of the transformative arc from premortality into that future state of where we’ll end today in Moses 1:39, that immortality and eternal life. I just felt like I should share with you a very interesting thing that happened to me in the mission field. This is years ago, but it’s remained indelibly etched in my mind. I was a newer missionary. I didn’t know Japanese very well. I was assigned a missionary that’d been out about a year or so. For whatever reason, this missionary had struggled with the rules. It felt a little bit like, why can’t we play full court basketball? Like, that’s dumb.

                                           00:51:29             You know what I mean? It was, why can’t we do that? Understandably. I mean, I looked at that and went, good one. I haven’t a clue why we can’t do that. I’m with you. I didn’t disagree, but it kind of was a bother to him. Now, to his credit, he’s there, he’s working, but he’s got these questions, it’s bugging him. And we had a few conversations in the first few days that we’re companions where I can see that he’s, this is really frustrating to him. I don’t know how to answer him and I don’t have the answers, but I was a little more comfortable with just keeping the rules for whatever reason. As I remember it, I was down doing dishes. We had this little two-story apartment with four elders in it, and I was doing dishes or something with breakfast, and he was in another room doing his scripture study.

                                           00:52:11             And he yells at me, he goes, Allred, Allred. He says, Get in here. I’m like, Whoa, what’s going on? So I go in there and he’s got his scriptures open and he says, I get it. I get it. I’m like, well, okay. What do you get? What are you talking about? He says, look, check this out. And he reads verse 25. He says, look, we will prove them herewith. That they’re gonna do everything that God will ask them. And then he said this, I have memorized this because it was so crazy. He says, Allred, look, if to get saved, God said every day at noon, you had to stand on your head in the corner and recite the articles of faith backwards. Would you do it? I’m sitting there going, in my mind, the acrobatics of, what?

Hank Smith:                      00:52:56             That would be hard.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:52:58             He said, seriously, if that’s what God said, you gotta do this to be saved, would you do it? And I was like, well, yeah, I very much wanna be saved, please. I would do it. And he’s like, that’s why. That’s why we can’t play full court basketball. And I was like, okay, I’m, I get where you’re going. And it worked. And I’ll tell you what, we had such a great companionship. He dug in, he worked hard, he was so charitable to me. We had some really, really remarkable experiences finding and teaching people because he was like, okay, I’m in. Whatever God asks, I get the point. I see what we’re doing here. I was very impressed and, and appreciated his perspective. It blessed me. I admire him to this day for what he could see. He read the scripture and let the Spirit teach him.

                                           00:53:54             He’s having these questions and everything. And then when the Spirit did provide an answer, he ran with it. He accepted it and he ran with it. I’m very proud of him and it blessed my life. And this is Boyd K. Packer when he gave this address in 2008 to the religious educators. This is those evenings with the general authority. He said this, he says, don’t let a student, or shall we say, don’t let a friend, don’t let a family member leave your class or leave your conversation without knowing that there is a premortal existence. If he doesn’t, or she doesn’t know it, how can they make sense of mortality? In fact, he goes on, mortality just is not fair. If you look at it realistically, I’m quoting the apostle, mortality just isn’t there if you look at it realistically. Some people were born with limitations physically or mentally.

                                           00:54:46             There’s little chance of doing much. How can that be fair? Well, the apostle says, If you see the whole scope of things, the premortal existence, we have lived forever. There never was a beginning. Earth life is one of the chapters in the book of life that we are writing and living. Post-mortal existence goes on forever. It will never end. If we know that, we can have a little more patience and we will know more. And then he said, They must know that.

John Bytheway:               00:55:23             I love verse 25. I think it’s one of the most clarifying verses of all. I will prove them to see if they will do all things. Agency is implied in there. What’s the famous story about Hugh B. Brown? Somebody asked him, Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? ‘Cause God knew he would do it. President Hugh B. Brown’s answer was because Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham. Sometimes I would like to add after it to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them, even if it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes I kind of wanna add that. Because I think about playing basketball in your mission or keeping the word of wisdom when you have no idea about nicotine or what all those things, keeping the word of wisdom in 1845, right? You have no idea about those reasons, and I think it’s kind of a slippery slope if we, well, I will do all things the Lord commands as soon as I know every single reason for every single commandment. That’s probably not the best idea.

                                           00:56:28             Boyd K. Packer gave another talk in 1995 called The Play and the Plan. He divided our existence into a three act play. He said, Act one, the premortal existence, you were brilliant in that place, but the curtain’s been drawn, you don’t remember a thing. And then he said, Act two is characterized by four T words, tests, trials, temptations, and even tragedies. And then he said, Nowhere in act two appears the line happily ever after. That’s reserved only for act three. And then he said this, I mean, it’s just the profound statements, don’t suppose that God causes that which for his own purposes He permits. Whoa, slow down and chew on that one. That is maybe why Elder Maxwell called the premortal existence a wonderful flood of light. You get to see it from 30,000 feet and back up and see act two as temporary, and you see the post-mortal spirit world, kingdoms of glory all of the sudden it’s a lot easier to take the test, trials, temptations, and tragedies, and we say it so easily. Have an eternal perspective. Yeah. Take that off and it changes everything.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:57:53             Love it. Thank you.

Hank Smith:                      00:57:55             John, I like what you said there. This is right out of the Come, Follow Me Manual. We know very little about our premortal life, but much of what we do know comes from Abraham three. It says, Why are these truths valuable to you? What difference do they make in your life? It is huge for just one reason. I think Elder Packer said this same thing, which is, this life is so hard. One thing I frequently have to remind myself and others is, we signed up for this. Like, this was not forced upon us. We were given a choice, and I’m sure it was an informed choice.

John Bytheway:               00:58:36             Phil mentioned the verse from Jeremiah and all the sons of God shouted for joy. And I remember Elder Maxwell saying something like, now that we’re here, we wonder what all the shouting was about.

Hank Smith:                      00:58:49             Like, wait, this is a lot harder than I thought. Yeah. It’s like, hmm.

Dr. Philip Allred:              00:58:57             As you say that, I think about this personalized view. Like, he’s standing in the midst of us as we got there in 23. If you see the team or the arms around, okay, we’re huddling, this is what we’re gonna do. In that pre-planned way, there is great comfort in the premortal life that while we do have the veil pulled, which I think has a significant role yet to play in a merciful judgment someday, which I’m intrigued by, but this idea has been taught by the prophets. President Nelson in his Stand as Millennials talk, he said, a true millennial is one who taught and was taught the gospel of Jesus Christ premortally, and who made covenants there with our Heavenly Father about courageous things, even morally courageous things that he or she would do while here on the earth. Then he made a promise, as you know, President Nelson is so marvelous at making these promises that when you begin to catch even a glimpse of how your heavenly Father sees you and what he is counting on you to do for Him, your life will never be the same.

                                           01:00:04             As we look at the sources for what we get that information, patriarchal blessings are amazing that they may not say anything specific about premortality, they might, but that as we read them, we get glimpses of what is possible, that God is offering these promises that are yet ahead, mid-deliverance, fair enough, but that are going to be fulfilled in their fullness one day. In fact, President Lorenzo Snow said, had we not kept what is called our first estate, and that language is here in verse 26, Abraham three. So he says, they who keep, after this proving verse that we talked about in verse 25, they who keep their first estate in verse 26 will be added upon. Again, there’s this transformative arc. Yes, you’re much lower, infinitesimally smaller than the Lord or others and certainly Father. Okay, fine, but you can be added upon. That’s why the laws are given so that this can be added upon in us.

                                           01:01:06             He says, back to President Snow’s quote, had we not kept what is called our first estate and observed the laws that governed there, well, you and I would not be here today. We are here because we are worthy to be here. That arises to a great extent, at least from the fact that we kept our first estate, right? And that’s just so comforting, right? It’s like, oh, apparently I did this well once. Maybe I’m struggling right now with God’s laws, but I apparently killed it in premortality. I nailed it. President Snow continues, he says, I believe that when you and I were in yonder life, we made certain covenants with those that had the control, that in this life when we should be permitted to enter it, we would do what we had done in that life, which he said is, find out the will of God and conform to it.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:58             Mm-hmm. Wow. I wonder that, Phil and John, when we read that verse that John pointed out, and we will prove them herewith to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord God shall command them. I wonder if part of that maybe could be rephrased, we will make an earth and we will prove to see if you will choose to go to earth. Awesome. That’s a fun way to think of it. Will you keep your first estate? Well, let’s make an earth and find out. Let’s find out if you will choose. Instead of that verse being scary, like, oh man, I don’t know if I’m doing it. No, you did. You proved that you believed and by going.

John Bytheway:               01:02:38             Recently, I got to Zoom with the Adriatic, I think it was the Adriatic North Mission, President and Sister Cordray. He told his missionaries, these people already chose the Father’s plan once. And I thought, well, everybody on Earth already chose the Father’s plan. And that was like, oh, yeah, that’s true. As we think about approaching people, they already made an excellent choice once. Already had an excellent time in act one. Now the curtain’s been drawn, just tell them who they are that they already chose once, tell them that this life’s the test, trials, temptations, tragedies, but it’s temporary. And we signed up for it. We knew it was gonna happen. The question of what does it mean to know about a premortal existence? How do you overstate how important that is?

Hank Smith:                      01:03:31             So true, right? It’s just awesome. If you believed that you were created at birth, you did not exist before this, you came into a life that is, think of India in the 500s, a lot of suffering, and a short life, and a lot of suffering, and you might think…

John Bytheway:               01:03:52             That was pointless.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:56             Yeah. What, what was that about? Like, and you’re there saying, Oh, God, maybe someone’s saying God loves you. I can see why someone would say, I don’t believe in God.

John Bytheway:               01:04:06             Yeah. Or why somebody would say, Life is hard and then you die and not, and that’s it. And oh, take off the blinders and see the big picture. That’s the flood of light.

Dr. Philip Allred:              01:04:19             We don’t see the transformative right role that hardship plays. If somehow we’ve bought into that we didn’t come into a gym and this is actually supposed to quote be heaven, this isn’t the training ground for heaven. If we’ve, if we misperceive that and mismeasure this experience, then that’s exactly the card the adversary plays over and over and over incessantly when inequities, unfairnesses, pains and sufferings, balding, I might add, happen. I see you two have not had to suffer that indignity in your mortality.

Hank Smith:                      01:04:53             Hey, you look good. There’s a few perfect heads in the world. God put hair on the rest.

Dr. Philip Allred:              01:04:58             Oh, this is good. It’s a good thing. But it really does play into the adversary’s hands to misperceive what mortality really is. I see it all the time. In fact, I think this is a pretty cool point of Elder Neal A. Maxwell. We were extolling his virtues earlier. Well, let’s continue with something he said, and he’s gonna quote an earlier apostle on this as well. Quote, here’s Neal A. Maxwell from All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience. He says, one day we will understand fully how complete our commitment was in our first estate, in accepting the very conditions of challenge in our second estate, about which we sometimes complain about in this school of stress. He then said, our collective and personal premortal promises will then be laid clearly before us. Premortal promises, conditions, opportunities. We had a vision. What does the Proverbs say where there is no vision the people perish?

                                           01:05:55             We had an understanding, a vision of this. Otherwise, if in verse 28, right, so if you’re in Abraham three, let’s do 27, having explained that if we kept this first estate, we could have glory added on our heads. If we would keep the second estate, then it would be added on our heads forever and ever. Then the Lord says in verse 27, whom am I gonna send? He has to offer the opportunity, even though he’s called Jehovah to do it, he has to offer the opportunity as an agency for him to receive the blessings for doing so. One answered, like unto the Son of Man and said, here am I, send me. And another, we understand from other passages and prophetic commentary that this is the adversary, Lucifer. He said, Here am I, send me. And the Lord said, I will send the first. And now it explains why in 28, as you were saying earlier, that the second was angry, he kept not his first estate, he rejected the earth or the plan of making the earth.

                                           01:06:50             He then had many follow after him. They had to know what this was. They had to make that choice and for it to be just for the law of harvest to roll out, they had to know what they were rejecting. Our agency had to be actually an agent in premortality. We had to have had this explained and taught clearly and lawfully in a way that we could make a real choice. It is the fact, as you said, John, from that wonderful mission leader, it is the fact that every single person here who is bodied and every embodied soul did make this choice and they did accept that the Savior could be their redeemer and they can do so again. Maybe one other quick thought here about these personal premortal covenants that I think is helpful. He says, Elder Orson Hyde said of our life in the premortal world, we understood things better there than we do in this lower world. As to the agreements we made there, he also surmised it’s not impossible that we signed the articles thereof with our own hands, which articles may be retained in the archives above to be presented to us when we rise from the dead and be judged out of our own mouths, according to that which is written in the books.

                                           01:08:11             Elder Brook P. Hales, his talk several conferences ago, it was so significant. The title says it all, Mortality Works. Why does it work? The only way it could work is if in premortality we had an understanding of what it was we needed in our progress, in our stratification of not yet being like God, not yet being like the one close to God or Kolob or Jesus Jehovah that, oh, what would we need? What torture devices? What muscle group is undeveloped? What character is not yet achieved? et cetera. Now we see why we can embrace a mortality and see that it really will work because we have this understanding that we had a loving God who huddled us up and said, I’m in the midst of you. I know you. I know what I can bless you with. I know what you need. This is why I can embrace the craziness of mortality because of these wonderful truths in the scriptures and the living prophets.

John Bytheway:               01:09:13             I’ve heard it called the Lord’s law of learning. They will learn by their own experience to discern good from evil. My grandpa, Vernon Ezekiel Jarman, what a great grandpa name.

Hank Smith:                      01:09:26             That’s awesome.

John Bytheway:               01:09:27             Vernon Ezekiel Jarman used to say, experience is a dear school and we fools will learn in no other.

Dr. Philip Allred:              01:09:35             Ah, that’s great. I love it. Maybe as we cap off this part of the discussion with Abraham three, Joseph Smith said, the organization of the spiritual and heavenly worlds and of the spiritual and heavenly beings was agreeable in the most perfect order and harmony. Their limits and bounds were fixed irrevocably, and then this, and voluntarily subscribed to in their heavenly estate by themselves, and were by our first parents subscribed to upon the earth. Wow. There are properties to this achieving immortality in eternal life to this transformative arc that can’t be won in any other way. They can’t be obtained in any other way. We subscribe to them and our first parents, Adam and Eve, subscribed to them and got this mortality rolling.

Hank Smith:                      01:10:28             John, we talk about this a lot. We know, and we’ve heard from listeners who are truly suffering. Suffering with the loss of a son or a daughter, the death of a loved one, the estrangement from people they love. It’s impossible to name all the ways we go through pain. Yeah, I think, Phil, what you’ve taught us here is that the suffering I’m going through has great purpose. It’s not just suffering to suffer, that it has purpose, that God is in it, and that one day we will see the purpose. For now, we endure, we obey. I’ve loved this little definition of the word prove from verse 25. I don’t do much baking. I wish I could, but as John would say, listen with your spiritual ears. To prove dough in baking is not to see if it’s real or see if it’s gonna come through for us, it’s a different definition. I’m just reading from a baking website. What exactly do we mean when we prove bread? It’s the crucial final step of the process. It’s the final rise during which the bread takes shape, talks about how it works here. Proving takes time, but it’s a step you cannot skip for the dough to mature. You can’t rush dough. Good bread relies on this time so that it will have a great texture and crust. Remember, good dough makes good bread. It’s that simple. If you listen with your spiritual ears, the Lord saying, yes, I’m not testing this dough. I’m proving. I’m proving this dough. Giving it the needed time to mature and go through the process it has to go through in order to become bread. John, did you hear with your spiritual ears? You always tell me to do that.

John Bytheway:               01:12:36             Yeah. Oh, I like it. I like to say to the teenager, If you have shallow experiences, if you got asked to every dance, you never got rejected, if you won every contest or aced every test, if you have shallow experience after shallow experience, you might end up being shallow. But if you have experiences-

Dr. Philip Allred:              01:13:01             Shocking.

John Bytheway:               01:13:02             … that test you, deep experiences that are tough that you have to, you’re getting proven you’re getting tested through, you might become deep. You might become a friend to somebody that you can sit with and say, I have been through that. The Lord will use you to help other people who are not having shallow experiences. Sometimes I, oh, I think he does that on purpose, puts us next to somebody who’s really been through something tough right when we need it. That’s another way I guess we get proved. What’s the dad joke? I wanted to be a baker, but I couldn’t raise the dough or something like that.

Hank Smith:                      01:13:42             I knew you would have something for me there. And I wanted to throw one more idea out at both of you from Elder Maxwell. Man, he’s been with us today. He taught that at some point for some people, in some point of their lives, it’s no longer about God doubting the outcome of this test. He said, God is already preparing you for future assignments in the next life. Here’s the quote, the future duties to be given to some of us in the worlds to come will require of us an earned sense of esteem as well as proof of our competency. Thus, the tests given here are not given because God is in doubt as to the outcome, but because we need to grow in order to be able to serve with full effectiveness in the eternity to come.

John Bytheway:               01:14:41             Learn by experience.

Hank Smith:                      01:14:42             So good. You’re past step one, he’s now preparing you for your callings after this life.

Dr. Philip Allred:              01:14:50             That’s that conversion. We are literally being converted and transformed. I can’t help but just cap off with this statement from Elder Hales about the woman who had had such a hard mortality and her son is in the temple and gets this kind of incoming. Her quote is so cool. I want you to know that mortality works. I want you to know that I now understand why everything happened in my life the way it did, and it is all okay. That’s October 2024. It’s all okay. We have this God who knows us, he’s standing in the midst of us, he’s prepared every needful thing just as he’s worked with Abraham, as he will talk about with Moses, he’s working with each of us very customized curricula for our becoming and conversion.