Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello everyone. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the amazing John Bytheway. You may have noticed that Follow Him Favorites this year is looking a little bit different. We are instead of doing what we did last year, we’re gonna try something new. We’re gonna try answering some commonly asked questions mostly from our younger audience–from our youth, YSA’s, young married students. So, John, the question for this week’s Follow Him Favorite, we received from a teenager is just–and I’m sure you’ve had this question before in class, I know I have–which is why would God give Adam and Eve two conflicting commandments? That doesn’t sound like God. Like, why would you do that? So, John, how would you answer that question?

John Bytheway: 00:42 You know, this is one of those where in a hundred years from now, a couple of other guys who will be doing a Follow Him favorites, and the same question will come up. So it’s kind of like, there’s a lot of schools of thought and a lot of times I like to use that phrase, well, here’s one school of thought, here’s another. And then I don’t tell him which one because I don’t know. But one school of thought on this was President Joseph Fielding Smith was kind of– if you wish to remain in the garden, then I forbid you to partake of that. If you wanna weigh the consequences, then you can. And how much did Adam and Eve know? Did they know that they had to do this in order for life to come? So those are all questions we don’t have all the answers to. But that’s one of them that I’m aware of. If you wanna remain, then don’t do that. And so then they could reason with themselves. Oh, so if we want to progress, so that men may be maybe we do that.

Hank Smith: 01:37 Exactly. Exactly. I’ve heard other people say he’s given them conflicting commandments knowing that eventually they’re going to keep–they’re gonna grow up. So it’s like–I’ve heard someone say once, it’s like saying to your 6-year-old child, you know, stay in the yard, don’t cross the street, and also go live your dreams and make something of-right? Go. This is what you’re gonna do down the future. You know, eventually they’re gonna leave the yard and cross.

John Bytheway: 02:07 No, all of your dreams must be contained in this yard, right?

Hank Smith: 02:10 Yes. Yes. So, so it’s the idea of we tell our kids, yeah, keep the rules. Keep the rules, keep the rules. By the way, you’re gonna leave here and you’re gonna go do wonderful things and you’re gonna go travel the world right, without us, but never go anywhere without me. So, the idea of maybe it’s a maturity factor. That eventually He knows. And in fact, doesn’t the Lord say to Adam and Eve don’t partake of the fruit of the tree, of knowledge, of good and evil. For in the day that you eat of it, right? It’s not like if you eat of it’s–

John Bytheway: 02:43 When that happens…

Hank Smith: 02:43 I know you will…

John Bytheway: 02:44 Consequence, yeah.

Hank Smith: 02:45 When that happens. Here’s what’s going to happen.

John Bytheway: 02:47 Here’s the consequence.

Hank Smith: 02:47 You will. You’ll become mortal. You will die.

John Bytheway: 02:51 And I’ve even heard it said that, you know, sometimes there’s a choice between a couple of good things. That’s the Mary and Martha story. Should I help serve everybody or should I sit and listen at the feet of Jesus? Both of those are wonderful things. It’s not, should I go see my ministering brother or should I rob the bank? It’s should I do one of these good things? And I think Adam and Eve had to weigh both of those, and life will be full of those kinds of things for us too.

Hank Smith: 03:17 I remember on our podcast, you shared the idea of the lake says no swimming, but if…

John Bytheway: 03:23 There’s a boy drowning in there.

03:24Someone’s drowning out there.

03:25I can’t save him because it says no swimming right there. So, yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:30 Which one would God want us to do? So it’s the idea of, don’t partake of the fruit of knowledge, of the tree, of good and evil. And then Adam and Eve look at it and go, well, if we want to have a family, we’re gonna have to do…

John Bytheway: 03:41 If we wanna obey, multiply, and replenish. Yeah. So there’s some new things to think about when you’re trying to answer this question.

Hank Smith: 03:48 Yeah. And one day we’ll talk to Adam and Eve and they’ll be like, you were way off.

John Bytheway: 03:51 Yeah. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:52 Just so you know, both of you. You were way off.

03:54So, join us next week. We’re gonna take on another question. If you have a question, feel free to come to our social media, come to Instagram, come to Facebook and, and give us a question. You can also go to follow him.co. Submit a question there. We’d love to hear from you. What questions do you have? We want to at least attempt to answer them. And we hope you’ll join us next week for Follow Him Favorites.