Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another followHim Favorites. John and I are telling a single story to go with each week’s lesson this year. John, we’re in Jacob 5, 6, and 7, and I have a story for you. I think you’ll like it because you like to watch football. You enjoy…

John Bytheway: 00:17 I do.

Hank Smith: 00:18 In Jacob 7, Sherem is this faith shaker, and Jacob says, “He wants to shake me from the faith.” My students have asked, “In a book about Jesus, why are these full chapters about people like Sherem, and Korihor, and Giddianhi who are very anti-Jesus? Why have these chapters in there?

John Bytheway: 00:35 It’s so hard to engrave on plates. Why would they get any space to that guy?

Hank Smith: 00:40 Yeah, here’s a book that’s supposed to bring you to Jesus, and here’s all these people who don’t want you to go to Jesus. I want to tell you this story. See if you can listen with your spiritual ears here. Go back with me to the 1900’s. I was in high school. I was the team captain of the football team. I know you’re looking at me, but it was a small school. I played for Snow Canyon High School. Coach Bill Jacobson, great mentor of mine. Fantastic man. He was really into high school football. And we were playing a team coming up this Friday, and he said, “Come to my office. We’re going to watch game film.” So this is where you watch the other team that you’re going to play this week. As we’re watching, he wants me to notice how they do what they do.

  01:21 Well, at this one point he says, “I want you to watch this left tackle.” Now, John, you know what a left tackle is, but if anybody’s listening doesn’t know what a left tackle is, you’re going to have to go ask someone who knows about football. They’ll explain it to you.

  01:33 This left tackle, he’s the one who’s going to either block for the run or he’s going to block for the pass. When it was going to be a running play, when the quarterback was going to hand the ball off, he would put a lot of weight on his hand in a three-point stance. He’d put a lot of his weight on this hand because he’s going to run forward. If it was a passing play, he would not put so much weight on his hand. In fact, he just put his fingers on the grass because he was going to stand up to block.

John Bytheway: 02:01 You could see that from the film.

Hank Smith: 02:03 Yeah. So it was just a little bit lazy, but it gave away the play. Coach Jacobson, Coach Jake, he said, “I want you to line up on him, and I want you to yell out what the play’s going to be.” I said, “Okay, I can do that.” Go running onto the field that night, and there he is, right? I’m like, “Wow, I’ve only seen him on TV.” I lined up on him. He put a lot of weight on his hand. I yelled, “Run.” All the defensive players with me, they kind of scooted forward because they know it’s going to be a run. We were able to stop the run without question. John, you know football. If you know it’s going to be a pass or a run, this is a huge advantage.

  02:44 The next play, they come down, and he puts his fingers on the grass. I yell, “Pass.” Everybody scoots back a little bit for the pass. And then he comes down the next one, and I’m yelling out pass, run, and they were so mad. They would back up their huddle. They thought we were listening to their huddle, so they would back up further, and you could hear them yelling at each other, “How do they know? How do they know?” And they’re yelling at their coach, “They know what we’re going to do.” In fact, John, a couple of times they would audible, so they’d change the play at the line, and this guy, he would change his stance.

John Bytheway: 03:25 He would change too, yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:27 I would yell run, pass. John, we just destroyed this team. By the end of the first quarter, it was 28 to nothing. They could do nothing against us, and I don’t think that kid ever knew. I don’t think he ever knew that he was the one that was giving the play away. John, don’t you think that some of these bad guys, you might call them in the Book of Mormon, aren’t they kind of giving us the playbook of the adversary?

John Bytheway: 03:57 President Benson, I think, said something like that. The tactics they use they’re old. They’ll use the same tactics today.

Hank Smith: 04:03 I have that quote right here, John. President Benson, “The Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ. It shows you the evil designs, strategies, and doctrines of the devil in our days.” As I read these type of chapters, I should be looking for strategies. People who want to shake my faith, what are they going to do? I can read these chapters, and when I see it, I already know it’s going to happen.

John Bytheway: 04:27 But when we hear Sherem, we’re like, “Oh yeah, we’ve heard that before.” In fact, Sherem says, a man cannot know of things which are to come. Who else is going to say that later on?

Hank Smith: 04:35 And you go, “Oh, a Korihor.” How did Jacob deal with that? Oh, how did Alma the Younger deal with Korihor? I already know how to do this. I already know the playbook. John, thanks for listening to my high school football story.

John Bytheway: 04:49 Yeah. Hank, if coach would put you in, you would’ve been state champs. No doubt in my mind.

Hank Smith: 04:55 No doubt about it.

John Bytheway: 04:57 Do you remember the final score? That’s pretty fun. 28 to nothing in the first quarter.

Hank Smith: 05:01 Yeah. 28 to nothing in the first quarter, and then I think Coach Jake let everybody play. Everybody. Even people out of the stands, they could come play.

John Bytheway: 05:09 He was recruiting out of this. Let’s bring the Mighty Mites down here.

Hank Smith: 05:13 Oh, I’d never seen a more frustrated team than that team. In fact, that’s why I’m not telling you the name of the team, because I’m sure we have listeners who have kids at that school.

John Bytheway: 05:21 I remember that game.

Hank Smith: 05:23 Yeah. Maybe our left tackle. Maybe he’s listening. He’s like, “Wait, maybe that was me.”

John Bytheway: 05:28 I did that. Oh. Right.

Hank Smith: 05:31 Well, we hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with Dr. Matt Bowen this week from BYU Hawaii, and he explains these chapters in masterful ways. You’ll want to join us for that, and then come back next week, we’ll share another story for followHIM Favorites.