VIDEO: Come Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants 85-87 (Aug. 2-8) Don’t Miss This

Come Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants 85-87 (Aug. 2-8) Don’t Miss This – powered by Happy Scribe

Howdy, I’m David Butler. I’m Emily Freeman. Welcome to Don’t Miss This, y’all. We have a really, really bad section, section three three sections, collection collection of sections, because I was going to say coming up here, eighty five through through eighty seven, some really, really neat stuff that happens in these sections and fun and like packable you’re going to love so many parts of this lesson are just so fun.

So a couple of years ago a friend of mine, we were just texting the end of the day or whatever, and he said at the very end is like goodbye. And then sent a sunflower emoji, like with the good night. And I was like, so random. And so I texted back and I was like, wait, why did you said that? Something about you. That’s weird. I mean, whatever, you know, this was like what I like what have I just a dolphin, you know, or whatever myself.

Have I ever even sent some flowers.

Yeah, no one even knew it existed. It does exist. And so I was just like, why? He was like, oh don’t you think they’re so happy whenever you see them? They’re just the happiest of all the flowers. So I just thought, it’s fun. She’s like, it’s my new thing. He said to me, it’s my new thing. I just send the sunflower emoji. And I was like, all right. So I sent one back, you know?

And I think and I then they sent us some for automotive. But I was like, wait, I want to thing about an emoji. What is it anyways? So then the next day I was driving home from work and I passed by this field that’s right by my house that was full of sunflowers. And I was like, oh, awesome. So I pulled over and I took a pic of the sunflowers and I sent it to him, you know, because I was like, hey, look, you know, some flowers.

And then I started doing that. I kept doing it. Jenny Dye went on like a trip to Europe, like like a couple of weeks after that. And I would just if I found him in like Brandt by the Eiffel Tower, because the markets in Europe. Right. Right. And then like these markets in Austria. And I was just like and every time I found one, I would like buy this church in Germany. And I started sending them and I came back home and I started noticing, oh, my gosh, some flowers are everywhere.

They’re all over. And I had never, ever seen them. In fact, I even had some growing in my backyard. I had no, it’s true because at one time it was like I have never even seen or noticed that these are here until I started looking for him. And we said right before we record what is does God really move among his people? Is he really still here in the same majestic way that he was that we read about in these histories there here?

Is he still just as a and vibrant right.

As as he always has been? And I think yes, I believe yes, I have evidence of of yes. And I think we see something in here that when you start watching for that, like the sunflowers, he will start showing up everywhere, even in your own backyard. So we’re starting with the section eighty five. And you just you want to say a prayer for Joseph, but he doesn’t. I don’t know if you need your prayers any more, but I give you the Vatican this time.

Eighty five is actually a letter. This revelation comes as an excerpt of a letter that he wrote to Debbie Phelps. There are in Zion. And remember, people are moving out there. And to move out there, you have to have a special certificate like you’re appointed to move out to design. But people are just moving out because they wanted to and doing their own thing. And when they were getting there, they weren’t following that. The Law of Zion was the law of consecrating your properties.

And there are people who are going out there who are doing that. And so he’s just like, we don’t know what to do. And and Edward Partridge’s kind of kind of doing his own thing and doing films, was doing his own thing. And so Joseph’s like, oh my gosh, I am so tired of fixing all the things. I don’t know he said that. But that’s what I think when I read it, you know, and he writes this letter.

But in the beginning of the letter, it’s interesting, you get like this bonus stuff that comes and it says, right. Eighty five, verse one, it’s the duty of the Lord’s clerk. Don’t you want to be the Lord’s clerk? Why do we call him the ward clerk? So only title titles like the Lord’s. Yes. And everyone.

Yeah. Wouldn’t that be awesome.

Everyone just got elevated. Who’s the word clerk. I know you’re a little lord.

Yeah. Why do we not have that calling.

OK, before you even read this part of what the Lord’s clerk is going to do, it is fun to just talk about this because for some reason, amidst everything else that is going on in this time period, Joseph became really interested in record keeping. For some reason. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden he wanted to have a million different journals and histories and records that he was keeping. We’re going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute.

But this was one. Of the records that all of a sudden he felt like we need to be keeping.

In fact, he buys his very first journal on this day right after he writes this letter, he’s like, this is he like they go to the store and buy his very first journal and he’ll have more. But this one, he says the Lord’s clerk was appointed to keep a history and a general church record. Of all the things that are transpiring in in Zion, go down to verse two and also the people’s manner of life, their faith and their works.

And just to keep a list of all of these things that you see happening that are transpiring in in Zion, we have in the Journal a list of the other journals that he ends up buying and histories that he ends up keeping. One, obviously, for revelations he keeps a separate journal for like the revelations for the church that a lot of come into the doctrine and covenants a history of the church and gathering. He has this one that he buys a couple of years later called.

He calls the book The Law of the Lord. I just want his help naming everything in my life. But check this out. This is what he said he keeps in there. This actually comes from Stephen Harper’s book, The Making Sense of the Doctor. I’m just reading on my phone. It says this. He recorded in that book. He wanted to put the deeds of people who freely offered their whole souls to the Lord’s work. So when he saw that somebody offered their soul to the Lord, he wanted to write them down and write about it.

He wrote about Emma in there. He wrote about Bishop Whitney. He wrote about his brother Hyrum. And he says the names of the faithful are what I wish to record in this place, in that book. Isn’t that cute? And then he said this. He recorded the virtues and the good qualifications and the characteristics of the faithful few, as he called them. Don’t you love that? He’s just like ice I so much. Here’s a person that we have a hymn about, you know, that we like, admire so much for his virtues and qualifications.

And I love that he’s got this book of the people that he’s meeting and he’s writing. Here are all the good things I am noticing about you, particularly coming off of the section eighty five, or you have a whole bunch of people who are doing everything wrong, you know, and it’s like I’m leaving and you just love that he had that faithful for you. It makes me want to like be one of the faithful for you.

And I’m like, oh, I want to be one of those.

Yeah. And it makes me want to just, like, start noticing people and noticing what are your good characteristics and virtues and qualifications that are in you. I love the road this is turning into. There are numerous hosts of faithful souls whose names I could wish to record in the Book of the Law of the Lord is just like I ran out of ink. There are so many people like that that I just ran out.

We love to that he had one. He had one for a recording revelations. He had one for the history of the church. He had one for the gathering. He just recorded about that. And then this one. This was the name of this book, A History of the Life of Joseph Smith Jr., an account of his marvelous experience, which would have been the first vision. But I love that he didn’t call it the first vision. Everyone.

I love that he called it my marvelous MIRV. I tell us my marvelous experience. And then it made me think to myself, do I have a journal of marvelous experiences? Because don’t we all need one of those? And you kind of just want to put a sunflower on the front of it? Because what if you’re having more marvelous experiences than you know about because you’re just not taking the time to notice them and write them down? And what would it look like if we were doing that?

Which then makes me think about your journal you made. Let’s just talk about that for a minute. To Africa.

Oh, my Africa one here. So I did spot this. I thought I really want, like a journal that’s only dedicated to, like, places I go. Like you were told to sit for a minute because you were having like six journals. Yeah, I really do have a lot of them all over. But this one is particular and it’s really rad. I should have brought it so you could see it. Oh, no, I left it at home because I got to put it in my back.

I took it out of my backpack. It’s just got all these really weird travel stickers all over it and everything. And I thought to myself, I’m going to write down every day no one who is somebody that I met in number two, what is a memory from that day? And number three, where did I see the hand of God somewhere moving and working on this thing? And I just think I want to be so much better about recording.

So I’m I’m I’m jumping on that train, you know, and that might be something you want to do this week as you’re talking about. Section eighty five is because the awful thing is, did you just get yours at Walmart? Is that even from. It’s just tiny.

Yeah. Yeah, from.

Diplomats and who even knows what the cover looks like, but it’s just now plastered in stickers which made it so fun that I was like, Oh, if you have kids at home, why don’t they want a summer journal, everyone? They might just this summer of twenty, twenty one.

And it’s cool to think of like what, three simple things or what two simple things am I going to put into that. My friend Heather was saying, oh actually what you want to do on the trip is at the end of every day, make everybody go around and say three memories from the day. And then if you have like a group of seven, all of a sudden you have twenty one things to pick from and, you know, kind of right in there and you get a diary that’s been in my mind, I was like, I wish there was in this world a little mini printer.

They would print pictures that had sticklebacks because then you could take a picture and stick it into the journals. I really wish someone would invent something like that.

They did. They did. I can help you out.

I’ve got one for Father’s Jenny Dye. We want to do this like I invented in my mind, laying in bed when I read it and put it in Amazon’s fulfillment warehouses. And now here it comes. This is a talk that we’re going to put in the newsletter. Epper. Yeah, yeah. That is going to be easier on the ball, on the box or from President Kimball, who, you know, just got baptized in journals. He loved talking about that.

But he said this one time, the quote, the name of the talk, by the way, is the angels make quote from it, talking about your your own journals and histories that you keep an eye on. There’s a spot in here where he says nobody’s ordinary, commonplace, no one’s commonplace. Yeah, right. You know, like everybody is has has this history of what God is doing and doing in them and around them. And it’s really neat.

Anyways, he says this get a notebook, a journal that will last through all time or just for the summer. Yeah.

Yeah. And maybe the angels may quote from it for eternity. Is that awesome? One of those angels, like I would like to quote from Jill’s Summer of twenty twenty one journal is begin today and write in it. You’re going and you’re coming. Your deepest thoughts, your achievements, your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. Or you can just pick one of those things. But it seems neat. That is the way one of the ways that we start recognizing that God really is among us and that he’s here and present and serving.

Yeah. Is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s not a stale God. He’s not like he’s not secure in one place that he’s just like, um, there’s a fluid relationship and his presence is oh man, we’re just noticing it ebbing and flowing.

And when one of my voice was on their mission they had someone come and I think I talked about this before. He talked to them about keeping a journal. And he said instead of calling it a journal, because maybe we just immediately turn off when we hear that word.

Yeah, like word. Clark, this is something different.

I’m worried what is going to happen with that in your work, particularly that he said start a book of evidences from your mission. And it’s just the evidences that God is moving in your life. And I love because he just picked up the scriptures and he said, you know what these are these are people’s books of evidence that God was moving in their life. Nephi wrote his evidences of God moving in his life. And Joshua did when he split the River Jordan and Moses with the Red Sea and Peter walking on water.

This is just People’s Journal accounts of. Oh, let me just show you evidence that God was moving in my life today. That’s all this is. And I love that thought of just starting that book of evidences or that book of marvelous experiences or even just then, I am not commonplace. You know, just what is happening in my life right now. We just love the idea that. So for sure, as you’re talking this week about what what is going to happen this summer or what could be the application from these pages, one really might be starting that journal.

And whether it’s a paper journal or whether it’s something you do on social media, on Instagram or wherever is the easiest place. Grace has a friend. I think this is so fun that does a 60 second video every day, and that’s his journal. And then at the end of the year, he has oh, this one minute what happened in twenty, twenty one. So there’s so many different ways of recording what is going on in your life.

But just a fun reminder. Yeah. Of the important thing and just opening up your eyes to see the sunflowers. Right.

Yes. I’m part of the reason why is because sometimes you’re just going to have. Summer of twenty twenty one, and you’re going to look back and you’re going to be like, oh yeah, remember when that happened? Sometimes you are going to have profound experiences in your life, but maybe feel profound when you’re writing them down. But might not the realization that might not come for 20 years and all of a sudden you’re like, yeah, remember that?

And sometimes it’s things like, I remember when Grace was born, we had so many miraculous experiences. And my dad said to me, you have got to sit down tonight and you need to write those all down because you’re going to forget. And I vividly remember thinking at the time, no, there is no way I would forget any of these things. Like they were so impressed on my heart and my soul at that time because they were like clearly evidence of the Lord working in our life.

And I put that out just a couple of years ago and read through it. And I just was crying because there were several things. Grace, what is she now? Twenty one several things from that experience that I, I had completely erased from my memory that were so sweet and so tender. And had I not written them down, they, they wouldn’t we wouldn’t remember any of those things. So you have moments like that. But then we’re going to talk about this awesome one that Joseph writes down and people actually carry in their pockets for years.

And it doesn’t come to be realized for many, many years after, but so often that somebody thought to write it down when it happened.

Right. Right. Oh, and you just as you were talking about that, just made me think of something. And then I thought, oh, this is this. You might think to yourself, I just started twenty one years ago when my kids were born and written things down. But if you didn’t, what what is so remarkable is God is just as active today as he was in your life twenty years ago. And so you haven’t missed out.

I just wondered. So again today in eighty five, the rest of eighty five, he just Joseph addresses the problems and starts speaking to them. It’s kind of interesting. He kind of goes back and forth between almost him speaking and then sometimes for the Lord he’s speaking. So you get both bits of advice as you go through, which is really interesting to kind of consider. But there’s this prophecy. Eighty seven. We’re going to skip over to eighty seven for just a minute and we’ll go back.

Yeah, worth that. We won’t miss eighty six where this is called. It’s a revelation on what’s it called on war and something I miss where it is that I’ve written down. You’ll find it and you’ll be here to this revelation of prophecy on war.

Oh yeah. Right at the top. There it is right here. It should be right now. He received this is interesting because it comes on Christmas, which seems such a strange. Yes. Revelation to get on Christmas Day here. It’s kind of like normally on Christmas, you’re kind of like not thinking about wars and, you know, you’re in love. Oh, good thing he’s. Oh, no. I think like for the dinner, I don’t even like the piece.

He’s a goodwill to man. I was trying to think of all those which made me think today when I was reading this again, like his spirit must have been so troubled that he was spending so much time pondering about like pending war and troubled like things can wait until December. Twenty six normally, like everything, get put on hold on Christmas Day, but not it must have been so pressing on him that he said, wait, why do you think about that.

And things were going on at the time. There is this cholera outbreak in the world, things that were happening in India that you have in the United States. South Carolina had declared that they want to secede from the union and there was a big standoff between the two of them and between Andrew Jackson and the state of South Carolina over taxes and and stuff like that. And so it’s so like on his mind on Christmas, when everyone else is eating pie, he is thinking about war and he writes down in what’s now section eighty seven, this prophecy on war.

And we have this spot on your on the journal where you can write down kind of like what actually comes in. This is only eight versus long and he just kind of says essentially wars are shortly to come to pass and they’re going to begin at the rebellion of South Carolina and that is going to eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls. That’s going to trigger, it says, a time when war will be poured out of all nations beginning at that place, the southern states will be divided against the northern states.

They’re going to call upon other nations like Great Britain to come be a part of this verse for after many days, slaves will rise up against their masters like it’s a very, very specific prophecy about what we now know is the civil war. Right. And very clear on it now, first, you may have thought, well, of course, he could have said something about South Carolina because like South Carolina was being a but right at that time, you know, they were kind of I couldn’t think of a nicer way.

Sorry about that. Oh, sorry. You remember the family, our friends at our word who called me brother. But, you know, it’s like, why are they doing that? And because we’re not allowed to say, but I’m sorry, South Carolina is being a bum bum. And they were like already kind of rebelling, but that trickles off. It like goes away resolved. The results like that is that’s back in eighteen thirty two. But the prophecy was, was still written and he still wrote down and like no, something’s going to start in South Carolina and it’s going to bring in other nations and it’s going to cause the death of a lot of people and it’s going to be over the slave issue.

And and this is what’s going to happen. And you wonder how many people like when this happened in eighteen thirty two, waited and saw what was happening and kind of got on board. And then when it all kind of fizzled out, were like, huh. Well he didn’t know what he was talking about. You love when we want to tell you this from Awesome Pratt’s point of view because it’s so interesting to watch what happens. That prophecy came in eighteen thirty to the civil war does not begin until eighteen sixty one.

So remember, we’re terrible at math. This is the home of thirty years from the time that was given thirty years. Everyone thinking how long that is like. I will be eighty two in thirty years from right now which is like so long. If, if President Nelson said something and then I might probably forget he even said it by thirty two years or thirty years for your birth story. So forget that.

And I love this, that there was this revelation on prophecy and where that comes and or some crap. No one printed it but awesome. Pratt wrote it down and he carried it in his pocket. Remember we told you about this earlier, that in those days when people were leaving on leaving on missions, they didn’t have scriptures they could take with them. So if they wanted to take a revelation with them, they would have to go over to the prophet’s house and hand write it down.

And then they would carry those with them and teach them to people when they went. And then those people would write them down. So everyone kind of was carrying these scriptures in their pocket and or some prat carried this handwritten copy and it says he frequently pulled it out and read it to people during his travels. And then he went on a four thousand mile mission. Can you imagine for several years, he went to Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York and England and Canada, and he converted one hundred and four people.

And while he was there, he would pull out this prophecy. So he read it all over in Canada and Britain, in the United States, and he would travel and preach and talk about it. And it’s so interesting because in the beginning, it might have seemed like people would be like, well, you don’t need a prophet to say there’s going to be a problem in South Carolina. We see the problem in South Carolina. But what happened is as things calm down, Orson says this as a general thing, the people regarded it as the height of nonsense.

I love that. That’s how he describes it, saying the union was too strong to be broken. And he said people would tell him you had been led away by an impostor for carrying this with him and continuing to talk about it for these years after while they cooled down, everything cooled down in eighteen thirty two. And Orson said this. I still knew the prophecy was true, for the Lord had spoken to me and had given me revelation, which let’s just talk about this for a minute, because I think it is so awesome that when the prophets spoke and and gave that prophecy and said it out loud, I love the Orson’s character or his nature was to pray and say, are these words true?

Right. He received his own revelation about the words of a prophet, which makes you have to sit and think, when was the last time you did that? And have you received a confirmation lately about what President Nelson is talking about and teaching and and telling us from the pulpit? Do you take the time to kneel down and say, Heavenly Father, will you give me my own confirmation? This is true and how important that is?

And I want to bring in the scripture back in eighty five into that, because when Joseph is trying to solve that problem in section eighty five, he uses these words in verse six and he says thus at the still small voice which whisper through and I love that it’s just like you all like the doubt and confusion. All of the people saying, no way, Jose, you know, everything’s happening. He said the spirit whispered through all that and it pierced through it.

And he says, oftentimes it makes my bones to quake while it made manifest, which is such an awesome, like description of, you know, being impressed upon, you know, just all those different phrases. And as you were saying that about awesome. Like, I don’t necessarily so much like after a conference, like kneel down and pray. But I do try to listen with that prayerful heart that says, like, just make me quake, you know, when something or whisper through, whisper through, whatever.

I may be thinking opposite of this, get through Pierce through to me and kind of confirm that that truth in me.

Yes. I love that so much. So what happens is and there’s this fun timeline on here. So you want to start watching this timeline. It’s going to go through right here because just before Joseph dies in April 2nd. Eighteen forty three. We’re going to jump ahead just for a second, because you can’t resist it in Section one thirty. He actually restates this prophecy again. So this is ten years later. Like, people are like, no, that’s why are you still on?

That was over. Everything’s fine now and everything got fixed. And he says this I prophesy in the name of the Lord God, that the commencement of the difficulties which will cause much bloodshed previous to the coming of the son of man will be in South Carolina. I am in Section one thirty. For those of you who are wondering where I went, I’m reading verse 12 and 13. He says this. I love this part two four. I’ll tell you why in just a minute.

It may probably arise through the slave question. This a voice declared to me while I was praying earnestly on the subject. December twenty fifth, eighteen thirty to. So ten years later, he’s still thinking on this prophecy. Well, it’s interesting because nothing happens. Nothing happens. And then an eighteen fifty one Joseph dies.

That’s the twenty seventh right there. So it’s not with us anymore.

In eighteen fifty one for some reason or some Brandt decides to publish it in England. He’s over in England and he’s like I just like we should publish this prophecy. OK, this is eighteen fifty one. It’s been 20 years now since that prophecy happened. He works and gets it printed and then a decade after that in December of eighteen sixty South Carolina votes itself out of the United States, then other southern states soon did the same. And then on April 12th, 1861.

So thirty years later we decided. Right. Twenty nine years later, the cannons opened fire on the United States for Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and South Carolina, thereby started this bloody war that would last for years and claim six hundred thousand lives is so crazy to me that it took three decades for that prophecy to come to fulfillment. And the awesome carried it around in his back pocket the entire time. Just knew that was going to happen. And then this is so awesome that printed prophecy had circulated far and wide.

And so when the war broke out in April 1861, twenty eight years after it was pronounced, the Philadelphia Sun, Mercury newspaper carried a lengthy article that was entitled A Mormon Prophecy. And then they said, We have in our possession a pamphlet that was printed in eighteen fifty one in Liverpool, and it talks about the Civil War prophecy is what they called it, and then it said it. If this prediction seems to be in progress of fulfillment right now as we’re watching everything that’s happened, whether Joe Smith was a humbug or not, it’s because of that we don’t know.

But this really is happening. And then at the very end, they printed the whole prophecy. They talk about the events that seem to be filling every part of it. And then this is my favorite part in the conclusion it said this sentence. Have we not had a prophet among us? Oh, I think that is so awesome that there just was this moment where they were like, too much of this is right for him to have got it wrong, which makes you now have to question what their prophet among us.

And we didn’t respect the power that he carried with him. And it makes you want to just look at our own life right now and and think that same thing. Is there a prophet among us right now? And is there a prophecy you are carrying in your back pocket right now? Just before we push record, we both were like, OK, let’s. Try and think of prophecies that have been fulfilled in our lifetime that we can think of there would be similar to this, and this might be something fun to do with your family, and particularly if you have people that are older than us, because I think it would be so awesome to go back further and just think, what are the prophecies that have taken place in your lifetime and some of the ones that we thought of her so far?

Yeah, so one was when Lorenzo Snow was prophet, there were only four temples in Utah and that’s when he prophesied 1899. The time will come when there will be temples established over every portion of the land. So, I mean, that’s nuts to think about for. Yeah. In 1899. Yes. To say such a bold thing back then, it’s just like, wow. Especially when, like, the church was not financially very well off at the time and just like, whoa, remember they were like look at that deep like debt and financial problem.

Another one when Jenny and I were at BYU, Hawaii, went to school via Hawaii, we they had this parade that they celebrated for the PCC, the Polynesian Culture Center. For 40 years. They’ve been there something. And and in the parade, there was this one float and they had these people that were like the guests of honor for the float. And it was I was kind of like so I looked into exactly why, who are those random people and why were they there?

And and I found out that when President McKay dedicated the land for the PCC, he said it was in a spot that everyone was like, you are crazy. Nobody comes up this country bumpkin place. And he was like, no. One day, millions of people will come through there and prophesied that back in the 60s and 50s. And and so at the parade, they invited the thirty million guests, you know, to be in the parade as a sign of, like, prophecy fulfilled.

Oh, that is so awesome. And sometimes the prophecies are super fun like those are we talked about remembering in our lifetime when President Hinckley gave that talk to the boys and to the man and just a warning voice of preparing for what was ahead. And that we did watch that the fulfillment of that that financial downfall and the struggle that we all went through and that he had given us a warning just before to prepare our homes and our families for that. And then we talked about if there was a prophecy you were carrying in your pocket right now, what would it be?

And, you know, maybe it’s from President Nelson or maybe it’s President Monson or maybe it’s President Hinckley, but maybe a prophecy that hasn’t been fulfilled yet. But that just spoke really strongly to you when you heard it. And I right off the bat was like, oh, I know exactly which one it is for me. And many of you might have had a similar experience when President Nelson was called as a prophet and stood up and gave his first address and said it will not be possible to survive spiritually in coming days without the guiding, directing, comforting and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.

And I can remember that exactly what you talked about, that quaking, that like this spirit moving through me of how crucial it was for us to be able to have that influence of the Holy Ghost. In fact, from that day forward, I started praying that our family would have an increase of the Holy Ghost by name, each of my children, that we would have an increase of the spirit with us daily. That’s a daily and sometimes twice daily prayer for me.

So I don’t really have that prophecy in my pocket. It’s in my prayers.

Use your phone then it would be and you could have it in your pocket.

But it’s in my prayers, right? It’s that daily. I’m just carrying it with me because I don’t want to lose any of us, you know.

Yeah. In that same talk, same paragraph, even there was this line that was kind of that impactful for me. We said our savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ will perform some of his mightiest works between now and when he comes again. We will see miraculous indications that God, the father in his son, Jesus Christ, preside in majesty and glory. And it’s like that to me is something so fun to watch for. Right. Really, some of his mightiest like I can think we’re about to study Old Testament, right.

So I could think of some pretty mighty things that they have done and these miraculous indications. And it makes me want to just think, in fact, what I did, I was kind of joking about the foam, but not really because like, I made I just recently put my patriarchal blessing saved onto my phone so that I could carry it around with me and I could kind of pull it out because, I mean, there might be like there’s these general prophecies, but there are promises in all to scripture and personally that we really hold on to and put in our pockets.

And there might be days when they are not. Coming to fruition that you might say that’s a failed prophecy or the height of nonsense, or you are the victim of an impostor, those lines people said awesome. And he’s like, no, I felt it. And I’m going to keep it in my pocket until I watch the fulfillment of this. A majority of us are waiting for prophecies and promises yet to be fulfilled. And this is a great section to give us hope to like, oh, keep him in your pocket.

And one thing that I think is important that we learn from this and it might be fun to move toward now is as you’re talking about that is he felt profit or was this a false prophecy, is to watch this working of revelation in Joseph Smith? Because I think sometimes we want a prophet like we’ve created in our mind what a prophet should look like and a prophet should get the revelation and he should get it right the first time. And if he’s speaking to God, then it should be the revelation and it should be correct, you know.

Yeah, that’s the big revelation should work. We’ve kind of created that. And it’s interesting.

That’s a fax machine that is like that is the fax machine prophet when in reality you start watching Joseph and we’re going to see it twice within these chapters. Right. He’s going to start talking about that in eighteen and thirty two. Well, keep going with that thought. Maybe just that. Oh no, you’re right. Oh, I was eighty six. The idea of we have an expectation of what a prophet should be and when they don’t match that expectation, we’ll get upset or say there’s something wrong when it when in reality it’s like wait.

Instead of like trying to see if a prophet matches your expectation, why don’t you just watch what a prophet does and let that become the definition of what a prophet is?

You know, that’s so good because it think about watching him go through this revelatory process starting in eighteen, thirty two, and maybe he even was like, is that right, you know. Yeah. Like everything is fine now, but he, he received it and then ten years later it’s like I was going to check on that and make sure that’s still right and still received more revelation. Right. He wrote it back in there. Again, this is this is still going to happen.

And this is what I’m thinking now. I love when he uses that word that he’s like, but perhaps I think it might be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You’re like watching him, like, work through this process of receiving revelation, which I was with a group the other night. We were talking about this and I was like, is it OK for a prophet to have to work through Revelation? And it was so interesting. There was a really long pause in that moment. And I think we really do have to come to terms with we are watching in the doctrine and covenants a prophet that is working through this process and receiving revelation, much like we do where he’s he’s learning and he’s writing it down, and then he’s going to come back and check it and then he’s going to work on it again.

And that is what. Yes, I was going to say that’s what we love about eighty six. It’s we’re going to watch this process happen again.

Well, and really think you could get in the spot where like you can a prophet work through. Can they say I think or it seems and you could have some people it’s like no, that’s not what prophets do. And you’re like, well, actually the scriptures paint a very, very different picture of what prophets do. So I don’t know where you got that idea that they don’t do that or that they are like fax machines. Like if someone painted that picture for you or said it to you in your eleventh grade, you know, Sunday school class.

Sorry, but that wasn’t the accurate picture of now, because all through scripture, you see prophets going back and going back and going back to try and get it right. I’m sure they wished that. I mean, you think about Muhammad Mary, I come here had that one moment when Jesus came and appeared right in that moment, you know, how many days before that he was trying to figure out how to make rocks, you know, do you think he was like, could you have come at the bottom of the mountain instead and been like, this is going to be super easy, just do this.

But there is something about the Lord loving effort, you know, and and I don’t think life is meant to be effortless. I don’t think it is. I think some of the greatest miracles are going to require the most engagement and going back and working it through and getting it right. And there is something about effort that humbles us and refines us. And I think that’s really important. And I love it. In eighty six, it’s reminding me of that line you wrote about your dad and your post.

What was it just about that lesson you learned from him about there’s something about hard work.

Get your fingernails and. Yes. And all. Yeah. That there is something. A feeling about cleaning out the garage on a Saturday morning, everyone we just knew on Saturdays when we woke up, my dad just give me a ride. But you know what? They need to get started. Did anyone else do that? And you just were like, I just did something. And I think the father is the same where he’s like, you know what?

Mormon out 16 stones from a rock. You you put some effort in that. You do that because and then carry those 16 stones up the highest mountain you can find. Because when you get up to the top of that mountain, you know, we always think the miracle was the light in the stones. We think that was the miracle. The miracle was actually Jesus appeared to Maharey more hankamer. That’s the miracle. And I think to myself, if if the effort is going to allow me to see him in the flesh, I choose the effort.

Mom and I, every time I think about similar stories to that, I also think the miracle is who somebody became in the process where God’s like, I don’t I didn’t want to be Wikipedia to you. I didn’t want to be the answer, man. You know, I wanted to be a father. I wanted to be an exultant. So that was my intention all along, was not to give you an answer. Like, I’m not a trivial Benke.

Right. I have them, but I want to give you something. Yeah. I’m an experienced giver, not an answer giver, cuz that’s so good and that is so true.

So Eighty-six is this section. It’s about a parable from the New Testament, the wheat in the tares. What’s interesting about this is this is Joseph second time through the New Testament working on the GST.

And it’s funny I wrote. Oh, and then he has another one later. Yeah. Oh yeah.

You have him. Yeah. It’s fun because he did this Matthew 13, the first time in the spring of eighteen thirty one. And then we get here to section eighty six. It’s December of eighteen thirty two. It’s eighteen months later and I love it. But he received revelation on the wheat and the tares in the spring. Right. And he wrote it down. He, he had written it down because he was going back over that revelation and revising it, which I think that’s really important.

Like somehow we have got to wrap our brains around the fact that revelation can be revised. This right here points to that truth.

Right? Right. And he adds additional insights to it. And it’s neat that it’s right in the summary thing, which is the Lord gives the meaning of the parable, the wheat in the terrace where it’s like really the Lord’s adding additional commentary onto this parable before in Matthew Thirteen, it seemed to be about individual people. Now in section eighty six, it’s about almost like dispensation. It’s like the history, like the parable is being reused for a different like lesson, you know, or a different use.

And and some new details that happened in here, particularly the one that says, oh, that wheat is going to be gathered up first before the cleansing of the earth. And that’s when you don’t find originally in Matthew thirteen but a new one. And he’ll go back and add it later.

But which I love because first you have the Matthew Thirteen, then you have Joseph going over it in the spring of eighteen thirty one, then you have him revisit it again in December of eighteen thirty two and actually he will revisit it again in December of eighteen thirty three later in the doctrine and covenants will come to it again. But also remember Wilfred Woodruff in 1894 is going to come back and revisit this, and when he’s speaking to the temple workers excursion, he’s going to say those angels that we talked about in 1860 are in section eighty six that had not been released have actually been released.

Now, he says in 1894 that you love that the Lord is like here, let me give you a base in Matthew. Thirteen. What year is that. Thirty two eighty or whatever or thirty one. And that is like Joseph. Let’s revisit that in the spring of eighteen thirty one, not to mention anyone else who revisited it, you know on the way. Yeah. And then again in eighteen thirty two. And then we’re going to revisit it again in eighteen thirty three and Wilford Woodruff is going to revisit that thing again in ninety four.

And I love this thought of revisiting revelation and this ongoing restoration. That’s the church we signed up for. Everyone is ongoing restoration which means don’t get super comfortable with anything. That’s what it feels like to me. You know, restoration requires sandpaper. In most cases, right, it requires change. It’s not comfortable, restoration is not comfortable, and I love that the Lord in the Doctrine Covenant is like watch me work with people who sin. Right?

We just did that in sixty four. Watch me work with people who sin because I’m restoring those people just like I’m restoring this church and this revelation. It’s going to be messy work, but it’s going to grow you right. It’s going to be your sticks and stones to the top of the mountain. It is going to be that for every one of you, because in the end, hopefully, we’re going to come to know the voice of the Revelator.

Yeah. And and this it could have been about anything, but it’s just neat that this particular revelation that we’re learning all these lessons and just happens to be about the we in the terrors, which you remember in the original parable that the Lord’s trying to teach and say like, oh, you know, this enemy is coming and sown all these weed like like tear seeds in here. And they’re growing up with the Lehi. And in the beginning of wheat and tear’s growing process, they look almost identical to each other like it would be impossible to see because these are from I brought back with me from Israel.

This would obviously be the wheat and this is the tears. And look how similar they are to each other. I mean, unless you are right on top of them, if you just came up to a field, they’re just so similar.

Yeah. And that’s even them like a little bit older. Yeah. Right. Where they start to look a little different and because they look so, so similar to each other initially. And and it’s just the idea that he’s trying to teach that just like, wait, don’t call something a wheat or a tear because things need time to develop and they need time to grow up like protheses do. Also, prophecies are like people in that way. Right.

It’s just like let before you call something wrong or before you call foul on something, hold on. Because like you might be confused, like it might have not had time to fully develop yet. And that’s just a really, really neat parable for him to come back to as we’re learning these lessons. Just that concept of, um, hold on, if there are promises God has made to you, you know, in the early stages of development, you don’t want to call it out and say it’s X, that was actually a terror.

You know that it didn’t work. It was wrong for my life because it might end up being wheat and might end up being what carries you in, nourishes you and keeps you alive. It might be what was evidence of God’s growing. I mean, planting and growing and then sowing like. So just give it some time and give people time.

And and I love when he says at the beginning of or at the end of this just what you’re talking about there, that he’s like, listen, you you just continue in. My goodness. And I love the thought of that, that he’s like, don’t don’t get so caught up in things. Don’t worry if it’s a failed prophecy, don’t think about what that other the victim of an important thing. So you get all caught up in the nonsense.

I love that there’s a lot of nonsense going on at this time. Right. There are things who people were saying, not just the prophecy, but a filled prophet. Right. Is the language of what is happening at the time. And I love when he says to them, here’s what’s going to differentiate the weak from the tears in this time period is continue in. My goodness, he says, and I love that word continue because it’s like just abidin it dwell in it endure in this goodness, right, to stand here as a white unto the Gentiles.

And I love the thought of that too. Just that what are we meant to be doing in this time, in the time when people are talking about fellow prophets and all of the nonsense, you could accidentally get caught up in all that you could. But I love that he’s like or you could illuminate, you could shine, you could make manifest the work of God on the earth. You could choose to be that instead. And then I love when he says this.

And it’s almost like what you were talking about with the spirit, because he talks about through the priesthood, through this priesthood, through these ordinances, through the power of God, come down from heaven. You will become saviors unto my people. Right. You’ll become help and rescue and succor and the defenders and the deliverers of people who would not know Jesus unless you brought him to them. And I just I love the thought of you can either be the tear.

You can and you can get caught up in the nonsense and the Feld’s prophecies or the Felde prophets, or you could abide and dwell and endure and continue as someone who illuminates and shines and makes manifest and helps and suckers and delivers and defends and and all of these things as we gather Israel. And when you think of both which do want to be at the end of your life, and I think I want to be someone who carries properties in my pocket, that’s who I want to be.

Yeah. And someone who finds sunflowers and just sees like, oh, I can continue in his goodness. And that is because his goodness is very prevalent and very present among us. So.

Yeah. So good. See you next week.