i'm taylor and i'm tyler this is book of mormon central's come follow me insights today doctrine and covenants sections 10 through 11. a quick message from the production team we experienced technical difficulties with the audio track on this episode and we apologize for the audio quality if you are having trouble hearing we recommend that you turn on the subtitles by clicking on the closed caption button please enjoy as we jump into the scripture block today i want to give you a big picture symbolic overview of what we're going to be covering this is a variation on a pre-mortal theme what you have is god who establishes his work who sets things up who prepares a plan for us to be able to progress to become like him where he can empower agency in the process we have opposition so satan fights against everything that god prepares trying to destroy or overthrow his work and his work is to bring to pass the immortality and the the eternal life of man and and of all of us so it's fascinating in these sections to watch what satan does to try to thwart god this being who knows everything who is not bound by time who has all power and all love and all glory how satan tries to destroy that and in the process some pretty bad things happen and you think oh no this doesn't look good but at the end of the day god says now we're going to proceed with the plan in an even better way than than you thought before so we've seen this pattern in heaven at the instigation of the war in heaven we saw it in the garden of eden we saw throughout the the mortal ministry of jesus we've seen it in the lives and the ministries of of prophets and saints throughout the ages where satan fights against the work of god but in the process god's work always prevails and goes forth according to his plan not according to the devil's efforts now to clarify satan may win an occasional battle here or there along the way but god wins the war every time the overall the overall uh war let's jump in section 10. uh if you look at the section heading it says that it was a revelation given to joseph smith the prophet harmony pennsylvania in the summer of 1828 that's when it it seems to begin but it spread out over a longer period of time as this revelation unfolds because as you'll remember this section section 10 goes hand in hand with section 3 with the losing of the 116 pages of manuscript from the bookworm translation that martin harris assisted in bringing forth and then subsequently lost notice verse 1 now behold i say unto you that because you delivered up those writings which you had power given unto you to translate by the means of the urim and thulmum into the hands of a wicked man you have lost them it's interesting to see how god refers to this this phrase a wicked man throughout section 10.
uh interesting because martin harris is still going to become one of the three witnesses to the book of mormon he's still going to finance the publication of the book mormon it's interesting because the lord seems to be using the term here wicked man to imply somebody who is doing what he wants to do rather than what god wants to do trying to thwart the work from moving forth now notice the effect that that had on joseph verse 2 you also lost your gift at the same time and your mind became darkened brothers and sisters every time when we go against whatever it was that god has decreed or laid forth for us to do anytime we go against that and think we're smarter or we have a better idea or a better plan to move forward it causes this stupor of thought our mind becomes darkened we we don't have the capacity to carry forth our work like god has the capacity to carry forth his work so notice the contrast verse 3 opens with the word nevertheless remember nevertheless puts a greater emphasis on what's to come not on what came right before so here's this mind darkening example in verse two but in spite of that look at what gets greater emphasis verse 3 it is now restored unto you again therefore see that ye are faithful continue on unto the finishing of the remainder of the work of translation as you have begun i love that that god puts the nevertheless emphasis that the always the greater emphasis on basically saying joseph i forgive you learn from that mistake learn from that struggle that you faced and move on go forward build up the the the work build up the kingdom with faithfulness to my commandments and and in this covenant connection that i have with you look at verse four do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you to translate but be diligent unto the end do you get the sense that joseph has been a little anxious maybe a little impatient with himself in the timing trying to to translate the work at a faster speed than maybe god had intended for him to have to translate it he's saying just don't run faster and you have strength the means will be provided for you to do the translation little does joseph know at this phase that the lord has been preparing oliver cowdery to come down very soon and become his scribe late in the spring of 1829 to do the bulk of the remaining translation work and then you get the famous verse five pray always that you may come off conquer yea that you may conquer satan and you may escape the hands of the servants of satan that do uphold his work at which point the savior transitions in section 10 into this section where he's describing to joseph he's revealing to joseph from a heavenly perspective let me describe to you exactly what satan did and is trying to do with those pages of scripture and satan thinks he has won a a big victory here but i'm going to show you that the wisdom of god is much greater than the craftiness and the deceptiveness of satan to try to overthrow the work because god's in charge this is his work remember in the book of mormon ii 27 he's going to say on two occasions in that section i am able to do mine own work and i think that's what we have going on here is god reminding us i got this i i am able to do my own work i can do this so here's the cunning plan okay look at verse 10 satan has put it into their hearts these people who got a hold of the manuscript to alter the words which you have caused to be written or which you have translated which have gone out of your hands and then once they've altered them they're going to wait for you to re-translate them so then they can publish side-by-side with your your re-translation they're altered words and say see he's not a prophet this work is is a fraud from the from the get-go some of you are probably thinking to yourself wait a minute how could a group of people honestly think to themselves let's take these manuscript pages and alter it and then publish it in hopes that he retranslates again like he had here so we can show that he's a fraud what what rational human being would do that without stopping to say wait a minute we're the ones being the fraud here because he just translated it again why would you do that the simple answer is that one of the techniques or tactics of satan is to get people to lie in order to overcome somebody else's perceived lies it's this idea of the ends justify the means it's okay for us to be deceptive because this person is is being deceptive and this person is trying to lead people astray perhaps even by the power of the devil oh the irony is thick here as they are being inspired by the devil to do this while claiming that somebody else is doing that power or doing what they're doing by the power of the devil not terribly unlike what some of the chief priests of the people are going to say to jesus in the new testament well you're performing these miracles by the power of the devil so they're they're going to feel like anything they say or do against him is completely justified because this guy is clearly of the devil uh yeah the irony irony is thick as it as it unfolds here so let's focus on two things here for just a moment let's talk a bit about satan and who he thinks he is but who he truly is and the word destroy we actually through these verses like verse 6 7 8 9 there's the word destroy shows up quite a bit but let's begin first with the word satan satan is a hebrew word that just literally means adversary um and the verb here actually means to turn so he's actually trying to turn us away from god in fact uh the word verse comes from the same word because in the ancient past when they would write they would write this way and then they would turn and go this way and so you'd be turning as you'd read from line to line so the word ver here means to turn so the adversary is trying to turn us away from god but also if you think about a legal context the adversary is the one who brings the lawsuit and the accusation okay so satan is trying to accuse us trying to get us in trouble with the law i love this god is the judge [Music] he also is our advocate and he is the law so let's imagine for a moment jesus who's given his life away for us he has purchased us with his blood he's the law he's the advocate he's the judge what chance does this adversary have of convincing the judge who also is our advocate in the law that somehow we should be turned away towards him satan cannot win the cards are stacked in our favor totally now in our modern day in a democratic world we actually have separate people in each of these categories and sometimes comes into conflict there is no conflict with god he is everything here and so if we choose jesus christ and the sacrament is our opportunity on a weekly basis to declare that we have chosen jesus the adversary has no power he cannot turn us aside we will always win now let's talk about the word destroy for just a few minutes it's an interesting word it literally means to strew things around so imagine a building that gets all the pieces of building gets strewn around now the kingdom of god god is building the kingdom he's putting structure into his work in fact the word instruction or instructor comes from the same word in fact so does the word instrument it's the same root word well let's take look at this what's the work of satan to strewn everything around to just throw it out so it's all disorganized god's work that we see all the way back in genesis where he organizes instead of destroys god's purpose is to bring structure and order in fact the ordinances bring order to the world god's ordinances reveal his orderliness so he gives us instruction through the law he sends us instructors prophets and apostles and he provides instruments of salvation consider we talk about the ordinances or the scriptures all these words of structure are found here are also related to the word the word strews right there but satan's work is to do the opposite of god's work and as we noticed and we talked about satan cannot win he cannot win against god because we have everything with god he is our law he is our advocate and our judge and he will be a very merciful judge though just he will be merciful and grant us everything that we have access to because of the merits of his son isn't that fascinating to notice then like taylor's saying satan's efforts to destroy all of these things satan hates scripture and he does everything he can to destroy it to rest it to twist it to repurpose it he hates the the people who god has chosen to be his mouthpiece to to spread the word so what does satan do he puts on them his own attributes they're lying they're deceiving they're they're trying to build up their own kingdom all these claims that the devil makes against uh god's servants through the ages and he does everything he can to keep people on ignorance with uh avoiding uh study and learning from your faith and from from learning from other people teaching notice to to clarify this look at verse 19. this is what these men who have changed the writings on those 116 pages said therefore we will destroy him and also the work and we will do this that we may not be ashamed in the end and that we may get glory of the world fascinating they thought this is this is we're we're going to become famous we're going to we're going to get the glory of the world we're going to destroy this work that's of the devil so to speak look at verse 20 verily verily i say unto you that satan has great hold upon their hearts and he stirreth them up to iniquity against that which is good and their hearts are corrupted full of wickedness and abominations and they love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil therefore they will not ask of me in other words these people doing this they're not praying and asking god what should we do with these words they love the darkness more than the light and then the savior gives joseph this little caveat after discussing all of the plans that have been laid by the devil to trap these men and in the process to trap to try to trap joseph look at verse 27 and thus he satan goeth up and down to and fro in the earth seeking to destroy the souls of men very reminiscent of a verse in the old testament that shares a similar concept here look at verse 28 very very i say unto you will be unto him the lieth to deceive because he supposeth that another lieth to deceive for such are not exempt from the justice of god in other words jesus is teaching a principle here that you don't return contention with contention darkness with darkness lying with lies violence with violence it's not his gospel his gospel is to do good to those who despitefully use you to be kind and pray for those who are persecuting within reason now that doesn't apply to somebody who's being abused but you understand that the principle here is satan is going to try to use these techniques to destroy us and we shouldn't use devilish techniques to push back the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of the devil we should use heavenly techniques uh look at verse 33 to finish off this section of of revealing the devil's tactics thus satan thinketh to overpower your testimony in this generation that the work may not come forth in this generation so just like in the sacred grove when satan sought to overpower joseph and prevent this this restoration from even beginning now he's trying to do it with the coming forth of the scriptures and he's going to seek to do it with coming forth of the church and with the coming forth of the priesthood and the coming forth of spreading the mission or the gathering of israel through missionary work satan is there at every one of these junctures doing everything he can to stop the work from progressing in this generation and i love the fact that uh what taylor pointed out god's work isn't going to be stopped in the process i might be stopped if i choose not to align my will and my heart with him i can come to naught but the work of god will go forth boldly nobly and independent of all these efforts that the devil and and the earth may throw at or against the work now clarification look at verse 34. this is beautiful he says behold here is wisdom and because i show unto you wisdom and give you commandments concerning these things what you shall do show it not unto the world until you accomplish the work of translation joseph don't make this widely known i'm going to show you some wisdom but you're going to keep this kind of closely guarded oh and by the way you'll notice that once the translation process begins joseph has learned a lot about the powers of godliness and the powers of darkness he he's he's experienced a lot of opposition as this work has progressed and you'll notice that he's learned some practical things too never again is joseph going to be stuck with just one copy of the translation you'll notice from here on out you're going to have an original manuscript and then you're going to have a printer's manuscript you're going to have a backup you're going to have a second copy right there so that you're never stuck with only one version like we had with the 116 lost pages look at verse 35 marvel not that i said unto you here is wisdom show it not unto the world for i said show it not unto the world that you may be preserved joseph i'm i'm giving you this direction that you may be preserved now let's pick this up in verse 38.
now verily i say unto you that an account of those things that you have written which have gone out of your hands is engraving upon the plates of nephi you'll notice we have the plates that he's been translating from that are called the plates of mormon these are the plates of mormon uh somewhere between a half to two-thirds of those plates are sealed we don't even get to to translate those they're sealed for a later time so all you get and we're told that they're about six inches by six inches by eight inches roughly you ever take an inch you get a little bit of variance in in people's judgment of how big they are but that's all you get so if a half to two-thirds are sealed we're only translating somewhere between two to three inches worth of the stack of plates total including the 116 lost pages so these are referred to as the plates of mormon and now what is neath or what is joseph being told you're going to engrave those things which are upon the plates of nephi notice verse 39 yey and you remember it was said in these writings that a more particular account was given of these things upon the plates of nephi verse 40. now because the account which is engraven upon the plates of nephi is more particular concerning the things which in my wisdom i bring to the knowledge of the people in this account therefore you shall translate the engravings which are on the plates of nephi down even until you come to the reign of king benjamin until you come to that which you have translated which you have retained now let's make something very clear here it seems probably that we have on this uh set of plates you have a small collection of plates called the plates of nephi they're not exactly the plates of mormon they're not written by mormon interesting let's go back open let's let's get context here open up your book of mormon to first nephi chapter one first nephi chapter 1 way back at the beginning on the plates of nephi verse 17 here's nephi saying but i shall make an account of my proceedings in my days behold i make an abridgement of the record of my father upon plates which i have made with mine own hands wherefore after i have abridged the record of my father then will i make an account of mine own life so you have the book of lehi the record of lehi and nephi just told you before i give you my own life i'm going to give you an abridgement of the writings of my father lehi you can see the abridgement that nephi makes in first nephi chapters one through nine this is first nephi chapters one through nine that is nephi abridging the book of lehi look at the very last verse of of chapter nine in first nephi at the very very bottom line it says and thus it is amen there's a closure here there's an ending point thus it is amen now check out chapter 10 verse 1. and now i nephi proceed to give an account upon these plates of my proceedings and my reign and ministry wherefore to proceed with mine account i must speak somewhat of the things of my father and also my brother so now he's no longer in abridgement mode he's now giving you his own story moving forward interesting now to make to make sense of what's going on here you have to throw one more uh piece of information onto the board go up to or go over to second nephi chapter five go over to second nephi chapter five look at verse 27 so here we are second nephi chapter five start in verse 27 came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness and 30 years had passed away from the time we left jerusalem okay so it's been 30 years since we left the the home in jerusalem and i nephi had kept the records upon my plates which i had made of my people thus far and it came to pass the lord god said unto me make other plates and thou shalt engrave in many things upon them which are good in my in my sight for the prophet of thy people brothers and sisters what you have here is it's been 30 years we've been in the americas for over 20 years at this point and nephi has already established a large collection of plates the the large plates of nephi and now the lord after 30 years he's done all of this work god says nephi make another record but this one's going to be small okay much smaller than what you've already done and you're only going to include on those plates the things of your soul the things of deep spiritual import not all of the other details that you put on the on the first set you'll notice verse 32 i engrave that which is pleasing unto god and if my people are pleased with the things of god they will be pleased with mine engravings which are upon these plates and if my people desire to know the more particular part of the history of my people if you want all the grindy details they must search mine other plates oh and by the way verse 34 and it suffices me to say that 40 years had passed away and we'd already had wars and contentions so from verse 28 to 34 you get a 10-year span from 30 years to 40 years out from jerusalem it makes it sound like in that 10 years nephi has gone back and he's telling his story again the second time but he's leaving out most of the detail that is the history of the people and he's giving you the stuff which is pleasing to the lord and the fascinating thing is god isn't telling him why he's just telling him he needs to do it and nephi being mr i will go and do the things which the lord has commanded he's just doing it he doesn't understand why now isn't it fascinating that the large plates they are the record they become the record of the kings the history the official record of the nation of nephites passed down through a kingly or royal line and it gets big the king's record is going to be large there's going to be a big collection of plates included in that and it's going to proliferate out and get big whereas this smaller record is the record of the prophets passed from nephi who was a king passed this down to the kings but he passed this one down to his brother jacob and then on to enos jerome omni until you get to the very end of this really small record and the malachi the prophet there in omni says i i don't have any posterity to pass these on to so i'm going to give them over to the king at the time his name is benjamin king benjamin's got lots of records he'll know how to keep these safe and they're full it's all done so into this huge repository of the big collection of plates called the plates of nephi goes this small account that is so small and simple that it would be really easy to completely overlook and ignore and not even notice quite frankly among the record of kings and the history of the people and it gets stuck in the repository it seems and perhaps forgotten for a long time until mormon comes along and if you turn over to words of mormon go to words of mormon chapter 1 verse 3.
here's mormon uh in the fourth century a. d so we're almost a thousand years after nephi made this second copy notice what he says verse three now i speak somewhat concerning that which i have written for after i had made an abridgement from the plates of nephi down to the reign of this king benjamin of whom a malachi spake i searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands and i found these plates which contained this small account of the prophets from jacob down to the reign of this king benjamin and also many of the words of nephi brothers and sisters you've got this huge collection of plates with all these the the large plates of nephi and he's at the point where he's already abridged the whole story from lehigh all the way down to king benjamin on the large kingly record and at that point is he searching among the plates in king benjamin's reign lo and behold he finds this small collection which is exactly where king benjamin would have put it in with the records of the kings that he is making at the time and mormon pulls out this small record and he reads it and he says wow this is really good stuff but he's already abridged the entire record from lehigh down to this time on from the bigger plates so here he is here's mormon in the 4th century a. d holding this small collection having either read through it in great detail or at least enough to know this is amazing look at what he says verse in in verse 6 behold i shall take these plates which contain these prophesying revelations and put them with the remainder of my record for their choice unto me and i know they will be choice unto my brethren now look at the reason he gives for why he's doing this verse 7 i do this for a wise purpose for thus it whispers me according to the workings of the spirit of the lord which is in me and now i do not know all things but the lord knoweth all things which are to come wherefore he worketh in me according to his will brothers and sisters what we have here is in 1828 joseph and martin losing 116 pages that represent mormons abridgement of the book of lehi all the way down to halfway through the reign of king benjamin we lost all of that that abridgement in 1828 god knew that was going to happen so what does he do in 5 5 60 bc he goes to nephi and says i need you to make a second record and what does he do with mormon in the 4th century a.
d he has him find this small record of the prophets that's all in first person there's no abridgement on the small plates everything in first nephi through omni is i nephi i jacob i enos i germ it's not and it came to pass that nephi did this and jerome went here and a malachi said this it's all first person mormon didn't abridge it he just took it and he included it with his record in some way shape or form god knows what he's doing and he knows the efforts that satan's going to make to thwart the work and to try to overthrow the plan and he has things in place thousands of years in advance in some cases brothers and sisters if god will do that for scripture don't you think he would do that for his children don't you think he'll do that for you yeah yes satan is fighting against you but we have to trust that god has things in store in place to preserve us to move forward to be able to accomplish his purposes that his kingdom will roll forth in in our own life and in our own families according to his purposes if we'll just trust him and not uh and not give up or lose hope or lose faith and grow weary on the path okay now back to the doctrine and covenants section 10 verse 43 i will not suffer that they shall destroy my work yea i will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil and then he tells joseph they will have only got a part or an abridgement of the account of ephi mormon's abridgement and by the way that was mormon's first attempt that we have record of of abridging scripture it was nephi's first attempt to write scripture and many of the pr the kings rather after him who wrote and that doesn't go live and it was also joseph's first attempt to translate and so now god's saying look at verse 45 behold there are many things engraven upon the plates of nephi once again not the plates of mormon not mormon's abridgement we're back to these small plates of nephi there are many things engraven there which do throw greater views upon my gospel therefore it is wisdom in me that you should translate this first part of the engravings of nephi and send forth in this work and then he says and behold all the remainder of this work does contain all those parts of my gospels of my gospel which my holy prophets ye and also my disciples desired in their prayers should come forth unto this people it makes you wonder doesn't it if mormon read those small plates of nephi the record of the prophets that didn't need any abridging it makes you wonder if as he read through the words of nephi on the small plates and the words of jacob and enos and those other prophets if what what degree that affected him in his subsequent abridgement which we do get live in the book of mormon the book of mosiah the book of alma helaman third and fourth nephi and then the book with his own name mormon where he's focusing on the points of the gospel that are the most important as described here notice if you come down to verse 52 52 now behold according to their faith speaking of these prophets in the in the book of mormon who looked down the quarter of time pleading with god to preserve these words according to their faith in their prayers will i bring this part of my gospel to the knowledge of my people behold i do not bring it to destroy that which they have received but to build it up that which they have received could refer to the bible it could refer to these other teachings that have come to them and he's saying i'm not giving you the book of mormon and i'm not giving you modern scripture to destroy that which you've already received i love the phrase that president hinckley used on multiple occasions when referring to this kind of uh of approach he said our message to the world is bring all of the good that you have and see if we can add to it our missionary effort is not to go out and destroy and tear down what people believe in order to then teach them from the ground up it's to find out what spiritual experiences they've already had what connections they've already made with heaven what powerful feelings they've already acquired by reading the scriptures and by praying and then assure them that we invite them to bring all of that and see if we can add to it and president hinckley said we're confident that we can there's a fullness of the gospel in the book of mormon and in the doctrine and covenants that enhances what they already know and love and appreciate about that which they've already received in the bible and another in other christian traditions notice he says verse 54 i do not say this to destroy my church but i say this to build up my church remember it's satan who's the one who wants to destroy it's satan who wants to strew around and tear up and break up it's god who wants to take every good foundation you have and build on it and increase the foundation in the process as well look at verse 55 therefore whosoever belongeth to my church need not fear for such shall inherit the kingdom of heaven that's peculiar knowing that this section is given between section between 1829 and or 1828 and 1829 it's interesting to see jesus speaking about his church in the present tense notice again verse 55 therefore whosoever belongeth to my church need not fear the church of jesus christ isn't going to be officially organized until spring of 1830 a full year and and some away from when most of this is being given notice he refers again to his church in verse 67 behold this is my doctrine whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me the same as my church it makes you wonder doesn't it is is his church more widely defined at certain levels than just the organization called the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints which isn't going to be organized for another year or is he just speaking in the prophetic perfect tense of speaking of future events as if they've already happened that's possible or is it possible that something that uh elder dalaine jokes at the time now president oaks but when he gave this talk at byu-idaho called witnesses of god he he said something i think very profound when referring back to something in the dream or sorry the vision of nephi in verse nephi 11-14 where it speaks of their save only are there only two churches the church of the lamb and the church of the devil he said the church of the lamb is to paraphrase him he said it's anyone who believes in god and lives their life to the to the best of their ability according to the light and knowledge that they've received and the church of the devil is anyone who fights against god and a belief in god if that's true now section 10 makes a lot more sense that anyone who believes in god who is repenting and coming to him the same as his church and there are degrees of the church of the lamb that that god in heaven is willing to grant to people on the earth degrees of light and knowledge and truth to the to the capacity that they can receive it and act on it without being condemned so what is our message that might be unique among all of the the churches in the world that that believe in god are messages that we offer a fullness of the gospel of jesus christ with his priesthood authority restored to the earth to perform ordinances that he established for salvation these aren't man-made and to carry forth the the words to every nation kindred tongue and people and to gather israel on both sides of the veil not just through our missionary work but through our temple and family history work as well that's what we're that's what our message to the world is bring all that good that you have and see if we can add to it is the gospel amazing i love the doctrine of covenants and i love god's plan he just has built it out over the centuries with all these prophets and in our day we get to see how all is flourishing and being brought to pass let's return to verse 49 15-51 and remember that the righteous that lived in this land before in the americas prayed to have the gospel go forth and here's what they said now this is not all their faith in their prayers was that this gospel should be made known also if it were possible that other nations should possess this land so there are many nations now possessing the americas and thus they did leave a blessing again these are the righteous prophets who lived in the ancient americas they did leave a blessing upon this land in their prayers that whosoever should believe in this gospel in this land might have eternal life the book of mormon came forth to share that gospel so anybody in the americas and anybody in the world who believes the gospel as revealed in the book of mormon can have eternal life verse 51 very interesting yea that it the land might be free unto all of whatsoever nation kindred tongue or people they may be notice it doesn't say the book of mormon will come forth in a free land it says if you believe the gospel it might be free unto the people who believe the gospel so if you want freedom you live the gospel you don't wait for freedom to bring forth the gospel the gospel brings forth freedom and again this is important verse 51 says that the land might be free unto all of whatsoever nation kindred tongue or people they may be if back in verse 50 they believe in the gospel so when we want freedom in this life we have to trust god we have to accept the gospel as revealed and we have to live it we can't simply claim i have it i'm part of the church therefore i should get all these blessings you actually have to do something we have to live the gospel and then we will be free so to finish up section 10. let's go back to verse 63 for a second this i do that i may establish my gospel that there may not be so much contention we live in a world where people are fighting over all kinds of things all kinds of ideologies and approaches to politics and life in general notice he says satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention concerning the points of my doctrine and in those these things they do air for they do rest the scriptures and do not understand them uh one of the things that he's revealing here is the same doctrine that he taught the nephites when he first arrived in the americas don't contend he says if you contend you're you're giving in to the temptations of the devil because he is the father of contention that's not of me notice he then says i'm going to unfold unto them this great mystery for 65 for behold i will gather them as a handgathers or chickens under her wings if they will not harden their hearts ye if they will come they may and partake of the waters of life freely i love that his message of the gospel is this open invitation these raised wings that you can come and gather underneath his wings for protection it's free it's open to all nobody's denied and uh he tells you that is his doctrine now on to section 11 when samuel smith come down from manchester new york down to harmony with oliver cowdery shortly thereafter joseph and oliver had been visited by john the baptist and received the aaronic priesthood the ability to baptize samuel had been baptized by oliver he goes home to to manchester up by palmyra and he shares with the family this this great news well hiram smith the now the oldest brother in the family because alvin passed away he died back in 1823. now alvin's or now hiram says i want to go down so he left immediately to go down to harmony and he shows up late in may of 1829 and he is excited to assist in the work and to do whatever he can now you'll notice in chapter section 11 the verse 1 through 9 are basically with a couple of punctuation mark changes and a few words two words here or there changed it's the identical copy to section six verse one through nine which was given to oliver cowdery so the lord is using very very similar almost identical words to hiram but hiram gets some additional stuff that is relevant and applicable only to hiram not to oliver uh in that context so notice there's a there's a thread here that flows through section 11.
look at we'll pick it up in verse 6. now as you have asked hiram you've asked what can i do to help what can i do to build up the kingdom here's the answer i say unto you keep my commandments and seek to bring forth and establish the cause of zion seek not for riches but for wisdom don't try to get rich but try to gain wisdom notice verse 9 say nothing but repentance unto this generation keep my commandments and assist to bring forth my work according to my commandments and you shall be blessed go down to verse 18.
