2.309 The God of My Fathers...Shall Deliver Me

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello my friends.

It's great to have you with me. Today let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. If anyone on earth had reason to complain, do you think Joseph Smith might have been one of them?

We're reading this week Doctrine and Covenants sections 125 through 128, as well as 3 Nephi chapters 24 through 28. We've been playing a little bit of a little bit of tennis back and forth. We're going to jump back into Doctrine and Covenants today and take a look inside of Doctrine and Covenants section 127. 127 and 128 are kind of interesting because these are letters or epistles, but basically letters written from Joseph Smith, the prophet, to the saints.

And so while we typically are recording direct revelations or the word of the Lord, what we get in sections 127 and 128 are Joseph's words to the saints, right? So he's writing these letters to them. And inside of it we get, at least in terms of scriptural reasons here, we get a view that we don't typically get in Doctrine and Covenants, and that is the inside of Joseph Smith himself.

We certainly can see his own kind of thought processes and whatnot in the Joseph Smith Papers. But in terms of Doctrine and Covenants, most of the Doctrine and Covenants is just direct revelation as recorded by Joseph. So it's kind of an interesting perspective.

I love what he has to say inside of here. We're going to get to the main theme of Baptisms for the Dead here before the end of the week. But I wanted to share this one.

It is a bit lengthy one, but it's such an interesting perspective, because think about Joseph Smith for just a second. He, we know he was brought before false judges. Well, not that the judges weren't false.

He was brought forward with false accusations time and time again. He spent time in jail without any charges being brought, right? He was beaten.

He was tarred and feathered. I mean, he's been through the wringer. Ever since he shared publicly that he had seen our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ.

And so you kind of wonder, like, what was Joseph thinking? And we do get a little bit of that image in Doctrine and Covenants 121 with Liberty Jail, but you still have the rest of his life and all the other challenges he's faced. I think 127 has an interesting verse for us to see the perspective that Joseph has.

Let look at verse 2 here. It says: "The wrath of men have been my common lot all the days of my life, and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained from before the foundation of the world for some good end, or bad as you may choose to call it. Judge ye for yourselves.

God knoweth all these things, whether it be good or bad. But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in. It all has become a second nature to me, and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation.

For to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth. For behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it." Man, do you just get fired up inside of this? This is a little bit, this is a different feel than Doctrine and Covenants 122, where we hear the Lord telling Joseph Smith that all these challenges are going to be for your good.

Now we have Joseph Smith kind of getting a different perspective on the perils and challenges that he's facing in his own life. And I love some of the phrases in there. He's kind of stopped saying.

But I know God knows it. I love that part. And then he, like, "Look, maybe I'm just supposed to swim in the deep water, but I'm going to glory in the tribulation because it gives me an opportunity to remember that God is going to be able to deliver me." My friends, our tribulations can be very difficult sometimes.

We may lose sight of the love of our Heavenly Father. We may lose the ability to feel of His love through the Spirit for a time. Thank you for joining us today.

I hope that each of us can remember in our challenges that the Lord is there and loves us and will pull us through. That's all for today my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice.

Cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt. We'll see you next time.