Hey there everybody. Welcome back another podcast of Redeem Through His Blood. Scott Durfey here along with the illustrious David Durfey. What's up buddy? Nothing illustrious about me. Everybody that knows me knows I'm not. That's one thing I'm not. Yeah, but everybody that knows you sure does love you. Illustrious is not a word I would want or use to try. I like to throw curveballs like that at you every once in a while. Just see how you're going to respond.
So far you've been able to hit every one of them. How are you? I'm good. Oh well. Good. Oh well. Looking forward to talking about repentance and getting into the, putting some meat on these bones. Well I think we kind of started with some meat on the bones last week as we talked about the power of faith or the faith of power and which does lead us right into this next topic right? The repentance. Yeah, absolutely Scott. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and then repentance.
So I don't know where people are. How many you know, you never know. We get new listeners probably every week and this is again kind of the heart of it. But I don't necessarily think it's the most important part of this whole course, but it is kind of the heart of it.
Because the reason this whole course came about and was created was because of stake presence coming to us at the Institute and requesting help on helping young adults to repent, is there a course that you can develop or teach that would help our young adults to repent? That was the cry and the request from good priesthood leaders.
So together with others, I put together this course and Salih got it approved and I began, I was assigned and began to teach it and it was called repentance and forgiveness. So for someone to take this course called repentance and forgiveness, Scott, they either had to be really, really humble and some of them really were. Some of them, I wasn't worried about their salvation. I mean, you could tell they, I mean, really it was some of the best kids took this course.
Some of the kids probably who you would think or many would think needed to repentance the least are the ones who took it the most. I know from experience that sometimes those of us who need it the most are going to avoid that. Yeah, exactly.
And so anyway, but there were others who came who were assigned to come by their priesthood leaders or who really fell to need and who were at that point in time in their life who had maybe hit rock bottom and were really trying hard to repair and breach their relationships, demand their relationship. And a lot of them took it because of the word forgiveness. They weren't only seeking forgiveness, but they were wondering how they could forgive others.
And so this became kind of the heart of the course because they would always ask, when are we going to talk about repentance and forgiveness? We have spent how many podcasts episodes on identity and the fall and the atonement of Jesus Christ and then faith. We've done two or three podcasts on faith alone. That's right. This will be, you know, throw a couple of interviews in there that we've done. This will be 23. This is our 20, I think, 22 or 23.
So it's saying there's 23 episodes to get to the heart of the course, which is repentance and forgiveness. But we're there. I just want to state again, the obvious probably, that you can't just repent without kind of knowing who you are, your need for a Savior and Redeemer, what the atonement of Jesus Christ is, what it was and how much He suffered and how did I cause it. If you don't really understand the atonement of Jesus Christ, it's almost silly to try to jump in to repent.
But I know a lot who do. I even know of lots of bishops who just go right to the steps of repentance. And I know one bishop reported this. So I want to just begin with this story from a bishop in a young adult stake at BYU, which he shared many years ago. Anyway, I won't share his name, even though it's written up in the church magazines.
But he shares this story about when he was a bishop and he was really struggling with members of his young adult ward who would come and confess their sins to him and want to repent. And then they would talk about repentance. They would talk about what they needed to do and all the steps of repentance. And then two or three weeks later, they'd be right back in his office confessing all over again the same sins.
They would talk more about repentance or repeat what had already been said about repentance. And then two or three weeks later, they'd be right back in his office talking about repentance again and about the same sins over and over and over again. Individuals spinning their spiritual wheels, not being able to make progress. And he said he was really feeling, he really got discouraged.
And he began to fast and pray about this like, what can I do to help these, these wonderful, beautiful young adults? And he just felt like he was failing as a bishop. And after much prayer and fasting, he said it was one day where he was just kind of happened to be serendipitously reading the articles of faith. And his eyes fell to the fourth article of faith. We believe that the first four principles and ordinances of the gospel are first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it was like it was pulsating off the page first, first faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it just struck him like a ton of bricks. Wow. I have been trying to put the second principle of repentance before the first principle of faith in Jesus Christ. And he said he began to, it completely changed his approach to helping young adults to learn how to repent. And you can't have faith in Jesus Christ, of course, if they don't understand the atonement of Jesus Christ.
So he started to talk about Jesus Christ, the atonement, how to exercise faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement. And he said what he witnessed was miraculous that individuals, once they had faith in Jesus Christ God, they really began to make not all, but markedly, it was, it was so much different and so much better and their repentance was so much more efficacious and effective because they were doing it based on their faith in Jesus Christ.
So I have come to this conclusion in my own experience, personal experience with repentance and my family's experience and others in the church who I've helped in as a bishop or in stake presidency or other callings, especially at the missionary training center as a branch president trying to help missionaries to repent. I've come to this conclusion, Scott, that I believe is, is true and without exception.
Anyone who is really spinning their wheels, anyone who just keeps repenting of the same sins over and over and over again. Keeps committing the same sins over and over and over again. It's not because they're not repenting, perhaps, but it is always because they lack sufficient faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the power behind all repentance, at least effective, efficacious repentance.
A lot of people are going through the motions, a lot of people are studying repentance, a lot of people are trying to, how can I get the Atonement of Jesus Christ in my life without really understanding the need and the power of faith in their life. So I just, we've talked a lot about faith and we needed to because there is no repentance without faith and we haven't read this scripture yet, Scott, to kind of connect the two as we make this transition.
But let's go to Alma chapter 34 and this amazing discourse. Again, this is an amulet, Alma's trusty missionary companion and they're teaching the Zoromites and trying to help those needies, Zoromites who've been cast out of their synagogues to understand Jesus Christ and how to build faith.
In Alma chapter 32, right, Alma spent a whole chapter and 33 on faith and how to plant the Word and the Word was Jesus Christ and Him crucified and how to plant that in their hearts that they might have faith. And now Amulet follows up and look at what he says. I really love this, this connection and this phrase is unique in the Book of Mormon, faith unto repentance. Notice how many times he uses that in these verses, Scott, verses 15 through 17.
And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name. Did you get that? Yeah. Believe on his name. Believe on his name. Not just believe in him. But believe on his name. There's a difference. Right. I don't know about that. Okay. Yeah. And that would be worth reviewing for those of you who want to, you know, go back and pick that up in our last episode. There's a difference between faith in Christ and faith in the name.
There's a difference between believing in him and believing on his name. Anyway, I just hope our listeners will become more sensitized to that. And starting at 15. And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name. This being the intent of this last sacrifice to bring about the bowels of mercy which overpower justice and bring it about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.
There is no repentance that is true repentance that is not preceded by faith in Jesus Christ and believe on his name. Okay. Verse 16. Repentance, mercy can satisfy the demands of justice and encircles them in the arms of safety. Love that. I absolutely love that. Arms. The imagery of being encircled in the arms of safety.
Repentance and mercy satisfy the demands of justice and encircle them in the arms of safety while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice. Therefore, only unto them that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption. Therefore, may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name. I just call upon him.
But his holy name that he would have mercy on you. Okay. I think Amuelik uses the phrase faith unto repentance four times in those three verses. And I really love what he's saying by using that statement. Faith unto repentance. That should be our emphasis. Is learning of Christ and being able to exercise faith in Jesus Christ and in the name of Jesus Christ, faith in the name that we might be able to now repent.
And once an individual has sufficient faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his Atonement, Scott, it's amazing really how speedily one can repent. But it's the faith unto repentance that we should focus more on than the steps of repentance. But I don't even like that phrase steps of repentance. That was developed years ago in the church. And I don't think that's the way it works. It's not like checking off a list. And we're going to talk more about that in the next podcast or two.
So in helping others teach that course and the thousands of students who took it and then helping Elder Anderson in his book called The Divine Gift of Forgiveness, I had done a survey several times and then I had compiled all of these. And there was definitely a pattern as to why young adults found it hard to repent. I would ask them to tell me why your friends are unwilling to repent or what makes it hard for them to repent. That's a good, safe way to pose that question.
So they would tell me all the reasons why their friends and family, based on their experience, their own personal experience, I'm sure, why they found it hard to repent. Well I had quite a list and I had sent these all up to Elder Anderson and kind of the results of my survey. And he captured some of them in his book here. This is on page 121 of his book, The Divine Gift of Forgiveness.
So let me just throw this out, hang it on that page, but The Divine Gift of Forgiveness is now the curriculum book for that. Yeah, this is the student manual. That's the student manual. Worldwide. So the course that David was just referencing that David actually wrote and was approved and is now being still taught is no longer called Repentance and Forgiveness, it's called The Divine Gift of Forgiveness. Yeah, based on the title of his book. Exactly.
So this is the same institute class that Deb and I have had for the last few years, the privilege of teaching also at BYU now. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. So here's some of the reasons that people find it hard to repent. I don't think I can do it. My friends will desert me. I have sunk too far to change. My mistakes aren't that bad. There are others a lot worse than I am. I don't want to tell everything. I don't want to be embarrassed in front of others. What would my bishops say?
I can't just start doing better. The past will go away. I don't fully trust those who want to help. With willpower, I can do it myself. I'll change later when my life is different. I have to do this by myself. And here's a few more. If I try and fail, I'm worse than I am now. And you know, that was a big one actually. There were so many who said, well, I'm afraid that if I'm trying to repent, I'm not going to be able to quit sinning. So it's just going to make it worse.
That's based on a myth that we have taken from Scripture that all former sins return. And we think that sins stack up and they get worse and worse and worse and worse. And a lot of them, they weren't going to repent because they didn't want their sins to come back. They made them another mistake. They didn't want to be more accountable. Anyway, and the details that I, here's another one. The details that I will need to confess will be too disappointing to those who I love.
Well he's reworded some of those, and there were several more. But here was the pattern that Elder Anderson and I both observed when we discussed the surveys that I had taken. The pattern was that there were two major reasons why people would not repent. Fear and pride. And that's why he chose to call this, I think I called this chapter when I was working out of the roadblocks to repentance, but he did a much better job. He calls it the twin bullies preventing repentance.
Elder Anderson is really amazing and a genius when it comes to this sort of thing, presentation and appealing to the young people. So the twin bullies of repentance that keep us from repenting are fear and pride. So maybe we should just talk about that for a minute, Scott, before we jump into the process of repentance itself and how we can help ourselves, our families and listeners to kind of understand how these two things keep us from repenting. And you have an initial thought on that.
Actually, I'm just going to make a comment. I think Elder Anderson has a really kind of a cool little video snippet that goes along with his lessons. In fact, you can find this curriculum as part of the LDS library at LDS.org or whatever. And I'll try to remember to go ahead and attach that. I think it's literally called the twin bullies. And I'll see if we can get that in. Watch for that in the show notes.
But this part as we start moving into repentance and the process of repentance, I know that from personal experience, this can be a spot where maybe we get a little tripped up, maybe we get a little anxiety that starts rising up inside of us. Maybe there's some fear and definitely some pride sometimes that does start coming up.
And I would just invite us that as we go through this episode and subsequent episodes to this as we address this to put all of your preconceived notions about what all of this means to set them aside for a minute. You can come back to them if you want to later, but just put them aside for a minute and maybe explore the possibilities of the wonderment and the beauty of the things that the doctrine of Christ really sets forth for us as it relates to repentance.
And I think that that can help our experience here if we're able to do that, Dave. Yeah, thank you. And thanks, Scott, for using the term doctrine of Christ. We are really, I've been meaning to, to, to, uh, that's a term unique again to the Book of Mormon, the doctrine of Christ. And, and that's really where we're at.
We're in the middle in our, we're in the middle of discussing that doctrine of Christ is faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. And so we're, that's what we're going to be talking about for the rest of this course, really, is for the whole rest of this, this season, we're talking about the doctrine of Christ.
Yeah. One more thing to, I would, I would encourage all of you, all of us to gain a copy of the Divine Gift of Forgiveness by Elder Nill L. Anderson. It's available in all of the church bookstores. And I think it's actually available in many of the other bookstores, Barnes and Noble and, you know, things like that as well. And certainly online, not expensive, it's paperback.
I know that there's very little, if any, profit being taken just because this is Elder Anderson's way of putting out these important principles and making them available to as many people as possible. But we'd encourage all of you to gain a copy of this and make it maybe part of your own spiritual study. Well, I know Elder Anderson is really pleased by the way the book is being used in the church, in the Institute, also by bishops, priesthood leaders, state presidents.
I know that, you know, many of them have been encouraged to share it with individuals who are seeking to repent. This was Elder Anderson. That was really his vision. I remember him sharing early on his vision, again, the faith and eye of faith of a prophet, seeing this book being used by bishops and bishops having several copies in their office. And I know that's happening. I have bishops come up to me quite frequently and tell me, hey, I love the podcast.
I love how it supports what we're doing with the divine gift of forgiveness. And so I know that that's actually happening pretty extensively, actually. Yeah, so that's really sweet. Scott, fear is, I think I've shared my story before and this maybe isn't the place to share it again. But Satan controls and manipulates us through fear. I think of all of his tools. This is the greatest tool that maybe he has is fear 127 times in the scriptures.
Old Testament, New Testament, all the holy scriptures 127 times. I went through every verse that either had the word fear or afraid in it. And we are commanded 127 times to fear not or be not afraid. It shuts us down. Fear keeps us from strengthening our relationship from God and from our relationship from Jesus Christ and from progressing. Right. And it's one of Satan's greatest tools. I mean, over and over again, we're commanded fear not, fear not, fear not.
Even in that scripture, we keep referring to over and over again in this course. Look unto me and every thought will right before that. The Lord commands Oliver Cowdery through Joseph Smith, this doctrine coming six, to fear not. And then he repeats it. Doubt not, fear not. He says that twice in those verses and Peter walking on the water, be not afraid. Fear not, it's throughout all of the standard works that we should not be afraid and we should not fear.
It is a, perhaps a sign that we lack sufficient faith in Jesus Christ and our faith in Jesus Christ certainly helps to overcome fear, but the ultimate antidote for overcoming fear is I think found in Moroni chapter eight verse 16 given by Mormon here in the middle of the battle in which he's losing all of his people, all of his armies. And you would think that of all people who would be afraid or fearful, it would be Mormon.
But listen to what he writes to his son in a letter in Moroni eight verse 16. Well, be unto them that shall pervert the ways of the Lord after this manner of rith, for they shall perish except they repent. Behold I speak with boldness having authority from God. Now here's the point. And I fear not what man can do for perfect love casteth out all fear. A prophet has no fear. I mean, I'm sure they are tempted by it, but a prophet has no fear.
Mormon had no fear because his fear had been swallowed up in his perfect love. Perfect love casteth out all fear. And that perfect love is no doubt the gift of charity, the pure love of Christ. How do we get that perfect love? Well, Moroni teaches us that in Moroni chapter 7, right?
Yeah, verse 48. Verse 48. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with his love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ, that ye may become the sons of God. That's interesting. That's how we become the sons of God, right? That when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, that we may have his hope, that we may be purified even as he is pure.
And that's actually Moroni again quoting or paraphrasing or teaching his Father's teachings. Those are the same teachings Mormon shared with him. So Mormon has told us perfect love casteth out all fear. That's also in the Bible, in the epistles of John. And then he says, we may obtain that love, that perfect love, pure love of Christ's charity, by praying with all energy of heart. I've experimented with that over the years, Scott. How to replace fear. I know that every day I feel fear.
I believe every day all of us feel fear. I believe it is part of our daily mortal lives. But to let it settle in on our minds or hearts and give seed for it to grow. That's where we need to be more aware, be more mindful. I think there are so many people who are controlled and manipulated by their fears. If we don't recognize it, if we don't even identify it, we can't overcome it.
So I just encourage our listeners to be really mindful when they are feeling fear to pray with all energy of heart, wherever they are. Immediately, as soon as you identify fear, this is what I've experimented with, I pray with all energy of heart, silently, out loud, wherever I am, depending on where I'm at. And with all energy of heart, you can't have in your heart perfect love and fear. They cannot coexist. And perfect love is the antidote for fear.
So I think it was President Oogdorf when he was in the first presidency, I think, that gave an amazing talk on that. I learned that after being called to be a patriarch because I was so filled with fear, it just shut me down spiritually. I think you should share your story. I think maybe I have, but anyway, just briefly, I'll just briefly. You know what I was called to be patriarch. I was told, what do you tell a patriarch to prepare? And there's no handbook for patriarchs.
They just told me, well, don't give any blessings until you're ready. As much time as you need to get ready. I didn't know really what that meant, but I was trying. But I found myself getting further away from the spirit and said, closer to the spirit. And I was trying to hide this. I was having this kind of internal battle. And to be honest, I don't want to sensationalize this, but I was really just looking back at it. I was attacked by Satan.
I think he can attack us in many different ways and I was attacked by Satan and maybe most patriarchs are, I don't know, but I was not myself and my wife, I thought I was hiding it, but my sweetheart Chris called me out on it and she told me one day, David, why are you so on re ever since you were called to be patriarch, you've been on re. What's wrong with you? Well, I knew there was something wrong with me, but I didn't know what.
So I said, Chris, I gotta just go away for a while and try to figure this out. I just got to get out of here. So I was, I didn't know if that would be days or how long that would take me. It only ended up being hours. I didn't, it was, it was hours.
I went away on a long drive and I ended up in some parking lot weeping and I grabbed my scriptures with me before I left and I was going through the scriptures and I found this scripture that just completely flipped me, changed me and it's a revelation given to the Whitmer brothers through the prophet Joseph Smith. I think it's doctrine, covenants section 30 Scott and if, well, maybe I'll read that here. I think it's more appropriate that you read this one.
Well, it's to David, you know, he starts out to David Whitmer and when he, when I read the name David, it got my attention. I thought God was really speaking to me and he was in these verses. So I'll begin in the doctrine, come in section 30 verses one through three. Behold, I say unto you, David, that you have feared man. As soon as I read that, I knew that was my problem. Yeah. Really, I was terrified to be it, to be someone who would have to receive revelation for someone else.
I can't even imagine. To be someone who declares their lineage, who, I mean, it just, and we talked last episode about seeing with an eye of faith, you really have to be able to see with an eye of faith when you're in that position. It's so interesting when I prepare to get patriarchal blessings. But I literally close my eyes and try to receive a vision of how God sees them past, present, and future and how my prayers are answered by that revelation, vision, imagination of how God sees them.
And so it's powerful. But I knew that was my problem that I was afraid. Behold, I say unto you, David, that you have feared man and have not relied on me for strength as you ought. That was my problem. But it goes on.
But your mind has been on the things of the earth more than on the things of me, your maker, and the ministry, where unto you have been called, and you have not given heed unto my spirit and to those who were set over you, but have been persuaded by those who might have not commanded. Wherefore, you are left to inquire for yourself in my hand and ponder upon things which you have received. Oh, wow, well, that was life changing for me, really, Scott. I knew that my my problem was fear.
I'd been attacked by fear. It had shut me completely shut me down from filling the spirit. I had been completely left to inquire for myself, which is in and of itself really scary. And and so I began this search on on fear and looking up every verse and trying to trying to understand it and and understanding that it is part of mortality. It's part of being a fallen mortal human being. We all feel it every day. But we have more control over it, Scott, than I think most people would believe.
Fear is a primary emotion, I'm not a psychologist, but I've had a lot of experience, you know, working, you know, with folks myself. Yeah, I read that. But fear is a primary emotion. There's a couple of primary emotions and fear is one of them. And a lot of the other emotions that we experience that we attribute to being problematic in our lives really go back to fear. You know, those of us who are, you know, control freaks, that's fear, fear of what?
Fear of things not turning out the way we think that they should. Right. Fear was the one for me that would became, you know, so such an important understanding. You know, I dealt with a lot of anger, a lot of my life. And I still have to kind of work on that, you know, but I understand it differently. And I've shared this before too.
But the way that I came to the understanding of that, David, was one day I was, you know, with a I had maybe I don't know how many years, several years of recovery, you know, being clean and sober, I had been back in the church, I had been rebaptized, I was in full fellowship and I was really loving my covenant keeping and really working hard to stay on the covenant path. But I really had this anger problem, you know, it, I won't get into all the reasons as to why.
But you know, they had a little bit of an anger problem and I'm sitting with my sponsor, not a member, he's past now, big ally for he forever will be an important role model, mentor, spiritual guide in my life. But we're sitting in a, actually in a coffee shop, because that's where he liked to meet and, and we sat down and I, and I opened up to him. I said, you know, I'm just so consumed with anger all the time. I have a real problem. We talked a little bit about it.
And I, and again, I've shared this before, but he said to me exactly this. He says, Scott, you don't have an anger problem. You have a fear problem. You're afraid. And you know, once I was able to understand that, and now today, anger still comes up. But when anger comes up today for me, I don't try to figure, I shouldn't say always when I'm doing the right thing.
And when I'm in tune, I don't always look for what somebody else is doing wrong, but I'm looking inside of myself saying, okay, what fear button is being pushed here? What am I afraid of in this situation? And when I do that, then I, then I feel a portion of the spirit reenter my life. And the atonement again begins to take its take place of the atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of it again begins to take over in my life and cleanses me of that fear.
Yeah. Well, I learned that for myself, Scott, that my, that my anger was almost always inextricably fear-related to some fear. Yeah. I, again, I could share specific experiences related to that. But all of us should be come more aware of how fear controls other emotions and actions and choices in our life. And the brethren and the Lord have told us that we can control our fears. Elder Benner gave a whole talk on that called hush your fears in general conference several years ago.
Elder Anderson refers to it in that in his chapter on in the book, but we can, we can overcome fear. We can't stop it. You can't stop fear from coming into your life as part of life, but you can replace it. It has to be replaced. It can't be stopped. It flows into our lives. Satan can bring it into our life just as he brings temptation into our life. If he can cause us to think fearful thoughts and go to places where we shouldn't go.
And all of a sudden we get ahead of ourselves and we began to imagine these terrible, fearful things because of the, the world and the challenges that we all deal with every day. Then he's got us. I think one of my favorite all time quotes.
And I actually think somebody quoted this recently in general conference Scott, but anyway, it's, it's Elder Scott and I'll just paraphrase it that trying to fill the spirit of the Lord when we are controlled with inappropriate emotions such as fear, pride, lust, jealousy, anger, envy, he goes through several inappropriate emotions, trying to fill the spirit of the Lord when we are filled with inappropriate emotions is like trying to savor the flavor
of a sweet grape while we are chewing on or eating a jalapeno pepper. You can't feel the spirit of the Lord when you're filled with fear. And you can't feel the love of Christ or God or the power of his atonement in your life when you are filled with fear. I also think Scott fear leads to pride and I think, I think fear and pride are actually connected. They're, they're both, I think a evidence of, of some insecurity.
Pride is usually when I, when I really feel pride, it's usually because I feel insecure, which is the result of being fearful that I'm not good enough or not measuring up or that I have to act like something that I'm not or be something that I'm not or look better than I am or whatever. I think, I think pride and fear are actually usually connected. So pride is, I know the antidote for pride is humility.
Then I know that humility comes about best by, you can again choose to either be compelled to be humble. We've talked about this because this, this is humility is also not only overcomes pride, but it's also the predecessor that precedes faith in Alma chapter 32. Again, is great chapter on faith. When he tells the Zoramites, I'm glad you're compelled to be humble, but it would have been so much better if you would have become humbled by the word. It is the word of God, the word of Christ.
It is, it is the word, the word is Christ and to know Christ and to see Christ suffering for our sins, to see Christ and not to compare, but, but to see where we stand in relationship to him is very humbling. Right?
So the, the, the, the really the, the antidote to overcoming pride is humility and humility is best obtained when we again with an eye of faith see our Savior, see his holiness, his goodness, his love, his mercy, his grace and also his suffering and what he was, what he loved us so much. He loved us so much that he was willing to suffer for us. It's humbling. So the antidote for both of fear and pride is, is love, love of Christ and faith, faith in Christ.
As we overcome fear and pride, then we're ready, I think, and willing to move forward in repentance. Yes, you know, you made a comment about, you know, the anecdote of fear being one again, the anecdote of fear and pride being faith and, well, it's love, faith and humility, love, faith and humility. And, and, and, you know, and I want to just put some emphasis on faith, you know, faith and fear have a really difficult time existing in the same person.
Faith in the Lord Jesus, faith in the right place, right? I mean, we talked about several episodes ago and, and through the last several episodes that we can have faith in a lot of things, but faith in the Lord of Jesus Christ and fear really cannot exist in the same place. Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, fear brought up. I don't know how many times, 47 times or something like that, just in the, just in the general text.
But on page 68, it talks about fear as part of an inventory and how that we see as we take our personal inventory, how fear has ruled our lives. And then it states, and I'll just kind of paraphrase it, but we think that fear should be classified with stealing. It seems to cause more damage. Coding from Elder Bednar's talk. Yeah. On hushing our fears. He says, can we hush the fears that so easily and frequently be set us in our contemporary world?
The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes. Three basic principles are central to receiving this blessing in our lives. One, look to Christ. Two, build upon the foundation of Christ. And three, press forward with faith in Christ. That's it. So hushing our fears is the first step to really being able to cast out our fears and then developing the perfect love that casteth out all fear.
It's so important that we spend enough time here for us to really understand that we're not just brushing through this fear, this fear topic, this fear concept. This is universal. I think a whole course could be taught on this one thing. Yeah, several courses actually. It could really benefit all of us to learn how to be number one, more mindful. There you go. So that we recognize and identify our fears because I honestly, I didn't even know.
I had no idea how long, I mean, I was 50-something years old when I was called to be a patriarch and I realized that most of my life I had been controlled and manipulated by my fears. Me too. Fear of losing, fear of losing out, fear of not appearing the way I want to appear. Fear of missing out. I had been so controlled and manipulated by fear that it was really humbling to me. In fact, it broke my heart and I became super sensitized by it so that when I feel fear, I know I have a choice.
I think we all do really when we become mindful and we can either let it stay or we can focus on Jesus Christ. And have faith in Him. And when we have faith in Him and we are filled with His love, when our hearts are filled with love for Jesus Christ, fear can't exist. Yeah. Now I used an example of anger. That was maybe the predominant overriding fear-based emotion that was controlling my life. But that's not the only one.
I don't want to go in a prescription mode and say, hey, if you're feeling this, it probably goes back to fear or if you're feeling that, it probably goes back to fear. That would be a self-inventory for each of us. But I'd invite each of us. If there's emotions, if there are insecurities, if there's angers, if there's lack, feelings of lack, if there's feelings of uselessness, even pride goes back to fear.
And so, you know, all of those things, if we find things in our life that are causing us to push the spirit away, push the spirit away, I guess that's really the only way to say that. But if we have those things in our life, I would challenge each of us to just kind of go back to and see if, you know, is there a seed of fear in any of this? Because those two things, fear and pride, really are twin bullies, as Elder Anderson puts it, that keeps us from fully repenting.
And by repenting, I mean turning away from those things that don't work to bring the spirit in our lives and facing the one who does, facing the Savior Himself. And so, super important, maybe a good invitation, a good exercise for each of us to go through. You know, if I was talking to a Sponsor and Alcoholics Anonymous right now, I would say, write it out. You know, write it out. You know, do that. What your fears are.
Yeah, well, and what emotions are, first off, I would start off, what emotions are disruptive in my life. Then write those out and then see if they have a base in fear and figure that out. But don't start with fear. Start with the emotion and distill it to fear. And once we're able to distill those things to fear and pride, then the spirit can work with us. Yeah. Well, it takes, again, great work. Takes work. It takes effort. It takes great desire to be able to do these things.
And you kind of said this already, but to review, fear not only keeps us from progressing, not only keeps us from repenting, it keeps us from feeling the spirit of the Lord. It indeed does. It's one of Satan's biggest tools. And that can kill all of us spiritually. And it definitely affects us emotionally. It can damage us mentally and physically.
But here's what I know, and sometimes that feels like such a long road back, you know, because some of us are so entrenched in those things and we get so deeply where they become not just part of our life, but almost a part of our DNA, you know, and we feel that, you know, even sometimes the traditions of our fathers get passed with some of those fears that we learn from our DNA. The evolution of fear. That's a good way to put it, right?
But you know, but that's inaccurate, you know, immediately upon the discovery of fear and how it has affected our life. And immediately as we turn that part of our life over the care of our Heavenly Father through the atonement of Jesus Christ, immediately we begin, immediately we begin to feel the spirit re-enter into our lives. And it brings to us a sense of peace that may be at that point in our lives, be unfamiliar to us, but so welcoming and so beautiful once it does.
We have to believe that we are moral agents and that we can act and not always be acted upon. I mean, I know we're acted upon, Satan acts upon us every day, but we can choose to act and not to be acted upon when we begin to choose our emotions. When we begin to choose love, when we begin to choose faith, it's all that's a choice. And I know they're all gifts from God as well.
When we begin to act by praying and working and doing those things, then we are freed from the control and manipulation and the evils that come as a result of these inappropriate emotions. And I hope that all of our listeners will begin to strengthen themselves emotionally and begin to control their emotions. Because I think it's really important part, Scott, of not just repenting, but also recognizing forgiveness in our life.
If people are weak emotionally, it's harder for them to believe or to feel, identify, recognize forgiveness in their life and to be able to forgive others. That takes great emotional strength, but you can't have emotional strength when you're being controlled by your emotions. So I actually have taught that we not only need to repent of our actions, but there was a talk written years ago by Terry Warner, you know, who started the Arbinger group.
And Terry Warner once gave a talk at BYU devotional called, How do we repent of our emotions? We not only need to repent of inappropriate actions, we need to repent of inappropriate emotions in order to recognize and feel the spirit of the Lord in our life. Okay, so those are the two roadblocks or the two twin bullies or however you want to see them that keep us from repentance, fear and pride, fear and pride.
And I know that we can with again the help of God, prayer and effort and desire can overcome those. As we begin to jump into the principle of repentance, Scott, there are some myths that we need to identify that have been perpetuated over the years concerning repentance. I think President Nelson has done amazing and Elder Anderson in his book has done amazing to overcome these myths, but they still kind of hold people back from repenting.
So we're talking today and we will in our next podcast about things that keep us from repenting. Some of the myths that keep us from repenting incorrect ideas. This kind of funny part of helping Elder Anderson with the book, you know, when I was working on that chapter, I had titled it The Myths of Repentance. And he felt that that was a little harsh. And so he entitled it chapter 13.
It's actually one of my favorite chapters in the whole book, but chapter 13 in the book is called titled by him, Detourers on the Road to Repentance. Well I think they're myths, but if you want to think of them as detours, that's great. Anyway, we'll talk in more detail about these. So maybe I'll just introduce them today and then we'll talk about these myths next time. I think one of the great myths of repentance, Scott, and it's really a problem.
I know it has been for me, it has been for my wife. I think for most members of the church is that we used to see, and some people still do, that repentance is the punishment for sin. The punishment, penalty, and payment for sin. Well we now know that's not true. Repentance is not the penalty, repentance is not the payment, and repentance is not the punishment for sin. It's just the opposite. There is no suffering in repentance. Repentance brings relief.
The suffering was done in the garden and on the cross. And the suffering is caused by sin. That's right. The cause of our suffering is sin, not repentance. And you're right, Jesus paid for all of that. He suffered it, he paid for it, he was punished by our sins, paid for our sins, all of that. He carried out the great ransom.
So I just loved it that after actually this book was written when elder or president to Nelson just came out and gave that amazing talk and said, repentance is not suffering. And this is scriptural. I mean, Dr. and Covenants section 19 verse 4, it's really short. Repent or suffer, something to that effect. So it's like these are opposites. Repentance and suffering are not the same thing. They're not synonymous. Repentance and suffering are actually antonyms, not synonyms.
This is 19-4 of Dr. and Covenants, and surely every man must repent or suffer for I God am endless. Repent or suffer. They're antonyms, opposites. They are not the same thing. So I don't know where this myth, I think I know and I won't give a whole history of that. I'll go into more detail on that next time. I think how that myth and how we can overcome that defective mindset that repentance is a punishment. It's not a punishment. Another myth is that repentance is a checklist.
It's a checklist of steps. That there's a certain number of ours. Five steps of repentance. Or the five hours or the six hours. I've heard as many as eight hours. I want to call them the ours of repentance. That's a myth. No one should see repentance as though it's a checklist. Or like, okay, check, check, check. I became really sensitized to that one day when I found a note in the back of my seminary building.
I'd found a note that a girl, and I'm so glad I didn't know who the girl was writing to whatever girl she was writing to. There were no names on this note. I remember her telling her friend, just saying about her without details, that she had been immoral and she had confessed and repented of it to her bishop. She was really glad that that was over, that she had repented because she had confessed to her bishop.
You know, it's just so sad that so many people have, like a checklist, thought that this is repentance. It's not. You have to see it as a process, not as a series of steps. Detour number three, or the great myth of repentance, is that, and this is, this would always capture the attention of my students. The myth is, repentance is not changing your behavior. And they'd go, it's not.
And I know President Nelson has said that repentance has changed, and it is, but repentance is not changing your behavior. Even atheists can do that. You know, agnostics can do that. Buddhists, Hindu, anybody who doesn't believe in Jesus Christ can change their behavior. That's not repentance. Repentance is redeeming. Repentance is Christ is the center of it. Repentance and change is through Jesus Christ, not through your discipline. Repentance is turning to Christ.
Not through your willpower, what? Repentance is turning to Christ. Yes. And it's not just a willpower of overcoming a bad habit. That's not repentance. Repentance is not stopping a behavior or changing a behavior. Anyone can do that. Anyway, we'll talk more about that next time. And the fourth, and there's other myths that could have been mentioned in this book, but the fourth one that we discuss, and we'll discuss next time, is repentance is what saves us. Repentance doesn't save us.
There is no power in repentance. We've said that probably enough the last few weeks. Repentance doesn't save us. Jesus Christ in his atonement and his blood and our faith in him and in his name is what saves us and exalts us. Not repentance. Repentance helps qualify us. Definitely. Definitely helps qualify us. But we don't earn anything from repentance and there's no power in repentance. It's in Jesus Christ, his atonement and our faith in him.
So we'll talk more about those, Scott, and we'll get really into the heart of this whole course next week as we focus primarily on those roadblocks, detours, myths, whatever you want to call them. And I think before, this is important and I'll end with this, before you can know what repentance is, you have to know what it's not. And that's what we'll talk about next week, what repentance is not. Thanks, Dave. I'm really excited to enter this part of our discussion in the podcast.
I don't know that I have a favorite part because it's all so important. But when we get to this part, this seems to be the key that kind of helps unlock the mystery, I think, to a lot of us on, you know, what does this really mean and how do I really put this into practice in my life and how do I begin to qualify for the conditional and the unconditional blessings that help me overcome the physical and the spiritual death, which is the weakness that came because of the fall.
And as we go through this, there's just something that almost brings joy to me, you know, as we begin to unlock this and begin to qualify and really realize, I think the big for me and I see this in my students and Deben and mine students as we teach Institute, as we begin to talk about these things, it's so freeing to understand that the checklist is not what's important. It's non-existent, but it's the process, the process of what?
The process of turning away from that, which keeps us away from the spirit and turning to Him who redeems us. That's repentance. Just a simple shift in our beliefs and who we are and oh my goodness, I can't even begin to articulate the freedom to our souls that can come as we embark in this journey in doing this and this process and to fill his love as we do it. You know, what we have deemed and termed as being so arduous in so much work and so much pain and so much, it's just the opposite.
We begin to feel free, we begin to feel light. I see people who seem and this has been, and I felt it myself and even said these same words, I feel a thousand pounds lighter and it's not because of a process, it's because of a redemption, it's because of what happened in the garden, what happened on the cross, what happened on the tomb and his entire life prior to that, even going back to our pre-existence as we have already discussed. I'm excited about this. Thanks for being with us today.
Remember you have been redeemed through his blood. Remember that the hope through repentance helps qualify us for that freedom and that love that we are all entitled to feel while we're here. Thanks for being with us. We'll see you next week.