Hey there everybody welcome out to another episode of Redeemed Through His Blood. My name is Scott Durfey joined as always by Dave Durfey What's up Dave? Hey Scott. Good to be together again. I know I've been on a little vacation and it's good to see you again. Be together. I'm excited to talk about the core of repentance today. Yeah, Dave just got back from a couple of vacations actually. He did a church history tour with a great family and went back to Nauvoo and all the restoration sites.
I got to do that with Dave a few years ago, a couple years ago I guess it's been and what a life changing experience that was for me. It's been fun for several years now since I retired. It's got to go back once or twice a year. There's enough people that I know who want to go back there and having lived back in the Midwest and actually being a director of a seminaries and institute tour of the Midwest, all the Missouri sites, Nauvoo sites, Iowa, Council Bluff sites.
I love those places but in this trip we started in Kansas City and did all the Missouri sites, Nauvoo, Carthage and then jumped over to Columbus, Ohio, stayed one night there before we went to Kirtland. We did all the Kirtland sites and then we go to New York and do all the New York sites. Susquehanna was especially beautiful. I don't know, there was just something about it on this trip that was probably my favorite experience on this particular trip.
Fayette and we always end up in the Sacred Grove and have a testimony meeting in the Sacred Grove. Yeah, that Sacred Grove testimony meeting has been one of the powerful events of my life a couple of years ago as we did that. As a matter of fact, I look across my office here and on the mirror I actually have a little maple leaf that I still have from that experience, a little token of something special to me so it was really cool.
All we had a great, we were able to record several episodes and put them in queue so that's how we've been able to do this.
But last week we had a, last episode I guess I should say we had a really great conversation as we continue our quest on understanding and implementing repentance, the power of Jesus Christ and the forgiving powers and the redeeming powers and the enabling powers and all of the other powers that come, His powers that come to us through the Atonement, His Atonement and you know they all, they're all invoked in our life and made possible
through repentance and this has been, I mentioned this last episode or maybe the one before but this is my favorite part of the course that we go through here because this is really where the key gets turned, where our opportunity to become more qualified to have His Spirit with us, to take His name upon us, to have all of those blessings in our lives on a constant and you know, day by day permanent basis. You know it's just been a beautiful thing.
But today we don't shift gears but we focus on something that's going to be extremely important and really kind of the crux of all of this Dave. So well the core, I call it the core. That's better word. You know Scott, we can probably never review enough that you can never put repentance before faith. You know I don't want to over complicate this whole process that we call repentance but really you can't skip anything in the doctrine of Christ.
I mean that's really what we're talking about is how can we access the powers of the doctrine of Christ. And the doctrine of Christ is faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Repentance. And it has to be I think in that order that if one is repenting but lacks sufficient faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, His efforts are largely going to be unproductive.
And then one cannot really receive and recognize forgiveness, which is part of the manifestations of our repentance unless he receives the Holy Ghost, which is all. So you know faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, the importance of ordinances and covenants are part of this whole process. And then to receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end. This is all about repentance.
And yet Scott, repentance is something that I think is just so many just kind of take for granted or don't go deep enough into understanding the real process of it. It's clearly taught in the Scriptures. It's wrong of us to oversimplify it and it's equally as wrong to over complicate it. And so I hope that our listeners can by the spirit understand what we're trying to what we've taught and what we're going to try to teach today.
We've talked about the foundations of repentance, which is understanding the need for Redeemer and understanding the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which leads us to faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. We've talked about the conditions of repentance to be honest with ourselves about our sins and our unworthiness and our fallen worthless state that to be honest about that and to be brokenhearted and have a contrite spirit and experience godly sorrow. Those are the conditions of repentance.
And once we've met once we've received and built the foundation of repentance and once we have experienced the conditions and fulfilled the conditions of repentance, then Scott we are ready to move into the actions of repentance, which are quite simple but not easy to do. And yet the actions of repentance, this is the core. And when I say actions of repentance, I'm really only talking about one or two things.
The actions of repentance are to cry out, to cry out and to God for mercy, to cry out, confessing our need, expressing our how much we rely, holy rely on His merits to confess that before Him. Just crying out is a core element of repentance, which so many people miss or skip in the process of repentance. And it's really personal with me, Scott, because I did it for years. I didn't cry out. I was doing everything I could to repent. And just, it was so frustrating for me.
I was trying to get ready to go on my mission. I've shared this story and I remember sharing this story with Elder Anderson, you know, and we were working on the book, The Divine Gift of Forgiveness. And then sharing this story with him, he was very sweet, very sweet about it, very grateful that I would share it with him and would, and would, and would refer to kind of a little bit about it in the book. But Scott, I did everything I thought I could to repent of my sins before my mission.
And I never did really feel forgiven. And I got a mission call. I was worthy enough. I was trying hard and it was keeping the commandments most of the time and for long enough period of time to be able to go on a mission, right? But I didn't feel forgiven or worthy. And I understand that because being a MTC president and how many missionaries came in and expressed that to me as well. And I was grateful to be able to share with him my personal experience or odyssey with this.
Anyway, I remember writing even letters on my mission to my stake president, our sweet president, Roberts, and, you know, expressing, are you sure I'm worthy to be here? Because I sure don't feel worthy to be here. And I knew I wasn't. I was, I was trying to be obedient. I was having some success. I was certainly doing the best I could. I, I felt the spirit from time to time. I'm sure.
I had no idea every time I bore my testimony, but I just knew that I, something was missing and that I had not really been forgiven. Then I was reading in the Book of Mormon one day studying the Book of Mormon and I came across this scripture in Alma, chapter 38, Shiblin, you know, which I think a lot of members can relate to. Good old steady Shiblin. Not too bad. You know, he's not too bad. He's not too wicked. And he, he's, he's steady, you know, he's commended by his dad for being steady.
And his dad's talking to him about his steadiness and his faithfulness. But his dad then, then says this, this is Alma sharing with him his born again experience. This is Alma 38 verse eight. And it came to pass that I was three days and three nights in the most bitter pain and anguish of soul and never until, and those three words are circled in my scripture, Scott, and never until, and never until I did cry out unto the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. Did I receive a remission of my sins?
But behold, I did cry unto him and I did find peace to my soul. I realized reading that, Scott, I had never done that. Oh, I had prayed. I was praying multiple times. I think I averaged it out one day. I missionaries praying on a corner before you track, praying in discussions, opening and closing. I kept track of all the prayers I offered in one week and divided it by seven and we were averaging almost 14 prayers a day as a missionary. And I had been out on my mission for several months.
So I don't know how many times how many prayers I had offered, but I had never cried out. That's a different prayer. That's a totally different prayer. You and I were talking a little early and you said in the world of addiction it's called what? You know, it's actually one of the steps. The 11th step is that we continue to seek, you know, contact with Heavenly Father and we talk about it a lot in recovery, in the circles of recovery. We have prayers.
There are written prayers, which are really kind of structural aids to help folks that are moving into recovery to kind of begin this dialogue with deity, with Heavenly Father, that maybe in many cases has never even taken place, right? We have a third step prayer, the third steps when we make a decision to turn our will in our life over the care of God.
We have a seventh step prayer, which is where we humbly ask Him to remove all our defects of character, you know, but but Dave, the thing that the thing about these prayers is and it's the same with repentance, you know, any and I think that we can probably equate recovery from any addiction because that is repentance. You know, there does, you know, you're talking about this crying out.
There does have to be that crying out and sometimes that crying out can only come once we have recognized and realize our own nothingness, you know, once we have just been beat to excuse the expression, but once we have just been beat to a bloody pulp sometimes, that's when by life, by our own decisions, by the decisions of others, by circumstances that we've either put ourselves in by our own choice or not by our own choice.
These are the things that drive us to that crying out, you know, a little bit of desperation. I have to be desperate to have that, you know, we call that the gift of desperation. Desperation can be a gift if it provides impetus into my crying out and asking God to be the captain of my ship to take care of my life to be the one that steps in and does all these things for me. Well, I think all of that is a precursor to the crying out for sure.
And you know, it's over and over again in the Book of Mormon, the term crying out. And that that gift of desperation, I think in the Book of Mormon is described by many when they say that man can merit nothing of himself. Man can merit nothing. There's desperation in that. When you realize that, that I can merit nothing of myself.
When King Benjamin tells people who've cried out and who have been even forgiven of their sins and had a piece of conscience and experienced some joy and he reminds them to remember their worthless and fallen state and their own nothingness. So I think it's really important that we we understand that truth of our nothingness, which will then help us in our crying out. And I came to that point in my mission.
I just I just realized I got so desperate because I realized that all that I was doing and all the letters I was writing and all the umpteen times I had confessed and all of the commandments that I was keeping and all the rules that I was obeying was never going to be enough. I thought if I just went out there and worked out my work, my guts out and and I was perfectly obedient and that I would feel forgiven. And I really did not feel forgiven if I was honest.
So one after reading the scripture, never until I did cry out and Lord Jesus Christ for mercy, I did receive a remission of my sins. So grateful for those those words of Alma to Shiblin. Uh, that night I decided I was going to cry out and I had to wait until my companion went to sleep. We were I was in Pacific Grove, California and I I waited until my companion was asleep. I had I'd been weeping a little bit. I was laying there.
We were in a boarding home actually shared a home and shared a bathroom with another family. It was about midnight, I think when I finally thought, okay, I could probably go to the bathroom and have some peace and quiet and under an uninterrupted time. But I had been weeping for a few hours even after my companion, I think had fallen asleep and I went in and I fell fell down by the bathtub. Scott and I cried out. That was the first time in my life I'd really cried out.
Honestly, I knew I was forgiven. I received a remission of my sins. Now I know that for many people it re receiving forgiveness of sin and repentance is not an event. I know it's a process. I absolutely believe it's a process. But crying out is an event. That is an event and it's an important event in the process of repentance and many people skip it. Many people just never get around to doing it. You can't believe how many, let's go through a few Book of Mormon examples of this if that's okay.
Anything you want to? Yeah, actually I have a Book of Mormon example that I want to talk about. I want to look at a few of those. Yeah, I actually have a couple of them.
The first one that comes to mind, they're both in Mosiah, but the first one that comes to mind is in Mosiah chapter 3 verse 19 where we read, for the natural man's and enemy of God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever unless he yields to the enticements of the Holy Spirit and put a thought the natural man and become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord and become a as a child, submissive,
meet, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things and so on. Well so Scott, that's what King Benjamin taught the people and as a result of that teaching them, look at what they do in chapter 4 verse 2. Very next chapter, they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state even less than the dust of the earth and they all cried out.
So they had received that gift of desperation and they had all cried out with one voice saying, oh have mercy and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins and our hearts may be purified for we believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God who created heaven and earth and all things who shall come down among the children of men. I just think that's an amazing prayer. They cried out, oh have mercy and apply the atoning blood. They didn't say atonement.
They said, no I don't want to get into some semantics here, but they said apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive a forgiveness of our sins and then the very next verse, verse 3, they were filled with the Spirit of the Lord and with joy and received the remission of their sins. Scott, that's an event, a part of the process of repentance, but crying out is an event. Well and that's the desired outcome, right?
When we start to do the repentance process, that's really what we're looking for. It is and some people may cry out more than once. I mean I've cried out so many times in my life and it's over and over and over again so even though crying out is an event, it's just an ongoing process of repentance of crying out over and over and over again throughout our life as we recognize our need for Redeemer and our nothingness. What other examples do you have?
Well I want to go still in Mosiah to chapter 24. Good one. We'll go to verse 10. This is not about repentance but this is about deliverance. Exactly and about crying out. It came to pass so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. So great were their afflictions. Again, there's that gift of desperation. They recognize their afflictions. They are laying in bed waiting for their companion to go to sleep because their afflictions are overwhelming them.
They're taking control of their lives. And it came to pass so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. We're going to skip down to 12. That was intense. Skipping down to 12. Alman is people did not raise their voices unto the Lord their God but did pour out their hearts to Him. Yeah, they were commanded not to pray out loud, remember? And He did know the thoughts of their hearts. So again, that crying out can take on so many different visuals.
It's the way we live our life can be a crying out. An event at the bathtub in wherever you were in California can be a crying out. A Pacific Grove, California sacred spot. One of the places I have cried out and have done so even recently is just in the mountains right above where I live here. And so it can be all of that.
And in 13 it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions saying lift up your heads and be of good comfort for I know of the covenant which He have made with unto me and I will covenant with my people and deliver them from bondage. Now we think of bondage. We so often think of chains and that's bondage and slavery. That's bondage and the others being over controlled to of us. But we're also in bondage to our sin.
You know, in our addictions and our bad behaviors in our bad habits in our any in even in those, you know, I love when elder Dwarf talked about the bumper sticker. Don't judge me because my sin looks different than yours. You know, we all have those bondages were all that most of us because of the natural man in the fall as one of the effects. We have bondage in our lives.
And that bondage can only most of that bondage can only be relieved as we cry out and allow him to really move those afflictions like we just read there. Yeah, that's a great example. I was I had 24. What ones do you have? Well, I I have to go right to Enos. So if we look at the and by the way, Scott, in that example 24, it said cry mightily. Not just cry out. No, no, no cry mightily. Yeah. And that's kind of the terms that she was here in the book of Enos.
So in the book of Enos, he tell he's going to tell us about the wrestle he had with God before he received remission of his sins. And he goes out to hunt wild beasts in the forest and the joy of the saints and the words of his father sunk deep into his heart and he kneels down verse four and my soul hungered. Okay, that's the gift of desperation. My soul hungered and I kneeled down before my maker and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for my known soul.
And all the day long did I cry unto him. Yeah. And when the night came, I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens. He uses the word cry. I just want people to, I don't know that it's a tears sort of crying. It's a, right? It was I at 24. It wasn't even a vocal voice. It was a crying out, a soul cry. And that's what I was going to say. I don't think crying out is going to necessarily look the same for every single person and in every single situation.
Maybe the way I cry out for one thing may look different 25 years ago than it does today. And there may be tears. In fact, I think most of the time, not all the time. I did hear from somebody say that, you know, a certain leader in the church believed that most of this crying out would be with tears. Well I don't know. Some people may, some people may not. It's an earnestness. It's not just a normal, it's more than just a humble, sweet prayer.
It is a, a needful desperation, hungering, crying out of our whole souls, Scott. Yeah, I think that desperation can create an energy within us and that energy will be translated. However it shows up, it may show up in tears. It may show up in, I don't, I don't know. You know, for me, it's been tears. For me, it's been, you know, other things as well, you know, body posture, you know. I may, I may be on my belly on the, I may be on my knees. I may be on my horse.
I may be, you know, a bunch of different. In my car. In my car. Wherever. On my Harley-Davidson riding up the canyon. I mean, that, that, those things will, you know, get still. So yeah, and I think we should be careful about that. We're not prescribing what it should look like. We're just, we are just talking. It's up to you. Different for every individual. And it's up to you to decide what that is. Exactly. But if it doesn't, I think we can be safe in saying this.
I think that we can be safe in saying if it doesn't require great energy of soul, not just body, but of soul, but soul and body. If it doesn't require great energy of soul and body, then we maybe should question, are we really crying out? Well, it may look different for every individual, but every individual will know. They'll know. When they're crying out and whether or not. Yeah. Yeah. I love the example of Aaron teaching King Lomonae's father in element 22, Scott. I love that one too.
And you know, after he teaches him the, the fallen nature and that man can merit nothing of himself. He teaches the king and the king is humbled. And verse 16, you want to read 16 and 17, 18 in 22.
Yeah. Yeah. But Aaron said unto him, if thou desire assisting, if thou will bow down before God, yea, if thou will repent of all thy sins and will bow down before God and call on his name in faith, believing that you shall receive, then shall shout thou receive the hope which thou desire is, which would be forgiveness. And it came to pass. When Aaron had said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord upon his knees. Yea, even did prostrate himself upon the earth. I mean, he's laid out.
Yeah. He's just, this is a, he's was the last time you let you had that prayer. Yeah. I honestly, my experience in the bathroom that night was I was like that. I was pretty well laid out. Yeah. I was just, I just was flat. And crying out. And so he's prostrate and it says, and he cried mightily. Same. Mightily. Again, mightily. Yeah. And the prayer in verse 18 is God.
Oh God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God and if there is a God and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me and I will give away all my sins to know thee. That's one of my favorite parts of the entire Book of Mormon. And that, and that I may be raised from the dead and be saved at the last day. And now when the King had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead.
Well and then for a period of time, he's in this kind of state of unconsciousness and he is being redeemed and he comes out of it and he knows he is born again. He is converted unto the Lord. He knows where he stands with the Lord and that his sins are forgiven. I love this little prayer that is never hardly ever quoted. It's actually quoted by Alma quoting Zenas.
And so Alma is quoting an Old Testament prophet Zenas, which he must have, you know, he's quoting this course from the brass plates for it to be in the Book of Mormon. But it's in Alma chapter 33. It kind of starts with verse three. Scott, he talks about, don't I told you about prayer or worship, what that means. And then he quotes Zenas's prayer. And that begins, this prayer begins in verse four.
For Zenas said, this is his prayer, Thou art merciful, O God, for thou hast heard my prayer, even when I was in the wilderness. So that's where he cried out. Yea, thou was merciful when I prayed concerning those who were mine enemies, and thou didst turn them to me. Enemies could be addictions or whatever, right? Yea, O God, and thou was merciful unto me when I did cry unto thee in my field. When I did cry unto thee in my prayer, and thou didst hear me.
And again, O God, when I did turn to my house, thou didst hear me in my prayer. And when I did turn unto my closet, O Lord, and prayed unto thee, thou didst hear me. Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of men, and thou wilt hear them. Yea, O God, isn't it awesome that we have a prayer of an Old Testament prophet that's not even mentioned in the Bible? And we have his prayer quoted here.
Verse nine, Yea, O God, thou hast been merciful unto me, and heard my cries in the midst of my congregations. Yea, and thou hast also heard me when I've been cast out, and have been despised by mine enemies. Yea, thou didst hear my cries, and was angry with mine enemies, and thou didst visit them in thine anger with speedy destruction. And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions, and my sincerity.
And it is because, word I have circled, it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy, for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me because of thy Son. What a prayer. Yea, you know what I love about, so much I love about that, but one of the things that really kind of stands out to me, Dave, in that, is right there at the end, I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions.
Do we, you know, we're not, I'll take a personal inventory here, I don't cry out to him in all my afflictions, you know, and I wonder, that needs to change in me, you know, that needs to be something that I should take this pattern that has been laid out before me, by a wonderful prophet and restored. A prophet quoting a prophet. Yea, and I need to take that and cry out in all my afflictions, that's an invitation for us to do that.
In other words, you know, if it seems like an affliction to me, we shouldn't, we should never feel like, well that's too small to bother him with, you know. Yea, for sure. Yea, if it feels like an affliction, I have been invited to cry unto him for healing and forgiveness in that affliction. Yea. That's cool. I don't know how many times we heard the word cry or cries in that passage, but I really recommend our listeners to read that and ponder that prayer.
And then in the very next chapter, of course Amulik is there, Alma's trusty companion, and he's hearing Alma teach this to the Zoramites, right? And Amulik picks up on that when Alma turns the time over to him to do a little preaching. And so in the very next chapter, Alma 34, he starts talking about faith unto repentance, a term that he uses, which is unique in the Book of Mormon, and he uses it a few, more than a few times here. Faith unto repentance, faith unto repentance.
And then he tells them how to do that. And he says, he starts in verse 17, this is Amulik, 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, that he would have mercy upon you. Cry unto him for mercy, for he is mighty to save. Cry unto him in your fields, cry and I'm just paraphrasing kind of now, skipping through this. Cry unto him in your fields, cry unto him in your houses.
He picks up on Zenas' prayer and he starts to repeat it. Yeah. So stop right there. Cry unto them in your houses and you know, there's something in there that is more than what is written. It says, over all your household, both morning, midday and evening. Does that mean we should set a clock and say a prayer in the morning and then want to, no, what he's saying there is for everything in our house. So for me, that's everything in my house. That's my children. That's my livelihood.
That's everything that's in my house. Everything in my house is contained here. But what does he say? Both morning, midday and evening, in other words, be in a constant state of crying out. That's the way I interpret that. I like that, Scott. Cry over your crops, cry over your flocks and pour out your souls in your closets and your secret places. Yeah. And you, don't forget that crying to them against the power of your enemies.
And you said it earlier, you know, we think of enemies, you know, when I think of enemies in the past, when I've read these scriptures, I thought about, oh yeah, those guys had enemies. They were at war, you know. We have enemies. Yeah, I had an addiction. Big time. Yeah. And they are the most subtle foes that we could ever, you know, face are the things in our lives, the enemies in our lives, the addictions, the other things. That we hang on to. Ultimately Satan. Yeah, exactly.
The devils that, that haunt all of us. And he kind of ends in verse 27, yay. And when you do not cry unto the Lord, even when you don't cry, even when you can't cry out, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare and also for the welfare of those who are around you.
Yeah. Just like the example we took back in Mosiah from those that weren't even allowed to pray out loud, they were still drawn into a crying out just in the same way that was just, we were just invited to there. Yeah, absolutely. And then, and then maybe a last one is Alma the younger and Alma 36.
And he's recounting Alma is recounting to his son Helaman, his experience, you know, three days and three nights again when he was with the sons of Mosiah and he was persecuting the church and the angel appears to him and and he talks about how he was wracked. Talk about desperation, right? He was wracked with the pains of a damn soul.
And so in verse 17, and it came to pass that as I was thus wracked with torment, while I was herald up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remember also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried. Remember he's dumb. He's been struck dumb. He can't even speak. I cried within my heart.
Oh, Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me who am in the gall of bitterness and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more. Yeah, I was herald up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did behold. And my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain. He cried within. He couldn't speak. He cried within his heart. And what was his soul cry?
Oh, Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me. Holy Scott, I just think that is an event or part of the process of repentance that too many of us just skip over. We're doing everything except that. And this is the core. This is the absolute core of the process is to cry out. It's repentance is not an institutional activity. It's not about, we're going to talk about confession. I know that's important. I know that's part of the process. We'll talk about the manifestations of repentance.
But that's what it is, is a manifestation of repentance. It's not repentance itself. This is the core of repentance. To cry out. This is not a simple, easy prayer. This can be a painful experience and a sweet experience as we go through this process. So I just really implore our listeners to evaluate their lives and to ask themselves, when's the last time I cried out? Have I ever cried out?
And to remember if they have cried out, to remember those experiences and to be able to cry out more often. Right. It's not a one-time thing. Not at all. For probably most of us. This is one of the things, Dave, and maybe you had the same experience when you were teaching an institute on a full-time basis.
But this is one of the things that comes up as Deb and I are teaching Institute at BYU right now that a lot of times the students will say to me or Deb, or each other even, as we have conversation around it, is sometimes I just don't feel forgiven. How can I know? Right. How can I feel forgiven? Why am I not feeling forgiven? I've done all the things. I've checked all the, they don't say that, but that's what the connotation is, is I've checked all the boxes. I've taken all the steps.
Why am I not feeling forgiven? And I think, I don't know if it's absolutely without exception, but I would dare say it's probably without exception that we won't feel forgiven, or if we're not feeling forgiven is maybe the better way to say that. Spinning our wheels. If I'm not feeling forgiven, I need to ask myself, have I cried out?
Right. Have I experienced what I have just read as an example or a pattern by great righteous men that I have been able to learn from, you know, these Restoration Scriptures, that alone that we get from Restoration Scripture, David, is some of the most redeeming message, some of the most redeeming love that we feel come from our Heavenly Father through this Restoration Scripture, those stories that we've just told.
But we need to remember that if I'm not feeling forgiven, I should maybe ask myself, have I cried out? Yeah. I just really, it's very humbling, Scott, to for me just sitting here thinking about my own life, you know, and the times that I've cried out and the times that he has heard me and sent his spirit and a confirmation to me that I have been forgiven or that my efforts have been acceptable to him and where I stand with him.
I just think that's really important, almost redeeming knowledge for any individual to receive. And yet I don't think that I do it enough. I don't think that most of us do. And that it's something that you just, you can't just, it's not like just kneeling down and saying a prayer. And you just can't kind of go through the motions when you pray mightily and you cry out. It takes a real need, desire. I love what was a Zenus again who talked about his sincerity that he did it with such sincerity.
It cannot be to manipulate the spirit or to, it can't be for show. It has to be really, it just really comes from the sincerity and the humility of a broken heart. And we just don't do that enough. I have an experience with this on October 24th, 1998. I was in a rent delinquent department that I was renting, single, divorced. My alcoholism was completely out of control. I couldn't control how much I was consuming. And if I wasn't consuming, I was no good.
And at that point, I had, without getting into the entire story, but at that point, I had made several vain attempts to stop drinking, to stop this addiction. And this addiction would apply to any addiction, I'm sure. But that night, as I was trying, I was literally trying to drink myself to death. And at some point, I just had a crying out experience too, you know, in that night. That crying out was actually not the conclusion, but the beginning of my repentance process too.
And so I think that it's important for us to understand that we will feel relief during that crying out, but sometimes that crying out just puts us on the path to begin the work as well. Well, isn't that sweet that got answered your prayer through someone else? And sometimes crying out leads to that.
And there's been multiple subsequent crying out since then along that process, you know, 25 almost years of sobriety and, you know, oftentimes for myself and oftentimes for others, but nonetheless, you know, to for us to really gain the power of Jesus Christ in our lives to help us with our repentance, to help us with any problem that we have, if we really understand this concept or this principle, and it's really more than a principle, it's more than a concept. It's so much more.
It's ineffable. We can't. I don't I don't have the ability to describe it in words. But if we if we can, if we can understand or begin to understand or at least embrace this crying out and this what this is is really the turning of our entire lives over the will of God as we understand him. Well that's the second. So if we're describing at least the way I taught it, Scott, if we're describing the two actions of repentance, the first is crying out mightily crying out.
And the second is described in Omni. And then you you talk about the addiction side of this, this scripture, but the end I can't believe one year, one conference, one general conference, how many times this scripture was quoted. But in Omni verse 26, this describes the second act in the process of repentance that we call the actions of repentance. And now my beloved brethren, this is Omni one twenty six.
I would the he should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel and partake of his salvation and the power of his redemption. Yay, come unto him and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him and continue in fasting and praying and indoor to the end. And as the Lord live, you will be saved. It's this offering come to Christ and offer your whole soul unto him.
Now I know that these these two actions may be simultaneous as you started to describe it that they may be almost simultaneous where we cry out and in our crying out we do offer our whole souls. We say I'll give everything. I'll give all of my sins. King Omni's father, I'll do. I'll give you everything. Right. But sometimes we don't offer our soul.
It's this offering of our whole soul to him, Scott, this submissiveness, this sacrifice where we put our souls, our will on the altar and we're willing to sacrifice it. This is this is the supreme act of the process of repentance. Yeah. You know, we talked about enemies, right? And sometimes those enemies that we have in our own lives, those enemies being our addictions or our habits or whatever sins, they become part of our soul. You know, that's true.
And so putting that sometimes it gets pretty entangled. It doesn't. It really does. You know, and so I think, you know, as we begin this crying out process, I think I don't think that we have the ability to lie our whole entire soul at any given time just on our own. Of course, with God, all things are possible. We know that we see that we experience that and we're grateful for that.
But I think sometimes that in our best attempts to lay our whole soul, that we have a discovery later that my soul is bigger than I thought it was because it includes all these other things that I'm having a really difficult time laying on that altar as well. You know, so the crying out is definitely the beginning of that process.
The laying of the soul is the second process, as you mentioned, but it is much more complex in my the way I see it is much more complex than what first meets the eye in that verse. Yeah, for sure. I don't know if I can find it right off. You know, but this this idea Scott was expressed by C. S. Lewis to some degree when he when he talks about, you know, you, he's kind of describing Jesus. Oh, here I think I found it. He says, imagine yourself as a living house.
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what he's doing. He's getting the drains right and he's stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to?
The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but he's building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. You know, in another in another thought he talks about, I want all of you. I don't want part of you. I don't want this. I want all of it.
That's what I think it means to give ourselves holy and our souls holy to him, which includes the sacrifice of our sins and our wills to God. I think that we probably all heard that. I love that about, imagine yourself a living house. I hadn't heard that before. I love that. But I think that we've all had heard at least a version of give our whole selves to God. And we're reluctant. Our natural man in us makes us reluctant to do that because we don't think we should be given our garbage to God.
You know, we should, we should become worthy and then give that soul to God. That's not what God wants. God wants all of us are broken stuff, our messy stuff, our sin stuff, our bad habits and addictions. He wants it all. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I, I was recalling this morning President Nelson before he was President of the Church, but he's President of the Coral of the Twelve.
His amazing talk in April of 2017 in general conference entitled, Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives. I think this is a amazing classical talk that everyone should go back and study again. But I just wanted to refer to a few quotes in this. He refers to the, to the woman who is desperate to be healed. Right. This again, quiet desperation, 12 years. You know, she's had the issue of blood.
And she knows that if she can just, just touch even the hem of his garment, that she'll be healed. He says this, many of us have cried out. Here's that word again, that phrase, cried out. Many of us have cried out from the depths of our hearts, a variation of this woman's words. If I could spiritually stretch enough to draw the Savior's power into my life, I would know how to handle my heart-wrenching situation. I would know what to do and I would have the power to do it.
When you reach up, stretch out for the Lord's power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him, when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life, you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do.
When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done, then His power will flow into you. That's an amazing, an amazing quote. I was thinking this morning when I was reading it, I should put this in a plaque and frame and put it on my wall. When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you've ever done, then His power will flow into you. Which will give you peace, joy, forgiveness. This is what it means.
This is the core of repentance, this desire, this intense desire, like a drowning man desires air to be forgiven and to know our standing before God. And I just want to testify that I know that's possible. I know how that feels. I have experienced it in my life. I haven't experienced it enough times as I should have. I hope I experience it more. But Scott, I know it's true and I know that we live far beneath our privileges sometimes.
And sometimes we do everything else but cry out and offer our whole souls to God. This is the core of what it means to repent. So I hope our listeners will just, I invite them, you might have an invitation, Scott, but I hope that we'll all evaluate our lives. And as we do and as we seek prayer and revelation by the Spirit, it will come to us to know the place and the time when we can have this experience in our lives over and over and over again. Because while it is an event, this is an event.
I know that oftentimes we just say, we kind of say it flippantly that repentance is a process. Well, I know that. But this is an event that is part of the process and it should be an event that we experience over and over and over again in the process of repentance, of crying out, offering our whole souls and receiving His power into our lives. Here, I love your invitation, Dave. That invitation, I think, is one that we should all very seriously consider.
You know, I'm big on taking a personal inventory and I think that if we could do a personal inventory around that topic, around crying out, when do I, when have I, when should I? And really, you know, I don't want to prescribe exactly how that should look like. But what I would, again, is just to reemphasize Dave's invitation to consider that, to understand that. When was it the last time? Or when have we had the opportunity? Or what should we be crying out over?
And you know, maybe even pray for inspiration and revelation in our own lives as to what that would look like. For those of us who don't think we feel forgiven, for those of us who don't think that we have the Spirit in our lives. This really is maybe a great step in order to accomplish that. And something that I would also invite us to do. We look forward to being with you next week. And until then, remember that you have been redeemed through His blood. Thanks again for being with us.