S6E19 King Follett Sermon Part 2

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast: S6E19 King Follett Sermon Part 2

Host: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat with Dr. Richard Leduc
Date: May 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Standard of Truth delves into the King Follett Sermon—one of Joseph Smith’s most doctrinally weighty and controversial discourses, especially around the nature of God, eternal progression, and what sets Latter-day Saint theology apart from other branches of Christianity. Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc respond to a listener's (Elder Simister) request for further exploration of the sermon, unpacking its significance, historical context, and why it remains a theological flashpoint inside and outside the Latter-day Saint community.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Housekeeping and Listener Mail

(00:01–14:40)

• The episode begins with lighthearted banter, updates about podcast content, and reminiscences about mission life, notably technology like answering machines and faxes.
• The hosts outline upcoming content (re-airing Declaration of Independence episodes) and mention their Sweetwater Rescue Foundation temple trips.
• Respond to listener mail about podcast-inspired temple donations and missionary audience (especially providing premium content for missionaries on Google Drive).

2. Introduction to the King Follett Sermon Request

(14:40–16:14)

• Listener ‘Elder Simister’ requests an in-depth explanation of the King Follett sermon, noting that many missionaries find its topics taboo or confusing due to their complexity.

“As a missionary, I've noticed that many of my colleagues seem hesitant to discuss it due to its complexities... I'd love to learn more about its teachings and the accuracy of the accounts.”
— Elder Simister (16:33)

3. Why the King Follett Sermon is So Weighty (and Taboo)

(16:44–19:59)

• Hosts share personal experiences: Missionaries (and members) are often hesitant to lead with or engage deeply in the King Follett sermon because it's among Joseph Smith's “deepest” doctrines.
• The sermon explores topics—like the potential for humans to become like God—that are far removed from mainstream Christian theology.

“Of all the deep things that Joseph Smith taught... it's essentially the deepest thing.”
— Dr. Dirkmaat (17:44)

4. The Lorenzo Snow Couplet and Main Controversy

(20:42–23:39)

• The infamous couplet: “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.”
• Dual challenges:
  • 1. The idea that God was once as we are now (i.e., not eternally God).
  • 2. That humans can become as God is (i.e., exaltation/deification).
• Both are considered blasphemous by traditional Christians.

“Both sides of that couplet are a real problem for traditional Christians.”
— Dr. Dirkmaat (23:39)

5. The “Aseity” of God in Christian Thought

(25:57–32:09)

• “Aseity” = God’s self-existence, the doctrine that God always was, uncreated, outside of time.
• “Ex nihilo” creation: God created everything from nothing; absolutely nothing existed before God.
• The King Follett teaching that God was not always God directly contradicts this foundation.

“…Essential to traditional Christian belief is this ex nihilo creation. And that is that God literally created literally everything. There was nothing… but God. … God wasn't ever something else.”
— Dr. Dirkmaat (32:09)

6. Why Christians Claim Latter-day Saints Aren’t “Christian”

(35:09–37:44)

• Traditional Christians define Christianity partly by aseity/ex nihilo. By diverging, Latter-day Saints are labeled "not Christian" despite affirming Jesus as Savior.
• The hosts relate this to their own mission experiences—how testimony sometimes isn’t “enough” for dialogue partners, due to deep doctrinal divides over the nature of God and Christ.

“I am certain that Jesus Christ lives and is the Savior of all mankind. But that declaration … would not be enough for many Christians to say I could be saved, because they would say, yeah, but you believe in the Mormon Jesus.”
— Dr. Dirkmaat (36:03)

7. LDS Teaching Strategies & the Challenge of Difficult Doctrine

(39:23–41:55)

• The hosts reflect on their own missionary days and how Latter-day Saints sometimes skirt or minimize hard doctrines (like polygamy or King Follett topics) to avoid confrontation or simplify discussions—for better or worse.
• Emphasis that such “cape-moving” (dodging) is common but can backfire if investigators later discover details.

“For any of the difficult topics ... I would kind of find a way to diminish or to make it smaller ... That's my assumption.”
— Dr. Richard Leduc (39:56)

8. The Temptation to Downplay King Follett’s Claims

(41:57–46:47)

• Recent online discourse: Some try to argue Joseph Smith never taught that God was not always God, leaning on ambiguities in historical accounts to soften the blow for non-member Christians.
• Hosts caution: Minimizing or denigrating the source can seem expedient, but is ultimately misleading, akin to dodging on polygamy and risks credibility when accuracy matters.

"...You can sure settle someone down... by saying, 'Oh, they were all just sealings. None of them were real marriages.' The problem is it's not accurate."
— Dr. Dirkmaat (47:05)

9. Reading & Discussing the Relevant King Follett Sermon Text

(50:08–60:39)

• Dr. Dirkmaat reads at length from the History of the Church version of the King Follett sermon, highlighting key statements:
  • God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man… That is the great secret. (approx. 54:51)
  • I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea. (60:39)
• Analysis: This flatly contradicts aseity and ex nihilo. Joseph says the belief that God was always God is a “supposition” he will refute.

“God Himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man… If you were to see him today, you would see him like a man, in form, like yourselves… I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea.”
— Joseph Smith, as read by Dr. Dirkmaat (54:51–60:39)

10. Implications and the Ongoing Challenge

(60:39–64:06)

• Reiteration: The reason for hesitancy in discussing King Follett is precisely because it so sharply departs from traditional doctrines.
• Hosts preview future deep-dives, including a promised discussion of the different historical accounts of the sermon and their accuracy.
• They emphasize that much about how “God came to be God” is unknown even to faithful, believing Saints.

“…Joseph is saying that God came to be God and that it is something that is imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea. … Maybe on our next episode ... we’re going to go through these different accounts of the sermon.”
— Dr. Dirkmaat (62:39)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.” — Lorenzo Snow, summarized multiple times (21:46; 22:08)
• “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.” — Joseph Smith (54:50)
• “We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea.” — Joseph Smith (60:39)
• “It is tough because ... when it comes to the question of why do I have companions who are hesitant to engage on it. ... Of all the deep things that Joseph Smith taught ... it’s essentially the deepest thing.” — Dr. Dirkmaat (17:44)
• “One of the things ... God can’t do ... is make you always have existed as a God because you haven’t. So the essence of God to a traditional Christian is that God has always been God ...” — Dr. Dirkmaat (34:09)

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Structure & Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamps | Notes | |-------------------------------------------------|--------------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | Housekeeping & Mailbag | 00:01–14:40 | Mission stories, preparing for 5th Sundays, mailbag | | King Follett Sermon Listener Question | 14:40–16:14 | Elder Simister’s request | | Why KFS is “Taboo” | 16:44–19:59 | Missionary unease with deep doctrine | | Snow's Couplet & Theological Dilemma | 20:42–23:39 | “As man now is…” and why it’s divisive | | The Aseity of God Explained | 25:57–32:09 | Traditional Christian theology vs. KFS | | "Not Christian": Why This Claim Repeats | 35:09–37:44 | The real reasons behind the accusation | | LDS Tactics Avoiding Difficult Topics | 39:23–41:55 | “Bullfighter” moves, polygamy, shifting vs. owning | | The Temptation to Downplay KFS | 41:57–46:47 | Source denigration: why it’s dangerous | | Reading KFS from HoC | 50:08–60:39 | Extended primary source reading and analysis | | Climax: The Big Statement | 60:39–63:22 | “We have imagined and supposed... I will refute...” | | Next Steps & Future Episodes | 63:22–64:55 | Teasing account analysis, upcoming releases |

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Tone & Style

• Scholarly yet humorous: Dirkmaat and Leduc maintain gentle self-deprecation, a casual storytelling style, and honest back-and-forth.
• Candid and transparent: They openly admit the challenge and discomfort of confronting divisive doctrine, both personally and institutionally.
• Faith-affirming: Their intent is not to dispute but to understand, contextualize, and explain—with a recognition that some doctrines remain mysterious or incomplete.

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Summary – For New Listeners

This episode is a master class in why the King Follett Sermon is simultaneously beloved, bewildering, and controversial. Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc explore the heart of the doctrinal divide over God's nature, explaining why both Latter-day Saints and other Christians wrestle with these ideas. Through careful reading of the sermon and a frank accounting of its implications—for faith, missionary work, and interfaith dialogue—they aim to help listeners more confidently confront, understand, and (perhaps) explain these uniquely Latter-day Saint doctrines—without dodging or distorting what Joseph Smith actually taught.

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Stay tuned: Future episodes will cover the historical accounts of the King Follett sermon, their reliability, and deeper analysis.

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[End of summary]

Transcript

[Narrator]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith, expertise and humor.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Foreign.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I am joined by my friend, Dr. Richard Leduc, whose primary function on the podcast is telling me which podcast we're recording for and what its name is, as I just hit the record button and forgot the name of the podcast that we have been doing for six years.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Thanks for having me back, Garrett. It's a pleasure to be here with you. It is funny, we were going to read as we go through the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag, which we didn't get to in the last episode because we were just going to talk about something real quick and then we were going to get to it and then

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I read some anti Mormon thing, I think, and then.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, then you just, you went. But most of the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag is hotel, bus and food confirmations, which I could read, but they wouldn't be nearly as good. Now, there was a couple of things to speak to. We've got a tour coming up here in a couple of weeks, and there's also a fifth Sunday lesson on the Declaration of Independence, and we have received many, many, many an email, so, saying, hey, can you help set me up? I want to be a Stake Relief Society president.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, whoever's been assigned to do the

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

fifth Sunday lesson, we've received a dozen emails from people saying, this is my one shot at moving up the ladder. I need this.

Yeah, no, it's the Eminem song One Shot, One Opportunity. So what we're gonna be doing is, and we do this every May, by the way, and so everyone can relax. But we release a couple of premium episodes on the free side. And so this year, next Thursday, and the following Thursday, we're going to do the Declaration of Independence 1 and the Declaration of Independence 2. I'm sure that when we recorded them three years ago, that they were timeless. And I wasn't mentioning any sports events that were happening at the time. And then I'm sure it'll. It'll age well.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I mean, the Declaration of Independence itself has aged fairly well.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The podcast, however.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, yeah, the Declaration, like a fine

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

wine, you know, just not that I

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

know I mean, frankly, it's one of the worst parts about being a Mormon is I don't really know the difference between cheap wine and a fine wine door. Any wine at all. So.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, we are very excited. We're going to, we're going to repeat those episodes and, and so that'll, that'll be a two part and everyone will be nice and prepped for their fifth Sunday. And I did go back and listen to them and you did a great job, Garrett. And so I'm excited for that. And so. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay. So over the next couple weeks, we'll be re releasing some of our premium content on our regularly scheduled Standard of

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Truth Days to help prep people for

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the celebration 250th anniversary of America.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's. That's what we're telling people. Hashtag, phoning it in.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, okay, very good. So wait, wait, so what is.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What is what we normally do?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That was a.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So, yeah, what is phoning it in when. If this, if this podcast is phoning it in normally, what is it when you just replay a phoned in episode?

Yeah, I feel like then it's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know, a lot of our younger

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

folks won't know what an answering machine

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

is, but

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

some of the older folks will.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

When you were on your mission, did you have an answering machine in your missionary apartment?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And when you'd come home, we had

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

a fax machine too.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, that's how I sent my quote numbers in.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We'd send the numbers in with the fax machine and then we'd also. I wonder what the lifespan on that fax machine was like when there was no real technology to do it to where then there was way better technology to do it. They had to have fax machines for like six minutes on missions.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, yeah, fax machines were like. It was pretty awesome though, because it was like you'd get something from the mission president because you couldn't. We didn't have email.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, of course.

So if the mission president wanted to send something to every zone leader, district leader, it just comes out of your fax machine.

Well, you'd also get your media referrals that way too, right?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep, they'd pop up. I mean, assuming you got them on a regular basis, we almost never got them. But we would leave like, you know, the answering machine because, you know, back

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

in the day, the wild idea that

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

someone would be like, I think I want to just talk to missionaries, you know, and they'd call up now on that answering machine, you would, you would get some Crazy messages.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You would. You would have people call up and say that, you know, that they're pretty sure that they just had an encounter with. With Jesus or maybe John the Revelator, and, you know, they're leaving you this message.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You'd have people call up and leave profanities. And we had someone invite us to take an early trip to the hell that we were going burn in preaching false doctrine. So there was. It was always a. You know, you hit that button on

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

the answering machine, never knew, and it was like.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And you. I mean, it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It could be anything. You know, usually it was members canceling dinner appointments. It's. It was never actually. It was never investigators, which is what we called friends back then. Yeah. Now we call them friends and that. It's always very confusing. Oh, we had some friends over, and I'm like, you had friends? Oh, oh, they were. They were people learning about the church. We called them investigators, which was also a terrible name, too.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It was like Inspector Gadget kind of. It was. It was.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It was Inspector Clouseau. It was never.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I didn't like investigator either, so. But it was what we said. And we never really had them call and cancel because I think it's probably the same for you on your mission, Richard, and that is in America, people that you have appointments to share the gospel with, they never called to cancel.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

They just simply answer their door. To the door. Yeah. Or send their kid to the door

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

to say, my mom says she's not home.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I did love those. Those were always really, really great. Now, so now we both have sons that are, you know, fixing to go out on. On missions to. Was it. Was it Who. Who. Which was the wrestler that was parts unknown. That wasn't George the Animal Steel. Was it. Was it. Was it a different one who was. Oh, I don't know, parts unknown? Anyway, so your son going to the Philippines and my son going to the Dominican Republic. How. How honest have you been?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, so.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So wait, how candid.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What. What constitutes being honest?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So what, like me volunteering information?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. So you're. You're omitting certain. You're redacting certain. Like your journal is just like some CIA report. It's just all redacted.

If I were to had my kids,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

my mission journal, it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

There is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. The. The alien files that just got released

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

would have far fewer redactions in it than my journal would have in it, because otherwise they'd be like.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So, like, everyone just hated you and no one ever listened to you yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's basically welcome to your.

Well, but the difference though is like my, my assumption is that your son's experience in the Philippines and my son's experience in the Dominican Republic will be vastly different than our experience in California and Wisconsin. Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, I mean, so in Wisconsin, in most of my apartments we had a shower. So there's that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, look, yeah, look there. There are the pros and the cons. I've joked about this several times with my son on his mission in Spain and my other son on a mission in Peru. They had vastly different p days and morning routine. But then the rest of the mission was also highly tilted towards Peru as being the better choice, you know?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right, right. Because people listen to you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

My son, you know, Kai is, he's six, six. The average height in the Philippines is like five two. And I told him, I'm like, you know, son, like the hardest part about serving a mission, like legitimately the hardest part is getting anyone to talk to you at all. This is a problem you're not going to have, which I, Parker too, in the Dominican Republic.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's like you aren't going to have the issue of no one wanting to talk. You're going to have the issue of people only wanting to talk to you to say, man, you're really tall.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so this happened to my brother in law serving his mission in Mongolia. Right. So he's six four, he's from Burleigh, Idaho and he speaks Mongolian. Now you weren't allowed to proselyte, you weren't allowed to solicit, but you teach

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

English and then hope you teach English

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

and if somebody asks you a question about who you were and what you're doing, then you can talk to him. Everyone's like, what are you doing?

Why are you here?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's funny.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. Why would you be here? And why do you speak Mongolian?

So I do want to just say quickly to parents of missionaries, we have several thousand missionaries that listen to the podcast and we're switching over to a Google workplace that allows for multiple people to or more than the 600 limit per drive, but we still have several thousand that are on the Google Drive and I just uploaded 15 new episodes for that drive. So those missionaries will have a lot more to listen to and I am very sorry.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So for those of you are new to the podcast, we, we have our weekly free podcast which you're listening to right now, going, yeah, in fact, I feel like you should probably be paying me.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But long ago we had people who wanted to try to donate to keep the podcast on the air, I think only because, I mean, they.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

They were. I don't know.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Why were they trying to keep it on the air? I don't know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Anyways, people are very nice, very kind.

They're like, this is my Sweetwater River. I'm going to keep this podcast on the air. It's like carrying someone across the ice.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so we decided, well, I don't want to just have people donate. What if we create a different podcast? So we created a premium channel where people can subscribe and then that money's used basically to keep the podcast on the air. And we have an American history one called Condemned to repeat it. We have a series on Joseph Smith and the Restoration. We have a series on some of the church historic sites, and we have a series on the Doctrine and Covenants that we kind of intermittently switch back and forth. So that's sometimes called the premium content. And for missionaries, anyone who's going on a mission, if they send us their missionary email address, we send them the link to a Google Drive with that in there. So they can listen to all of the podcasts for free, basically.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes, that is correct. And they will all be updated as of today. And Garrett, on with the mailbag.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, one thing before the Ultimate Warrior parts.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I know the Ultimate Warrior was parts. I know.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You ever like how he'd, like, grab the rope and just start shaking it? Yeah, the rope. Yeah, that's how you knew. I love the Ultimate Warrior.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, me too. So, Garrett, the first email comes to us from Josh. I just listened to the episode where you got your hands stuck reaching for your chapstick.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I would love them.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I would love to see the memes people created. And I was laughing out loud as I was driving to work meeting in to my work meeting in Dallas. I'm a premium subscriber and litner for a couple of years. He goes on to say, I love your work with getting people to the temple and a few missionaries from Cape Town. Small donations are working with a small ward in East London to be able to send 33 people to the temple later this year. Thank you for your inspiration. I hope I didn't just lose any heavenly blessings by telling y', all, but wanted to say I was inspired by your Peru and European temple trips, which is very nice.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's awesome.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And I will say, too, Garrett, I will put the link in the description of this episode. We've hired some social media content creators for the Sweetwater Rescue Foundation. And by hired, I mean they work for free. They work for free. They work for the experience. And so for our trip to the Nairobi temple from Chulu, Kenya, they have a lot of really cool stuff and so invite people to like and subscribe and share and all of those things as we, as we do that. As we're looking to possibly Cambodia and the Philippines as our next potential spots, which is very exciting. So anyway, all the work that Kai's going to do, those people need to get to the temple now. The next one comes to us from a missionary, and this came to us a good while ago. I don't know if this missionary is still a member of the church. A member of the church.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

A missionary.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Anyway, I'd like to request for you to continue talking about the King Follett sermon.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, boy. What is this?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so for the rank and file non missionary litners, Garrett did a King Follett part one, and then just didn't want to do anymore because he's like, look, this is. There's no way to do this.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's just so heavy.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's heavy. Yeah, it's heavy. So.

And when your dad would constantly tell us we were just waiting in deep doctrine, we'd be like, dan, we. We just read out of the Book of Mormon the last episode. What are you talking about?

That was the funniest part. He's like, you guys, you guys are. You guys are dabbling in the deep stuff. And I'm like, you should hear the stuff we're not doing.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I was like, dan, we were literally reading from doctrine covenant, section 76, like, the actual verses.

Guys, you guys need to be careful. He'd say it all the time. You guys need to be careful. You're just getting into doctrine. So anyway, so Garrett did this and. And, and I had forgotten that I put it in the Google Drive because even though we never posted the episode, it exists.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, should we release the part one and just tell people we'll never have a part two?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I mean, it's on brand. And also in the spirit of phoning it in, we recorded that six years ago.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Wasn't that recorded back when I was still, like, using a mic I found in a Cracker Jack prize I hadn't

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

even applied to go get my PhD.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Wow. Wow.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, it's an old one.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We'll have to touch up the. Maybe we will. Maybe we'll talk about possibly releasing that. It's just the run up to the King Fallen. It doesn't even talk about the King Fallen.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, it doesn't.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It just talks about other things that

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Joseph said that were kind of similar, but not really.

Right. Yeah, that's. That's right. Well, anyway, as a missionary, I've noticed that many of my colleagues seem hesitant to discuss it due to its complexities,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

which is why how many of your companions? I mean, first of all, look, what's this elder's name?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Elder Simister.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay, Elder, you're an elder after my own heart because I tried to lead

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

with the door approach for the King Follett servant. So the fact that every new companion you get, you're like, so what's. I feel like for companionship study, we should just read the King Follett sermon. And what's wrong with that?

Yeah, no, well, so he says, due to its complexities, it sometimes seems to be treated as a taboo subject, which I find silly. I'd love to learn more about its teachings and the accuracy of the accounts that were given. Thank you for creating such an informative and engaging podcast. I've learned a lot and truly enjoy littening or they said listening. Elder Simister.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Ah, boy, this is a tough. I mean, it is tough because without going full everything on it, when it comes to the question of why do I have companions who are hesitant to engage on it. I think because, you know, this is. Of all the deep things that Joseph Smith taught that are at least well known to Latter Day Saints, it's essentially the deepest thing. Now, frankly, you could have an argument over that because we only think it's the deepest thing because we've all come to terms with the fact that hell doesn't exist.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But members of the church in 1832,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

that was a pretty deep thing. The fact that you existed at all before you were born, that there was any type of pre existence, that's pretty deep. And so in a lot of ways, the King Follett sermon is really just an extension of. Of what Joseph is already teaching and through revelations he's received, like Doctrine and Covenants, Section 93. But my guess is the reason why people are hesitant to engage in it is there's so much of it that is so very deep. I recommend not, you know, using it as the first conversation you have with an inactive member family. I just don't even understand what the point of life is so you can become like God.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously it's because we're going to come like God. That's the point. And it wasn't received as well as I thought it would be because this Guy hadn't been to church in 20

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

years and hadn't really been active before he was. He was inactive. I mean, so he was barely a member when he was a member. And then he had just stopped being a member. And here I was like, yeah, it's

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

just obvious, like, all going to become my God.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And that's the reason why we're here on Earth.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I thought I was answering a question.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What I.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What I didn't realize was that there was a lot more to it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so, I mean, but that's. That's kind of the. That's kind of the point, though, right? Because there's multiple levels to this. You have. All right, what was. Of the accounts? Are they accurate? What was actually said? Okay. If those things were the things that were being said, what are the implications of those things? There's a lot to unpack there. And, yeah, I think some of the things that Joseph says, there seems to be online a tendency for folks to maybe discount it or say, well, that's not necessarily what we mean, because it's difficult to really dive in otherwise. Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I think so. I've noticed recently. So what's interesting, there's two aspects of the King Follett sermon that receive a lot of attention from Protestant primarily, but also Catholic, but essentially Christian opponents, antagonists of the church. Right. So if someone's going to say, well, you're not really a Christian and you don't really believe in the right Jesus, that kind of a person is going to focus on a couple of aspects of this sermon. Now, I think a lot of this really gets kind of boiled down to the couplet that Lorenzo Snow will. Will share multiple times in his life. And he's the one who makes it. He makes it popular. I mean, he gives us that couplet. And so this. You know, I'm not. I'm not about to.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You know, this is not just me

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

saying I'm reading from the teachings of

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

the President of the church, Lorenzo Snow, manual of the Church. Okay. So just so everyone's aware, I didn't write this.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

This is not my own manual.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I'm on churchofjesuschrist.org this is what's in the manual.

Which is kind of funny, though. Like, you having to qualify it like that kind of speaks to the issue. Right, Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So while attentively listening to his explanation, President Snow later recalled, the spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon me. The eyes of my understanding were opened, and I saw as clear as the sun at noonday with wonder and Astonishment. The pathway of God and man. And I formed the following couplet which expresses the revelation as it was shown to me. As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be. Now, I know we often hear that in a more shortened version, we usually hear as man is, God once was. As God is, man may become. The way it's actually in the document is, as man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be. And you know, he receives this before Joseph Smith gives the King Follett sermon. In fact, he believes it, he knows it, but he doesn't teach it until he hears Joseph teach the kingfollet sermon. So both sides of that couplet are a real problem for traditional Christians.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So at various times, antagonistic statements have focused on different parts of it. A general criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the second half of that couplet. As God now is, man may become. Right. The whole idea behind the God Makers anti Mormon garbage cartoon was to mock this idea that humans, through the grace of the atonement, through eternal progression, could eventually become gods. Now, that is, yeah, super heavy doctrine and as far as your average Christian is concerned, is the most, it's the most blasphemous thing that's ever happened. Although, you know, the pushback would be from a Latter Day Saint. Paul says that we are going to be joint heirs with Christ. And what is Christ heir to? Everything that his father has. So Christians very often use the words, they say that you'll be joint heirs with Christ. They just don't want to explain what that means. Well, that just means we're in heaven with Jesus. Well, that's not what Paul says. He doesn't say that just means you're going to be in heaven with Jesus. It means that you're going to receive all the father has. Now, we've had this discussion on both the premium and the free, and we've had it so very, so very many times. And every time I talk about it, it makes me feel like I'm being. That I need to affect a type of highbrow British accent because it's condescending. And so I have to be like,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

actually

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the, you know, no offense to our, our UK listeners, but, you know,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

it should make British people feel good

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

though, that like whenever, whenever an American wants to make someone sound like they're smarter than everyone else, they give them a British accent.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's, it's like our primary thing we do in America is, okay, we need

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

to make this guy look like, he's the smartest guy in the room. Make him British.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, okay. Well, they give him a British accent. And. And it's. At least for Hollywood, it's one of our prime ways that we. That we let, you know, this person.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Cultured, intelligent, not from Alabama. That's what. That's what they. I.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So I recently was in London, and I went to a West Ham Premier League game.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And was it not as erudite there

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

as you thought it would be?

What I'm telling you, Garrett, is that. First of all. First of all, first of all, I wanted the full. I've never been to a Premier League game before. It was a lot of fun, actually. I enjoyed it. The West Ham Hammer and Sickles, or whatever they are. The Irons, I guess.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The Hammer and Sickles. The Communist Party.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I have a hat.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It looks every single fan of their team is now boycotting our show.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

First of all, here's the thing. I loved it. The experience was tremendous. When I went to the concession and I asked for, all right, what's a classic West Ham football experience? And they're like, oh, you got to get a. You got to get a meat and onion pie. And I'm like, okay.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And they're like, that's the worst thing that ever.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So they're like. And I'm like, is it good? They're like, oh, it's lovely. I'm like, is it? Oh, it's. Oh, it's real nice. Lovely. Okay. It was. It was. It was. It was fine. But West Ham, you know, the part of London that it is has a higher than average percentile of cockney fans.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I see.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And I am telling you right now that no one that I was standing next to was sounding very erudite.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. You know, I mean, it makes you. It's kind of. Look, I get this. We have people email all the time who criticize the fact that we have Idaho accents.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Sure.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And they'll be like, well, you're not saying it right. You should say it like this. Like, look, I don't know how you say it in Tennessee. I'm telling you, in Idaho, they say crick. I don't know what to tell you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I don't know what to tell you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I don't know what to tell you. I mean, I know it's not spelled that way. Look, I live in a place right now in Utah where nobody pronounces mountain

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

the way that it's spelled.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They say mountain. They don't say mountain. They don't. The T is it Is gone. Yeah, it's Mountain.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Mountain Fountain. Yeah, yeah. Layton.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I realized that if you, you know, if you're from Maine, that, that's very difficult to hear. And also, have you ever heard, you know, people from Maine describe directions to somebody? There's a lot that could go around here.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I will not stand by and have someone that pronounces Oregon, Oregon, or tell me any. Tell me anything.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The entire time I was on my mission. That was the only way that so. And I would have companions, you know, from, from Oregon. And they would say, or, or, or from, from Nevada. And even when they would say, yeah, oh, oh, yeah, I'm. I'm from, I'm from Las Vegas, Nevada. Oh, you're from Nevada. Like, he just literally said it to them. He just said the word Nevada to

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

them and they said it back to him.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, Nevada. Nope, not Nevada.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So when, when West Ham, after they won the game and, and everyone sang the song about bubbles, which they. I was trying to understand and I couldn't understand, everyone left that game and immediately went on their chimney sweep route.

Every single one. So they finished cheering and they're like, chim chimney, chim chimney, chip, chip, chip.

No, they, they, they all sounded like Eliza Doolittle before she gets the speech therapy.

So when she reverts back at the horse race. Is that what you're saying?

Move your blooming. Yeah, that's the one.

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

For those of you who don't know,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that's a reference to My Fair lady

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

and you probably should if you don't know it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's a classic.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's classic. Classic. I mean, I could have danced all night. Now the, the point I was, I

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

was going to make though, is

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I was going to talk about. And I know I've talked about it before, so I'm sorry, you've heard it before. The aseity of God. Okay. And I know that sounds like I'm just being uppity. Obviously you've listened to the rest of this. So I'm not that intelligent. Just, just realize I'm using a word because there's really no other word to use. And the aseity of God is the self existence of God. Right? So for Christians, the most central aspect of God, what makes God God is that God was always God, that God always existed as God God. So, so the second part, I mean, the, the of that couplet or part of that couplet that says as man now is God once was. If you had to pick blasphemies to enrage a A, an Evangelical Protestant

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

would be one of them because they central to traditional Christian belief is this ex nihilo creation. And that is that God literally created literally everything. There was nothing, there wasn't space. So sometimes you're thinking about creation, you're thinking about it like oh, there's like rocks and stuff floating around and God said, okay, let there be a light. And no, that, that's not how it worked for a traditional Christian. Literally nothing existed but God, just God. And of course in his, you know, God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus was eternally begotten of the Father, so he also always existed. So that, that's a central aspect of God. So God couldn't ever have been something else because God was always God. So that's a real problem. And then of course the other part as God now is man may be well again the aseity argument that this is the eternal self existent nature of God, that God was always God, that's called the aseity of God. They would also say that that precludes you from becoming a God. Why? Because God had his Godness eternally. Meaning there was never a time that God wasn't God, he was never a man. God was always God. And, and that's why you can't ever become like God. Because even if God gives you all of his power, even if God says, you know, here's, here's the keys to the Lamborghini in the yacht, here's, here's everything, here's my PIN number to my ATM card, he can give you all of his power, but he can't give you his nature. One of the things that even a Christian who says God is all powerful, that Christian will tell you there's one thing that God can't do and that is he can't make you always have existed as a God because you haven't. So the essence of God to a traditional Christian is that God has always been God and that he created matter and he created time and he created everything. Nothing existed but God. And so no, you can't become like God because you can't ever get to a point where you have always existed and have always been God.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So a question to this because one of the things that's frustrating for me when I am slumming it in the subreddits is when a Latter Day Saint is in some sort of back and forth with one of our Christian brothers or sisters and their claim is that we're not Christian. And then the claim back from the Latter Day Saint is I believe that Jesus Christ is my savior. Right. It seems like this point is one of the. One of the main points as to what Latter Day Saints don't understand as to why it is that they're said. They're, They're. They're said that they're not to be.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. I mean, now this is going to come as no surprise that I'm kind of on the Latter Day Saints side in this, but, I mean, we like

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

to lead with our biases here on

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the Standard of Truth podcast because it is very, very frustrating that someone says, well, you're going to go to hell. You aren't a real Christian. You don't believe in Jesus. And then you respond, I literally, the only thing I care about in life is Jesus. I changed my entire life because of Jesus. I'm certain that Jesus is my Savior. I know that Jesus is the only way I can be saved. And their response is, well, you believe in the wrong Jesus right? Now, I gotta tell you, that's frustrating because essentially Protestants are. Then, you know, for all of the. You don't need a work to be saved. You just have to have faith. Well, they just created a work. And that work is not that you look, because I am certain that Jesus is my Savior and that Jesus died and was resurrected. I'm certain Joseph Smith saw him. I am certain that Jesus Christ lives and is the Savior of all mankind. But that declaration I just made would not be enough for many Christians to say that I could be saved, because they would say, yeah, but you believe in the Mormon Jesus. Now, the interesting part is, right, I mean, they aren't going through the New Testament and deciding whether or not Cornelius had the right type of faith in the, you know. Now, did Cornelius have a. Was that a homoousion essence that he. Or was that heterooseon? That was homoiousion. Oh, my goodness.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, Cornelius, he can burn in hell with everybody else. Then he can claim he believed in Jesus all day long. But if he tried to divide the

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

essence, I mean, it really goes to these dogmatic, creedal statements, because, I mean, look, I absolutely believe Jesus is my Savior. But. But many a Christian would say, but you don't believe in the right Jesus. And you're like, no, it's the one in the Bible. It's the, the same one who came out of the tomb. That's who I believe in. And they would say, no, because you believe that. That the Father and the Son are separate beings, and you believe that the Father is in some way above the Son. Rather than equal to him. Right now, I'm not saying that's what we believe. I'm saying that's how they would say back to us, what we believe. Right. And so it's frustrating, but part of the reason why they're saying this is if you believe that there was a time that God wasn't exactly the way God is right now, then you don't believe in God properly. And that's what they're saying now. Unfortunately, this happens with a lot of things. I mean, this most often happens with things like polygamy, but we are all guilty of it. And frankly, you know, I'm having some flashbacks from my mission where. And I was probably pretty guilty of this.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I was incredibly guilty of this.

You don't even know what I'm gonna say.

I know exactly what you're gonna say. Can I predict what you're gonna say?

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. What you're gonna say is, is that when. When you're on your mission and you get a tough topic or a tough question like a polygamy. Using polygamy as the example, the go to would be to. To. To. To like, kind of do some. Some. Some like a bull fighter move where I'm just kind of, you know, moving the thing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I move the cape and I do a little.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Moving the little Latin hip.

[Narrator]

Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And it's like, well, you know, less. Less than 2% ever practice polygamy. And it's because all these people died, and that's why we did it. And. And it was. And for any of the difficult top. Rather than to take them head on, I would. Because in many cases, because of my own ignorance on the topic or because it's just easier to move the cape or. Can we just talk about. I'll get to polygamy, but can at least we talk about the Book of Mormon first? You know, and so I would often take arguments that were bad arguments or say things that weren't even necessarily true. I'm not saying that I didn't know. I wouldn't lie on purpose.

It's just you'd be like, no, no one ever practiced polygamy.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You're a dog.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But, like, I believed it. I was taught that. And that was kind of the way that it was. And so polygamy was the easiest, but all of these difficult ones where I would kind of find a way to diminish or to make it smaller or not be as big of a deal so that we can talk about the other. The other stuff. That's my assumption.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's what I was going to say is that. Is that we sometimes, because we're just. We all know a certain few things, right? We know that if people will read the Book of Mormon with pure heart and with real intent, that the Holy Spirit will tell them that it's the word of God and it will be transformative of their life, and it will put to bed a lot of the questions. The other questions they have, the problem is, how do I get someone to be willing to read the Book of Mormon with pure heart and real intent when they refuse to even touch it because you believe in the wrong Jesus? And if I read your Mormon book, I will be reading false doctrine about a fake Jesus.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so, I mean, I know there are times that people will say, well, you know, all you got to do is testify. That's all you got to do. Yeah. And that's rarely very effective, actually. I mean, it is good to testify, but if someone has a concern and you don't even attempt to resolve it, they most likely are still going to have a concern. Not because your testimony isn't powerful, not because the Holy Spirit can't testify of the truth of it, but because the person you're talking to is not with. With a pure heart asking. They have a wall up and they are not going to allow anything to be felt because of that. And so what sometimes happens, and part of the reason why we're talking about this today is over the past week and a half, two weeks, I have seen multiple Latter Day Saints online. Some of them with podcasts, some of them, you know, just with a little Instagram reel, you know, some of them just in a chat, you know, in a text response to somebody who's saying something, try to get around this very difficult doctrine. Now, look, this doctrine from the King Follett sermon is something that Joseph himself says that it will take a long time after you are dead before you can understand it. So when you say, well, there's parts of the King Fallet sermon I just don't really understand, the answer is, yep, yep, because Joseph is telling the Saints in Nauvoo, you actually can't have a full understanding of what I'm teaching you, and you won't even have it when you die. It will take a long time after you're dead before you fully understand this idea of becoming like God as man now is God once was. So what I've seen happen is I've seen people try to distance the church from this attack on aseity. Right. Because so Many Christians that they're trying to engage with are saying, I'm not even going to listen to you because you think that there was a time when God was just a man and then he progressed to become God. And the ways that people have tried to do it again, I understand they all are super well meaning, but one of the ways that they've done it, and I've seen this throughout my career, is by trying to denigrate the King Follett sermon as a source in and of itself. Now look, you've listened to me long enough, or maybe this is the first and last time you'll ever listen to me. So you listen to me long enough to know that I do this all the time. We did it not very long ago when someone said, hey, there's this really weird part of Joseph's sermon. Do we believe that the idea that the prophet would know when the second coming was going to happen before anyone else did? Right. And so we went back to the multiple versions of that sermon, found that it was only in one of the versions of the sermon and that the person who recorded it was someone who wasn't there when the sermon was given, and that even the Joseph Smith papers had to say he must have gotten his information from someone else from a different source. He's clearly copying something, but he wasn't there and we don't know who he got it from. And he's the only one who included that part of the sermon. So look, I am one of the first people to say let's look at all of the versions of something. But you know, just over the past couple weeks, I've actually heard a couple of people and fairly prominent people try to argue that Joseph was not actually teaching that God wasn't always God, and that that's a misunderstanding of what he actually said. And there are multiple versions of the King Follett sermon. And so let me go to. You know, this is what you always wanted, Richard. I'm going to read part of it. This is what you wanted.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It is actually what I wanted. It is. And so for what it's worth, it's my favorite thing. And so I understand the difficulty to it, but I, I love. My dad was right. I do love the.

See, he was warning you for a reason.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know what, so, so here's, Let me just say as a caveat, one of the reasons why you don't want to engage in denigrating what was taught in order to get yourself closer to what other Christians believe is it actually doesn't make any difference in the end, if you think that, you say to a Christian, no, we believe that God and Jesus were always God and Jesus and that they were never in any way like we are and that we will never in any way become like them. If you think making that argument will make this Christian that you're talking to now embrace the Book of Mormon. I mean, that's not their only problem with the church. It's one that they think they win on. Because all traditional Christianity believes in ex nihilo creation out of nothing, and we don't. So it's a way of pushing the needle on that sensitive topic and a way of claiming that Mormons are blasphemers. Oh, you're taking away from the power of God. It's like, no, we're actually saying that God's even more powerful. No, because if you're saying that if he ever didn't have all the power, then you're taking away God's power. Right? I mean, so it's a semantic argument about it. And so like I said, I've heard several people, again, super well meaning, try to argue that that's not really what Joseph said. Now, when you do that, you need to be very careful. It's like saying, well, Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, but, you know, he never had any marital relations with any of his wives. Right. The first part of the sentence is true. The therefore or the, you know, we actually, you know, we don't know. And in fact, you have multiple of his wives who say that their marriage was like any other marriage. So you can sure settle someone down real quick who's struggling with polygamy by saying, oh, they were all just ceilings. None of them were real marriages. And you know what? They are settled down and they are fine. The problem is it's not accurate. And at some point, if it really is an issue that bothers them, they're going to find out that it's not accurate. And so someone was responding to this by approaching this very difficult part. So let me read from the. The version that's in the history of the church, that would eventually be in the history of the church. Okay, so that, you know, again, using the history of the church here, folks. All right, Just reading right out of it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I didn't write this. I'm not Willard Richards Savior Pitchforks.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

As Jesus, as Joseph is talking, he's going to. Well, I guess I need to read a little. I was just going to read the little portion, but I probably need to read more just so that am I read the whole thing. Richard, I don't want to do this. What are we doing? What is this?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's. That's. That's almost like. Did you see the Saturday Night Live impression of Tucker Carlson? That's what. That's what you sounded like. What are we doing?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What are we doing? Why are we here? Who am I? Where's my bow tie? So I have been requested to speak by his friends on the death of King Follet. Many in this congregation feel disposed to speak on the subject in general and offer you my ideas as far as I have ability and so far as I shall be inspired by the Holy Spirit to dwell on this subject. I want your prayers and faith that I may have the instruction of the Almighty God and the gift of the Holy Ghost, so that I may set forth things that are true which can be easily comprehended by you, and that the testimony may carry conviction to your hearts and minds on the truth of what I shall say. Pray that the Lord may strengthen my lungs and stay the winds, and let the prayers of the saints to heaven appear that they may enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. For the effectual prayers of the righteous availeth much. There is strength here. And I verily believe that your prayers will be heard before I fully enter into the investigation of the subject which is laying before me. I wish to pave the way and bring up the subject from the beginning that you may understand it. I'll make a few preliminaries in order that you may understand the subject. So you see, Joseph. Joseph also did preliminaries. I'm not saying I'm Joseph. I'm just saying when you're like, hey, why aren't you just getting right to it? He's commenting on the wind. I mean, that's basically talking about what the line on the Timberwolves game is pretty much.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I mean, if there were timberwolves, Joseph would have said, are they. Are they the spurs favored by nine and a half? That's what he'd say.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I do not calculate or intend to please your ears with superfluity of words or oratory or with much horning. But I calculate to edify you with simple truths from heaven. The first place I wish to go back to the beginning, to the morn of creation. There is the starting point for us to look to in order to understand and to be fully acquainted with the mind, purposes and decrees of the great Elohim who sits in yonder heavens, as he did at the creation of this world. It is necessary for us to have an understanding of God Himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time. But if we start wrong, we may go wrong and it will be a hard matter to get it right now again. Joseph often teaches powerful sermons at funeral orations. Why? Because Joseph really believes that understanding who you really are, why you are really here, and where you are really going is the best way to calm someone's troubled heart when they are dealing with loss. True doctrine salves more wounds than anything else, and that's what Joseph believes, and that's why he's talking about it. The great majority of mankind do not comprehend anything either that which is past or that which is to come, as it respects their relationship with God. They do not know, neither do they understand the nature of that relationship. And consequently they know but little above the brute beasts or more than to eat or drink and sleep. This is all man knows about God or His existence, unless it is given him by the inspiration of the Almighty. If a man learns nothing more than to eat and drink and sleep and does not comprehend any of the designs of God, the beast comprehends the same thing. It eats and drinks and sleeps and knows nothing more about God. Yet it knows as much as we, unless we are able to comprehend by the inspiration of Almighty God. If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Us.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now, so. So already, Joseph, that. That's a pretty big statement to say. If you don't know who God is, then you don't know who you are. That's why he thinks this is important. I want to go back to the beginning and so lift your minds into a more lofty sphere and a more exalted understanding than what the human mind generally aspires to. I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer this question in their own heart. What kind of a being is God? Ask yourselves. Turn your thoughts and your hearts and say if any of you have seen or heard or communed with Him. This is a question that may occupy your attention for a long time. I again repeat the question. What kind of a being is God? Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen him, heard him or communed with Him? Now, of course, Joseph asking this question, and he has, right? He has seen him and heard him and talked with him on multiple occasions. Here is a question that peradventure from this time forth will henceforth occupy your attention. The Scriptures inform us that this is life eternal, that they might know the only True God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. If any man does not know God and inquires what kind of a being he is, if he will search diligently in his own heart, if the declarations of Jesus and the apostles be true, he will realize that he has not eternal life. For there can be no eternal life on no other principle. My first object is to find out the character of the only wise and true God and what kind of being he is. And if I am so fortunate as to be the man to comprehend God and explain or convey the principles to your hearts so that the Spirit seals them upon you, then let every man and woman henceforth sit in silence and put their hands on their mouths. And never lift up their hand or voices or say things against the man of God or the servants of God again. Now, this is a time of great persecution and Joseph is saying, you know, there are people here who are speaking out against me. I'm going to tell you the kind of being God is. And so you know, how about then stop claiming I'm a false prophet. He goes on to say, everyone believe whatever they believe. But he says, and that you should never meddle with a man because of his religion. Every man has a natural, has a natural in our country constitutional right to be a false prophet as well as a true prophet. So I kind of cut out a bunch here. But if I show verily that I have the truth of God and show that 99 out of every hundred professing Christians, sorry, religious ministers are false teachers, having no authority while they pretend to hold the keys of God's kingdom on earth and was to kill them because they are false teachers, it would be a deluge the whole world with blood. I will prove the world is wrong by showing what God is. I am going to inquire after God, for I want you all to know him and to be familiar with Him. And if I can bring you to a knowledge of him, all persecutions against me ought to cease. You will then know that I am his servant, for I speak as one having authority. I will go back to the beginning, before the world was to show you what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear all ye ends of the earth. For I am going to prove it to you by the Bible and to tell you the designs of God in relation to the human race and why he interferes with the affairs of men. God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man. And sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the veil was rent today and the great God who holds this world in orbit and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power was to make himself visible, I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man, in form, like yourselves, in all the person, image and very form of man. For Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God and received instruction from and walked and talked and conversed with him as one man talks and communes with another. In order to understand the subject of the dead. So again, Joseph goes back, why does this matter? It matters because you are all grieving that this young, you know, father died a tragic death, a faithful, righteous man in a terrible accident, a well collapsed on him. In order to understand the subject of the dead, for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be. So now already we got a real problem, okay? The very fact that I just said the words and how he came to be so would not be accepted in any traditional Christian literature.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Because the definition of God is that God has always been God and how he came to be. So for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea. Now that is the reason why Christians often bring up the King Follett sermon and maybe the reason why your companions aren't so hip to the jive of talking about it. It because Joseph is saying now he's going to go on to explain this. We're out of time, so I'm not going to be able to explain it. But. But Joseph is saying that God came to be God and that it is something that is imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea. He, you know, the very next thing he says is these are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are simple. So I think what you're dealing with is that because every single professing Christian at the center of what they believe is that God was always God and that none of us ever existed and that God created everything, including time and space, whatever. The idea that God was not always God is anathema to their belief, but seems to be the point of what Joseph is trying to teach, that God is an exalted man. Now, we don't know a lot about that, okay? So I'm not claiming I understand how that works, but maybe on our next episode, if we don't can this, and I don't even let Richard release it, we're going to go through these different accounts of the sermon. So you can see where people have tried to say, well, maybe he didn't really say that, because that part is so problematic I don't want to deal with. Makes it impossible for me to share the gospel with my Christian friend. If he thinks that we think that God became God and this is the reason why they think it. So what do you think, Richard? Is that deep enough to leave everyone on a cliffhanger?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, I think it is. You know, it's interesting though. I think what we could do is we could release this one then immediately. The Declaration of Independence, two parter.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Then we could re release the one. And I looked, it's actually 2022, so I was actually in the middle, in the midst of my Protestant hell, in terms of.

Which made us think about the nature of God.

It was worse than a funeral, actually. And then.

You mean the first part of the

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

King Fallett sermon, because you do do

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

a great job of setting up the context of that. And then. And then sometime by the middle of June now, then we talk about the different accounts.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay. All right. So we're going to release what we heretofore said we will never release.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's correct.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

This is coming from the. You know, if you have like a band that you like, love and there's like a.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

This is the B sides. Yeah.

It's a track that's recorded but never actually released.

Yeah.

You know, it's the studio tapes kind of thing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's what this is. Only it's not good.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's actually the bummer is it's one of your best ones. Just we never released it. It's really popular with missionaries.

How much more popular we would be had we released one of the best ones we ever did.

Yes, indeed.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay, so we don't want to release

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that first one before this one.

It would make a lot more sense,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

but we would need. You know what the best part is?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We're recording this whole conversation live as we are talking about the podcast. So thank you so much for joining us. You'll see how this shakes out. Or maybe you won't. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Narrator]

Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Dr. Richard L. Duke. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode. Please share it with them until next time.