A lot of online buzz from several influencers stating that Joseph Smith didn't practice polygamy or support temple ceremonies. This makes no sense and shows an apparent lack of understanding of the scriptures, which are replete with temple references.
Jacob Hansen has had his "ear to the ground" on this phenomenon and shares some historical points showing that Joseph Smith was very aware of polygamy. Also, that he received the revelation of Doctrine and Covenants Section 132, not Brigham Young.
so there's been a recent Buzz about the history of polygamy in the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints there's
a number of influencers online who are saying that Joseph Smith Never practiced
polygamy that this is something that was brought in by Brigham Young Jacob Hansen my friend and the host of thoughtful
faith has done a lot of work on this and has had debates on this and kind of has his ear on the ground to this subject
Jacob shares historical points that he believes shows that definitely Joseph
Smith was proud practicing polygamy now this episode is brought to you by scripture notes as you've heard me say
before I love scripture notes I use this as a study tool I've used it for my book
to do research one of the things I love about it is the AI assistant Daniel I'll give you an example here one of the
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a search on the Brazen serpent which has a reference to the Brazen serpent you click on the uh link here and you see AI
assistant Daniel I went to daniiel and I asked the question about using the entire Book of Mormon give me an
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additional references from the Old Testament for me and so I get a concise outline of the references to the Brazen
serpent within the Book of Mormon and without try it for yourself go to scripture notes.com here we go
[Music]
all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we've brought on Jacob
Hansen who's recently put out a video on his YouTube channel about polygamy and
the the idea of polygamy stopped or never existed I guess right with Joseph Smith and with Brigham Young Jacob
welcome to the show thanks thanks for having me on Greg okay stumbled a little bit on that Jacob I there is a movement
ly online of people that are hammering Brigham Young stating that there is a
break between Joseph and Brigham everything stopped in terms of keys and priesthood Authority Temple ordinances
Doctrine Revelation everything stops between the two here why is this something that is so
prevalent um well I actually think it starts with polygamy itself okay um
polygamy is something that is just an uncomfortable topic for everybody um Even in our church like we don't we
don't teach that polygamy is a positive like this is what God wants for everyone it's the highest ideal even though
church leaders have in the past maybe taught that polygamy was the ideal it's not um polygamy I I like to use the
analogy of War okay war is never like it isn't the ideal isn't what God wants for
his children obviously but it can be justified in certain circumstances and so because there is
this level of like okay discomfort with that a lot of people want to try and disassociate it with Joseph Smith right
they want to say this is some sort of an error that came later and so that's kind
of where it initially starts but then it grows from there once you begin to say
well if Joseph Smith Never practiced plural marriage and that means that
Brigham Young is the guy who brought it up and it wasn't inspired and it's wicked and it's evil and then well if
Brigham Young was wicked and evil well then how can we trust the temple
ordinances that were developed under his his tenure and all that kind of stuff so it begins with polygamy is uncomfortable
and then it ends with Russell M Nelson is not a prophet okay yeah exactly well that's I
want to get into that a little bit later here but so way basically it's the ability to continue to say uh I believe
that Joseph Smith was a prophet I believe in the first Vision I believe that the gospel was restored I believe in the Book of Mormon I believe in all
of these things except for this body that grows after it which is the
church yeah right I mean how do you how do you believe I mean the well I'll just go right into it how do you believe that
russem Nelson is a prophet and holds the keys of authority if you believe it stop
all stops right after Joseph Smith and does that seem like a good plan or is that just
apostasy it at the end of the day this has been the same basic fundamental theory behind every breakoff movement
since 1844 okay uh the idea is Joseph got it right but then this line the brigite
church as they call it that's the one that went off the rails now my question
to anyone who wants now to be fair there is a an
attempt to say well Joseph Smith he had
it right and Brigham Young had something right the church did it fell into kind
of what I'd like to call like a soft apostasy the fullness of the priesthood was taken away and we're in a sort of
condemned State as a church and that's the reason Reon why the church is wrong
about Co and and the church is wrong about these different things and there was a priesthood ban and so it begins to
create a narrative in which they can say that any errors in the church so far as
they perceive them are a product of this sort of soft apostasy um
but the problem is is that I think when you go to the historical evidence first of all Joseph did practice plural
marriage um and the other theories about some
sort of a soft apostasy don't make any sense they either have the keys or they
don't and and yeah you you just you call into
question the authority of the church itself and and the leadership of the church and you end up getting this
really distrustful sort of okay we need to reform the Church because I know better
than the Brethren when it comes to this and it creates a Schism within the church where sort of there's this
bottomup movement that knows the real story that the leaders aren't telling
you and it's a recipe for apostasy Schism disaster in the church well and
this is what you always see I mean I've already been watching you know Michelle Stone and others it's like that is that
is what you see there becomes this Spirit of apostasy that enters in it's it's putting down the it's putting down
the temple it's and it goes you know Jacob it goes back to this idea that there seems to be this urge for people
to push off a church and I'm not talking about just with it with latterday Saints
right this this idea this spiritualism which is yeah I can have a
direct relationship with God why does anything else have to exist get it out of the way right I've got the Bible you
know or whatever for us it's you know we' got the Bible in the Book of Mormon I I don't need I can pray I don't need
this the the the bride right I speaking of polygamy I don't need the bride right
and so we can I let's let's just clear the path between God and me and stop
with this idea of something that's in that's between us it's it's what I like to call Mormon
protestantism right it's the same narrative that the Protestants had about the Catholic Church right it's that hey
we can go and because here's the real problem they run into if this church
doesn't have the keys where are the keys anyone who's a follower of Jesus
Christ they're seeking the key holders they're seeking it's it's part of our
Temple liturgy you know I am seeking true Messengers from my father right
that's what we seek and Jesus Christ established that when he said I give unto you the Keys of the Kingdom so they
can B on Earth and bind in heaven and my big question to people is who holds them and either russem Nelson holds them or
he doesn't and if he holds them then we listen to what he says and we and he has
the authority to dictate the way things work within the church right and
so but there's a more fundamental problem the fundamental narrative is just false it is simply false Joseph
Smith practiced plural marriage and then after him Brigham Young continued the
practice and I here's one of the ways I get around the whole polygamy stuff when people bring it up I just say Joseph was
telling the truth God commanded him to practice plural marriage you can have questions as to why I think he had a lot
of questions as to why there's a whole big discussion to have about it but to just deny that it happened it's to deny
certain facts that I think establish this to where anyone who ever interacts
with what I call you know polygamy denier okay here is
what they'll do they'll ask you questions that you may not have the answer to okay and that's fine uh flat
earthers can do the same thing they could ask you some question like why don't the planes fly over Antarctica or
something like that and you're like they don't you're right and it'd be faster if they did and and so all of a sudden it calls into to question all these things
and there are some questions that you could ask that are maybe we don't have great answers to all the time
um but when you start to ask them questions you
end up realizing they have a whole lot more questions that they have either no answers for or really really bad answers
for and if you want I can I can go into a few of those yeah let's go into that a little bit I want to talk about that
because they have to have some things that they're getting right or that they
are you know at least that people superficially are not can can easily react to in order to fall into this trap
right there there's got to be some things where they're like okay well I can see this I can see that uh you know
Jacob 2 for example an interpretation on that and and other things where where it's oh yeah yeah that would make sense
right yeah or or a very good one is that Emma Smith in uh later in her life
denied denied that Joseph had practiced plural marriage okay so they're like whoa like that's crazy it's like all
right fine like we can deal with that and and frankly I think that there are explanations as to why that may be one of my theories and I'm just going to put
this out there just as Jacob Hansen's wild theory is that if Joseph's marriages didn't entail sexual relations
or she didn't think they did she might not have thought that they counted as actual marriages or uh it could be the
possibility that she was just simply so heartbroken over it it happened at the very end of her life that she just was like no I'm I'm not going to accept that
right well there's also the idea that what is a ceiling you know we you go back and because you know this is
something I have looked at it's they didn't fully even Joseph I
don't think fully understood in the way that we do this order of family ceiling at to some degree right it's like my
understanding is he was even sealed to men and and so it's like well what is this it's like oh we are all the family
of God we all have to be sealed back to him through this process of ordinances
and Etc what what is this ceiling what does that mean and how do you do it
right it's like it's like with B baptism for the dead where they went out and started baptizing for dead in the in the
in the river and you know doing it over and over again and and it's like there's not a full understanding of of this new
revelation agreed and I think that and even gets more complicated when you start to realize that a lot of what is a
lot of what is said about plural marriage is said later by second and thirdhand sources and people are saying
oh well Joseph said this and then another person says he said something different and so it's a it's it's a
whole rabbit hole that you can dig into I highly recommend if you want actually get into the real just everything that
we know uh Brian hail's uh uh multiple volume set on Joseph Smith's polygamy
his website Joseph Smith polygamy as great resources you're going to get the full story that we know and when you end
up you end up we know some things but but when you turn it around and you begin to ask some questions to the
people who deny that he practiced it they have to account for things like this so I like to start off by saying look there's there's a there's a litmus
test kind of like the Book of Mormon is like sort of the litmus test for our church right if it's true the church is true if it's false church is false
section 132 if it was written by Joseph Smith end of story this whole like he
practiced plural marriage because that's he like that's what section 132 is about so the first bit of evidence a lot of
things are second thirdhand accounts or whatever so let's what I did when when I did my debate is I said I'm not going to
rely on those I'm just going to go to what we have that's contemporaneous and or firsthand stuff so in Joseph Smith's
own journal on July 12th this is the date that 132 is received it says that
he received this Revelation in the presence of with of hyam and William Clayton okay so i' like to ask them what
was the Revelation that Joseph received on July 12th 1843 and their answer is like well it's
um it was on marriage but it didn't teach polygamy so they'll even get to the point that they admit that he
received a revelation on marriage on July 12th 1843 okay so let's go on to
the next one or let me let me do that here actually I have control of it so not only did Joseph have it in his
journal but William Clayton had it in his journal William Clayton wrote and William Clayton's Journal is more
specific he says that we got this Revelation on the order of the priesthood and it talks about what was
the Revelation about well William Clayton in his contemporaneous Journal before any of this was a controversy
said that it was about plural marriage okay so it's like wait a minute why why
is this in Joseph's journal and in Clayton's Journal okay but we go on so I
always like to ask people this question what happened in the August 12th 1843
High council meeting in navu you just ask the question something happened to that meeting do you guys know what well
we can we can go on Ure or we can look at the historical record first of all every single person that was in that
meeting eventually practiced polygamy except for three people okay so those
three people were Leonard soby Austin cowls and William Marx all of these people were not followers of Brigham
Young they didn't like Brigham they were against this against plural marriage
okay so what did those three people say well actually I'm going to first let me
go to this we'll get to what they said but let's go to that meeting what happened in the meeting well what we don't have to ask people later we can
look at actual contemporaneous journal entries from August 12th 1843 where it
says that hyram who was the one leading the council was talking about the idea of Brothers taking up their wives to
raise up seed unto them like it was back in ancient Israel must again be established this is the law of leverite
marriage which is the it's polygamy that's what liverite marriage is and so we know in that meeting based on the
contemporaneous notes of people that were there that it was a talk about
plural marriage given by hyam Smith and we can go on So eventually this is a
really interesting one Leonard soie is one of those guys who he never uh he never Embrace polygamy um
he's one of the three of the High Council that did not practice if we go if we go back up here he's one of those
three he's the first one on this list that guy up there Thomas Grover by the way I throw this out there that that's
my direct uh I'm a direct Senate of him oh really Thomas Gro yeah he was there
he could your ancestor could tell you what was up in this meeting but it's okay because we have the other guys who weren't even polygamist who told us what
happened at this meeting Leonard soie we're gonna get to his affidavit and what he said and he said exactly what
happened but you also have William Marx and Austin cowls now Austin cowls said
uh he's the one who basically came out and said uh in the navu Expositor hey
Joseph Smith taught polygamy and he basically started qu quoting section 132 okay William Marx um he ended up joining
the rlds what he said it's really inter what he said he said yes Joseph taught polygamy but then right before he died
he told me oh I regret all this it's like uh okay so he doesn't deny that
Joseph taught polygamy Austin CS doesn't deny it and this is one of my favorite ones is Leonard soie this one I think is
just it's just a bull ey see the rlds church for all of their history maintained that um
that that polygamy wasn't Joseph's thing right this is sort of Emma's group um
and So eventually in the 18 uh I believe it the 1870s or 80s um
they started to basically kind of use this against the church they're like Joseph never taught polygamy Joseph
Smith II third they're all about this and so there is this big debate what a lot of people don't realize is that in
the late 1800s 1870s 1880s there's this big debate going on this the same one we're having today did Joseph practice
polygamy one of the Apostles of the rlds church knew about Leonard soie so he
knew on this list that Leonard soby was one of the guys in that meeting and so he said I'm gonna go to Leonard soy and
I'm gonna find out what happened in that meeting he goes there and this is what he says he says honor about the 12th day
of August 1843 Elder hyam Smith read the Revelation on Celestial marriage he's
talking about section 132 that Revelation did not originate with Brigham Young but was received by the
Prophet Joseph Smith and read uh in the High Council by his
authority why would Leonard soie lie yeah so so what's happening then here is
that the r rlds church is setting their story their narrative on what happened
right because if they're if he saying this right here then there's obviously this is already a
thing right this is already a teaching of the r rlds church this is this is a
thing that's happening already with this conflict yep and there's another fun one if you want to put it on the screen here
um so remember there were people that knew what really happened and they knew that the rlds was doing this and eboner
Robinson he wasn't in the meeting but he wrote a letter to Joseph Smith III and was like hey you need to knock this off
and here's what he said he said hyram Smith taught me the doctrine he's like having talking about himself he's like
having a perfect personal knowledge of these facts facts together with many others here not stated a denial of them
sounds like a great lie I'm sorry it is so but we cannot undo the past Ebenezer
Robinson was not a brigite so my question is why did
Ebenezer Robinson write this letter why did Leonard soby write that letter again
if we're asking the question what was revealed to Joseph on July 12th if we come back here I got all these slides if
we ask what was was revealed on July 12 1843 remember that high council meeting
starts a month after the Revelation was received so if you've just received a
major Revelation from God what do you think they're going to talk about in the meeting maybe that Revelation and that's
exactly what the historical record shows what do you do with this like this
is now here's the other thing I it gets even worse because Austin cows is in that meeting Austin cows is one of the
people who a year later in the Nauvoo Expositor exposes that section 132 was
read in the meeting how do we know that because wait say that again he what so
Austin cows is in this meeting here's what happened Austin cows hears this stuff and he doesn't like it he's going
plural marriage what the freak man so he's starting to have his doubts about all this stuff he's thinking Joseph may
be off the rails and then what happens is is William law and Austin end up
being being the ones who who in the when they put together the navoo Expositor there's a bunch of stuff in there one of
the things they put in the navoo Expositor was they wanted to expose polygamy and so what they did was they said Austin was like I will go on record
saying what happened in that meeting I will expose what they have revealed here now he doesn't say I learned it in that
meeting specifically but we know that he did you want to know why because he starts quoting section 132 in the Nauvoo
Expositor he literally used the things if you actually look at what he says he's talking about section 132
specifically when when is he doing this in 1844 on May 4th okay so this is what
year did Joseph die he died a month after this yeah so May June June 27th so
here's the thing the polygamy deniers here's what they'll ask you here's the question they like to ask they go hey
did you know when section 132 was first revealed that's what I've heard yeah and
they go they say it wasn't until they were in Utah under Brigham
Young And it's like this big like gotcha moment and then I go yeah except for the fact that I can read section 132 being
quoted by Austin cowls in the navu Expositor and I have affidavits from the other people who were in that meeting
who all said yeah it was read in that meeting so it's like why should I believe you over the people who were
actually there and had no motivation to lie because they're going to be like all these people were all liars they're all brigam mites and that's I knew they were
going to say that so that's why I said I'm not going to use brigam mites I'm going to use people that weren't even that hated brigam young who said the
same thing and the obvious thing that section 132 shows up in the navu
Expositor in 1844 you can't say that that that section 132 was a later
creation after 1844 if it's right here in black and white in 1844 before your
eyes so yeah and again that's the that's what you hear that's the narrative right
Brigham Young wrote it he pretends it was it was by Joseph Smith so that he
can you know and again it goes back to this whole idea of well there there's
sex and power and this is Fallen men and men will be men and and and you know
they're they're just going to go out they want a bunch of women it's it's a cult environment they want a bunch of
women so they're going to make this up and change Mormonism into their own image right and they and they hold that
same attitude towards people like the Old Testament prophets Jacob uh Abraham
Moses in my opinion I think there's a great case that he was to the both a
midianite and a kushite um and then you have the other issue here's a here's a
fun one I like to ask so polygamy is adultery in their mind
yep yeah it's adultery it's wrong okay so why did God get up upset with David
when David slept with BBA but not with all those other women he was committing adultery
with you know it's like um wouldn't God have said something about all of that
other adultery that was going on like or did he just randomly be like you know what this wife is just one too many now
they're what they'll probably do I mean I think I think the retort there is going to be Jacob too and going back and and trying to interpret what is being
said there what is your take on Jacob 2 my take on Jacob 2 is that what is being said there is that what David did do was
wrong I do I don't think that all of all of the wives of David were given to him by the Lord I don't think that he my
take is that there was that David's plural marriage was not wrong until he made it wrong by going beyond what the
Lord wanted him to do with it same with Solomon same with Solomon same with Soloman and I'm gonna say this I'm gonna
I'm gonna say that I'm not going to say that everything that was done with polygamy was always done properly I'm
not a believer in prophetic infallibility I think there may have been things that were done wrong um and
I don't have a problem with that but I also say one of the reasons I'm a
Latter-Day Saint is because we actually account for plural marriage and nobody
else does and I think that it was a again it's a
messy thing in my opinion in many ways but do think this that in Jacob 2 it
says that the purpose of it was to raise up seed unto the Lord okay that doesn't mean have more babies everyone who thinks that like you're wrong stop don't
say that anymore that's not what it is because you actually get more babies per woman in monogamy than you do in polygamy but the difference is
this you have families that are incredibly
dedicated to the Lord through the sacrifice of polygamy and the and by the
way if people think that like oh it's just about like having a lot ofx a lot of women I'm sorry you guys if you want to have sex with a lot of women there's
a there's a people have sex with a lot of women all the time and they don't marry them take them in and try and like
have and take care of the children in the whole yeah yeah well that's a whole other discussion because everyone says
you know because men are gonna agree with it too there because they understand their own sex drive and so they're like yeah okay yeah guys are
gonna want this I get it I mean yeah this could be horrible the problem is is
that the stories that would start coming out from the men of how this is Hell
honestly it it would would come out and guys would be like whoa okay wait a minute here I I see The Superficial end
of this so going Beyond this wow this is and I I I had a really interesting
experience I got married at the same time that the show Sister Wives came out and here I am I'm early in my marriage
and one of the things you learn when you get married is marriage yeah it includes the sex But it includes a whole lot of other responsibilities
and like resp relationships and all sorts of stuff marriage and sex are not
the same thing okay and when I sh when we watched the show Sister Wives I was
like that poor guy like that has go to suck having to manage that Dynamic like
I'm sorry if like there's much better ways to do things here so I ended up coming away and and and I understand
it's a tough issue I don't want to put it out there but I'll say this go look around in your ward at how many people
you know who have blessed your life that came from those families and you I have no doubt that
the polygamist generation of this church produced the core of this church to this
day sure those families went through something that was extraordinarily
challenging that tested their faith with a unique kind of family
structure and that put certain priesthood leaders over these very
Dynamic and and and unorthodox family structures but out of it what by their
fruits you shall know them and when you see all those people who have those classic last
names okay including all you people who love Mitt Romney even though I have my issues with him okay remember it was
Romney is a very close descendant of polygamous people and what came out of
the polygamous world is us and I can't help but say that when I
look at the history and all that went down with that that's what made us who we are as a people and I may have my
issues with it I may have things where people have done it wrong but it's how we got here ladies and gentlemen like
this is that's what built the latterday St and it is messy it's just it's it's
messy it's messy while it's happening it's messy looking back in history it's Pandora's Box I mean it's it's it's when
you put sex in the middle of all of this it just it makes it so difficult to
handle and to deal with which is why this was such a massive test for them
yes all the way around the men have their own test obviously the women have their test with all of this and it but
you know what is it uh compared to the uh the the sacrifice of Abraham and Sarah right it's it's you're going to be
tested like Abraham and Sarah and I and and and at the end of the day whatever someone's feelings are
on it one way or another there is just what happens when you reject this okay if you say because it starts off with
like okay I just want to reject this one thing right I'm not comfortable with it I want to say that it's wrong and so you
want to push it off but this creates this is where the real sort of danger begins I said it
begins with polygamy makes me uncomfortable and then you start to say well I'm not going to accept these
historical facts because it's just too painful to me and then before you know it it's like okay well what are the
implications of that as far as the temple because remember if you want to
reject 132 did you know that the sealing of families the idea of Eternal families
emerges from section 132 as well yeah and this is this is something that
I actually I've got the notes here this is exactly where I wanted to go with this because uh you know this some this
is a place where I focus a lot on and talk a lot about and and I people don't
understand and this is a problem in the church and it's why something like this uh can gather so much steam because
we're not rooted in the scriptures enough we are not rooting in a position
where we understand the history of the church and the scriptures and how they are rooted in the temple you can go
through everything I mean before Joseph Smith ever even gets his hands on or or even sees the Golden Plates Moroni is
telling him and quoting Malachi 4 talking about the the the fathers
turning the hearts of the children the children to the fathers Etc that that is the ceiling this is the very begin right
from the GetGo before there's even a church or priesthood or a book of Mormon Moroni is
talking about the temple he is talking about cealing and this is found throughout Joseph's Journey way before
he's a NAU way before he he deals with the Masons it is a it's it's in Abraham
everywhere in the book of Abraham and and and we don't understand that we don't see the temple in all of the
scriptures if Michelle understood those scriptures she
could not deny that the temple was intrical to all
of including Jacob and and and Isaac and Abraham Etc it's everywhere so it's
funny this is where so much begins to be unraveled and you end up realizing that it unravels the things that are right at
the very heart of the church here's the thing what is the church the church
fundamentally is this if we don't have the keys then we
don't have the church we have a really fun bible study and church study group but we don't have the Keys of the
Kingdom the whole purpose of the Apostles is that they hold the keys to do what to bind on Earth and in heaven
how is that done through Covenant relationships that are put in place by
priesthood Authority what is the highest covenants that we can make they're the
temple covenants of sealing ourselves to are to to each other basically through
husband and wife to children and then extended and around right the ceiling
that's the what was restored we talk about the restoration what is being restored it is the keys to seal families
together eternally in the temple that is the unique doctrine of the Church of
Jesus Christ of latterday saints a lot of churches have baptism they have they have repentance they have all that stuff
what do we have we have those keys that bring that back that are vested in an in
a restored Quorum of 12 Apostles like that existed anciently and if you think
about it what matters more to your in your life than anything else it's the
relationship that you have with your spouse and your children and then to
other people relationships are the deepest most important thing in your life our Church
exists to bind those relationships eternally in Covenant relationship with
God and one another that is the heart and soul of
our Doctrine in the church and when you undermine the temple and you undermine bringham young and you undermine the
ceiling and all of that stuff which is in section 132 is when we're talking about families and and and being bound
on Earth and in heaven and all the details of that when you throw that out out the window you throw out the restoration of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ and you throw out the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints yeah I would add that's I I think that's great I think that's very well stated I think I would add one more
thing and that is the undermining of the family and it's you know we don't talk
about that as much as we used to I I'm doing an episode right now on on Julie Beck uh Relief Society generally Relief
Society president back 10 15 years ago 15 years ago and and uh you know she's
the one who came out and said if it's anti family it's Antichrist amen and and
it's uh I don't know that this talk would be given anymore today I don't know it worries me because as we
undermine the idea of a traditional family for cultural
Trends then then we are actually undermining the temple and and we are undermining the
plain and precious things as you've stated that have been restored and that are unique to the church and as sister
Beck says we are undermining Christ and the entire reason for the atonement that is the
purpose our the reason for the atonement is not for you to not be
guilty right and feel guilty about something the reason for the atonement is to to to drive a stronger
relationship a covenantal relationship with Christ and with our heavenly father
and to create families for exaltation when we start removing the
idea and the doctrines of family and and exaltation which are not spoken of as
much anymore in our Sunday School classes and in our uh uh you know Elders Quorum and young women's classes Etc or
from the pulpit and sacrament meeting then then we are undermining everything
that has been restored with Joseph Smith yeah I it's funny because what happens
is that they redefine the terms this is the way that a family is just it's just
you know people that like love each other right like anyone can be your family that's not family as defined
Christ all the way into the Bible it is he creates Adam and Eve it's about man
and woman and child that is what a family is it's the unit that allows for
the propagation of life itself okay that is something deeply sacred and ideal in
the eyes of God it is part of the celestial order okay man woman child
that is the celestial order that is why we have a proclamation on the family that talks about that and defines family
in that way then what do they want to redefine you want to redefine what a marriage is remember a marriage this is
one of the question I like to ask people what is a marriage well they say well it's like two people that like make a commitment to each other for the rest of
their life that is fundamentally a different thing than saying a manwoman union of male and female for the
creation of family because that's what that's what God intended to mean by it that's what he means by it okay and if we want to go
and talk about well I have a marriage but it's something totally different than what God has ordained well I don't care that thing is just you guys making
promises to each other nice nice romantic gesture but it's not the same thing and by the way that could be
heterosexual what was that also that could be heterosexual also I mean if you if if the marriage is for
building a family there are a lot of people today and you see them out on Tik Tok and now they're talking about how
wonderful it is that we're never going to have kids you know we're we're going against this that is not a true marriage
according to the order of God I mean the whole purpose of that is to have a family and take on that responsibility
they are literally they're describing something different we're not talking about the same thing this is where linguistic confusion messes everything
up when you start to just say well a marriage is something other it's like I'm not talking about that when I'm
talking about a marriage I'm talking about a male and a female getting together in order to with the intention
to have children now oh what about those are infertile this is something that gets handled in the Plan of Salvation
they will eventually have a posterity but the intrinsic nature of the Union is different if it's not male female
because it doesn't allow for the propagation literally of B ological life let alone the spiritual Dynamic of the
masculine and feminine being joined and then you want to redefine gender even like now male and female are are reduced
to meaningless Concepts and what this does is as you're pointing out it breaks down the family it breaks down the
celestial order which is the ideal order now I want to say this to those who who
and I know people and have people that you know that are gay and that are in a union with another gay person okay I may
believe that those actually are better than the alternative of someone going out and leaving a hedonistic sexual life
okay I I I can actually say that that is a better thing all right but when I'm
talking about commitment and responsibility there absolutely and I and and and so I I can actually be happy
for someone that they've moved to that it's not ideal though right what is the ideal what is the celestial order anyone
who says that anything less than marriage is an ideal is just they don't
like no the ideal is man woman child literally because and I mean this we
need take the religion off the table that's what allows for the propagation of life and the continuation of if you
think life is worth it this is if you're gonna say again I'm not you're don't have to hate something because it's not
ideal but you can say that this is higher than that okay in the church I tell people this the church is like the
club of people who are dedicated to the ideal saying we want to go to the
celestial order and so everything we do in the church is designed to that end now there are other paths people can
take that may take them to a kingdom of Glory but it's not going to take them to
the highest level of Glory that's possible yeah and that that's the issue though is
that's exactly the issue that's something I talk about all the time is that that you can't give up the ideal and we're starting to do that within the
church right because what we do is we break it down we pull down the ideal to
make everything even and everything's the same and everyone's included right in in the same idea as we
just ch as you say we change the definitions of marriage and family and everything else it's like no look I I
grew up my parents divorced when I was six years old I did not grow up in an ideal situation right my you now great
parents both were dedicated to the church but they they just couldn't handle each other and and so you know I
I had a my dad afterward couple years later got married again had four more kids there were seven of us
total you don't it's not the ideal situation but you know what we tried to
make it the ideal you still strive toward the ideal you still teach the
ideal you know that that is that is what was why I'm so grateful to my parents
because regardless of whether or not they had the ideal they still held on to it yep they still said look this is what
you need to do this is what the ideal is that's the great challenge the great
challenge of ideals is we all realize we fall short of them and I want to say to those who don't fall into the ideal of a
of a sexual orientation or something like that fine guess what we all have
like I'm a sinner too I fall short of all sorts of ideals in fact one of the things I hate is when people want they
want to do one of two things they want to say well I meet the ideal so good like I'm I'm righteous I'm cool or they
say that I don't meet the ideal so that must not be the ideal it's not the ideal for me right and so this is again where
you again the celestial order is to say that there is an ideal and to strive for
that ideal even when you don't that's that's our thing that's what a Christian does they say look I'm a sinner Lord I
don't measure up to the ideal in 50 million different ways but I'm not giving up on that I'll take you Lord as
far as you want to take me I will never justify myself because I can't do that
yeah that's it's like it's that's what you're you learn in Moses 1 right Moses is called by name by
God but then as he sees everything and what what the whole glory of God is he's
like I am nothing I am like L than the dust of the earth and yet back again God
comes back again and talks to him and he calls him again by name right giving him his significance
as a Son of God it's like look these two things exist at the same time you are
nothing but you're also everything and you have to be able to accept both of those it's that's the why do you think
the gospel is called the good news the the the go the gospel doesn't mean anything until you the you don't realize
what salvation means until you know what the fall means Until you realize what the ideal is and that you fall short of
it and you don't it it's Christ is saying hey you fall short of
the ideal but here's the good news if you keep trying and you don't give up on
this ideal I'll take you as far as you'll let me take you and it's only us that decide we want to abandon the ideal
and so in in all of this um there is
a um and to take this back kind of to the
polygamy thing again when you sacrifice the temple and
when you sacrifice these covenants you end up sacrificing the ideals behind
those and the things that actually bind us together I I like to say that I like
to use this analogy of of a uh an orchestra right well people will say
well I I I just want to play my own instrument it's like okay fine go be a hedonist you can play your own
instrument but you're all by yourself ultimately if you want to play with other people you have to harmonize your
relationships and what the gospel is designed to do is to harmonize us into a great Orchestra yes we all have
different instruments we all have different talents we are diverse but it's the unity of the music and the
conductor and playing the song to The Best of our ability that's ultimately
what brings us to exaltation that is the great see I
hate the idea that well doesn't work for me it's like well maybe it's not about you maybe it's about all of us maybe
what needs to work isn't what works just for you because if I just do what I think works for me you do it works for you you get chaos you don't get families
you don't get social harmony but you know what happens what if we asked what is there something out there is there a
moral truth is there an order of being that works best for
everyone not only for me but for my children for my wife for my Community
for my nation and not only in this generation but through all generations of
time and that's what the gospel is trying to teach us are the principles of that way of being now within that order
there's variation there's you know you have your own interest you're not commanded in all things we're all
different that's all fine but there's this underlying order that we don't want to get Beyond because it messes
everything up it creates it's like we're trying to play play this song we all
have our own instruments we all have our own kind of way of playing our instrument you know little better at this or a little better at that but
there's still a song that we got to play and if we start just going off and saying I want to do whatever I want you mess up the song and not only
that if everyone does that you just have chaos and noise so when people begin to understand
that in our Plan of Salvation we have these different levels these orders of
being and the church is designed say there is an ideal order and we want to
invite everyone that is willing to to live that order that's the Celestial Kingdom those
are the people who want that and the people who don't who want some other order that's less than
ideal they can pursue that and they can get as much as that order will give them
but it won't give them the highest yeah well I hope that you know we
can we have got to Anchor our eles as a people
into in into the scriptures into the temple into family we cannot go there is
a reason why you can't go along with culture you're going to lose all of these things that provide that order
this that's what the order is all about and and it's always been this way you know it's always been this way going
back to the time of Adam it's not something new with Brigham Young right it is it's always existed
I'm I'm going uh in three days I go I go to Egypt and and you walk around the
ruins there and you see what's on the walls and you're like holy cow this is this is the freaking
endowment this is everywhere right this is this is not something Joseph Smith
made up yeah here's the abrahamic Covenant listed right here here is the
ritual Embrace here are the degrees of progression going through the temple
that here's the Garb that they're wearing and what it represent presented you know given by third party
egyptologists that are that talk about the priests in the temple it's it's so
blatantly in your face yep that you're like this is this is not Brigham Young
well what's interesting and it's not Joseph Smith you're right but what's really wild is is that Joseph Smith only
developed those things up to a certain point and it was Brigham Young Who Joseph Smith said that he said hey I
want you to kind of systematize and continue this project yeah and here's what's Wild he did what has emerged
through the prophets that we have is a real
Temple ritual that coincides like you said with all sorts of scriptural themes
throughout all of time this is something much bigger as you said than Joseph or
Brigham and that when you see the continuity of that into the church today
it's another reason and evidence to say this this is it like we really have
restored something big this idea that I've just put forth of this orders of being and and family sort of
relationships being at the heart of or just relationships with human beings family being the the highest level of
that order of Human Relationships um that that being at the center of our theology that that isn't a New Concept
that this is actually been the point the whole time and when we think about it there's something deeply intuitive that says of course it is what is more
important to us than the people that we love and what could be higher to God if he says the
first thing is love me so that you can then love your neighbors in the right way like you can
actually love them because I'll teach you how to love them and what that's supposed to look like yeah and it's it's
the most like profound thing it's like everything snaps into place it's like oh God isn't some narcissist who really
really wants us in there to like bow at his feet for eternity he's trying to bring us into right relationship with
him and with one another starting with the people who I care about more than anyone in the world and
I just I'm like that's beautiful that's like what could be more true than that
like this is getting right to the things that really are at the center of my heart and the I think at the heart of
every every person and I just find it incredible
that we have that and to say that n all the stuff that Brigham made up and the Temple's an idol and and you know these
covenants they're just kind of unnecessary it's like you're just you're missing the point yeah well I appreciate that Jacob
really appreciate what you guys what you do over there on thoughtful Faith uh great debate you had Rec recently with
pintes with of pintes with is it yeah so it was on pintes with aquinus with Trent
horn who has his own own show yeah yeah great great debate you did a fabulous job and uh so anyway where where can
people find you uh easiest place just on YouTube uh you can just go to thoughtful Faith but I also have a website uh
thoughtful faith.org and on there I also just so people know if you ever wanted to get involved and help kind of
volunteer in some of this stuff I do have a get involved uh area where you can kind of let me know what you might
be able to do to help the channel um and I'd appreciate that as well that's that's always a a great thing for people
to do great Jacob appreciate you and all you're doing and uh keep going thanks
