Where Science Meets the Doctrine and Covenants: Come Follow Me Lesson: February 3-9: Doctrine and Covenants 6-9
Section 9 of the Doctrine and Covenants is that famous Section on how to receive revelation. Through Joseph Smith the Prophet, the Lord told Oliver Cowdery in those immortal three verses (7-9): “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.”
I have often thought that the whole reason for the story in Sections 8 and 9 of Oliver Cowdery trying to translate is so that we could receive those marvelous instructions on revelation. Section 8 verses 1-3 state, “Oliver Cowdery, verily, verily, I say unto you, that assuredly as the Lord liveth, who is your God and your Redeemer, even so surely shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records, which are ancient, which contain those parts of my scripture of which has been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit. Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart. Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.”
When I was first called as a bishop many years ago, I was told that I had a very short amount of time to present the names of two counselors to the Stake Presidency. I immediately thought of Doctrine and Covenants Section 9. I wrote down a list of every adult male in our ward who had a current temple recommend and then I started down that list, one at a time. I thought about all I knew about that brother and the pros and cons of having him called as a counselor. Then I prayed. By that experience, I learned, really for the first time, what a stupor of thought feels like. There were only two men on the list for which I had a burning in my bosom. One had been in the ward for a while, but whom I had never been very close to, and the other was brand new in the ward, and I had only met once, briefly. Those two were called, and as far as I can tell — these many years later, we did a good job of overseeing the ward for our tenure. I had even less time when I was later called as bishop over a married student ward in the University Stake. I applied the same technique and it worked just as well.
On Easter Sunday April 1, 2018, our newly called President Russel M. Nelson, gave one of the greatest speeches of all time, entitled, “Revelation for the Church, Revelation for Our Lives.” In that speech, he stated, “One of the things the Spirit has repeatedly impressed upon my mind since my new calling as President of the Church is how willing the Lord is to reveal His mind and will. The privilege of receiving revelation is one of the greatest gifts of God to His children. Through the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, the Lord will assist us in all our righteous pursuits.”
Then President Nelson recounted the same experience I had had as a young bishop many years before. “When I recently faced the daunting task of choosing two counselors, I wondered how I could possibly choose just two from twelve men whom I love and respect. Because I know that good inspiration is based upon good information, I prayerfully met one-on-one with each Apostle. I then sequestered myself in a private room in the temple and sought the Lord's will. I testify that the Lord instructed me to select President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring to serve as my counselors in the First Presidency.”
I am certain that this was not the first time President Nelson had applied Doctrine and Covenants Section 9 in his life. He had served in bishoprics before. He was a Stake President 1964-1971, and was the Church’s Sunday School General President for eight years. President Nelson was called as an apostle by President Spencer W. Kimball in April 1984.
In that marvelous April 2018 talk, President Nelson also talked about receiving revelation in in “all our righteous pursuits.” He related how as a cardiac surgeon, “I remember in an operating room, I have stood over a patient--unsure about how to perform an unprecedented procedure--and experienced the Holy Ghost diagramming the technique in my mind.”
His experience in the operating room reminded me of Doctrine and Covenants 9:7, “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.” That surgery, which he described, was not his first and his experience with asking for heavenly guidance was also not his first. He had spent years of preparation, both professionally and spiritually, to reach that point where the surgical steps were “diagrammed in his mind”.
I have had similar experiences over the past few years as I have been writing books and blogs on science and religion. This is a topic I have been invested in my entire life — literally since I was eleven years old. Yet, I know that the books and blogs I have been writing over the past few years I could not have written ten or twenty years ago. Every night and morning I pray for inspiration in my writing, as well as several times during the day. I know that I often wake up in the morning with a thought that I need to write down, which did not come de novo from my brain.
I taught neurobiology for some twenty-five years during my career as a full-time faculty member at ISU. One of the concepts I taught each year was how easy it is to create a simple device, a crystal radio, for receiving radio waves. Radio waves, carrying sounds and images, are constantly passing through our brains — but we usually don’t have the simple components to receive them — yet we actually do. The basic parts of a crystal radio are: an antenna, a tuning coil (for a basic crystal radio, a length of wire wrapped around a tube), a variable capacitor (a metal bar that can be moved up and down the coil), a crystal detector (referred to as a diode, which allows current to flow in only one direction), and earphones. Our whole body can function like an antenna. People with braces in their mouths sometimes can pick up radio sounds from nearby radio stations because the braces act like a tuning coil, capacitor and diode. And our own ears are “earphones”. Have you ever just suddenly, as from nowhere, started singing a tune in your head, which you haven’t thought of for years, and maybe don’t even like? Where did that tune come from? Is it possible that you picked up that tune from the radio waves passing through your brain?
Radio waves have existed as long as the universe has existed, but we could not hear them until Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio in the 1890s. We could not see the images carried by radio waves until Philo Farnsworth, and others, invented the television in 1927. Are there other waves in the universe for which we have not yet created the correct type of receiver? I think we are incredibly, naively arrogant to think that we have already discovered all that there is to discover in the universe.
I am 76 years old, and I know that I am receiving inspiration that I wasn’t receiving twenty years ago. Perhaps there is something about an aging brain that makes it more receptive to revelatory input. Probably it also has to do with the many years of preparation and experience that goes with those 76 years. Yet, I am still below the average age of the Apostles, which is right at 79. President Nelson was 94 when he gave that marvelous talk in 2018 wherein he seemed almost to express surprise at “how willing the Lord is to reveal His mind and will.”
I have heard complaints from some twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings that our Apostles are too old and out of touch. I would remind them of the admonition in Doctrine and Covenants 9:7, “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.” You will be amazed at how much more inspiration and revelation you will receive forty or fifty years from now, if you just keep preparing. Don’t bail out before your “crystal radio” has been built and thoroughly tested.
Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
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