Types of Christ with Randy Brown

The scriptures are a tapestry rich in types and symbols of Jesus Christ. After being deeply betrayed by someone close to him, Randy Brown, host of the Spiritual Survival Podcast, struggled to forgive. It was only after reading the story of Abigail and David in the Old Testament that his eyes were opened to a new aspect of Christ's Atoning Sacrifice. Together we discuss how our Savior is truly the Great Mediator as He stands between us and those who have wronged us.  It is through Him that we can still find peace and forgiveness in a devastating situation even when our offender has not sought reconciliation. To wrap things up, we apply this new perspective to the Last Days we are living in and how critical it is for disciples of Jesus Christ to be able to fully lean into His Atonement in order to find refuge and "Think Celestial" when persecutions come. 

Please reach out to me if you are interested in sharing your story! I would LOVE to hear from you. :)

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Chapters

• 0:06 Personal Experiences Testify of Christ
• 18:10 Forgiveness and Redemption in Scripture
• 34:23 Enduring Persecution and Finding Peace

Transcript

Lily: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to. More Than Coincidence, remembering Jesus Christ in your Story. As the author and finisher of our faith, our Savior writes personal experiences into each of our lives which can later strengthen, empower and bring us peace upon reflection. This podcast is dedicated to sharing these anchoring memories from everyone's unique stories in order to collectively remember and testify of the reality of Jesus Christ and His presence in our lives. I'm your host, lily, and I'm very excited to share these experiences together. Hi everybody, good evening. Tonight on the podcast we have Randy Brown who is the host of his podcast, spiritual Survival. How are you doing?

Randy Brown: 0:51

I'm wonderful. Thank you for thank you for thinking of me, and I look forward to this. Thanks.

Lily: 0:57

Would you mind introducing yourself a little bit, so for everybody. Yeah, I'm.

Randy Brown: 1:00

Randy Brown and, as Lily mentioned, I host a podcast called Spiritual Survival. I started that in June I think it was the last week of June and the reason I did it. I was actually sitting in the temple and I was kind of thinking a little bit about my patriarchal blessing, which counsels me to be valiant in the, valiant in my testimony of Jesus Christ. Yeah, and it felt like since I've been living here in Utah it's been a little difficult to really share my testimony in a way that I would valiant, and so I know some other people that have started podcasts and you know I've gone online and I've thought about it and then I thought better of it and decided not to and the spirit just kind of this one day when I was in the temple just kind of knocked me over that I need to do it.

Randy Brown: 2:01

So I had to kind of go out my comfort zone and gave it a try and put a couple episodes out there, and I've just kept going. So here I am now.

Lily: 2:12

That's incredible. I think it's really interesting because it was last year at about this time where I started feeling the spirit tell me, hey, you should start a podcast, and I was the same. I was like, oh, like I don't know if I should be doing this, and then I finally got the guts to do it and I released in November. So I'm glad that you also, like you know, followed that prompting and I think it's cool that the Lord is trying to guide us to be able to connect with people in this way and share everything that we're learning, right? I think it's so neat.

Randy Brown: 2:40

Yeah, I've always been blessed with a testimony of Jesus Christ and of the Restoration. I grew up in Texas. I was one of about four or five Latter-day Saints in my high school so we all kind of had to stand strong together. Yeah, you know we were tested a lot but it made us really appreciate what we had and it was very valuable for me to be able to do that. So, yeah, grew up in Texas. It's kind of funny I tell people I married my next door neighbor. My wife was just around the corner, actually from Really we lived. Her dad was my bishop and then my president, but it wasn't until we were both at BYU. I'm about five years older than her, so we didn't. There was no romantic interest until we got to college.

Lily: 3:38

Yeah.

Randy Brown: 3:39

We met on the first day of fall semester in 1983,. I think and we went to the Cougar Eat for a doughnut and there you go. Here we are now had our 40th anniversary Sunday.

Lily: 3:59

Whoa, congratulations, that's awesome. We're going on our 10th, me and my husband, this year. We'll catch up to you guys eventually.

Randy Brown: 4:09

Yeah, we'll keep going, but we're not going to stop.

Lily: 4:12

We won't either. That's awesome, well, randy. So let me ask you the question then what memories do you have that you reflect on, that prick your heart and remembrance of your Savior Jesus Christ?

Randy Brown: 4:24

Well, when you first said that you'd be asking me that question there's so many, but I thought of one that's been super, super impactful. That's the one I'd like to share today. So back when my wife and I were first married, I had an experience that was very, very painful. Somebody who is in a position of trust violated it, and it was very deeply painful to me, and the injustice was so hard to deal with being young like I was, and so I went through a period of time where I just consumed with this sense of injustice that had been done to me, feeling so desperate to make this person pay for what they did I guess you say violated and deceived. I know I'd handled it a lot differently today than I did when I was in my mid-20s, but I carried a burden that was so heavy that I couldn't find peace.

Randy Brown: 5:46

All I could think of was making this person pay Revenge. It was in the fall that it happened, so it was close to a general conference and in general conference I believe it was Elder Boyd K Packer he gave a talk titled the Healing Balm of Gilead. It's all about this power that the Atonement contains that enables us to forgive. And this talk, it was so needed for me and it felt like it just penetrated my heart with such amazing power Because I was really. I felt like I was walking around with a backpack full of weights.

Lily: 6:42

Yeah, it's heavy, it's really heavy.

Randy Brown: 6:46

And so, when conference was over, I went to the Lord and I pleaded with Him to set me free from this bondage that I was in, because I felt like I couldn't carry it another day, another minute, and it just I don't know how long it was, but it was very, very quickly. The Lord took it away, and I mean, the person still hadn't resolved the issue with me, but as far as my part, it was taken away and the burden was completely lifted.

Lily: 7:20

And it was healed, and it was healed.

Randy Brown: 7:22

Yeah, and so it was a miraculous part of the Atonement that I had never, had never really given a lot of thought or had to use my life before. Yeah, and I came across this quote. It says being mistreated is the most important aspect of mortality. Raternity itself depends on how we view those who mistreat us. I would have never, never, thought of that before, but it was like the Lord gave me a difficult experience to teach me something very, very important about the Atonement at a fairly young age, Because in church we typically talk about two aspects of the Atonement.

Randy Brown: 8:12

One is that he saves us from spiritual death. He saves us from our sins and the penalty and the suffering of our own personal sins, and then we talk about how he saves us from physical death through the resurrection. But I've learned that there's a third aspect to the Atonement. That's probably many, but there's a third very big aspect to the Atonement that we don't often address. That is that Christ's Atonement also saves us from the sins that are committed against us Right, and then he can make us whole from those sins that are committed against us and in a way this allows the Savior to come and stand between us and the person who has offended us, and he saves us from committing this sin of retaliating Right and when someone wounds us that deeply, that's about all we can think of as some form of retaliation or some form of. We want justice.

Lily: 9:22

Exactly.

Randy Brown: 9:25

And so it was really a miracle. It was an aspect of the Atonement that impacted my testimony, impacted probably the direction of my life moving forward, and it was a little bit later, I thought, years later, I would say that I came across something in the Scriptures no-transcript, I guess demonstrates this very thing that I experienced, and it's in the Old Testament. It's in 1 Samuel and it's in chapter 25. It's the story of Abigail and it's a story that not that many people really are familiar with.

Randy Brown: 10:11

It's more a little story sitting in there, but it opened my mind to the fact that the Old Testament is filled with types of Jesus Christ. Every story, and I'd say almost every story in the Old Testament, if you break it down, it's the story of Christ being told through types, and so this story of Abigail, abigail is a powerful type of our Savior, jesus Christ. So there's three main characters in this story. Again, it's in 1 Samuel 25, and I'll go through some of the verses in that chapter. One character is David. Another character is a man named Nabal N-A-B-A-L, and David was the one who was offended. Nabal is the one who was the offender and Abigail is the type of Christ. She's the Christ-like character that provides the healing and the restoration. That was very typical of what I experienced.

Randy Brown: 11:19

And so it teaches an aspect of the Atonement that's helped me in a very, very powerful way. So again, david. He was the one who was offended At this time. David was forced into the wilderness just to survive because King Saul was so jealous of him.

Randy Brown: 11:37

So he was living in the wilderness, basically with a band of men. So he was already kind of experiencing an injustice already. But he showed a lot of integrity While he was in the wilderness with this he had. I think he had about 400 men I can't remember the exact number and while they were in the wilderness, nabal this person who becomes the offender. He was a fairly wealthy man. He had many, many flocks of sheep and as his flocks of sheep were being led by these shepherds through the wilderness, there was always this risk that robbers would come and pillage and take the sheep and for sustenance for themselves.

Randy Brown: 12:27

But while these shepherds were going through the wilderness, david and his men protected them. They protected Nabal's flocks and just very he showed a lot of integrity and goodness towards someone that they didn't necessarily know. And then later on in the story, david and his men are in the wilderness. Those shepherds have taken the sheep back to Nabal. But David and his men were going through a tough time and they were in need of sustenance, and so David sent a couple of his men to Nabal saying you know, we're the ones who helped you out. We're in some trouble. David sent us to you. Would you be willing to help us out. And the scriptures talk about Nabal as a foolish man, and it says that even after David had protected his flocks, nabal denied even knowing David. So when David's men came to him, he refused to help them. He said I don't even know why should I?

Randy Brown: 13:33

help. He kind of just rebuffed him, I guess you'd say. And so when the word came back to David that Nabal had treated him this way, he was kind of like I was, he was understandably angry.

Randy Brown: 13:51

He was furious with his men. He prepared 400 of his men to gird on their swords and to go get them, march into the palace or the place where Nabal lived and just slaughter them and bring justice to all of them. And he just felt this. You know what he thought was righteous indignation, I guess you'd say Right. So the third character is Abigail, and Abigail unfortunately for her, was Nabal's wife Talks about Abigail as this woman of beautiful countenance, and just that describes her as this amazing, wonderful person. And so her part in this story is that she demonstrates another aspect of the atonement, and it's how the atonement provides succor and grace for those who are sinned against. And you know, being the wife of Nabal, she probably experienced a lot of injustice herself, right, she probably knew it firsthand, and so, in a way, she's a perfect type for Christ, because you know who experienced the greatest injustice, you know exactly Ever.

Randy Brown: 15:13

It's the Savior Jesus Christ, His paradox of him being the the only person who did not deserve injustice experienced the greatest injustice. So it's such an amazing, amazing parallel and such an amazing type. So if the listeners are have their scriptures out, they may want to go to First Samuel, Chapter 25.

Randy Brown: 15:42

I'm going to share a few of the verses. I'm going to verse 18. It says then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves and two bottles of wine and five sheep ready dressed and five measures of parched corn and 100 clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of figs and laid them on asses. And so, basically, she took everything she could to provide for their needs. Right, and here this woman is going, you know, on donkeys, full of you know, loaded down with supplies and things that they needed and right if you skip down to verse 23,.

Randy Brown: 16:28

It says when Abigail saw David, she hasted and lighted off the ass with the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed herself to the ground. So here she is, she's.

Randy Brown: 16:39

She's interceding between her foolish husband right who had sinned against David, and David the one who's offended. And then, in verse 24, and fell at his feet and said upon me, Lord, upon me, let this iniquity be. That's that just grabbed at me. It's like she's standing between David and this foolish husband of hers and saying let this sin be upon me Right. And and this gave me an image of Jesus Christ standing between me and the person who offended me so deeply and saying I've already paid the price of justice for this person who's offended you. I've paid it in full, and this sin is upon me now.

Randy Brown: 17:36

And I ask you to forgive me, and so the thought of me having to forgive my savior.

Lily: 17:42

Yeah, that's a little different.

Randy Brown: 17:44

Touched me so deeply. Yeah, how could I not, right, how could I not forgive him if he's already paid for it? He's taking it upon him and he's asking me to let it go and to trust it. You know he's paid the price of justice. And then verse 24 goes on and let thine handmaiden I pray these speak in thine audience and hear the words of thine handmaiden. So this, this little obscure story in the middle of the Old Testament, teaches how Christ takes upon himself the sins of those who have wronged us. And then I'll skip down to verse 28. It says I pray the forgive, the trespass of thine handmaid. Again, you know, christ having taken upon himself the sins of those who have wronged us, christ is now asking us to forgive him the trespass. So this I mean the Old Testament is amazing how it's got these, these treasures that are hidden. It's got the story of Christ hidden throughout it. It's got deeper aspects to the atonement than than we ever realize until we search it deeply.

Lily: 19:05

Right.

Randy Brown: 19:06

And then, skipping down to verse 32, says and David said unto Abigail Blessed be the Lord, god of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me. So David is so touched by this offering and this sacrifice made, made by Abigail, that it completely changed his heart. Here we're seeing an example in the Old Testament of a mighty change of heart like the Book of Mormon talks about.

Randy Brown: 19:38

Exactly, and verse 33 says and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou, which has kept me this day from coming to shed blood. So not only did her offering and her sacrifice save her husband, but it also saved David Not only from the wounds of being offended, but it saved him from actually going and committing a grave sin.

Lily: 20:07

Right and he probably would have felt the remorse and having to carry that like the rest of his life, like there were so many things.

Randy Brown: 20:14

Yeah, and to this point in David's life, he had lived a very, very righteous life. Right, you know, he was in, the Lord, was preparing him for some very important things, and so this, this Abigail, is a powerful type of Jesus Christ, coming into his life at a very difficult time and and saving him, just as he saved me, from my need to exact revenge from this person.

Lily: 20:44

Right.

Randy Brown: 20:45

So, and then if you skip down a couple more verses, in verse 35 says so David received her of her hand that which she had brought him. In other words, he received this offering that she brought, and her offering was sufficient. It was everything that they needed and, in that same way, what Christ offers us when, when he stands between us, the person who sinned against this, is everything we need.

Lily: 21:12

Yeah.

Randy Brown: 21:13

If we, if we deny that, we're saying his, his atonement isn't infinite. It will provide everything we need. It will fully satisfy the demand of justice, right? So David? David received it for him, that's which, which she had brought him and said into her, go up in peace, into to thine house. See, I have hearkened to thy voice and have accepted that person. So he's saying I've received your gift, I've accepted it, you know. In other words, we could say that Christ runs to our aid, and the word that the scriptures use for, you know, running to our aid is that he suckers us. So she had, she had provided for him and and then, just like David, we can be healed by receiving of that offering. And so, in essence, when we, when we are continuing to hold, I don't want to say a grudge, but this much, it's more, it's bigger than that it's deeper than that, yeah.

Randy Brown: 22:22

To hold this, this need to make them pay to, to exact justice from somebody. We're, in essence, we're denying, we're denying the offering of our savior. We're denying, we're not willing to accept the fullness of Christ's atonement, or at least maybe, maybe because we perhaps don't understand this aspect of the atonement.

Lily: 22:49

Well, and that's one thing, as you've been talking, that I that really struck me is Because we I've had another person on that talked about forgiveness, right, and how we need to forgive others and how we think of sometimes as forgiveness as a two way street and it is, you know, both parties and should maybe say, say apologize and say that they're sorry, or at least that's what we teach our little kids.

Lily: 23:09

Right, go, say sorry and, you know, make up. But I do think that it's really amazing and powerful that Christ can even just step in and just say look, we're just focused on you right now, right and when and at the right time he will focus on the other person who maybe doesn't want to, you know, repent and apologize yet and then later. But it's incredible that he can just look at that situation, just with the individual who's been wronged, and they can have that peace and they can still have that healing. Because I just think of you know, I've had so many friends and other people with experiences with abuse, right, and a lot of times with that, with those kinds of things you can't there's no necessarily reconciling with the abuser and that person needs to find the healing. And so it's really amazing that the Savior can provide that. He literally can heal just you and you can find that peace. And that's exactly what this story is saying, which I think is very powerful.

Randy Brown: 24:11

And in this instance, n'bal did not reconcile with David Right, and if you go to verse 38, it says about 10 days after that the Lord smote N'Bal, that he died.

Lily: 24:29

Right.

Randy Brown: 24:30

And so, just as came to N'Bal, he did not repent. And in verse 39, when David heard that N'Bal was dead, he said blessed be the Lord that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach. So, like you said, david was in desperate need of salvation himself, salvation from the condition of his heart, right. And so we have a mighty change of heart, and we all do, and sometimes I think this is a way we can be tested to see what is the condition of our heart.

Lily: 25:07

Exactly.

Randy Brown: 25:09

So Christ offers us. Well, I'll get to that in a second. But yeah.

Randy Brown: 25:15

David needed the salvation on his part that Christ could provide for him. And Christ provided everything. He provided the offering, the change of heart. And here you'll see, in these verses he actually invites David into a covenant. And again it's symbolic. But in verse 39, this is when David had heard that Nabal was dead he said Blessed be the Lord that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal and hath kept his servant from evil For the Lord. Hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail to take her to wife. So, interestingly, he actually provided Abigail as a wife for David, which throughout scriptures is a type of covenant. And so Abigail is this Christ-like figure, comes into a covenant relationship with David, right. So he has this almost like a born-again experience, where his heart is changed, experiences this mighty change of heart and ascends into a covenant relationship with the Savior. So it's just.

Randy Brown: 26:38

The Old Testament is so amazing so I'll skip down to verse 40 and 41. It says and when the servants of David were come to Abigail, to Carmel, they spake unto her saying David sent us unto thee. So he sends his servants to Abigail. David sent us unto thee to take thee to him, to wife, and she arose and bowed herself on her face to the earth and said Behold, let thine handmaiden be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. What a powerful type of exactly what Jesus Christ fulfilled with his apostles that he became their servant and actually washed their feet. So here we see a token of a covenant that Christ, as the servant of all, washed the feet of his disciples.

Randy Brown: 27:37

So just amazing, amazing depth and this is something that I don't know if I'm perfect at it yet, but one of the other people do things that hurt or offend. I'm pretty quick to remember this story, because this is the story of what Christ does for us, and in this very instance, 30 years after this event happened, I had an Abigail actually come to me and repay everything that this person had taken from me. It was fully restored, and, even though I'd forgiven and didn't necessarily need to have the debt repaid, the Lord sent an Abigail to me who repaid the whole thing, and so I think what the Savior has taught me in this is that forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is for the one who does the forgiving, and if I haven't forgiven the nabals in my life, I haven't accepted the fullness of his Atonement, and I want to accept every piece, every part of the fullness of the Atonement that Jesus Christ brought for me.

Randy Brown: 29:20

And this is a part of it. It's not just for my own sins or for overcoming death, but learning to receive this type of an offering from the Savior. So that, to me, is one of the most powerful experiences I've had with the Atonement of Jesus Christ and something that will always be with me and I'll always remember, and I'm so glad I could share it with you and your listeners.

Lily: 29:51

Yeah, thank you. I honestly I had never heard that story before, but as you were talking, I felt the Spirit confirm that to me too. That forgiveness is for us and I just can't wait to. Even as I've been pondering on President Nelson saying thanks Celestial over and over again, I've been really contemplating like what does that really mean? What does training ourselves, living up to our covenants and practice thinking Celestial? How does that pertain to the next life?

Lily: 30:20

And I feel like I've learned that it is right now we are literally preparing to live a Celestial life and that's the point, that's the whole point of our covenants, that's the whole point of everything. So when we say things like this, that forgiveness is for us, I just can't wait to, kind of when I get to heaven and see and have that my eyes opened, because I think we read these stories and we have these experiences and we feel it. But I think it will be incredible when we are able to see that big picture and see, oh my gosh, like this is the Celestial law tied to this element of it, right? Yeah, that's just something that like came to my mind as you were talking.

Randy Brown: 31:04

And I just read a book that I'll recommend to you and your listeners. It's called the Heavenly man. A lot of people haven't heard of it, but I just read it over the last couple of weeks and it's had a huge impact on me. It's about a man in China who he's probably about my age and in his teenage years he got converted to Jesus Christ. And that's kind of hard to do in China, right. Anyway, he got converted to Jesus Christ and it just made such an impact on him, you know, mighty change of heart. He committed to spending the rest of his life spreading the gospel in China.

Lily: 31:45

Yeah.

Randy Brown: 31:46

And he was so persecuted. He went to prison four times and the book tells about some of the tortures that they put him through in prison and he had a period of time where one of his cellmate was a murderer and he converted him. All these people in the prison that were just abusing him and persecuting him and torturing him, they ended up being converted to Christ and he said I won't be in this prison one minute longer than the Lord desires me to be here, because he'll deliver me.

Lily: 32:29

Wow.

Randy Brown: 32:30

And because of these tribulations that he went through, all these amazing miracles, he just walked out of a like the highest security prison in China, just walked out. The door's opened. You know, just because he allowed these difficult things to help him ascend spiritually and to know his Savior at that deeper levels, he was blessed with miracles and I know, in the coming days, as we get closer and closer to the Savior's returning glory, we're going to go through persecutions, yeah, and we're going to do such unfair things to us and we're going to need to drop on this aspect of the Atonement. Yes, thank you, mr President, quickly forgive, let Christ take care of it and be empowered by him to move forward in our, you said, thinking, celestial. That's exactly what it is ascending to a celestial level where we have the power of God in great glory, like this brother in China had he converted thousands of people, thousands of people, and he had to. He was on the run his whole life from, you know, people trying to throw him in prison.

Randy Brown: 33:46

And it kind of called me to repentance of. How you know, we have such ease and wealth in this time of freedom that we've lived in that we can't even comprehend what other nations have been through. I think we'll see some of that very soon and this principle of letting the Savior take the abuses and the persecutions we might experience I think will be invaluable so that we can continue our ascents and be endowed with power.

Lily: 34:19

Right, I'm really grateful also that you brought this up, because I also have been thinking about. Obviously, this year in America is going to be very interesting. It's already been really interesting and it really has been on my mind a lot. How can we, as covenant disciples of Jesus Christ, stand up for truth, live our covenants, but also yeah, but just also endure, because there's going to be so much. Everybody is going to experience it on both sides Anybody. There's going to be persecution from everybody.

Lily: 34:51

So how can we really truly say you know what here's our line Like if you're welcome to come over here, we'd love to talk to you about the gospel and all these things. But also when we see people who are going to treat us worse, I think, than the saints experienced back when they were fleeing, you know, missouri and Nauvoo and all of these things, there's going to be that level and there's that level in the world already. You know, all around the world. How can we, you know, prepare ourselves for that and train our brains to think celestial, because I know at the end of the year, whatever happens with this election, there's going to be. You did this, you did that. He said she's like all of all of the things. So how can we have that peace and be able to say God's going to take it and whoever directs anything at me, I'm just going to let it roll off, because I know he has me. You know how can we do that?

Randy Brown: 35:47

Well, a couple of thoughts. Number one I don't think we want to try to avoid persecution. I think that's a big mistake. I think the persecutions are persecution and miracles no hand in hand. But for us to get to the point where we experienced these miracles that President Nelson's talking about, there has to be a testing, and a testing severe enough that allows our faith to ascend to a level where miracles become commonplace.

Randy Brown: 36:24

In Nephi's vision, it's in 1st Nephi 1414,. He says I saw the power of God in great glory right ending upon the saints and the covenant people of the Lord. This power of God in great glory is something worth studying because there will be saints, latter-day Saints, who are covenant, keeping loyal to their covenants. Loyal to our covenants means loyal under all conditions. That's where this book, the Heavenly man, has been so powerful to me. If we were being persecuted, will we be loyal under that persecution? Like he said, I won't be in this prison one second more than God intends for me to go through these experiences that will enable me, power me. He was in prison four times and every time, miraculously, he was released or walked out. This man experiences miracles, like you see in the Book of Mormon. It's like reading the Book of Mormon, but in China it happened at the time Brother Yun is like Was it Nephi?

Lily: 37:46

and Lehi that with the prison fell yeah.

Randy Brown: 37:50

Look in the Book of Mormon. How many times were these really highly ascended spiritually people thrown into prisons? And every time they were released once they're at service purpose Right. So, rather than trying to avoid being persecuted, rejoice in it when Nephi was tied to the mast of the ship and the ship was in this tempest and they were afraid for their lives.

Randy Brown: 38:15

He was rejoicing and he was praising the Lord and singing. Nephi knew what was going to happen on the other side. He knew they were going to make it to the Promised Land. He knew he'd seen it. And so we have to have the faith to know that on the other side of these tribulations are these miracles that President Nelson's telling us about, and so we have to say come what may. Yeah, and that's where the thinking celestial comes in is, these persecutions will challenge us, but that challenge is where we gain the faith to draw down this power from heaven. This is where we'll realize the full powers that are promised in the endowment, right? I don't think we sometimes even fathom what the Book of Mormon really is, what the endowment really is. Yeah, we're going to see some amazing things, but tribulations will be a part of it. So, come what may, bring it on, right?

Lily: 39:21

Well, it reminded me of the Savior right. He, literally he condescended below everything, and I think it's an honor for us to even have our own little inkling of condescension, of going down and then having to come back up, and I think that we should be honored to be able to experience that and be able to experience it with our Savior at the same time, because we know he's overcome, we know that he's won, so if he's next to us, we know that we will too. It's just, it really is figuring out how we can get our mindsets so that, when those persecutions do come, we can focus on the miracles and we can focus on our testimony. And that's why I feel like I was kind of inspired to do this podcast about remembering, because I found that it was throughout the entire Book of Mormon.

Lily: 40:10

Nephi said remember Moses, remember Isaiah, remember the things that the Lord has done for us. And I feel like, as I was pondering that and as I was studying that, I realized that it's the Lord has us go through these experiences, to go up and down through life, just like, you know, with your story, so that we can personally understand and come to know him and that we can think on those memories when the times get hard, because we can say I felt the bomb of Gilead, when I was in so much spiritual pain from this experience, when I could not, I had this way around me, I couldn't forgive, but he healed me and that's something that I can't deny, you know, and I think he gives those things to all of us and we just have to reflect on those and remember them, and when we do, that is what will also give us the strength for the future, for to be able to endure and see the miracles.

Randy Brown: 41:07

Yeah, a pattern you'll see throughout scripture is before we ascend spiritually, we go through a descent. Christ experienced the biggest descent phase of all. This was infinite, but for us to move from, let's say, a born-again level to celestial level, there will be a descent phase. We'll be tested, We'll have to prove the loyal to our covenants and that empowers these miracles. And Abraham went through it, Joseph Smith went through it, Joseph of Egypt, Job I mean you can just go throughout the scriptures and if we really want that level of spiritual power and blessings, we have to go through what they went through. I mean it'll be individually tailored to us, but we'll be tested and, like Brother Ewan, it won't be a minute longer than it needs to be. Once the Lord's work is done enough, we'll be released from that, we'll be empowered and what's on the other side will be worth it.

Lily: 42:15

Right, and then the next little dip will come and we'll do it all over again.

Randy Brown: 42:20

Yeah, the higher we ascend, the greater the descent, the greater the descent that comes before it. So right. But we wanted that. That's why we're here.

Lily: 42:30

It is what we signed up for.

Randy Brown: 42:33

A lot of people say why am I going through this? I didn't sign up for this. Well, you did.

Lily: 42:38

You might not remember it. Yeah, that's so funny. Well, I really do appreciate your time. This has been a really wonderful conversation and do you mind just leaving us with a testimony really fast?

Randy Brown: 42:50

Absolutely, yeah, thank you Again. This is the whole reason I got into sharing online is to be able to be valiant in my testimony of Jesus Christ, and even my patriarchal blessing told me that I had a testimony from my very young days that I knew that Jesus was the Christ. I knew that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the Restoration. Sometimes, when I go in for a temple, recommend interview and they start asking questions like do you believe in God, the Eternal Father, his Son, jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, tears should start coming down my eyes because, yes, I want to say yes, yes, I know. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Yes, yes, I know that. Do you sustain President Nelson and those who are called as prophets and revelators? Yes, yes, I do. I know that. I know that they are called of him. I've had this testimony my whole life. It's been challenged in different ways and that's always been good. It's always been something where I came out with greater assurance on the other side.

Randy Brown: 44:10

But yes, I am a witness of the Savior, jesus Christ. I am a witness of his living apostles and prophets and I'm a witness that we can have a personal relationship with the Savior. That can just be incredible and can become deeper and deeper and deeper. And the temple plays such an important role. I'll share this. I don't share this to I don't know. I don't want this to be taken wrong, but you know, I had a wake-up call in 2020 about where we are in our proximity to the Second Coming. The Second Coming is going to be wonderful. It's the stuff before it that we have to be prepared for and I think that's what President Nelson is warning us for is the stuff that comes before it. We need this constant influence of the Holy Ghost, we need this relationship with the Savior.

Randy Brown: 45:08

But I felt back in October, I just felt like the Lord asked me to be in the temple every day and I'm in a little bit different situation. I'm retired and I can do that. I'm already a temple worker but I felt like he asked me to make this type of a sacrifice to maybe rend some veils of unbelief that I still need to get through, to fully get to where I need to be. But I have honored that and, except for a few days where I was really, really sick, I've been in the temple every day that it's open and it has just been so amazing in my life I've had so much revelation. My power to hear him has increased.

Randy Brown: 45:55

I can't even it's exponentially and anybody who can, I would say, be in the temple as often as you possibly can, especially right now, the times we're living in step out of the world. My wife and I, we feel like we've left the world behind, stepped out of it, and there's nothing in this world that has any appeal or pull. It's just taking unprecedented measures to prepare for the second coming and the things that are happening. This world's going to be gone soon. There's nothing here for us, it's moving to the next one. So, anyway, I rambled, sorry.

Lily: 46:43

No, that's beautiful, it really is. And it just reminds me because I have young kids and so sometimes going into the temple's heart. But then I had the thought come to me of but Lily, you can still go to the grounds, the grounds have been dedicated and you should be taking your children to the grounds too, so that they can feel of the spirit and that they can know where they can turn for refuge. So thank you so much for sharing your testimony with me and with all of the listeners, and it's been really it's been awesome. So thank you for taking time to be with me?

Randy Brown: 47:14

Yeah, anytime.

Lily: 47:18

Thanks again for tuning into More Than Coincidence Remembering Jesus Christ in your Story. Please follow us on social media or share us with a friend. If you have an experience you'd like to share, feel free to reach out to morethancoincidencerememberhim at gmailcom. I can't wait to hear all of the amazing memories you all have of our Savior. See you next time.