With sign seeking, you want like all the benefits of faith without actually having a relationship

with God so that you can get the fruits of faith, right? It has to come as a fruit of a strong,

faithful covenant relationship, not a cheap roundabout way to try to get the fruits of the thing

without having the relationship that is a prerequisite for the fruits. It's just really common among people whose faith is struggling to try and look for more

and more specific manifestations, like proof that it's there because their faith is being

weakened by their disobedience to the commandments.

When you're trapped in sin, you start to doubt that you could ever be the kind of person

that the Lord would want in his kingdom.

I just think it's beautiful how the Lord ends this section here about like, no, this is

for you guys.

So in our last episode, we covered section 60 to 62, which talk about the journey that

Joseph Smith and his companions make from the land of Missouri back to Ohio.

Today, we're going to cover Section 63, which is the aftermath of when they get back to Ohio,

and they have to deal with some irregularities that have popped up in the church.

So if you're ready, Scott, let's dive into Section 63.

Let's do it.

So this has received like, well, like three days after Joseph gets home. So it's like right off the bat, drop us into it. All right. So here's the context.

In August of 1831, Joseph Smith and other church leaders have traveled 800 miles from Independence to St. Louis to Cincinnati and then home to Kirtland.

And three days after they get home, they're at the Isaac Morley Farm. And there seems to be two major issues on Joseph's mind.

The first is that there appears to have been some moral corruption and personal apostasy among some of the church members in Kirtland.

That's to be expected.

These people are new converts.

...