Welcome to part 2 of Dr. Sean Hupkin, Matthew chapter 3, Mark chapter 1, and Luke chapter 3.

Do you remember Hank in Old Testament when Jesse was supposed to go get a new king for Samuel chapter 8?

The Lord says, you know they haven't rejected you, they've rejected me, but tell him the manner of their kings.

He's going to take your daughters and make them confectionaries, take your sons and make them run before the kings' chariots.

And that reminded me of that, Sean, when you said that, that they will be forerunners to clear the way, take out the rocks and fill in the divots.

But I love the symbol of that, so make the path straight means to be a forerunner.

We won't go there, but I'm looking at Luke chapter 1, verse 17.

He shall go before him, this is John the Baptist, in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.

So notice, John the Baptist isn't saying, although he dresses sort of in this way, and he's described in the gospel of Matthew in these terms that are reminiscent of Elijah of Elias,

and he's going to go in the spirit and power of Elias.

And that's then what Joseph Smith is going to talk about.

Let me read you something from Joseph Smith about the spirit of Elias.

So this is from teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith.

Many of us recognize that as the old blue book that I used to love that had a compilation is by Joseph Fielding Smith.

pages 335 to 36, spirit of Elias is to prepare the way for a greater revelation of God, which is the priesthood of Elias, or the priesthood that Aaron was ordained unto.

And when God sends a man into the world to prepare for a greater work, holding the keys of the power of Elias, it was called the doctrine of Elias, even from the early ages of the world.

John's mission was limited to preaching and baptizing, but what he did was legal when Jesus Christ came to any of John's disciples, he baptised them with fire and the Holy Ghost.

You can see the connection there with what we're reading here and what we're working to get to, which is the baptism.

I explained this to my daughter the other day when she's like, what is John the Baptist role exactly?

And I said, well, think of it as he gets Instagram account going that gets a couple of hundred thousand followers.

And then when Jesus shows up, he hands that Instagram account over to Jesus, gives him the password and says, it's all yours, take it away.

And she went, oh, okay, I get it.

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