1 Nephi 11 - 15

[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add on Education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. Am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend and this show's producer, Nate Pyfer. [email protected]. How are you doing, Nate? [00:00:33] Speaker B: [email protected]. [00:00:38] Speaker A: It's good to be back in the studio. I know it's only a couple of days, but I get excited every time we get a chance to dig into these scriptures. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Look, man, let me just break this down for you, all right? I love recording with you on these things, mostly because I really love just the conversations that we have back and forth as we're kind of like each in our own study places. We each are kind of getting thoughts on these things coming from different angles. I like recording because it's kind of where we have the week to really kind of organize all of hopefully the highlights from our text conversations and our phone conversations and hopefully give everybody at least a solid Reader's Digest version. But what I will say is it can also be really frustrating because sometimes when we're done recording and we're driving home, we're like, dang it, there's also this angle and there's this angle and there's this angle. And then I've had to learn that instead of being frustrated about that, I just have to realize, shouldn't that be the fun part of what it is that we're doing? It's like, I hope that my goal is, I think you could probably say the same. Our goal, I'm going to say this for us now, our goal with this is hopefully, if you're listening to this and have been for a period of time, you're not expecting out of us anything other than we enjoy looking at things from a deeper understanding, both spiritually and logically and scientifically and all those things. Right? [00:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:11] Speaker B: We want to try to understand the depths and the awesomeness in these scriptures, and we really probably aren't even scratching the surface of all of the incredible things in there. Our goal would be, hopefully, this is an uplifting thing to listen to. Hopefully, it's somewhat entertaining to listen to. And hopefully, most importantly, the people listening to it. It gives you, even if it's just inspiration to really, on your own, dig deep into scriptures, seek your own depths and revelation and personal connections to these things and realize, like, we're just trying to figure it out, too. So it is frustrating for us, because it's hard when we're like, oh, man, we have all these other things that I wish we would have crammed in there. And then it's like, you know what? [00:03:06] Speaker A: It's okay. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Not only is it okay, it's hopefully a really great opportunity for us to leave plenty of room for you all to have way more complex thoughts and ideas than we do. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Certainly that's well said. It feels like this is. It's not meant to be the be all, end all of everything that's in there. More than anything, it's priming the pump. It's getting us excited. It's an opportunity for us to dig in. And you'd be surprised, looking at the Bible, you've seen us do the Old Testament, you've seen us do the New Testament. And those books have been hashed over thousands of years from all sorts of different religious perspectives, scholarly perspectives. You might think there's nothing left for me to discover. There's nothing left for me to learn yet. I don't think a single lesson ever went by, a single week ever passed that we didn't learn something new that we had never seen before, that maybe had never been talked about before. There's just nothing but opportunity and all this is a conversation starter, hopefully to get everybody excited to kind of dig into the scriptures and see what else they can see that maybe we missed or you missed. That's where our relationship with God gets built. [00:04:20] Speaker B: The nice thing about the book of Mormon is that it doesn't have the thousands of years of other people already digging through it. And it's also the frustrating thing, because every week it's like, oh, man, are we leaving so much more on the table? And hopefully the answer is yes. Hopefully the answer is, yeah, there's plenty of meat on this bone. That's up to you. Go find it and have fun with it. This is our tiny sliver of perspective. [00:04:47] Speaker A: And I'm looking forward to the meat we get to chew on tonight. There is some good stuff to talk about. This is first Nephi eleven through 16. I stopped before I say that wrong. First Nephi eleven through 15. Now, to give you also a little bit of a heads up, a couple of days ago, Nate and I maybe surprised a lot of you and recorded a bonus episode. I mean, I imagine it surprised us because we weren't planning on doing it until we did. And in the bonus episode, we talked about two important things. The idea of them leaving during Passover and also the family connection between Lehi and yes, we all know that Layman and Lehi were father and son relationship. Lehigh and Laban. Thank you. I did. What's so common, what you brought up about your kids know. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it can get confusing. [00:05:45] Speaker A: So if you haven't had a chance to listen to that, it's a little bit shorter than most of ours. I think it clocked in at about 36 minutes. And it provides a lot of context, I think, to what we're going to be talking about tonight. When we look at Lehi's family's trip, really, in light of the exodus and the Old Testament, there's a lot of connections and there's a lot of connections with Passover. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to that, give it a listen when you get a chance. And I think it'll help us with the context of what we're talking about tonight. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Cool. [00:06:17] Speaker A: First off, chapter eleven starts up with Nephi being eager to see what his father saw. And this becomes critical. And I have to read just the very end of where we left off on first Nephi, chapter ten, when it says I, nephi, this is in verse 17, was desirous also. And it's about halfway through that I might see and hear and know the things by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him, as well as in times of old, as in the Times that he should manifest himself unto the children of men. For he is the SAme yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of world, if it so be that they repent and come unto him. For he that diligently seeketh shall find, and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well as these times as in times of old, as well as in the times of old, as in the times to come. Wherefore the course of God is one eternal round, which is kind of fitting, considering our little preamble as we were warming up for this. This is what we're going to see here tonight as we talk about these chapters, is a big difference between Israel in the Old Testament and Nephi and his posterity in the book of Mormon in the Old Testament. We understand that Moses, in fact, I'm probably just going to have to pull from doctrine covenants to make sure I read this right. This is for the oath and covenant. So DOCtRINE CoVenaNt, section 84. And it talks ABout the purpose of the MELcHIZEDeK priesthood. And you have to understand the priesthood that we see in the book of mormon is MELCHIZEDek priesthood. Lehi is not a levite. He does not have the ironic priesthood. He has to be operating from SomethinG else. And we covered this in our previous lessons. I believe that Lehi, in his interactions with God somewhere along the line, receives the Melchizedek priesthood. And because he has, he's trying to help prepare his children to come into the presence of God. You have to understand this about the two different priesthoods. So I'm going to read a little bit from doctrine covenants 84 and hopefully add the right context to this discussion. The ordinances of the MELCHIZEDEK priesthood are MEant to prepare us to enter into the presence of God. So this is doctrine covenant, section 84. This is verse 19. And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mystery of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh. For without this, no man can see the face of God, even the father, and live. Now this Moses plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness and sought diligently to sanctify his people, that they might behold the face of God. But they hardened their hearts and could not endure his presence. Therefore, the anger of the Lord, excuse me. Therefore the Lord and his wrath for his anger was kindled against them, swore that they should not enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fullness of the glory. Therefore, he took Moses out of their midst and the holy priesthood also. That's important context. Now think about where we see the ordinances of the MeLchizedek priesthood. The ironic priesthood holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and it's a preparatory GosPel. It prepares us. What does the aaronic priesthood prepare us for? You have baptism, you have the sacRament, you have what you do to prepare you to enter into the TemPle. It's preparatory for the OrdinanCes of the MeLchizEdEk pRiesthood. The Ordinances of the MeLchizEDek priesthood in the temple are set up in such a way to prepare you and to bring you into the presence of God. That's what moses understood. That's what he was trying to teach. He was trying to bring Israel into the presence of God. And remembering back in the Old TesTament, when they protested, they said, we don't want to enter into the presence of God. We want you to do that for. So they were left with this ironic priesthood, this preparatory priesthood. And in the ironic priesthood, you had a priest that entered into the holy of holies, or in other words, the presence of God, who passed through the veil of the temple once a year on behalf of the people because they themselves didn't want to do it. It was representational. So now with a reset, let's call it. Lehi and his family are preparing for an exodus. Let's call this exodus. Take two. They have their Passover event. They're going to leave. And God gives Lehi the Melchizedek priesthood, just as he did Moses, as Moses has his experiences with the burning bush. And you're going to start noticing there's a lot of parallels between Exodus and Moses and Lehi and his family going into this wilderness. Lehi has this vision of the tree of life, similar to Moses and his burning bush experience, and he shows his children this. And rather than just take it at his word and say, you do that, you communicate with God, you take care of all of that, so that we don't have to. Nephi's response that we just read here was that he was desirous that he might see and know and hear these things for himself. He wanted to take the accountability and the responsibility for his own salvation, and he wanted to enter into the presence of God. That is the big difference between ancient Israel and Lehi and his family. Now, if you try to look at all of his kids, four, six of them are going to be righteous and following Nephi and wanting to maintain that. So if you look at Israel, the majority rejecting that, I'm sure there were good people. In fact, we know that Caleb and Joshua, and there was righteous that did want to be in the presence of God, but they were outnumbered by the majority, in this case, in Lehi's family. The majority are going to pursue this. And we know that not only does Lehi behold the face of God, but if you permit me to fast forward to second Nephi, and then I'll come back to chapter 17, because this is really important, I think I can break this down and show you something that maybe a lot of us have missed. So if I go to second Nephi, and I believe it's chapter 13, it's chapter eleven. Okay. Verse one. And now Jacob spake many more things to my people at the time. Nevertheless, only these things have I caused to be written for these things which sufficeth me. Verse two. And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delighteth in his words for I will liken his words unto my people, and I will send them forth unto all my children. For verily, he verily saw my redeemer even as I have seen him. Nephi saw God. He entered into his presence, verse three. And my brother Jacob also has seen him as I have seen him. So what happened when Lehi prepared his children to enter into the presence of God rather than reject it and say, you do this for us, we're going to see that his children, at least the majority, accepted that responsibility and sought earnestly to enter into God's presence, to enter into his rest, and therefore were permitted to have the Melchizedek priesthood carry on with them. The Book of Mormon is like the telling of the Old Testament story, but in a perspective of had the children of Israel entered into the presence of God, what would it have been like had the Melchizedek priesthood stayed with them, and they would have been able to enjoy that priesthood rather than just the preparatory? Does that make sense? [00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:50] Speaker A: Okay, let's get back to this vision. [00:14:52] Speaker B: I was going to say. Yeah, go ahead. I have some thoughts. Once we get into the beginning of the vision. One thing I want to point out is just how very heavy temple references through the beginning of chapter eleven. A lot of the things that the angel says to him. The whole idea, by the way, that you brought up, is where the things that he saw, heard, and felt. And for those of us that have been through the endowment, think of the different stages of the endowment, where you see and then hear only and then feel only. I mean, it's like so much of this is just so connected to that entire experience. And so even as we read these things, it's a very, keeping that in mind, and the whole idea that he's caught up to the mountain, right? Like that, the spirit comes in. Where does the spirit take him? To the temple. Right. As you're reading through this with that context in mind, man, it really kind of illuminated some subtle but really incredible details of the actual language in the way that even the angel is communicating with Nephi as he goes through this. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Now, you hit on something that I really want to capture that's very important, that's very subtle, and I think is missed. Okay, who's communicating with Nephi through this revelation? [00:16:22] Speaker B: Well, is it the Lord? Because it says an angel, right? [00:16:26] Speaker A: What does it say? [00:16:27] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't remember. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Is it one person? Is it two people? Who is it? [00:16:31] Speaker B: I don't know. Tell me. [00:16:32] Speaker A: Okay, this gets very fascinating. So, like, you say he gets caught up into this high mountain. This is halfway through verse one. As I sat pondering in my heart, I was caught away in the spirit of Lord, yea, even to an exceedingly high mountain which had never before seen. [00:16:46] Speaker B: So it's the Holy Ghost talking to him, is it? [00:16:48] Speaker A: So let's go. And verse two. And the spirit said unto me, behold, what desireest thou? And I said, behold, I desire to see the things which my father saw. Now, when we're talking about the spirit, let's go back to verse one, because I missed something important. For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen. What does his father see? And what does his father want his kids to see in context of what we just read about Moses and about the Melchizedek priesthood? I want to see what my father saw and believe that the Lord was able to make them known unto me. And as I sat pondering, I was caught away in the spirit of the Lord. Now, the spirit of the Lord is an interesting thing. We think of it. The spirit of the Lord is the Holy Ghost. Sure, but whose spirit is it? It's the Lord's spirit. What if this is the spirit of the Lord before he was born here on earth? What if this is pre mortal Christ? [00:17:46] Speaker B: Could be. Here's my question. We've talked about this quite a bit. Does it matter? You know what mean? Like, again, if we believe, what is. [00:17:56] Speaker A: He supposed to represent, even if it's not him? [00:17:58] Speaker B: Well, if it's a godhead, that they continue to claim that they are one. I'm just saying at a certain point, right? If it is, say, Christ himself or the holy Ghost. You know what I mean? I guess I'm just asking. It's the same in theory, but get this. [00:18:16] Speaker A: So he's talking to the spirit of the Lord, and I'm just going to put it out there. What if this is the Lord's spirit, the premortal messiah? Just to think about as he's having this vision, he sees the tree, and then he says, what do you desire now to know the meaning of the tree? What happens to the spirit of the Lord at that point? [00:18:39] Speaker B: Leaves. [00:18:40] Speaker A: He leaves? Why does he leave? And what does Nephi see? He sees the birth of the Lord on earth. And so it's almost as if, to not confuse the matter, the spirit's not going to be in two different places at the same time here. You want to see what I'm going to do here on earth? I'm going to leave and an angel comes instead. So you'll notice in the whole first part of this vision, he's talking to the spirit of the Lord. And the second part of the vision, it shifts, and it's now an angel that's guiding him through it, because the spirit had to go take the center role in part of the vision. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, I'm with you. [00:19:20] Speaker A: I'd never really noticed that. I keep saying, well, the spirit or the angel? And why do I keep getting him too confused? And then I realized as I was reading it, there's actually two separate beings. And I find it fascinating that the spirit leaves him at that time that he's going to see the birth of the Messiah, and he's watching it play out. And how does he recognize that the messiah is who he is had he not sat next to the Lord and become familiar with him to where he could recognize his place down on earth? [00:19:49] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, I'm with you. [00:19:50] Speaker A: And it also, you'll notice that he says, and the spirit spoken to me as a man because I beheld it, was just as a man. Right. And it's kind of surprising him that the spirit is so similar to a man, and he focuses on that. This is reminiscent of what we read when the brother of Jared beholds the hand of God, and it surprised him to see that the spirit, he beheld him as the form that he was going to take when he was born here on earth. This is very similar. They're parallels. And when Nephi is talking about entering into the presence of God, Lehi has this temple experience. I believe here that now Nephi is having this temple experience and also entering into the presence of God, which you also have this tree of life experience that he's seeing. We've talked about the tree of life, and we've talked about these similarities. I don't know how much I want to dwell on it here, but I will say this is very similar to John in his vision in the book of Revelation, when he hears the voice of the Lord, and he turns to see who's talking to him, and instead he sees the menorah, this tree of life, and the tree of life imagery in the garden of Eden. And I think you even see it play out in Gethsemane when Christ, the tree of life, is being hung on a cross. There's a lot of imagery and symbolism with that tree. Nephi sees what Lehi saw. I think we can leave that where it sits. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:30] Speaker A: There's a few other things that he saw in this vision when he looks to see, when Lehi saw where his family was, you remember that he saw them next to a fountain of water. Verse 23. And it came to pass, I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen was the word of God and led to the fountain of living waters or to the tree of life. Now, that became interesting to me, because Lehi sees the fountain of living waters and where his family is, and the rod is leading out there. But that same rod isn't also leading to the tree. And you look at how Nephi describes it. He's saying that they're almost both the same. And when you talk about the fountains of water being righteousness, but then later on, he talks about how the river is the sins of the world, the dirtiness, right? And you're like, how is it that it's fountains of righteousness and also the filthiness and the sins of the world? And I think Nephi answers that question for us when he sees the formation of the great and abominable church. And he talks about the sins of the great and abominable church. And think about this for a minute. Who created the great and abominable church? What was its source? What was its fountain? And the fountain was Christ, who formed the church, who called the twelve apostles, who called Peter, who gave them authorization. And it was a pure and a beautiful beginning. It's the fountain of all righteousness. But as that fountain goes down the stream, what happens? You have animals coming and drinking in it. You have it mixing. The water kind of gets dirty. And I almost look at this. The philosophies of men mingled with scripture to where the further we get removed from Christ, perhaps the dirtier the water becomes to even to where if a fountain of water turns into a river and that river empties into a lake, and there's no outlet for that lake, that lake becomes stale. The water evaporates and leaves. And what you're left behind is this high concentration to, I mean, look at the great Salt lake, look at the Dead Sea, where just the salt where no life can live. And if you're trying to find clean water, you've got to go to the source. You got to go to where it first comes out, to where it springs out. So I think that's where you're getting a distinction or separation between the fountains of water versus the river, which represents the filthiness of man. And I look at how many things people did in the name of religion or because of their belief in Christ, gave them an excuse to maybe criticize, condemn, or commit atrocities against other people, which is probably about as far removed from Christ as you can get. Let's talk about the building Nephi sees, the building which represents the pride of the world and the fall. And we talked about this church, the formation of which Nephi says is great and abominable. But when we go back to the source of it, the fountain of it, where did it begin? It was pure. It was Christ. It was the fountain of living waters that came lost somewhere around the way. And why did it get lost? Because of the pride. And look at the state of the Jews in Jerusalem when Christ was born. What's the Fountain from where they come? And it's interesting that we're talking about the Fountain from where they came in connection with this Tree, because Lehi, excuse me, when he describes his vision of the tree of Life, you'll remember after that, he talks about the Tree and the Branches being cut off and grafted and moved. The Jews for their source, their Fountain, the roots. The tree from which they came was righteousness was Abraham, Isaac, Jacob was the covenants that God established with them. It was a good thing. But somewhere along the line, because of the pride of the world, they became Babylon. They became the world, and they became this building. And great was the fall thereof. Great was the destruction of Babylon. Great was the destruction of Jerusalem. Great was the destruction of the church. Nobody's immune from this. The Jews fell to the pride. The Gentiles fell because of their pride. Any one of us may start in a pure, good space, and somewhere along the lines, as we drift further from Christ, we lose it. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Do you think the great and spacious building at all could have been orthodoxy, like the. The Pharisees? I'm trying to think of, like, how I think that there's more potential representation in the great and spacious building of the people in it than I feel like we kind of learn as kids, right? Like, I think that we kind of have an image painted of. It's all of the people that are just going to mock us for us being Christian or lds or whatever that is, right? And it's just all of the people mocking us. And for me, I go, I don't ever foresee myself feeling the pressure to leave this religion because of people teasing me about it. So again, I don't think that that symbol means that much to me personally, but I'm like, well, that has to mean something more than that. And I have wondered because it makes very clear what they're wearing, right? It's like they're wearing expensive stuff. They're wearing like the nice thing, right. The idea is it's not some scrubs that are just like, hey, your religion is stupid. It's like, I wouldn't care about that. I kind of started wondering how much of that building is filled with me, right. And taking shots at people maybe that don't do it the same way that I do or that don't do. You know what I mean? I think for me it's so much less of a worry that I'm ever going to be in that building out of me feeling embarrassed that I'm living my life and living my religion. And I want to make sure that I'm on guard to hopefully never become somebody that's in the building mocking other people. Right. I think that that's more of. And I've started thinking about it and really kind of the thing that came to my mind is that the orthodoxy, by the way, it talks about this later in the Book of Mormon too when it talks about members of the church that are rich and expensive or wearing expensive clothing and they're persecuting the homeless and they're kind of persecuting, I believe it's in Alma. And a lot of that then goes back to like, okay, cool. What are the symbolisms of what they're wearing of the nice things and that type of stuff? And it almost draws within the Book of Mormon itself the parallel of the great and spacious building and what they're wearing to later on members of the church and what they're wearing to where you go. Like, I don't think that's a coincidence. I guess you bring up a lot. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Of really good points. But I think you might need to explain what you mean by orthodoxy. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Misunderstood orthodoxy. The Pharisees, that was the orthodoxy at the time. Or the Catholic Church, that was the orthodoxy at the time. Right. I guess I'm just saying. I'm not even saying like the LDS orthodoxy. I would probably consider myself a part of the LDS orthodoxy. I guess when I say the have in theory the Catholic Church. Right? You kind of brought this up. You hinted at it, right? The atrocities and things that are done in the name of mean everybody had to be legally part of the Holy Roman Catholic Church or the Church of England or you have a lot of these things where it's just like this is who you're looking to to go. This should be, in theory the iron rod leading to the tree. And instead it's the exact opposite of that. Again. And I hate to draw this parallel because I think they're beautiful. But even if you look at the cathedrals, you almost kind of look at some of these great and spacious buildings, and it's like, oh, it would make it. Sadly, unfortunately, you could almost draw a parallel to these great and spacious buildings full of people with very expensive clothing and tons of money and riches persecuting the people. On the outside of this. You look at the Pharisees when Christ came. I mean, where was John the Baptist, bro? [00:31:17] Speaker A: Outside. [00:31:18] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying, man. [00:31:20] Speaker A: And to go with what you're saying, because Nephi says it's the pride, right? The pride. And I'll tell you, pride is not going to cause you to fall. If it's an external influence. It's only going to cause you to fall. If it's internal. Pride has to be an internal thing to damage you. And so then, like you say, maybe it is myself in the building, or maybe it is the inside. External pressures often solidify or help or make you stand against something. It's when it's happening from the inside that you start to question or wonder or doubt or just really, I don't know. And in this case, pride. You would think it's those things. In fact, this is an important distinction. Layman and Lemuel say, we know that the Jews at Jerusalem are righteous. And the reason they say we know that they are righteous is because they observed the feasts. We talked about this with Laban and Lehi and Laban being out with the feast, being drunk. He's observing a religious holiday. Isaiah validates what Leman and Lemuel are saying when he talks about your sacrifices and your feast. And you're doing all of these things, and yet it's abhorrent to me. You draw near to me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. It's the pride that becomes this building. When you say, we are righteous, I'm going to church. I'm paying my tithings. I'm doing the ordinances, I'm doing all. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Of those things, but away from that. That's my point, though. I mean, you're literally saying, that's what I'm talking about. And the thing is, one of the things that I love deeply about Joseph Smith's unapologetic statement and founding of this church is it cuts sideways across all orthodoxy. Christian orthodoxy at the time, truly, the idea of the Godhead is one of the biggest reasons that christian orthodoxy in the world claims that we're not Christian is truly just the foundational idea of the Godhead versus the Trinity. Our entire religion is formed off of, I guess, a Protestant to the Protestants. Right? I'm just saying like a Protest to the Protestants. And this is where, again, I'm trying to be careful with how I talk about this because I hate the idea of christians fighting against christians, but go on. The great and spacious application that is. [00:34:40] Speaker A: Twitter. [00:34:43] Speaker B: And the mocking, yelling and fighting from christians, from christian orthodoxy. Truly, let's just leave it at that. Christian orthodoxy, at the lds religion, you're not christian. You're started by devils. This, this and this and that, right? And you go, my goodness. Growing up, I feel like I always kind of saw this metaphor as non christians fighting against christians or the bad guys versus the good guys. And it was always hard for me to understand why people would make it to the tree and then break off from it. That didn't make sense to me because you're like, well, if you've made it that far, what do you care what people think? And as I finally just started maybe understanding this, that there is a different perspective on this to where it's like, my goodness, this could be literally Christianity, orthodox Christianity, abusing. You know what I mean? Abusing Christians. Christians abusing christians. A church that is in the name of God torturing people. It became just a lot clearer. Oh, my goodness. For me, I have to always be on the lookout. When I read the book of Mormon again in Alma, where you're going, it was the members of the church that were persecuting other people. You go, okay, cool. That building and the people in it could be a lot closer to home than I think I realize when I read through this parable. And therefore I'm going, I want to be hopefully better just as a person. I want to hopefully be somebody on the other side of that river going like, hey, man, you also have a safe space here. You have support here. I understand how loud those voices, and by the way, how close to home sometimes those voices may feel. I guess the better I understand that I might be one step away from being a person inside that building if I'm not careful. It brings a different, I don't know, realness to that metaphor for me, man. [00:37:18] Speaker A: You see it in the Old Testament when God calls Jerusalem Sodom and Gomorrah or Babylon. [00:37:24] Speaker B: That's right. Because they're that close. They're a lot closer than they realize. [00:37:28] Speaker A: You keep thinking it's some external force that you can hate. Those guys are the bad guys. It's those ones over there. It's those ones over there, it's when you realize that it's the moat and the beam that Christ is talking about. And it's interesting, we were having a discussion before we even started recording this. The people in Jerusalem, not even Jerusalem before they got to Jerusalem, when they left Egypt, and Moses the lawgiver gives them the law of Moses. You don't see them protesting that. They themselves have to take the responsibility of holding a sinner accountable. In fact, they're all willing to throw the stone. If somebody kills my brother, it's my responsibility to kill him. Game on. I'll chase them down. Nobody's protesting that and saying, we don't want to do that. Hire an executioner. Find somebody else to do that. You do it for us. We don't want to get our hands dirty. But when Moses teaches them plainly to enter into the presence of God on the opposite of extreme right, instead of getting your hands dirty and mild and mucking around with this, I want to take you holy into the presence of God, it's all of a sudden, we don't want to do that. [00:38:46] Speaker B: You do that for us. That's right. [00:38:49] Speaker A: We need a priest to go represent us and do all of those things. Let us do the stoning, let us do the condemning. LET us be the critical ones. And we look at IsRAEL and we see them and say, oh, look, that's them. That's the great and spacious. That's BabYlON. Is that not US? [00:39:05] Speaker B: That's exactly right. [00:39:07] Speaker A: How often are we quick to say, you're way off on that or to try to condemn or hold somebody or what? We want to be the ones that'll open your eyes and show you this and show you that and be WHAtever. But ARe we the ones that Want to see things? [00:39:23] Speaker B: To your point? And you just brought up, how many times are we invited to go to the temple regularly? Like, look, you know me, Dude. I beat up on the children of IsraEl all the time. Those dudes. I have no love for those dudes. You did a very good job of trying to help me. Well, God loves them, so you should love them. I get it. And you got to do that. That's your job in this relationship of ours. For me, I'm still just going to dump all over these guys yet, right? Yet we're giving these dudes a hard time. Moses comes DOwn from that and says, hey, God desires that all of you come up and they're like, no, you got this, right. How MUch are we invited to go into the presence of God? I mean, it seems like every conference, right? Every CoNfeRencE, MOre or less. ARen't we invited to attend the temple more ReGulARlY? What easier THIng is there to actually do? If we're willing to sacrifice something that apparently we hold with the most value, which is our time, it's free. It's 5 minutes from most of Our houses, at least where we live. When we talk about being one step away, removed from these things that we're beating up. Right. This all comes back to the great and spacious building. Maybe not being on the other side of the moat, right? On the other side of the river, and on the other side of some huge cane. It's LiKE, oh, cool, man. That might be five steps away from where I'm standing. I might be that cloSe. How? I don't know. I just explained for me how close I am to these dudes that I just beat up every time we read the Old Testament. No, you go do that for us. I mean, man, if we're not moving one direction, we're moving the other, I guess, is all I'm saying. And I'm saying this to myself as always. I'm talking myself through understanding and being accountable to myself. It's nice. And it has been a great chance for me to realign some things in my life now that I have a child now that is old enough to go and do baptisms and wakes up in the morning is like, let's go do this in the morning. It's like, you know what? Out of the mouths of babes, I guess. But at the end of the day, sometimes we need some unexpected catalysts to help us realign our direction, right? And you go back, and almost instantaneously, for me, you go, it's been a little too long, and more so than that. Hey, maybe it's time to start being a little bit more honest about again, how close you are to the things that you don't think you could ever become, that you don't think you could ever move that far away from where you're at. But it's like the slow moving river, right? [00:42:42] Speaker A: The river, the farther you roll from the fountain, it's just almost. [00:42:46] Speaker B: And it's like, cool. Well, I'm not swimming the wrong direction. I'm moving my feet to stay, to keep afloat. Well, what you don't realize is, even if you might not recognize it, it's still moving. The river is still moving. And you might look up and realize, my goodness, I've traveled a lot further away from where I started than I think I realized because I was moving my legs so it felt like I was still at least swimming in the same place. Maybe I wasn't actively swimming one direction or the other. My goodness, that river is going to move us one way or the other. And once we stop doing the hard thing, which is swimming against the current, I'm just saying, man, staying afloat, you're still moving. And again, this vision, as we were reading this as a family, it seems like, as always, was hitting pretty close to home. [00:43:43] Speaker A: I appreciate you sharing that. And it's interesting to ask ourselves that question. Maybe we're unwilling to take some time to go to the temple, but what are we willing to make time for on the other? Is it not like the Israelites? You take care of my salvation, I'm going to take care of the other, because I need to. A lot of times what we do feel that time in, sometimes we do it with this religious wrath. I mean, I have to do this because I'm taking care of my family. I have to do this because I need to take me time. I need to take care of. We can find a good reason to do all sorts of the things that we do, right? And I find it very interesting when Nephi talks about the formation of this church that he sees. Let's go to chapter 13 real quick and read verse five. And the angel said unto me, behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them, and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity. And I saw, it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church. And I saw that the devil was the founder of it. And Nephi, his vision is very specific in all sorts of details to naming the city where things are happening, the birth of the savior, all of these things. But he doesn't call the church out by name. And you look at early Christianity, and yes, it starts at one point in time, pure as a fountain with Christ, but it doesn't take long before you have all sorts of different churches, and they start looking at it. And here's the thing. I'm trying to understand the mindset of that time period for what they did. When Nephi starts describing some of these abominations, going back in time and reading the history of some of these churches where the bishops and the priests would force people to take the sacrament, would kidnap them, force them into a room and force the sacrament upon them because they were terrified. Christ says, if you are not one, you are not mine. And so they look at it and say they see all of these different churches that are worshiping differently and say, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't be different than me. You have to be just like me, or else we are destroying the body of Christ. And they look at that and say, we can't be destroying the body of Christ or else we're crucifying him. And so in their justification of trying to keep the body unified, and in the name of Christ, here they are, these crusaders, right? I am going to destroy anyone that doesn't think like me, that doesn't see like me, so that we can all be one, so that I'm not destroying the body of Christ. This is righteous wrath. This is, I am doing God's work by holding everyone accountable. Where today I think we look at this very differently. The church of Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ's body, his church. If you are not one, you're not mine. If you are not one with Christ, with his church, then you're on your own. You're doing your own thing. It doesn't mean that you've torn the body. It's still Christ's church. It's still one. You can either unify with the church or you can choose to be outside and lost and whatever, as opposed to, no, that's tearing the body apart. And it's mean. [00:47:14] Speaker B: But to your point though, too, and this is what I mean, when we can sometimes be one step away from the other side of that is do we, especially in relationships with loved ones, do we try to force feed the sacrament on them? Let's just say metaphorically. Right, man? We do that too, dude. Unrighteously, probably. And maybe, by the way, with the best of intentions, sometimes you better come. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Or you're going to hell. [00:47:45] Speaker B: That's what I mean. Again, I don't feel like I'm going too far out on a limb to say probably you and I, at least for sure, and anybody else listening to this, have loved ones in our lives that don't believe the same things that we do. Are we doing the same freaking thing, man? Hopefully not. I don't feel like I am. I'm not going to say, though, that I probably haven't at some point in my life tried to force feed, metaphorically, our sacrament on them. And then you ask ourselves, why? And isn't it for the exact same reason? Our religious seal, we're afraid, really, I feel like is what it comes down to. Well, if they're not with us. What does that mean? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for me? If they have started here and now reject what I believe again, I'm now only going to speak for myself, but I feel like it's probably a fairly honest sentiment. Was it because I wasn't shored up where I needed to be? And so when loved ones or close ones or people that were part of the team, part of the faith, no longer part of that, I think out of fear, I took that as, oh, my goodness. Now they're basically saying that the things that I believe are wrong, and that's scary. And so for me, my pushback against that was what? No, you can't be happy unless you do this the way that I do it. No, you got to come back. No, you got to come back. No. Contention, uneasiness, unrest, discord instead of harmony, all of these things, right? Instead of where I am now, which is. It was an opportunity for me to shore up and find the absolute core of the things that I would say as a man can know. This is what I do. This is where I'm at. And by the way, it's not a ton of things. It's two or three God lives. Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw. And from there, that anchor for me goes, it's okay. It's okay. Now, even when close friends and literally family might not feel the same way that I do about these things and where that used to scare me because I'm now honest enough to go, because it questions, it pushes, it challenges me and what I believe, whether they're meaning to or not, it's saying that they now know that what I believe isn't true. And I wasn't, apparently where I needed to be with my own anchors and core because that shook me. And with, in theory, the most righteous intentions, I'm like, no, I got to bring them back. No, I got to bring them back. No, it's my responsibility to make sure that they stay and to make sure. Why? Well, maybe because I wasn't that different from the crusades. Right? Out of fear. And again, end of this story, at least as it currently goes, is, no, I now understand better that idea that it's like, no, I need to continually work on the inside. And if I do that, I can love my family exactly the same and I can love my friends exactly the same. And you know what? Even if they do think that what I believe is not true, that literally doesn't affect me. And the reason it did before was because I clearly had some work to do internally still, and it provided me some good opportunities to do some internal work. And so thank you. Actually, great. I used that opportunity to shore some things up that needed to be shored up. [00:51:54] Speaker A: And isn't that how everything began, is God loved us enough to let us choose. [00:51:59] Speaker B: That's right. That's exactly right. [00:52:02] Speaker A: Regardless of where that choice led us, he loved us enough to send his son so that we could choose and blow it. And blow it and not have to be forced to be perfect all the time. [00:52:15] Speaker B: That's right. [00:52:18] Speaker A: And provide a way that when we do see things, we can come back. It's hard. It's hard to know. Where do you balance that in fear and love faith. [00:52:34] Speaker B: And here's what I would say for me, we should never be making decisions based out of fear, because I absolutely take Paul. I believe at his word, where fear is the opposite of love. I don't know. It's one of those dudes. It's one of the New Testament dudes. I'm taking him at his word for this one. I think that those two things are actually clear opposites. And I think that when we make decisions out of fear, we usually need to spend a little bit more time wondering, or we should be spending time asking ourselves why we're afraid and why we're making a decision out of fear instead of confidence and love. And I personally don't think that. I don't think that it should ever be finding a balance between righteous fear. I don't know. I understand that a lot of people make a decision, hey, I'm going to be good so that I don't go to hell. I think that's a terrible reason to make a decision, to be good. I guess. I'm glad that you're still deciding to be good. I just don't think that that can last. I think that the decision should be, I want to be good because inside I have the confidence in knowing by doing this, it's going to potentially save somebody else. It's what I've been asked to do. And because of my faith, I feel the weight of the responsibility to do what I've been asked to do. I'm just saying there's so many ways that we could confidently and in love make the same decision. And I think it's going to actually mean something and last longer than. I'm only doing this because I'm afraid that I'm going to be burned for the rest of eternity if I don't do it. And maybe that's just me. [00:54:37] Speaker A: No, that's a great way. [00:54:38] Speaker B: [email protected]. Feel free to blow me away on this one. I may or may not change my opinion, but I'm a 100%. Fear is the opposite of love. And if you can be honest enough with yourself that you're not making a decision out of confidence and love only on fear, you're probably making the wrong decision. [00:55:03] Speaker A: I like what you're saying, and maybe I can wrap up this portion of it. When he talks about I saw the devil, that he was the founder of it, if we just blanket statement, say, this is the catholic church because it fits a lot of the patterns. You got the inquisition, you got the crusade, you got the way they treated Galileo and scientists just for simply trying to teach something that didn't go with what they're. You can say all of that. But if you just say simply, this is the catholic church, take back where is the founder of it? Where does it begin? Well, if you say, well, this goes from the apostles, from Peter, from Christ, then how can you say the founder of it is the devil? It's not that. It's what we've always been talking about. The fountain is Christ. But the further we drift down that into the waters, the further we start mingling the philosophies of men and drifting away from God, it becomes something else when we seek to force others into this, to force others into this. That is the founder of the devil. That's the very beginning when it was, who shall I send? One who says, I will let them decide and the other that says, I will make everyone be righteous. It's that mindset, that religion. And it doesn't fit in a box of just one church. Just because you see some church, like you say with the orthodoxy, you can see it in here, you can see it played out over there. And sometimes because it's so easy for us to see it in all of these different organizations. Oh, it's the Jews when they crucified Christ. Oh, it's the Catholics when they're doing this inquisition and the whatever. Or it's the maybe the hardest thing to see is when it's us, ourselves. [00:56:48] Speaker B: That's it. Which is why, again, for whatever's worth, I was trying to be as careful as possible not to isolate or single out anybody, because my whole point is we're one step away sideways from being that same thing. [00:57:01] Speaker A: And as much as you can see an organization doing something, you can also see a lot of good things. What do you prescribe to and who are you following? And that is the church. Is it the founder of Christ or is it the founder of the devil? Because sometimes the same organization can have two very different founders depending on how you're following that. [00:57:23] Speaker B: Well stated. [00:57:26] Speaker A: I don't know if it was a. [00:57:27] Speaker B: Long stated, but it was a long way around to get it. No, you stuck the dismount is what I'm trying to say. I'm hoping that, again, this is a complex thing, man. I don't know. I'm hoping that those listening can sense in us the desire to try to untie some of the complexities of these things, but also being honest enough to go like, hey, we're not trying to bag on any one group of people specifically, because we're really on the lookout to make sure it's not us. All right, let's keep going. [00:58:04] Speaker A: All right. There's so many beautiful things in this prophecy. I mean, Nephi sees it all, not just the immediate future of them going to the promised land. He sees what happens with him and his seed and his brother's seed and how they interact with each other. He sees when that happens over on the other side of the world. He sees what's going on with the churches over there and the persecution of the people and what's going, and those trying to leave and find religious freedom. And he sees the formation of the gentiles coming here to the american continent and the rise of a new government. He sees all sorts of things, very prophetic, very profound. It would be fun to go into all the detail and look at it, but I think this is something you can explore on your own for the interest of time. I'm going to reduce the rest of our podcast down to two last points. [00:58:52] Speaker B: Okay. [00:58:56] Speaker A: The first one I want to make is Nephi sees all of these great things, and when his vision closes, it says he returns to the tent of his father. And where was he returning from? Remember, he was carried away to an exceedingly high mountain. And it's almost like his consciousness is returning to his body, which was at the tent of his father all along. And as he's sitting there, he sees his brothers arguing, and he wants to go talk to them to kind of help figure out what's going on, but he's too weak to do that. It reminds me of Joseph Smith after his first vision when he's coming home and he has to rest on the. You know, it takes a lot out of him to have these experiences. It's interesting, but he has to kind of gather himself together before he can talk to them. And then he asks them, what's going on? Sorry, I'm just scrolling through the scriptures to just see this. Verse 15 is where it was. And it to pass that after I. And if I had been carried away in the spirit and all these things, I returned to the tent of my father. I beheld my brethren. They were disputing one with another concerning the things which my father had spoken for. He truly spake many things to them that were hard to understand. Save a man should inquire of the Lord. And so this gets us into that same mindset that we're talking about. Nate, am I going to approach the Lord and enter into his presence, or do I want someone else to do it for me? And now, if I was grieved because of the hardness of their hearts and also because of the things which I had seen and knew, they must unavoidably come to pass because of the great wickedness of the children of men. And it came to pass that I was overcome with my afflictions, for I considered that mine afflictions were great, above all because of the destruction of my people, for I beheld their fall. It came to pass that after I had received strength. So there it is. That's what I was talking about. He's coming back to his body here in this tabernacle and the tent of his dad. He sees his brothers fighting, and he's really overcome with what he saw. And he has to gather his strength before he can even go and have this conversation with them. And he saw that his brother's seed were going to kill his own children's seed. Right? And yet he's going to try to help his brothers understand and convince them to go with him and cross the sea. Why isn't Nephi at this point just saying, I know what's going to happen, and I don't want that to happen? Go back to Jerusalem, get destroyed, and then my seed will just prosper forever. And yet he loves them enough. And I think this is a very important lesson on accountability. He's not blaming his brothers for what is going to happen to the destruction of his seed, because he saw every time his seed was righteous, the lord preserved them. It's not his brother's fault. That's a great insight, and there's some accountability there. I know that it's their own fault. I can't blame my brothers for what's going to happen. And there's a big difference between taking accountability or understanding where to assign blame versus trying to put the blame on someone else and being upset and pointing fingers at them. [01:02:34] Speaker B: You unlocked the code. This is something I've actually been wondering, because I was reading a lot about the idea that the whole reason that Nephi kind of needed to get the plates from Laban and needed to kill him was for what? For the preservation of his seed. Right? Like, really? And then you go, I know, but all the Nephites end up getting killed off. Right? It was kind of a hard whatever, but it should be so simple. But the lord's also not going to take away the agency of the generations to come after Nephi. That's the answer to that question. And you nailed that and gave me, actually, an answer of a question that I've been having over the past few weeks. [01:03:25] Speaker A: Well, good. [01:03:26] Speaker B: So there you go. Well, hope at least I got something out of it. [01:03:31] Speaker A: Last thing I wanted to bring up, and I'll close with this, I promise. To me, it's fascinating. I mean, Lehigh. Excuse me. Nephi's had some time. He's riding these plates after the fact. He's had some chance to reflect and look back on what he's been through. And he makes such a conscious effort, I think, as much as he likes plainness, and he's the guy that says he's going to make plainness subtly. He's couching, or maybe not even so subtly. He's couching this whole experience with the exodus of Israel in very significant ways. And, Nate, you and I were having this conversation back and forth on text when I started to see this. For example, Lehi's vision of the tree of life. And he sees this tree that's just light. It's almost like it's consumed with light. But the tree is not burned, which is a reminder of Moses and the burning bush. And when they go out to the wilderness and follow the path, it takes them to a sea. Like, why are you taking us to a dead end? And just as Moses had to cross the sea to get to the promised land, Lehi's family has to cross the sea to get to the promised land. And another connection I didn't even notice until today, Moses ends up slaying an Egyptian before any of this begins. Right at the beginning of this. That's what takes him out. That's what takes him on his journey. And the reason he's doing it, a lot of scholars say, is because he is the redeemer of blood. This was an israelite. And as an israelite, he is next akin to defend the Israelite versus somebody who's further separated the Egyptians. And he slays this Egyptian, which is the beginning of the story. Just as Nephi slaying Laban is the beginning of their exodus, and then the account of the exodus. The Israelites constantly murmuring. And then here you have Nephi talking about Layman and Lamuel, who that's their favorite pastime, is murmuring the Israelites, even. [01:05:46] Speaker B: Specifically, like, it was better for us. At least back in Egypt. At least we had food. [01:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah. They say, were there not enough graves in Egypt that you had to take us out into the wilderness to die? And that's what Layman and Lemuel say. They say our father has taken us to the wilderness to die because of his visionary and his foolishness, the foolish imaginations of his heart. We're going to die in the wilderness. Some of the lines that they're quoting are almost identical. And I think Nephi is doing a really good job of trying to draw this comparison. And as much as he likes hitting us on the head with some things obvious, this is actually Nephi being subtle. I think he's not saying, let me show you how this is exactly like the Exodus. Let me tell you about how we had the Passover, and then we were over to here. This is all subtle. So Nephi is not just plain and clear, and he talks about that. I know how the Jews write. Well, he's doing the same thing. He uses subtlety. He uses chiasmus. He uses poetry. He kind of blends both worlds masterfully. I think the Israelites are complaining there's not enough food. Let's go back to Egypt, where they had flesh pots and we could go and eat. Well, Nephi's bow breaks, and they don't have the means to be able to get food. And they're all complaining about that. Moses and Miriam. Miriam's rebellion with Moses. And she has that moment where she's going through her doubt and whatnot. You've got Lehi and Sarah who have this kind of rough moment when the boys don't come back right away. I don't know. There's a lot Nephi being called up into a high mountain, and Nephi went into the mountain often. And Moses and his mountain experiences the priesthood and the purpose of Moses trying to prepare them to enter in the presence of God. And now seeing this, where Lehi enters the presence of God, Nephi, desiring to have the same experience, has his temple experience enters into the presence of God. It's interesting when you start to look for it. I'm sure there's a lot more similarities. [01:07:52] Speaker B: Well, that's fun. Our listeners can figure those out, too. [01:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:55] Speaker B: And then hit us back at [email protected]. With even more insight into that. Awesome. Anything else you want to put on this one? [01:08:06] Speaker A: You know what? There's maybe one more thing about this. Talking about this great and spacious building, as I try to reflect and think about this, a word of caution for myself and pride. And I think about maybe my orthodoxy in the church and what I look at and say, oh, I need to correct or whatever. I don't want to say that it's always bad. You have to still stand for something and you still have to stand with Christ. And, and I think we see this in the vision you have. Sure. The people in the great and spacious building that are mocking and trying to make it look appealing for people to try to seek after that. But on the flip side, don't you also have Lehi at the tree who is also inviting people to come to where he is and not compromising on his position? And I think it's critical to understand the difference is standing in Christ, not using Christ as a justification to go out there and mock or to make fun of or to push people one way or the other. And, Nate, I think you highlight this difference so well, but to maybe not compromise on where you're at, but invite people to come with love. [01:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And with patience, you bring up a good point. And again, I know we talked a ton about the great and spacious building, but that's fine. I guess that's kind of what the theme of this ended up being of our conversation. Right. I would say that is something to consider when you are trying to figure out what side of that you're on. And I think that we all probably fall guilty of maybe living in both sides in different times of our lives. Are we inviting people to, are we trying to calmly and lovingly persuade to do good? Are we being patient? Are we being loving? Are we being calm and faithful and not fearful? All those things, right? Or are we doing it in a mocking. And again, I'm saying it. I know that it would probably be very easy for me to quickly point to times where I'm like, I wish I could have probably handled that situation better. [01:10:35] Speaker A: You know, what's interesting to think about in context of this, though, is Christ himself. So we're talking about what would Christ do? And standing in Christ, right. Entering Jerusalem year after year, his same manual tradition. What are these money changers doing in this temple. I mean, is he not the orthodoxy in that sense? [01:10:59] Speaker B: Sure. And thing is, again, and I want to make this clear, I hope I did is that I'm not even suggesting that orthodoxy is necessarily a bad word. I think that it all comes down to either. The idea, and you're bringing up a great point is that I don't think that we can ever rest in the idea of going, well. We should feel safe knowing that everybody else is doing it like this. Therefore, dude, that's part of the appeal of the great and spacious building is that there was probably a lot more people inside of that than there was over at the tree partaking of the fruit. Numbers wise, is that a safe assumption? [01:11:43] Speaker A: Probably. [01:11:46] Speaker B: I would say that's a fairly safe assumption for me. Yeah, man. There is comfort and security in the numbers, right? That's human nature. It's culture. We get together with a big group, you look at animals, they feel protected from the predator the more that they have. Okay. It is what it is, I guess, is all I'm saying. So I understand the appeal of that. I think that my point is it's so important to know where our intentions are and where we're coming from and to make sure that we're not on the wrong side of even within the orthodoxy. Look at, for example, let's just say that both the tree and the building are now all within the umbrella of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints and that both of those things are within the big umbrella. And you look at a lot of different causes and movements and things that we sometimes crusades even that we kind of go on even within the umbrella of the church and do those things become more important to us than following what God has actually told us to do. And then you can go, okay, cool. I can see how both the tree, the people at the tree and a great and spacious building could be playing out even within a ward or within a stake or within a family or within our hearts personally. Right. The whole point of this is, I know that people listen. Hopefully you listening to this will realize the bigger point that I'm trying to make which is I don't think we just get to write this whole analogy off in a simple clean. That's people that aren't christian persecuting people that are christian or that is modern orthodox Christianity in the world persecuting the Mormons. It's not that simple and it's not that clean and it's not that easy is the point that I'm trying to make with all of this is that even within a ward, you might have people, either part of the orthodoxy or the exact opposite of that, trying to persecute even their neighbors and things like that, mock them, take shots at them for the way that they feel or whatever. My whole point of this is, there's so much more to that metaphor than what I think. I always kind of understood it as. I don't know, I feel bad trying to beat this thing to death, but I want to just make sure that I'm being very clear about what I'm trying to say here. [01:14:57] Speaker A: Well, we talk about the crusades being obviously a bad thing, a negative deal, right? And yet look at what Israel's doing when they come out of the land of Egypt and they're on a very similar quest where they're destroying and killing and what's the difference? And you might say, well, there's some clear lines that you can say. Prostitution is a bad thing. Nephi calls out the great and abominable church with having harlots. But then look at the stories of the Old Testament. Isn't Tamar counted for righteous playing the harlot when Judah, who represents Jerusalem? Right. [01:15:29] Speaker B: There you go. Thank you. There's nuance. [01:15:32] Speaker A: Rahab. [01:15:35] Speaker B: A lot of this is a lot messier than the nice, clean, cookie cutter part that we want to make the story in, the simplicity. [01:15:42] Speaker A: So what's the. And I think I can wrap it all up with this. [01:15:47] Speaker B: Please. Thank you. [01:15:49] Speaker A: When you're walking along the path, inevitably, whether it's lehi or whether it's you who found your way on the path or the church or whatever the case may be, inevitably you lose sight of the path. Darkness comes, and you can't tell where you're going anymore. And how do you react when you can't see where you're headed? And those that make it to the tree versus those that get lost in other paths or drowned in the river are the ones that can hold to the word of God. If we start acting on our own, thinking this was the way the path was headed, and I trust in myself to be able to get me here. And this is what I think Christ would want me to do. And I'm just going to kind of run here on shotgun and play my own little play. You're going to get lost where, if it's. I don't know. I thought I knew, and now I'm not so sure. I'm going to trust that God is going to help me. I'm going to listen to what he's told me, I'm going to have a testimony of my own. It's standing in Christ. It's trusting in him. It's revelation. It's testimony that will tell you the difference of when it's okay to flip tables and when it's okay to sit back and watch. [01:17:05] Speaker B: Appreciate you listening again. If you want to get a hold of us, you can email us at the email address. [email protected]. We greatly appreciate you listening. We greatly appreciate you sharing with your friends. We do what we can to give you something uplifting and thought provoking and hopefully be something that's a positive hour to hour and a half of your week at some point, I guess. But anyways, please feel free to get a hold of us. Please share with your friends if you feel like it would help them. And if we don't got anything else, I'm going to get us out of here. Until next week, our.