[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add add on Education Network podcast, where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little insight, unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend and this show's producer, Nate Pyfer.
[email protected].
[00:00:37] Speaker B:
[email protected].
[00:00:41] Speaker A: I do like that email.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: We nailed it.
We nailed it on the email front.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
And our inevitable art podcast coming up soon. They've got a pretty good one, too.
Inevitableart at art art.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: That is also a good one. Yeah, we are finishing some final touch ups and getting ready to get a release schedule for those, so we'll start popping those up as well.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Fantastic. So tonight we get to talk about second Nephi chapter six through ten.
And before we dive into six through ten, just a few things I wanted to button up from last week, just touch real light. We were talking about the prophecies of Joseph, and as you recall last week, we said that Lehi was applying that to his day. And as obvious as it was that they were talking about Joseph Smith, I missed some connections with Nephi. Being a seer who created a book that was of great worth to the sons of Joseph and helping them, I just wanted to make sure I was clear on, I'm not saying that it didn't apply to Joseph Smith. Also, right as we read in verse 15 of that chapter, it says that the seer was going to be called Joseph after his father's name, Joseph Smith Sr. Right. So it definitely still does apply to Joseph Smith. It's just, I think Lehigh was taking that and making direct reference to something that was pertinent to them as well. And it's fascinating. It is one of the points we wanted to make last week. It's fascinating how much revelation is recycled or stories, inspiration. What we see in Moses plays out again with Jonas, with Christ, with Joseph Smith, with Nephi in this case. And we see a lot of these.
And one point I like to make is anyone can write poetry in a book, but for somebody to write poetry in history, to have these events, these recurring themes play out in the lives of real people over thousands of years, I think only God has that ability, that talent, that foresight. And it's kind of like his testimony to seal all of that together is what I appreciate out of that.
Another thing, we talked about Sam and his lack of reference in there, and I speculated that it was because he's being counted with Nephi. In fact, it says that Sam and his seed will be numbered with Nephi's seed. And we don't see any Samites in there. What I don't think I made super clear is we were talking about this last week. If you go and you read deuteronomy, chapter 21, it's the law of the firstborn. And in there, it gets kind of interesting. It says, if you even have multiple wives, and let's say you have a favorite wife, and her firstborn son is not the first born son, but a wife that maybe you like a little bit less, her son was born first. You have to choose the one that was actually born first, not another one, even if you favor that wife more. That is kind of weird. They even go into all those details. But anyways, to make a long point, short, what they say is, in order to show that they're the firstborn, you're supposed to endow them with a double portion.
And the reason behind the double portion is this. The eldest son was responsible for all of the unwed daughters of the father. So, after the father passes away, the first born son receives an extra. A double portion to take care of the unwed sisters that he has.
And so I think we talked about this last week. Nephi very well could have split families and taking some of the Ishmael's son's wives with them when he goes into his new inheritance. Right. He flees into a different land with them, and he very well could have split families. But there also couldn't be made an argument here that if Nephi's sisters were unwed, that him taking them and leading them with him is also claiming that firstborn. Right.
He's taking care of the unmarried sisters, which layman and Lemiel would look at and say, whoa, you've stolen our privilege. These unwed sisters are our responsibility as firstborn sons after our father's death. And it could look at that as challenging. Aside from taking the plates, aside from all of the other claims, this is just one more thing that would really rub them the wrong way. But as we're talking about that double portion, so because Sam and all of that he has and his children are numbered, with Nephi, it's a double inheritance. It's not just Nephi's kids. It's Sam's kids.
I guess one last thing to where this plays out in my mind is look at the war in heaven before we come here on earth, and you have two sons that are vying for position, vying for power, and God chooses one. Now, everything that God has can be summed up, I guess, in saying his children is what he has.
And so if you were to divide the children out as an inheritance between these two sons that are vying for authority or position, one third and two thirds. Two thirds is exactly double what one third is, or the double portion. So Christ inherits a double portion, as opposed to the.
Just in my mind, symbolically speaking, talking about this law and these rights and what happens. It's just interesting looking at how it plays out even again in Nephi's story, for what it's worth.
All right, let me just check real quick, make sure there wasn't anything else that was on my mind, and then let's dive into this.
I think. I think that covered it. Anything else you want to talk about, Nate?
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Let's get into tonight.
We're gonna hear Jacob's words. And here's something I find fascinating about Jacob that sets him apart from any other prophet in all of scriptures.
He's born in the wilderness, which means he's not raised in society.
You want to talk about your home schooled child? This is a homeschooled child on steroids. Because it's not just that he's sitting at home, not interacting with society. There is no society for him to interact with.
Occasionally, the family could have stopped by and resupplied or spent some time in some areas on the way. We don't get that. If they do, that's not part of the story. But he is raised in the wilderness, and so when he starts talking about society and the wealthy and blessed are those that this or the wicked are this, he doesn't have a lot of examples. I don't think, that he's drawing on. He doesn't have a lot of life experience to say that he has seen that. What wealth has this young man experienced, living in the wilderness with everybody else who gave up everything to wander for so many years, how does he know the corrupting influence of money when their form of currency is shooting animals to roast over a fire they're not making.
I went down a wrong road on that if they can't even light fires in the wilderness. But you know what I'm saying.
So hearing him talk to this young society, I'll call it a young society, as they're just getting started. And I don't know how many people this entails. We know Ishmael had at least eight kids. Lehi probably about the same. And you got Zoram's family, and we don't know if they took any other people with them that they met along the way or who else may or may not have come with them. But it's safe to say it's not a large, thriving society that he's had a lot of experience from. So I think Jacob offers some interesting perspective. What he's learning about society and what he's speaking to is coming straight from the scriptures, straight from his understanding of the prophets, straight from the perception, the understanding that he gets from a third party view, looking through the lenses of other people. So he might even take this as an over simplistic, a very simple, not very nuanced. When he starts talking about things, for him, it's very cut and dry and very straight, because that's all he's ever experienced or seen it.
All right, so here we go. This is chapter six.
He feels it's important to speak to them the words of Nephi. Sorry. Nephi instructs him to speak the words of Isaiah. And in verse two, it says, behold, my beloved brethren, I, Jacob, having been called of God and ordained after the manner of his holy order, and having been consecrated by my brother Nephi, unto whom you look as a king. The role of the king, oftentimes in the ancient world, was to set apart the priests and to anoint them. And we've talked about the priesthood here. I think Lehi had some experiences that bring him a greater priesthood. And I think kings often enjoyed a higher priesthood. As they presided over the people. There was certain authority that came with the king. It was a position where they were anointed, where they were consecrated, and they had authority that's different from even levitical or veronic priesthood authority.
My voice. I'm hoping I can hang in there tonight.
Moving on. Nevertheless, verse three. I speak unto you again, for I'm desirous for the welfare of your soul. Yea, mine anxiety is great unto you, and has great unto you, and you yourselves know that it has been. For I've exhorted you with all diligence.
And I'm going to skip forward to verse four. I will read unto you the words of Isaiah, and they are the words which my brother has desired that I should speak unto you. And I speak unto you for your sakes, that you may learn and glorify the name of your God. And now the words which I shall speak are read. The words which I shall read are they which Isaiah spake concerning all the house of Israel, and therefore they may be likened unto you. And he also says, when he's talking about the words of Isaiah, he says, I know that you have been very desirous to know of the things that are to come. And because you're desirous to know the things which are to come, I'm going to read to you Isaiah. Isaiah is where you're going to get the best insight on trying to figure out what things are going to come. And in Jacob's mind, things that are going to come is not just short sighted as, okay, Jerusalem's destroyed. Now what? Jacob takes this all the way to death, all the way to resurrection. And in fact, I want to skip forward past the Isaiah chapters to read Jacob's take on this and then ask, how in the world is Jacob extrapolating all of this just from Isaiah? Let's go back and then start looking at Isaiah with Jacob's lens, what he's seeing in his perception. And to do that, let's look at chapter nine, and then we'll swing back into chapter six, chapter nine, verse four.
For I know that ye have searched much, many of you to know of things to come. Wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die. Nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God. You're like, wait a second. You got that from reading Isaiah?
I get that from reading job.
And Job says, even though the worm eat my body, yet I know that in my flesh I shall see God. But I don't remember Isaiah ever saying that.
And then he even elaborates on this chapter six. For as death hath passed upon all men to fulfill the merciful plan of the great creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall, and the fall came by reason of transgression. And because man became fallen, they were cut off from the presence of God. Wherefore it must needs be an infinite atonement. Save it should be an infinite atonement. This corruption could not put on incorruption. Now, wait a second.
How in the world is Jacob getting all of this? I don't think I have ever heard anybody read Isaiah and then come out and say, oh, this is easy. This is talking about the death and the resurrection and laying out the whole plan of salvation and saying, yeah, that's what Isaiah taught.
Jacob has a way of seeing it and understanding it differently than anybody I know. And so with that lens, let's try to reread these Isaiah verses and see if we can't see what Jacob is seeing.
Going back to chapter six. Now, what is he talking about in the words of Isaiah, chapter six, verse eight.
And well, even verse six is where it begins. And now these are the words. Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles and set up my standards to the people, that they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders, and kings shall be their nursing fathers and their queens, thy nursing mothers. They shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. And now I, Jacob, would speak somewhat concerning these words, for lord has shown me that those who were at Jerusalem from whence we came have been slain and carried away captive.
Now, I got to make a couple points on this.
Lehi, in his final address to his children, said, I know that Jerusalem has been destroyed, for the lord has shown it to me in a vision.
Jacob doesn't say, I know that they were destroyed because my father said they were.
Jacob is just like Nephi. Having been desirous to see the things which his father saw, Jacob sought that vision for himself.
He says, I know, for the lord has shown it to me. Just like Nephi saw the vision of the tree of life, just like Nephi saw all the great visions his father saw. Jacob saw those things for himself as well, and he becomes a seer.
And now he's talking about their death and their captivity. Yet you look at these verses, it says, and the kings shall be thy nursing fathers and the queens thy nursing mothers, even though they're going to be destroyed. Why does he talk about them being nursing fathers and nursing mothers, Babylon?
I wouldn't consider a nursing father or a nursing mother. A country that comes in, kills most of your population and any of the surviving ones, binding them in chains, naked, and marching them across the middle east to Babylon, away from their homeland, leaving their entire country desolate and uninhabited.
That's not a nursing mother or a nursing father.
So he says, even though they're going to be destroyed, yet kings shall be their nursing fathers. Who are these kings? We have hindsight.
We know that down the road, Persia conquers Babylon and sets the Jews free. And now the kings speaking of, the kings of Persia are their nursing fathers and their nursing mothers, who allow them to go back and provide them with the means and what they need to build the temple and restore Jerusalem and restore their faith.
This literally happened down the road. It hadn't happened yet, but Jacob knew it was going to happen. Because this is what Isaiah wrote. Isaiah saw this.
How does Jacob get out of this?
The death and the resurrection.
He's looking at the death of a country and being destroyed and spending time in prison in Babylon as a physical example of us dying and losing our physical bodies and spending time in a spirit prison or a spirit paradise, or whatever the case may be, that we're going to have to dwell in there for a period of time, and then the Lord will come and set us free and allow us to live again. So he's taking what Isaiah wrote and looking at history and applying that history to not just one single isolated event, but that this is going to happen multiple times. And when it happens multiple times, what does God say in the New Testament? By the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the truth be established?
Now, think about this. How many times have the Jews been destroyed, persecuted and beaten? You look at the Assyria comes down and wipes them out. Babylon comes down and wipes them out. The Greeks conquer them. The Romans conquer them and sell them out.
And even fast forward to more modern times if we want. If we want to look examples and Nazis and the Holocaust. Just add that to the list. Right now, as you start to look at this impressive list of their persecutions and their struggles and their trials, I ask you this question. Which of these nations that destroyed them still exist today?
Where are the Nazis? Where are the Babylonians? Where are the Romans? Where are the Assyrians?
All of these empires, all of these people, have faded and passed away in time. Yet if I were to ask you today, where are the Jews?
This nation still exists thousands of years.
Isaiah saw this. Isaiah, this is going to be the meat of chapter six and chapter seven. And the Lord says that he will deliver the captive out of the. He'll deliver the Prey out of the jaws of the predator, the captive from the nations that are grinding it. And so that's what he's doing. I've freed them from the Babylonians. I've freed them from the Assyrians. I freed them from the Romans. I've freed them from anyone that's going to persecute them by the mouth of two or three witnesses. Jacob's taking this and extrapolating it and says, you know what? This is symbolic of death, of hell. And the Lord is also going to redeem us from the jaws of those monsters as well.
He starts to understand this plan of salvation in a lot more depth because of how he understands history and how he understands the words of the prophet. And he's looking at it and he's taking these words that we might look at and be confused, and yet he's seeing very clearly God's plan.
Let's keep going with chapter six, as he's kind of explaining these things.
Verse nine is where we see, nevertheless, the Lord has shown me that they shall return again. And he's also shown unto me that the Lord God, that the holy one of Israel should manifest himself unto them in the flesh. And after he should manifest himself, after he should manifest himself, they should scourge him and crucify him according to the words of the angel, which he spake unto me.
The Jews being treated poorly by the world becomes this pattern. And this type of even Christ being treated poorly by the Jews, and you see a pattern within a pattern.
Not only is he looking at these patterns throughout time, but he's looking at these patterns within a pattern, says, okay, this jewish nation is almost symbolic of the Messiah who's going to come. And just as the world does not accept and receive these people, they persecute them, they try to kill them and grind them and do whatever else, the same thing is going to happen when Christ appears to them.
Isaiah saw this so clearly, and this isn't included in these chapters in second Nephi that Jacob's quoting, but Jacob had access to them. He read Isaiah. And I think it might be worth just reading a little bit of extra Isaiah to show you how clearly Isaiah understood this. This is Isaiah, chapter one, verse three. I know we covered this in the Old Testament, and a lot of this we did. But this is book of Mormon. It's going to add us a lot of context to Jacob and how he's understanding this. Chapter one, verse three. The ox knoweth his owner. And this is going to be poetry. Isaiah is really good at poetry, and we have these lines in parallel with each other. Parallel means two lines that run in the same direction.
And so when we start, the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib. You'll notice ox and ass are both beasts of burden. They're both beasts of utility.
The first line, the ox knoweth, it says owner. The Hebrew word here is actually purchaser. The ox knows the one that purchased him, and the ass knows his master's crib. His crib is where he's being fed, where he can lay down at rest and be safe.
And then it's going to give us two more parallel lines. But Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
So Israel is parallel with my people doth not know is parallel with do not consider. But these two lines are parallel with the two lines above them. So it's even just as we looked at the Jews being persecuted as the world as one wrapping, and inside of it, Jesus being persecuted by the Jews as another layer inside, you've got these parallel lines. But even there, there's play between the two parallel lines at a larger scale. What do my people not know? What does Israel not consider?
Well, because they put it next to the other lines. They don't know who purchased them. They don't know who feeds them and takes care of them. What is Isaiah saying?
He's saying that the Lord himself, who's coming to purchase them, to pay the price, to feed them the bread of life, the master's crib, to house them, to feed them, to take care of them, to purchase them, Israel won't recognize, they won't consider, they will miss it.
And then by so doing, he's comparing the Israelites to these animals, which is kind of funny, because essentially what he's saying is Israel's a dumbass.
Because you're talking about animals. Not just animals, but animals that can't speak. I mean, there's a whole play on this, even with balaam, right, when he has the donkey that speaks versus a donkey that doesn't speak, and the power of speech being. And here, these dumb animals still know more than Israel because they can recognize this.
But that's Jacob. He's understanding what Isaiah said about Israel missing the mark. And he gets it because that's why they tried to kill Lehi. He prophesied, Lehi prophesied to the Jews that Christ was going to come and pay the price and purchase them. So these chapters are going to be very atonement rich. He's their purchaser. He's going to pay with his blood, and with that, he's going to feed them and think sacrament, blood and water. And Christ saying, unless you eat my flesh, you cannot live.
And because he taught that they sought to kill him, they didn't understand. They didn't know. They didn't consider.
They missed that mark.
All right, sorry. I'm talking a lot. I'll keep going and find a good. It's great.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Keep going.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Jumping point. If you want to jump in on.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: This, I don't know anything about any of this stuff, so I'm listening and learning, too.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Okay. As long as it makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, throw something at me.
We'll keep going. Verse eleven. Wherefore? Verse ten. And after they had hardened their hearts and stiffened their necks against the holy one of Israel. Behold, the judgments of the holy one of Israel shall come upon them, and the day come that they shall be smitten and afflicted. Wherefore, after they are driven. So what does that sound like? If they're driven and smitten? Afflicted? Isn't that what you do with an ox or an ass? You put a burden on them and you drive them, and you make them carry that burden to another area, whether it's the plow plowing the field, or whether it's what you're taking to the market to sell. You're burdening them and you're driving them forth. And so now you look at this imagery, what Isaiah's tapping into, because they did that to the Messiah, they're going to have that happen to them. And look what happens to the Jews on this large scale, and how many people persecute them and treat them poorly this way.
Wherefore, after they are driven to and fro, for thus saith the angel, they shall be afflicted in the flesh, and shall not be suffered to perish. Because of the prayers of the faithful, they shall be scattered and smitten and hated. Nevertheless, the Lord shall be merciful unto them, and they shall come to the knowledge of their redeemer. They shall be gathered together again to the lands of their inheritance. And blessed are the Gentiles. They whom the prophet is written for, it shall be that they shall. And it talks about these gentiles that are going to be their nursing fathers and their nursing mothers. And so you don't want to be the Gentiles that are afflicting them, that are smiding them, that are driving them out. Because when they were the ones doing that to the messiah, they received the same punishment they were doling out. So if you're a Gentile, wouldn't you want to be the ones that are loving them, that are caring them, that are trying to help them, as opposed to the Gentiles that are afflicting them, that are submitting them, because you reap what you sow.
It's a lesson that's throughout here. But he's going to use these parables to talk about.
The Lord will always deliver his people.
And sure, they might be driven for a time, but he's going to save them. And this is going to come in chapter eight. Hearken unto me, you that follow after righteousness, look unto the rock from whence you are hewn, and the hole from whence you are digged. Look unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah, she that bear you, for I called him alone and blessed him.
This takes us to the covenants that God established with ABRAHaM.
And we've talked about the Abrahamic covenant on this podcast a number of times. It's the point you're probably going to get sick and I start mentioning it. But to me, this is one of the greatest blessings. And the most clear prophecies about Christ is with ABraham when he desires seed. And so God says, let me make a covenant with you. And he says, go and prepare the animals. The sacrifices for this covenant that I'm going to establish. And ABRAHAM cuts the animals in half.
And as you understand the covenant that you make in the ancient world, you cut the animal, you divide it, and then you take the weaker party that's subjecting themselves to the terms of this treaty, this covenant, you have them pass between the two pieces saying, if I do not live up to the terms that you are giving me, I will be torn and divided and destroyed like these pieces of meat. Well, this covenant is between God and AbrAHam.
And in one sense, ABraHAm is subjected to these terms. You look at his seed and how they have been divided and pulled into Babylon or scattered all over the world, right? But they have never been stamped out and they've always been preserved and God has always remembered them. He says, go back to this covenant and remember it, because a big part of this covenant isn't just that Abraham subjected to it, but that God himself shows up and God goes between those pieces, that burning lamp, that goes between the pieces like a pillar of fire, symbolizing God, saying, I will come and pay the price of disobedience. I will be beaten and wounded and torn and divided so that your people can be reestablished when they go through these rebellions. That abrahamic covenant is the heart of all of this. That we're talking about, the Jews in Jerusalem being scattered and brought out of Jerusalem into Babylon is part of that Abrahamic covenant. You're disobEdient. You're going to be scattered, but also part of that abrahamic covenant, and critical is that Christ, the MEsSiAh, God of the Old Testament, would come in physical form as man and pay that price so that they can be reunified, restored and brought back. And Jacob sees this restoration much more than just a one time use with Babylon, but he sees it going to happen all throughout history. And he even goes so far as to apply it to death and resurrection and speak clearly about things that weren't explicitly stated because he's reading between the lines and what Isaiah is saying and finding a deeper meaning.
Love it.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Let's keep moving on, baby.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Okay, chapter.
You know, there's something else I want to talk about with this on, Nate. And I'm gonna come back to chapter eight and chapter seven. But I think. I think this is where we're going to have a little bit more discussion, you and I.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: And going back to chapter six and talking about what's going to happen and how he's going to recover his people. And he talks about tempests and storms, because verse 16 for shall the prey be taken from the mighty or the lawful captive delivered. But thus saith the Lord, even the captains of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered. And we see that delivery and that promise. But in this chapter, it also talks about the great and abominable church, which is something that has shown up time and time again. So this is verse twelve, and blessed are the Gentiles. They whom the prophet is written for, behold, if it so be that they shall repent and fight not against Zion, and do not unite themselves to that great and abominable church, they shall be saved.
And because the great and abominable church keeps showing up in these early chapters of the Book of Mormon, I feel like it's worth having a discussion of what is that great and abominable church if simply you don't get baptized into whatever church, you're going to be saved.
And as we've talked about this abominable church, I don't think it's one sect that fits the bill. I think it goes right back to the beginning of two competing mindsets. In the beginning, God laid out his plan. And what is the heart of this? One person said, I will be meek and humble and do what you want.
Where the other one said, that way is not good enough. I've got a better plan. And so you can simplify this into my will versus thy will. And I think the great and abominable church therefore becomes any church in which you put your will first. And how I am going to do this instead of God's will.
But another way of breaking this down is in the one that was humble and meek and wanted to do it God's way was so that men might have agency to be able to choose and to decide for themselves where the other one was. When I've got a better way, let's not leave it to chance. Let's leave it to them. Let's not trust them to make the decision, I will force them to all make the right choice.
And so to me, the great and abominable church, and it says the founder is the devil. The devil's the one from the very beginning, made very clear what his church was.
My church is any church which puts my will above God's will. We've talked about this. Maybe even putting the second commandment above the first and great commandment.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: That's immediately where my brain went. But, yeah, keep going.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Or any idea church that says, you must do this.
Not only do they say, you must do this, but I will force you to do this. I will take your agency away and require this of you. You don't get a choice in the matter. That, to me, is the great and abominable church. And the scary thing about this is how easily the followers of God turn into the followers of Satan.
How easily we start off with the best intentions, understanding what God has and desiring, like Lehi, to share that fruit with everyone, and missionary work and all that, how quickly that can turn from I want to share this with everyone to, I require everyone to do this.
You're going to eat this fruit whether you like it or not. And I think a lot of people have viewed our missionary efforts and our baptisms for the dead in a negative light like that. And I think the line gets very gray at times. How do we separate and make sure that our zeal for God and trying to put his will above ours doesn't become us uniting with the great and abominable church, trying to take away the agency of others?
[00:35:22] Speaker B: I agree with you that it's a delicate line that we have all probably been guilty of moving across, back and forth a little bit throughout our lives, I think, and I'll just speak for me, I guess I shouldn't group people into these things. I can say it can be easy for us at times to become a little overzealous. I think that it's more than that and maybe a harder thing to understand, but you kind of brought it up. But I think that that line really is the first commandment, really. Even in the ten Commandments, thou shalt have no other gods before me, including us future, hopefully future gods, right? Like, is our will put above the will of God, that is, having another God before me, or our causes or our pet commandments or our whatevers put above God. And I think that, for me, that's really kind of where the line starts to be a little bit more clear, more drawn. And I think you nailed it when you said the reason that this is such a delicate thing is because I feel like the adversary uses good intentions to bring us across the other side of that line. For example, you look at the story of Lehi and having this vision. Nephi later sees it. You have this tree. You have a father who is partaking of this fruit. It fills him with light and with awesomeness, and it's delicious and it's amazing. And I desire everybody else to take it. All of this is good so far, right?
The way that Lehi goes about it, I feel like, is about as righteous as it could be. What does he do? He invites his family to partake of this fruit with him.
Now, I can understand at times where we could feel like, well, because this makes us so happy.
We want to have everybody enjoy this with us. Right? So then it becomes a. But how do we do that?
Do we do it through coercion and manipulation, or do we do it through patience and convincing and living in a way that you can go, hey, I can only show you or do my best to testify of what I believe or correct principles. But ultimately, you have to make that. The spirit has to convert you, not me, all those things. Right.
But it is interesting, too, though, because I feel like, even for the most part, I don't think that in the next life, we're all going to be punished for being excited to share our testimonies with everybody. Right, right. And I know that that's a thing that sometimes we kind of get beat up a little bit publicly in the church as being a little overzealous with wanting to share our testimonies in our missionary work. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that the way that the devil kind of slips into this equation is, though, really kind of on both sides of a lot of social movements and a lot of our own kind of personal causes. Right. You hear the word love thrown around a lot.
It's a very interesting thing, because, again, the first great commandment is God.
God even says, like, love me. Okay, well, what does that mean? Well, he says, if you love me, keep my commandments.
So then you go, okay, cool. Well, if that's the standard. Right. If that's the first great commandment, I think we need to be very careful then, using that word love thrown around, because that can be a very manipulative word. It can be used for very manipulative purposes.
And this is where I think that it's so sneaky the way.
And this is where these lines kind of get blurry. I guess. And that is because if you have a movement that says, well, I expect you to love me as your neighbor, then I guess I would apply that same thing. Well, if you love me, keep my commandments. Well, if I'm not God, that's putting another God before.
Would me, as Nate would say, well, if you love me, follow God. Right. If you love me, I'm going to be doing my best to do what I feel is right from God. And then from there try to figure out how to negotiate that with the rest of my relationships and not the other way around. Right?
[00:40:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Not if you love me. I expect you to follow what I believe and what I think is right. Because doesn't that still just defeat the same purpose? Right. And whether that be somebody trying to, in theory, pull somebody into the church or to pull somebody away from the church, that word love can be used in a very manipulative way in both instances having maybe family members that choose not to follow the same religious path that we've decided to do.
And you hear stories, unfortunately, a lot of parents going, what, you don't love me? Well, if you would love me, you would know that I believe that we have to be together forever and you have to do this my way. So if you loved me, you would do this my way.
And on the flip side, you also have people that say, I choose to live a certain way that is contrary to your beliefs, maybe is still a family member. Right. And if you love me, you'll keep my commandments, you'll do what I want you to do.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Right?
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Do you see what I'm saying?
[00:42:03] Speaker A: It's like how conflicting commandments at times if you're trying to love both of.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Them, this is my point.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: And so how do you love both of them in a way that's not conflicting?
[00:42:12] Speaker B: And the thing is, with the best of intentions, in both cases, the word love can be used in a very coercive way or a very sneakily manipulative way. Which is why even when God says the second great commandment is to love your neighbor, well, hopefully the way that you still choose to love your neighbor would be to invite them to come closer to God, right? To still put no other gods before God, even in their own lives. Like hopefully our way of loving our neighbors isn't to be putting them above God, but would to do everything we can to still be drawing them closer to God, to feed his sheep. Right? And that was the other command by the way, too. When Christ was resurrected, what did he tell Peter specifically to go feed his sheep. If you love me.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: If you love me.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: You see what I'm saying? It's like God used the word love. I feel like in the most perfect circumstances and examples that we can look to because, yes, feeding his sheep or ministering to his sheep, what does that mean? Wouldn't that be to bring them back into the fold? Wouldn't that be to encourage them and with patience and long suffering and with kindness and with ministry ministration, right. Whatever. Would hopefully be to still go, come back to God and not do whatever you want to do, or do exactly what I want you to do, and use that and then associate the word love with that.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: And I think the father of the prodigal son gets it right, because God's balancing that love of loving your neighbor after you love God and the context of loving God enough first to know how to love that son. Right? He's not out there saying, good job, son, when he's doing everything wrong. He's not out there encouraging him when he's doing everything wrong. But at the same time, God fought and died for our agency, and he is not going to take that agency away. The minute that father leaves that home, grabs that kid by the neck and forces him home and says, you will be righteous and you're going to do it this way, and I'm going to make sure that you are saved.
Hasn't he crossed that same threshold of doing it my way? Not your way, but in this case, now it's taking the agency away. I think there's two doors into this great and abominable church, and one way is my way instead of your way, and the other is, let me force you to do good. And it's almost like opposite extremes, right?
[00:45:15] Speaker B: You bring up an interesting point with the father in the prodigal son because, yeah, you're right.
If the father, out of his own fear or ego, rides a horse over to wherever his dude is, drags him out of the pub and says, no, you're coming home, and like you said, I'm ringing you by the neck and I'm forcing you to be righteous, yeah, that could take away the agency. But I would also just like to say, if the spirit tells you that your kids at a party they're not supposed to be at, you go pick them up from the party, right?
[00:45:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: So I guess, again, where's that Nuance in that? Right?
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's a fantastic question.
And I think we even look at Christ, he's supposed to be the perfect example, the one who came here to die so that we could have agency. When he approaches, Peter out there doesn't say, hey, Peter, come here for a second and let me elaborate on all the benefits of following me throughout life. And this is what it is, and here's your choice, and I want you to choose. Now, are you going to follow me? Or he says, peter, come follow me. He tells them what to do and you're like, wait, isn't this the God that respects ages? I think there are times.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: Well, I also just think you bring up a great point. He deals with all of us very differently. He dealt with his disciples very differently. He dealt with a lot of people that he was telling to not sin, go forward and don't sin anymore. He dealt with a lot of situations differently. And I guess that that's the only point I kind of wanted to bring up, is that agency is still involved in all of these things. And in the story of the prodigal son, clearly the father in his righteousness didn't just go say, hey, I'm not going to let you blow it. I'm not going to let you do all of these things and instead let this young man make his own decisions. But that's also just not to say that if you and I get the prompting that one of our children is somewhere where they're not supposed to be and we have the opportunity to go snag them. We go snag them, right? We still go rescue them. I mean, again, God in his parables goes and rescues the one that's left, the 99. That's not what we're suggesting.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Right. In particular with small children, too, where we have a responsibility and the accountability is on our heads for what our children and their behavior and what they're doing, not just from a spiritual sense, a salvation sense, but even from a legal sense, what happens in the laws of the land that your kids do is answered upon you as a parent. Right.
It's a tough line. We can't speak in absolutes.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Well, the whole point is listen and be directed by love and by the spirit.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: Yes.
And we have to sometimes be a little bit more sharp and say, this is what needs to happen or we need to do something as a parent to intervene. But the end goal in okay, so that you can make these decisions so that you can be free, so that you can.
We're not going to rob you of.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: I think the points that we're bringing up is to hopefully, like you said, so that you can continue to maintain your agency. Right. That's the whole point of this is to not rob you of your agency is to hopefully, if you're standing at the edge of the cliff, it's also not a good thing for us to be like, well, hopefully they don't step off and die. That completely takes away your agency ultimately. Right?
[00:49:03] Speaker A: See a kid playing in the street and a car is coming, and you're like, well, that's his choice. That's respect his agency on that.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: And this is why we're having this whole conversation, is because when we say, well, where's that line? It's like, oh, cool.
It's not totally cut and dry, but.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: We'Ve got to be careful because so many people have viewed so many religions in the world. I don't want to say religions, but adherents to religions in the world have maybe viewed the world around them in terms of somebody playing in a street. And I will force you. I mean, isn't that Satan's argument from the beginning is, it's too dangerous. I don't want my kids playing in the street. I will force them to play in a safe place.
There's some nuance there, and you got to rely on the spirit. At the end of the day, we can't sit there and look at every case and try to tell you what you can and can't do.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: But that's the answer. What you just said, though, which is why it's something we preach and harp on all the time, which is have a relationship and a communication channel with God so that you can receive.
Nothing has meant more to me as a parent later in life, when thinking back of how much my parents just said, yeah, every night when me and your dad or me and your mom pray, we pray about you. We pray to know how to be better parents. We pray to know what best to do for you. And by the way, the way that my parents parent me is different in a lot of ways than they do my other four siblings.
Great. Hopefully, I trust that that's because of the revelation, the personal revelation, or the revelation they've received as companions into knowing how to better serve us and to better protect us, all those things, right? It's meant so much more for me now as a parent when I look at my children and realize, like, I'm blowing it all the time. My goodness. Like, dude, tomorrow morning I need to apologize to my son Cal, for giving him such a hard time last night about taking a bath instead of a shower and the whole situation, you know, I mean, something like, when you say it out loud, it's so dumb because.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: I've been there, but it's so dumb.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: But it's like in the moment, I'm like, I know why I was frustrated about it, but even then, I'm just going, you know what I mean? But it's those types of things where it's meant a lot more. But the point I guess I'm trying to make is not to get too far in the weeds, is that when the prophet comes out and says, you need to be close to the spirit or else you're toast, and it's just going to get worse, and you're not going to be able to survive if you don't have a personal relationship with the spirit, if you don't have those lines of communication open. I guess that's ultimately the answer to this question.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Well, I may be balancing it with not my will, but thy will. Right. Is it our will that we're trying to go out there and force people in there, or is it God's plan? Right. I mean, ultimately, that was the point in the beginning. God's plan.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: Did you ever read a clockwork orange?
[00:52:14] Speaker A: I did not.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: I know the premise. I know.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: After Stanley Krubik had basically taken the book, done his spin, which, again, I don't recommend anybody watching necessarily. It's pretty gnarly, but the book wasn't. And the author, Anthony Burgess, I believe, after the movie had came out, went back and re kind of wrote a new preface to the book going, well, here's where the movie got this all.
Like, the whole point of this was. And the preface is actually, by the way, I would just recommend anybody going and reading the preface of the book because there's some pretty fundamentally brilliant doctrine in it, which is. Because, again, the premise of the book is this young kid. And that's important, too, right? This young kid is a knucklehead, is going around doing all these terrible things, is getting in trouble with the law. The law basically says, we have a way that you can get out of doing this, and that is we go and we brainwash you to physically shut down anytime you even are put in a situation where you could make the wrong decision.
So they brainwash him. Right. They take away his ability to do bad. The dude goes out in the world, gets destroyed, right. Gets beat up, gets robbed, gets nearly beaten to death. This whole thing, but isn't making any wrong decisions, right. Comes back and they basically have to unprogram him or he can't survive.
But in the preface that was rewritten, the whole premises of, is a person good if compelled to do good? Right? Is a person good if they had no choice? If they had no choice in the matter?
And again, then you go back to the idea fundamentally, which is, are you righteous if you never had the chance to not be righteous without that opposition which we've talked about fundamentally, what Satan's plan took away in theory, because as we've talked about, we just know that that's the irony of this whole thing, is that Satan's plan couldn't have been implemented in the first place or God would have ceased to become God. The point is, though, is for us to be saved, we have to become perfect in this life and the next. We have to be righteous. We have to do right. We have to be righteous without the chance to be unrighteous. We can't be righteous. Our decisions, we are not good people if we are forced to make, quote unquote, the correct choice, if we don't have the capacity of not making the correct choice.
And again, I think you gave me kind of in our pre prep discussion, and I hope you go into this a little bit, but to kind of throw this to you or to kind of tee this up for you, even in our relationships, even in church structures, without the opportunity to blow it and then have a savior provide the opportunity to still make it right, we still can't obtain the thing that we have to obtain before we can reach exaltation, which is we have to be able to make righteous decisions.
We have to have the opportunity to do that.
I'm hoping this isn't feeling too all over the place.
[00:56:18] Speaker A: No.
[00:56:19] Speaker B: But when you say that there is two doors kind of to the same abominable church, right. One of those doors very much can be.
And we'll talk about this, the reasons why is maybe a parent, out of fear, taking away from a child any perceivable option of blowing it or of making a wrong choice, going, I'm too afraid that with your agency, you're going to make a bad decision. What they're in essence doing in this case is denying Christ the atonement, the power of the atonement. They're denying their child the power of the atonement. They're denying themselves the power of the atonement. Right.
[00:57:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:10] Speaker B: There's almost a fear of, like, I can't save this child, who, by the way, all of this is probably out of love and fear both mixed in. I love this child. And I'm afraid that because I love this child, because I love this child, I'm afraid, and they won't be with me. But it's like what you're sadly actually saying is that you're afraid that what you claim to believe might not actually be real. Because if it was, you would know that there is a path laid out for repentance. There is a path laid out for redemption. And for that to work, this child, this adult, this friend, this neighbor, whoever it is, has to have the opportunity to make the wrong decision.
That's a key component to this working.
And at times, I feel like, and I've talked about this fairly openly in the past episodes, that where I was, I think I really needed to have a personal reevaluation of where my testimony was anchored was when I had a couple of close friends leave the church. And it shook me that they left, and I had to start being more honest with myself of like, why is this shaking me that a friend has decided that they no longer believe?
That doesn't affect my salvation whatsoever. It doesn't. But why is that then? Why do I feel so strongly compelled to, like, no, you got to stay. What are you doing? Right?
[00:59:02] Speaker A: What's the love? Right?
[00:59:04] Speaker B: I thought.
But for me, I had to be honest with myself. It was fear, because what I had to accept was, I'm afraid because them leaving is without them saying it, them saying, and I also know that what you believe isn't right.
It was a challenge to my faith, too.
And I was afraid because I don't think that even to that point, I had done enough work to really anchor, anchor, anchor myself in a few things that I feel like I was now being presented the opportunity to do.
All in all, it was a fantastic chance for me to kind of strip away a lot of noise and a lot of kind of just the processes of things that are kind of going through the motions of a lot of things and evaluate.
And luckily for me, I feel like I kind of came out of the other side going, what a blessing that was. What an opportunity that was for me to go.
This isn't going to be the first time that I have friends leave. And it wasn't the first time I had family leave, you know what I mean?
This was the beginning of a bigger picture in life of like, yeah.
[01:00:33] Speaker A: People.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: Are going to need to go down their paths, man. People are going to need to find their ways to the end. And I don't judge them harshly for that. But what I couldn't let it do is continue to shake me every time that that happened.
And I guess all I can say is that for me, instead of shaking me to where I would want to go, I need to find a way to make them stay. It's my responsibility to, in a weird sort of way, force them to come back. No, you got to come back. You got to come back. Oh, no, trust me, it's because I love you. It's because I love you. It's because I love you. No, I do love them, but the driving force of me wanting to kind of drag them back in was out of fear and not love. And that's an important distinction to be able to make.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: And it's a tough line to balance.
[01:01:30] Speaker B: That's true.
[01:01:31] Speaker A: And as parents, it's a tough line to balance. And I'm grateful for this discussion because I feel like Lehi said it so well in chapter two when he's talking about the opposition in all things.
And we went into a pretty deep discussion and opposition and all things in chaos and creation. And I feel like we went down that pretty hard, but we didn't get to go into the opposition in a sense of there is no resurrection without death.
Yes, to live is to die, but to die is to live.
And there is no repentance and atonement without sin, like you say. Right. If we tried to force everyone for being good, is there anarchy? There is no good.
[01:02:22] Speaker B: There isn't. There isn't.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: There has to be opposition, things.
[01:02:26] Speaker B: There has to be the opportunity to mess up.
There has to be the opportunity to make a bad decision, to make a good decision, to justify or to fulfill the goodness in making a good decision.
[01:02:41] Speaker A: And I look at Jacob right here. In fact, this is where I wanted to go with this.
When you see how he's reading Isaiah, you'll see this all throughout Isaiah. And you see how Jacob puts this, and he's going to be putting it in opposites. Woe to the liar. He shall be thrust down to hell. Woe to this. Woe to that. Right? He's giving you these woes. He's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. He's talking about them being driven like beasts of burden and chained and destroyed. You're talking about Christ. But here's the beautiful thing. There is no resurrected Christ without the thorns, without the cross, without the stripes. And with his stripes, we are healed. We also go through stripes and that counterbalance. And you hear people ask, why is it always the wrath of God? And we focus so easily on the wrath of God in the Old Testament and how angry he is and the sending the. But what we miss is the long suffering. How much did he put up with the Israelites and Moses? And let's just give him another. And bargaining with Abraham, what if I find five righteous people or one righteous people? I mean, the story of the Old Testament is the story of God's long suffering, of his love, counterbalanced with the wrath of the Lord. Because if we have just the wrath of God and all it is is gargoyles and fear and striping ourselves on the back and punishment, we lost half the equation. And if it's just the love of God, and he'll love me for whatever I do, it's just half the equation. It's this counterbalance between these two that maybe, perhaps keep us from going through either of those two doors.
[01:04:35] Speaker B: I feel like those two things.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: Are.
[01:04:40] Speaker B: Still the two strongest driving forces, by the way, of people kind of directly associated with the church, either from within or without, or temptations, I should say those are two still very strong temptations. Right again. From within and from without, which is you walk the finest of the fine lines with exact detail, or else, or no, man, just do whatever you want. God loves you no matter what God affirms you, no matter what. God is just love. God is pure love and nothing else but love.
And for that, it means you can do whatever you want and there's no consequences. Because at the end of the day, it's just love, love. And you're just like, okay, cool. Both of those, you could probably find scriptures on both of those arguments to be like, see, I told you.
[01:05:40] Speaker A: Because it's a straight and narrow right.
[01:05:42] Speaker B: Between the, that's what I mean. You balance it on either end. And so therefore, when you can look at both of those things and say, well, I'm sure that there's probably a little bit more nuance between the two here, right?
But of course, nuanced guys like you and I were the ones that get yelled at the first. We're just like, no.
Anyways, I bet that those are the two doors though, right? It's funny, you've kind of just illustrated, right? Those are kind of the two doors, which is at least from within the church or the church adjacent, which is no, if you don't do exactly this, exactly this way, you're in big trouble.
And the other one, which is do whatever you want, God just is going to pat you on the back at the end of the day either way. And don't ever have guilt, and don't ever beat yourself up over terrible decisions that you're making. You're just like, oh, it's rough.
[01:06:50] Speaker A: Well, and look at this. This is second Nephi, chapter seven, verse ten. And it's quoting Isaiah again.
Who is among you that fear at the Lord that obeyeth the voice of the servant that walketh in darkness and hath no light? You're like, wait a second.
I'm listening to the Lord, I'm hearing his voice, and I'm walking in darkness with no light.
Isn't God saying, I am your light and I will provide you a light and there'll be light. Isn't light a good thing?
And then why is it that you're walking in light? Is they just saying this sarcastically, like, oh, who is it that do us all these things and walks it? Well, nobody does because they have. But then look at what he says in verse eleven to go with this. Behold, all you that kindle that fire, that compass yourselves with the sparks, walk in the light of your fire and the sparks which ye have kindled, like, okay.
Isn't walking in light better than walking in darkness? So for all of you who listen to the Lord and listen to his prophets, and you're walking in darkness on one extreme versus all of you who've taken that effort and that energy to light your fire, and you think of light as such a positive thing, right? And he says, this shall you have at my hand. You shall lie down in sorrow.
So what's the difference? And in here, he's saying, when you light your own light and you spark your own sparks, because you can't wait for the Lord to provide that light, right? And this goes back to one of those two doors, right? My will or your will. I tried it your way, and I was left in darkness. Like Lehi in his dream. I followed that man, and I was left in darkness.
I thought it meant that I would be in the light all the time. The Lord is my light. Here we go. And I get left in darkness. So what's my solution? I'm not going to trust the Lord anymore. He left me in a dark place. I'm going to light my own fire.
It's weird, because now you've taken what he said, you've flipped it upside down to where walking in light actually becomes a negative, and walking in darkness becomes a positive. Because walking in darkness is saying that you're waiting on the Lord to provide that light and you're willing to subject to what the Lord is going to have you do.
Sometimes darkness, like fear, can be healthy. Without fear, how do we stay alive without death? How do we put off this and get something better. Sometimes darkness is what we need. And when we try to find the Lord and follow him, sometimes we're going to be left not sure what to do or how to react, but we hang in and wait for him. Like Jacob. That's what it means to be called Israel. Wrestling with the Lord and hanging in until finally, at the light, you're delivered.
If you give up and you let go and decide to start your own fire, then you're going to have sorrow. Because that light is not everlasting light.
[01:09:46] Speaker B: And that light can lead you to whatever whim. You know what I mean? It gets in front of you, right?
[01:09:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:09:54] Speaker B: I think that what you just said.
I wish that I could just hit the. Play it in reverse and play it back again. Because I think that that may be the most important thing that we could leave you with, with this episode. Because I don't know of anybody within, at least my sphere, that hasn't had to go through the moments of darkness, of I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to be doing. Why am I not getting this overwhelming?
Here's the path that you're supposed to walk, feeling. I don't know anybody that hasn't had to go through this. And I know I'm not just speaking for myself on this one.
[01:10:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:10:47] Speaker B: And the temptation to, like you said, light your own light and then make your personal cause is exactly what we just talked about, which is putting your light above the light. Right. Putting your God before God.
And I would hope that as you're listening to this, anybody out there, and wherever you are, that hopefully this hit you as profound as it did to me, as we were literally just talking about that, which is.
This is the whole point, which is walking. Not being able to see in front of you is the point.
It's. The point of the whole thing is that life isn't just the sun comes up and you can just see 100 miles down the road and the birds are chirping and everything's going great, and the choir's just singing Disney songs along the path as you just skip down it. That's not what it was ever supposed to be, by the way. That robs you of agency, too. That robs you of choices, too. If you can just see it laid out in front of you, no problem.
Sure. I guess you can go, well, I guess I'll just run over there into the darkness. But being it given to you too easy like that also robs you of the opportunity to exercise faith and strengthen the muscles that it will take when the storms inevitably come now, do we get glimpses of that? I have. I think so.
Because if we didn't at least get glimpses of the path, I don't know at a certain point what we do. But I just want to highlight and amen exactly what it is you're saying, which is, please realize that that's the point of it, is to not have everything just laid out for you easily.
And it's to save you down the road. It's to teach you how to just use just enough to see two or three steps ahead of you.
We talked about the parable of the trainage is parable of the train. I can't overemphasize this enough. And it just hit me so profoundly, I didn't want to just move past that without adding my thoughts to that as well.
[01:13:21] Speaker A: I'm going to add just one last thought on that.
We can learn a lot from how Jacob reads Isaiah.
And we see how he takes this nation that goes from being destroyed by Babylon and being brought back into Jerusalem. And he's not looking at them as necessarily wicked. Just like the prodigal son, he loves them. This is his people. There's hope. They're going to be brought back. They're going to be restored. But he sees that play out on a large scale. He sees it with Christ, that he is going to be crucified. Yet three days later, I know he's going to be resurrected just as this nation was delivered.
And then he sees this on a personal level, right? When we go through darkness, what do we do to hang on and find that? Just as you summed up so well, Nate, and when we look at how he sees these patterns and uses it to understand death and resurrection, I just felt it was worth mentioning. Maybe one last lesson we can learn from Jacob and how he applies Isaiah.
For any of you, for any of us who struggle with death, which is a hard thing to deal with, the death of a family member, death of a friend, and seeing that darkness come, just as Jacob is able to look at Isaiah and see that pattern of the nation being destroyed and brought back and destroyed and brought back and destroyed and brought back and says, this is what God does, there is hope. He will bring them back, there is resurrection.
We can look at a pattern of that darkness and light in our life and say, I know I was walking in darkness there and I wasn't sure what to do. And I waited. And when I did, the light finally came and it hit me and it was so much brighter because of the darkness. In musical terms, a lot of times when you go to a crescendo or a forte or whatever you want to write, when it gets louder or more emphasis, to create that emphasis, sometimes the secret is to start off a lot softer. It's not so much about getting louder as the combination of getting louder and getting softer. Right?
It's because of that darkness that that light feels so good when it comes and we see it. And because we've had those moments, those anchor points in our lives where maybe we were lost and we heard something that troubled us, or a friend left the church and we had to come to grips with what do I believe or where do I stand? And we have that experience after walking through darkness that anchors us further in there. And we look at that history of anchor points in our life, similar to Israel being lost, restored. Lost, restored. Lost, restored can give us the hope of a resurrection that, yes, we will go through darkness. And we don't know what death is like. To me, death is darkness.
But just as the Lord has always answered when I waited for him, he will raise us from the dead. And for Jacob to get that lesson from Isaiah is beautiful. And to not just get it and understand it, but to translate it and put it in very clear terms. And so if you're grappling with death, look at your life, look at those examples, find hope in how the Lord speaks to you. But you can also turn to second Nephi, chapter nine, and read Jacob, making that as clear as possible and talking about it.
I think we're about done on this episode, and I'll just point this out. When he talks about the nakedness and being clothed, and you're going to see emblems of here, of creation.
He has a way of just wrapping all of this in and talking about being clothed upon with immortality is putting on clothing our coats of skin. But all of that were clothed because of that first animal sacrifice right after the Garden of Eden. We became naked when we fell, but we were clothed when we were atoned. And really, the key point to all of this is the atonement of Jesus Christ.
God came to be man to fulfill the covenants that he made with Abraham. If we're lost, go back and look at how he dealt with Abraham, look at those covenants, and look at that history of how he's dealt with his nation. And then maybe you can start to see that same history in your life on a very small scale, and how you've dealt with doubt and how you've dealt with confusion, and you can find hope and a reason to believe and hang in, even after the darkness of death or the darkness of those moments that may seem like death in our lives.
[01:18:27] Speaker B: Well said, my friend. We appreciate you listening. If you would like to get in on the discussion, give us some of your feedback, some of your thoughts and insight. You know we love reading it. Get a hold of us at the email address.
[email protected] we do everything we can to make sure to respond to all of the messages that we get. We really enjoy reading your thoughts, so send them along. That's all we got for this week. So until next week, see ya.
