3 Nephi 1-7

[00:00:16] Speaker A: Benito saw the weekly deep dive podcast on the add on education network, the podcast where we take a look at. Take a look at the weekly come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight, unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here back in Spain, but with our friend and this show's producer online, Nate the great Piper. How you doing? [00:00:37] Speaker B: Bienvenido. [00:00:39] Speaker A: Bienvenido. Or as they say here in Catalan, bienvenue. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Bienvenue. That almost sounds like German, right? [00:00:47] Speaker A: There's a Catalan. It's more french than Spanish, but it almost does sometimes have a german sound to it or even an english sound to it. [00:00:57] Speaker B: I feel like the goot is very german. Das is nichs gut. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Das is schleckt nichs. Dude. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Come on, man. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Ich ben ein berliner. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Nah, dude, my German doesn't impress you at all. [00:01:13] Speaker A: It does impress me. [00:01:15] Speaker B: I don't. I mean. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Sergut, Sargoot. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Serguthe. Das is Sergut. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Dasis. Sergut. [00:01:22] Speaker B: It was fun having you in town for the last little while. I'm sad to. Sad to see you get back to Spain, but I'm sure your family's probably happy to have you back. [00:01:32] Speaker A: It's good to be back in the rhythm of things, having kids, going to school to kind of feel like you actually have a sense of community, like you belong, rather than just hanging out, having fun on vacation. [00:01:43] Speaker B: I mean, you felt like you belong here. [00:01:46] Speaker A: It sure, dude. It's a little bit tricky when you sell your home, don't live there anymore. [00:01:50] Speaker B: But I guess that would probably be tricky. [00:01:55] Speaker A: I mean, the couch was super comfy, but sleeping on it for 40 days wasn't ideal. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. Well, we're back at it. We're back on. We're back in the saddle. Thank you for everybody that gave me the well wishes that I didn't die falling off the, uh, deck. I didn't realize that story would kick up as much a reaction of our listeners as it did, but, um. Would he kill mosquitoes? [00:02:27] Speaker A: Do mosquitoes? I I mean, I know I'm back in Spain when I come back with, like, eight bites in the first night. [00:02:32] Speaker B: That's actually hilarious. Sorry. See, people need to worry more about you getting the west Nile virus than they need to worry about me falling off of houses. One of my buddies don't fall off houses, though. One of my buddies said that had I died, he would have mocked me at my funeral. And I was like, you know, I actually would expect nothing less of a friend, so too bad I didn't die. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Well, I'm glad you didn't die. And unfortunately, to disappoint you, I probably wouldn't mock you at your funeral. [00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it would be hard not to. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Legend of or that layer of friend status. [00:03:11] Speaker B: I mean, the thing is, is if you had a friend die because he was screwing around, trying to, like, drop a couch over the side unnecessarily drop a couch over. Or, you know, furniture, patio furniture, it would be hard not to be like, yeah, that dude is kind of an idiot, but at least wasted that. But at least he went out doing the things that he loved. [00:03:35] Speaker A: Throwing couches. Where's the worst something you classify as something you love? [00:03:41] Speaker B: No, I don't. [00:03:42] Speaker A: Really, dude, if you. If you went out playing Mario Kart, choking on a Frito. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Okay. I mean, Fritos. I do actually like Fritos. But going out. Going out on a Mario Kart, that actually is kind of a dude. Wonder if they. I wonder if they could bury me in a Mario Kart. What are we talking about this week, Jason? [00:04:03] Speaker A: It wouldn't be a Frito for me. It would be eminem, not m and Ms. Smarties or Tootsie rolls. I swear, one of those two are going to kill me one day, and I don't eat them. I don't eat them anymore because they do. I just have choking fits on them, and I don't know why. I just. Smarties. I can't eat them. Yeah. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Is it juice from them or something? [00:04:19] Speaker A: There's no juice from a smarty. It's the, like, the saliva powder. [00:04:23] Speaker B: Oh. [00:04:24] Speaker A: It's the juice from the Tootsie rolls, though. It always slides down, and I just start choking, and I'm like, that's it. This is how I die. [00:04:31] Speaker B: I would mock you at that funeral if they're like, dude, he died eating a tootsie roll. I would be like, oof. [00:04:37] Speaker A: It's a bad move, bro. I know. You know how your life flashes before your eyes. To me, it's just, like, sheer embarrassment. Like, this is how I go. My last thoughts are, yeah. I'm not looking back at life and seeing all the highlights, and I'm not reflecting on, like, my wife and my kids and all that I accomplished or didn't. I'm thinking, this takes me. [00:04:57] Speaker B: You're thinking, Nate's gonna be, like, putting me on blast at this funeral. You're right. I would. [00:05:04] Speaker A: So to get back into what we're talking about this week, sorry, guys. Hope you don't mind a little rant this morning. 35. This is. I mean, this is such a crazy, unstable time, and this gets into Laconius Gid Gidoni and trying to pull everyone away, saving them from Gadianton robbers, and the chaos, really leading up to the events of when Christ comes. And, you know, as I was reading third Nephi, I kind of failed to pull this out last week. Last week, we had so many good things to talk about, though there's a few things that I missed in there that, if you don't mind, I'm just going to mention real quick. [00:05:45] Speaker B: No, please. [00:05:47] Speaker A: So when we first start, you'll notice the third book of Nephi. They've got a header there. The son of Nephi, who was the son of Helaman. And I find it kind of interesting that this is his book, when really the book is about the son of Nephi. Nephi. And I'm like, oh, Nephi didn't really get a lot of room in his own book, but his son writes. But there's the header there that kind of proves me wrong on something that I speculated about a little bit ago, that I needed to. I need to fess up and say it was a fun speculation, but it was wrong. And it says here, and Helaman was the son of Helaman, who was the son of Alma, who was the son of Alma, being the first descendant of Nephi, who was the son of Lehi, who came out of Jerusalem. And I speculated, because Alma was one of the priests of Noah, and Nephi had consecrated Jacob to be the priest, and Jacob's line had come to an end. And he said, I would hand it off to the next one. But he went to the land of Nephi with Zenaph and his people. And so I speculated that Alma was a continuation of Jacob's line. But right here, it actually says that he, Helaman, son of Helaman, son of Alma, son of Alma, was a descendant of Nephi. Kind of interesting. No, not, do you feel. I mean, okay, do I feel what? [00:07:14] Speaker B: Do you feel like that? Did somebody give you beef about this? [00:07:19] Speaker A: No one gave me beef about it. I just saw that, and I was like, oh, man. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:23] Speaker A: I thought maybe he could have come from Jacob. It would have made sense. And I thought, it's interesting. What's Nephi doing consecrating Jacob to be the high priest? And you have this line that's going forever, and yet it somehow still ties back to Nephi. How did Alma become a high priest, being a descendant of Nephi, and yet have the authority? And that whole question with Alma the younger baptized of Benadai, the whole, you know. Okay, it's interesting. [00:07:48] Speaker B: All right. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Just something to think about. Nothing. Nothing worth a lot. If you want something a little bit more powerful to think about that maybe it's worth your thoughts rather than random musings. No, I probably just only have random musings. [00:08:04] Speaker B: Haha. Psych. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Psych. You thought I. Oh, that was great, dude. [00:08:14] Speaker B: The timing of that was flawless. That's amazing. [00:08:21] Speaker A: When we were talking about one third, two thirds last week. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Yep. Which I love. I love those discussions. [00:08:28] Speaker A: There was a verse that stood out to me that I wanted to kind of read, but our discussion actually went to higher planes, I felt last week, when we started talking about repentance and we started talking about the atonement, I feel like we hit our lane and it was a much more productive discussion, and this kind of fell off the map. So now that we're not in our stride and we don't have any momentum, let me just pull in some more random musings from a lost mandeh. When we were talking about one third, two thirds last week, as I was reading, something struck me, and it's chapter 14, verse 15. And maybe to set the stage in context with this a little bit, I mean, it was kind of fun to see those patterns and see them all over the place. But one place where it becomes interesting to see is even in the crucifixion of Christ, when he gets to Golgotha and he's hung on the cross. Two of the people who died on the cross were going to be in paradise together that day, where one was going to be lost. And to set the stage even a little bit more. In the Old Testament, you have your sacrifice and you have your scapegoat, and goats go to hell, right? But you have one goat that sacrificed and one that's let go. You start looking at these sacrifices, and sometimes the sacrifice almost seems like a symbol more of Satan than Christ. Like this one gets cast out or this one gets whatever. But this idea that one is lost so that the other two can be saved and two thirds being associated with birth was the conversation that we were having last week. So with that setting in place in Helaman, chapter 14, verse 15, and just the very first line is what hit me. For behold, he surely must die, that salvation may come. And I was thinking about what it means to be sealed to our spouse. And when we get sealed in the temple to our spouse, it's not that we get sealed to each other, just to each other. We get sealed to God. And there are three people in this relationship. And as I thought about that again, for behold, he surely must die. That we may be saved, that we may become one. And you have a one third, two third again, where he gave his life so that we could be sealed together so that we can be happy. Right? [00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think about the ordinance itself as we are joining hands over the altar. And that's what it's called. That's what it is. It's an altar. And what is an altar? Is it not a place of sacrifice? And is that sealing not made possible? Because Christ gave his life on that altar. And it is over his death, his altar, that we are able to be joined and sealed together. And you have that one thirds, two thirds. And it gets interesting where you start looking at, again, he was the one third that was killed or slain for us, that we might live and be established. There's another interesting. [00:11:34] Speaker B: I don't think, I don't think I've ever, like, kind of put those two things together. But I love that. I love that on the altar is where, that's where Christ is, is symbolically on that altar with you. [00:11:48] Speaker A: I love it. [00:11:49] Speaker B: I love it. Great, great connection. [00:11:52] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:11:53] Speaker B: I've wondered sometimes, too. It's just like, you know how you do. You do kind of like the mirrors. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:12:01] Speaker B: We've been talking about that a lot lately, too. Right. Is that, you know, does he see his, his image in your countenance type of thing? And I've kind of wondered about that sometimes, too, is when you're, is, there's a lot of symbolism and mirrors in that sealing process as well. So I've kind of wondered sometimes just if there's just at least a slight nod to kind of that idea of seeing, seeing him, seeing yourself in him and vice versa. I don't know. It's something that I've wondered if the mirror part of that is sometimes more than just, oh, hey, it's looking into eternity and it's like, oh, yeah. You know, it is looking backwards and forwards at the same time. But as we've been talking more about becoming him, I go, oh, yeah, there's, there's very much, a lot of, like, actual visual, literal seeing himself in ourselves and such. So anyways, I don't know if that's exactly, you know, flawless thing there, but I thought about it, that's all. [00:13:05] Speaker A: Alright. So we talked about the sun setting and, and the night being just as bright as day, and we talked a little bit about the science behind that. And I dealing with the separation of the oxygen molecules, whatever the case may be, with the atmosphere and the light. 2017. There's a study on that. We can drop the reference in there for last week, but here we're talking about the fulfillment of that promise. As we get to third Nephi, we're seeing the fulfillment, a lot of the words that Nephi, excuse me, that Samuel had prophesied. And it's crazy, because they get to the point, how do you ever get to the point where. Where you were going to kill people for believing something? Where. Where you set a day where you were going to mass murder everyone who believes in Christ? What's the harm? What's the harm in believing that Christ is going to be born in the world? I mean, really, you're talking about killing people for Christmas. And to me, it's interesting. How do people get to that point? And I think they actually use religion as their own right. They believe that these believers are worshiping the devil, or they're believing the same thing that Christ gets accused of when he comes. And you look like you got some thoughts on this. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Do you think that they actually think, though, that they're worshiping the devil? Or is it something where. Because it challenges. I just feel like. I feel like a very common rule of thumb is follow the money or follow the power. Like, I just. It just seems like that will usually point to where motivations of things lie. We've talked about this a lot when we were talking about the New Testament and kind of like the early Catholic Church. And why specifically you would change things in scripture or doctrine to better fit something where leadership of a catholic church or of any church in theory, could stay in power and have maintain power over people with this. I guess I don't. Before I'm jumping to the conclusion that it's people that are just actually super zealous in their righteous beliefs. I'm kind of of the mindset, at least start with go to the money or go to the power. And what I feel like Christianity offers in a big picture is always freedom. It's always self determination. It's always. I mean, look at Moroni, right? What did Christianity inspire out of him being willing to die for family, for country, for religion. You look at a lot of what the founding fathers of this country were willing to die for. Their religion, their freedom of speech, their freedom to assemble, you know, all these things. Okay, so those people are willing to die for that. I guess. I look at this and I go, it's hard for me to say. Hey, they just thought Samuel the Lamanite was the devil. No matter what they say, it feels more like what he offers potentially could, you know, overturn the apple card a little bit. I guess it just. What it inspires maybe more rebellion against the authorities that be. [00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you look at Paul teaching in the New Testament, to your point, right, when they were upset because he was preaching against idol worship and the people that made the idols, that sold, the idols, that profited off of. I mean, you just took away their source of income, their source of sustaining them by all of a sudden eliminating that practice among all the people. And what's the. I mean, looking down the cards and where does it go? Right. [00:17:11] Speaker B: That's exactly. [00:17:12] Speaker A: If everybody does this, what does that mean for the powers that. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah, my bottom dollar. That's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, again, like, again, I don't think that this is a unique to any specific things, but if you look at a lot of, like, communism, Marxism, fascism, what is the first thing that usually gets eliminated? Religion on some level. Right. You need a group of people that can see the powers that be as their authority, as their moral foundation. And so I think, again, like, I might be wrong about this, and you might be. You might have nailed it. Maybe it was like, hey, they just saw them as evil. Or I'm like, oh, no, that's just a good excuse to saying we can, like, persecute people that are taking away from what we have. [00:18:07] Speaker A: It's maybe. Maybe we see in others or we project on others what we are ourselves or what we do ourselves. Right. We see in others what we most recognize from ourselves. I don't know. Because it's. To me, you start looking at it, and these were lies that they would use to control the people is how they viewed it. [00:18:27] Speaker B: Okay. Yes, yes. Yeah. [00:18:31] Speaker A: And yet they're willing to. I mean, go. Go to the Gaddians and robbers when they send the manifesto to Laconius, and it's like, surrender to us, and we'll let you be part of this. We'll let you be part of our clan. We'll let you be part of our. You know, you're trying to talk about trying to control the people. Who's trying to control the people? And you look at. You're trying to control them with the lies. You talk about the savior that can't come, but you're using all of these and the traditions of your fathers to try to. What's the word? And Ganyar to try to deceive to try to lie to the people or make them feel like you're something that you're not. And yet that's. That's. That's the number one play out of their playbook that they're using to try to subject the people into their own control. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Yes. Okay. And you. You just said something, too, though. It's just, it's. It's messaging, too. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're right. Like, maybe, maybe, maybe the actual ultimate powers that be know that it's not that, but the messaging looks good when you need to control a group of people and have them on your side. It's just like, oh, yeah, these guys are evil. There you go. [00:19:41] Speaker A: And so much, so much hangs on signs, right? And how would you feel to be, to be, at this point, believing Samuel, believing Nephi, believing in God and your religion, waiting for a day with a night and a day that doesn't come, and it feels like it's passed, and everybody told you it passed and it didn't happen. How do you keep your faith and believe when everything you believe that was going to happen feels like the bottom. [00:20:12] Speaker B: Fell out like you were before? [00:20:13] Speaker A: The floor is not there. Yes, yes, totally. And is that the lot in life of those who believe in God to at one point, feel like that God let them down, the God that failed? [00:20:30] Speaker B: It's a good point. And I guess then it just begs the bigger question of, like, okay, cool, do we, what's the parallel in our times? You know, do we have, do we have a similar parallel? [00:20:43] Speaker A: You know, he had that excellent talk, but if not, right, we will believe in God, but if not. But if not, that was such a great talk. And, I mean, look at job. Look at everything that job went through. He didn't stop believing in Goddesse, even when all of his support was pulled out from underneath him. And when you're given a big sign and you believe and the sign doesn't happen, and yet you still, you still find a reason to hang in, and it comes down to the end. Right? Nephi fasts and he prays and he prays for the entire day about something that was going to happen anyways. And maybe, you know, maybe it gets to that point, because now Nephi almost feels like he brought it about through his prayer. It's kind of interesting, the timing. And I don't think that Nephi necessarily brought it out because of his prayer. Christ was going to come when Christ was going to come. That was established. But to create that sense of anxiety or that sense of fear to the point where it's driving them to in desperation, pray all day and fast and just really turn to the Lord. Because I think when we get to that point where we feel like God has let us down or he hasn't supported us, you come to a crux, a decision where one fork is, I am going to turn to him even harder and find out what I'm missing here, why I don't get it, what happened and really just hang everything else out on this line or I'm going to turn away from God because he let me go. He let me down. And it becomes this divisive deciding point, like, who are the disciples of Christ? Who were the disciples of God? Who is going to hang in to when, when the chips are down and who are going to be believers of convenience? And, and I think that's what we can probably highlight from this week's reading the most. Because of how fast people change in just a few short years. We've gone through hundreds of years and it feels like we're not seeing a whole lot happen. And now within a period of such a short amount of time, the public opinion is going to kill all of the followers of Christ. And then a sign comes to where not a single person doesn't believe the entire world is converted. And, and then don't give it long from, from when that happens to now, they're right back to trying to explain away that this could have been anything. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yep. I mean, that's, that's maybe the lesson to take out of it for us this week, too. I feel like this is, this is, this to me is like the repeating story of the scriptures, which is you have these miracles, you clearly an angel visited you or you had some deep spiritual experience, you had this conversion thing. Time passes, things somehow change and then you feel like questioning everything you've believed to that point and finding a way to explain it away. So, yeah, that's maybe. Maybe when I asked earlier, it's like, okay, well, where's our parallel today? Maybe that's the easiest one, is like, you see that everywhere. You see that everywhere. No matter. Sometimes even how spiritual the experience is, I think, you know, remember is. It's such a talked about and sometimes you feel like you've almost beat it to death in the scriptures. But remember is a very powerful word. [00:24:19] Speaker A: And we didn't. You see it as a missionary right over there in Oakland, or any missionary, when you have somebody prepared to get baptized and they feel it and they can't deny they felt it, and they're excited and they're, and, and what do you, what do the missionaries always say? Like, just be prepared, something's gonna happen. [00:24:37] Speaker B: What we would always say is, dude, let's go get you. Let's go get you wet because it's gonna get gnarly between now and then. That's what it was. Just like, don't wait, don't hesitate, don't procrastinate. Let's go get this done. [00:24:50] Speaker A: You even had that experience before you went and served your mission, right? I know I did. [00:24:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I. There was, it was when I was talking to my bishop, just to the interview kind of before I left. Yeah. He very much just said, hey, satan's going to try to kill you between now and when you leave. And I kind of was like, that's a weird thing to say. And he was like, no, I'm serious. And I was like, uh, okay. And they're absolutely, I've probably shared some of them, but there were absolutely times where luckily I was in a good place. The spirit was like, don't go there or move off of that or get away from that. And seconds later I realized, like, oh, that could have absolutely been my death right there. Like, my bishop wasn't joking. [00:25:42] Speaker A: Well, hang in there, guys. [00:25:44] Speaker B: But the thing is, the good news is, is that those things ended up being very foundational, like testimony builders, for whatever it's worth. So that's, that was the flip side of it is, at times, those are really easy things for me to remember back on when, you know, when things feel heavy, I'm just like, I've seen too much at this point to, to say that I don't believe or that I can't believe. I'm. I say it all the time, but it's like I've seen too much. [00:26:11] Speaker A: Well, and it's. It almost comes back to, I think, what we were even talking about last week. And correct me if I'm wrong, we talked about when Christ appeared to Joseph Smith. What first appeared to Joseph Smith in that darkness. Right. That coming face to face with perhaps your own destruction. And how could God leave me and abandon me? And the moment when I'm turning to him, this should be my finest hour. And yet it's Satan answering my prayers, not goddess. [00:26:41] Speaker B: Brutal. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But like you said, some of those moments become foundational, and I think that's the difference, right? That's deepening conversion. It's the difference between being a believer of convenience versus a believer of true belief. And some of these moments, like, this is what it takes to set that in our hearts to, because what is the whole point of conversion? We talked about this last week with repentance. The whole purpose is to change who we are. How do you change something at your core if you're nothing, being shocked to your core, if you're not having to come with these difficult decisions, if you're not, like Jacob, having to wrestle with the Lord, how do you ever change at your core who you are? And so I think we need to be prepared for moments when we feel like God lets us down or moments when we feel like he's not answering our prayers. One, if I can, if I can just give a salute to a talk that has really impacted and influenced me as I'm thinking about this and going through these thoughts in my mind would be Hubie Brown, who? One of my favorites, that guy. [00:27:49] Speaker B: Awesome. He's great. [00:27:51] Speaker A: He had such an ability to speak, but he, he talked to BYU and he gave a talk called father, are you there? [00:27:58] Speaker B: One of my favorite ones. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And he talks about, you know, when he was a kid and he would cry out, father, you there? And receiving the comfort from his parents and he was preparing to go away to school and his mom saying, you know, that we can't be there for you anymore, but God will always be there when you cry out. And it just, if you haven't listened to it, I think, I think that expresses the sentiment of what we're trying to say here more than anything. So with that said, I'm going to, I'm going to move forward. We get to, let's get to Laconius and Gid. Giddoni. And I think these two are, I mean, right there. Step in. Step with Pahoran and Moroni. They just don't get as much bandwidth as the two Laconius has been. I don't know, one of my favorite book of Mormon guys. I just think the name Laconius is pretty dope. The idea that Laconia, Laconia is the name of the city of Sparta. And in Greek, and so when you say Laconius, it means literally in the Greek, it means someone, someone from Sparta. And so you're wondering, what is this guy doing here in the Book of Mormon? And is it possible that we have a spartan here in the book of Mormon, which makes Laconius all the more cooler in my eyes and, oh, man, that's funny. And you think about the, it would be rad. It would be right. And you think about some of the tactics that they use, pulling in like that shell. Right? And the way they place the shields and the spears and how they do that. And Laconius is doing this and how he is gathering all of the people from all of the lands into one central location. His tactic is different than Moroni, than I, the Moroni ha. Than anyone else. Right. Moroni is out there fortifying the fringes because that's where they're going to attack next. Uh, Laconius is. Is pulling in strength from all of the land, everywhere they can, and consolidating his forces into one defensible position. And and think again about, you know, the bottle, the battle of Thermophermopylae. Right. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Finding that one defensible position where you can hold the ground and defend yourself against a larger. A larger enemy. It's just. I like. I like what he's doing. I like his strategy. And I think there's some. Just like we looked at Moroni Haas. We call it mistakes. I think Moroni ha was a fantastic leader, but he was so focused on strengthening the outside that he left the inside weak. And we learned some valuable lessons from that when we were looking at those battles. I think kind of the flip side of that. This emphasizes the focus on what's most important in your life and making sure you. You pull in, circle the wagons, and. And protect the core, protect the home. That's. That's what I get out of Laconias. [00:31:03] Speaker B: I like it. [00:31:05] Speaker A: And when the. And when the robbers write him the letter, boy, because they say, and on the morrow, right, on the morrow, I'm prepared to go to war with you. And he calls his bluff. And I'm telling you this, a king will never be able to gather all of his entire kingdom into one city overnight. Not happening. Not happening. If the Gadianton robbers truly would have attacked on the very next day, this wouldn't have gone well for the Nephites. But that's the thing. So here. Where's the letter? We can get into this. He tells them, we're going to destroy you. And Laconius isn't intimidated. And this happens, I believe, in the 16th year. So this is chapter three. And now it came to pass in the 16th year from the coming of Christ, Laconius, the governor of the land, received an epistle from the leader and the governor of the band of robbers. And these were the words that was saying. And, you know, he's talking about so, man, he's an eel. He talks about most noble and chief governor of the land and uses all of this flattery you just stand for liberty and all this. It'd be a shame to see such mighty and powerful, wonderful people died like, hey, why don't you just join us? And, and he gets to where he says it's going to be. And if you don't, we're going to come again on you. It's verse eight. And behold, I swear unto you, if you will, if you will do this with an oath, he shall not be destroyed. But if you'll do this, if you will not do this, I swear unto you with an oath that on the morrow month I will command that my army shall come down against you, and they shall not stay their hands, they shall not spare, and they shall slay you. So, so he's put in this compromising position. What do you do? And as a, as a ruler, you know, you're not going to be pulling all your people in, in less than a month to be able to do what Laconius does. But the thing that's awesome about this, and this is verse 19. Now, it was the custom among all the Nephites to appoint for their chief captains, save it were in times of wickedness someone that had the spirit of revelation and also prophecy. Therefore, this gid, giddonite was a great prophet among them, as also was the chief judge. So it's not just gig Gadoni that was an amazing prophet as a commander of their armies, but their chief judge, Laconius, was a prophet. And not just a prophet, but the words say, was a great prophet. And so I feel like we're kind of slighted and not hearing more about these men who are described as being great prophets at this time period. All we get is this very short glimpse to them. And they, you know, to be able to pull this together in chapter four. And it came to pass that in the latter end of the 18th year, those armies of the robbers had prepared for battle and began to come down to sally forth. So remember, this was at the commencement of the 16th year, and now you're hearing at the latter end of the 18th year. So you were two, two full years, almost a third, three years later, the Gadianton robbers prepared to come when he said, I will come to you on the morrow month, and yet three years later, they come to you. So he sees through that. He's not intimidated to think, oh, they're going to come down. And I got a rush and I got to panic and I got to make a decision. And I think in, sometimes in life we are faced with situations where we feel rushed or deceived, that we have to make a decision today? And isn't that kind of the theme from what we're getting right here, where the believers were about to be put to death if they believed, because it didn't happen right away? [00:34:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:57] Speaker A: And so I think I'm starting to see a theme in this week's reading on waiting on the Lord. And blessed are those who wait on the Lord and who trust in the Lord and who lean on the Lord with all their might, their mind, their strength. And it doesn't matter if it's not going to happen right now. It doesn't matter if it's not going to happen right today. If I am patient and trust in the Lord, he will find a way to make this work. And the parallel I see with this, not in today's world, but in the book of Mormon, is when Nephi goes to get the plates, he is going to lean into the Lord and trust that he's got his best interest in mind, that he's going to make this happen. And when they first approach Laban to. To get the plates, and Laban shoos them out of the house, accuses of being a robber and thief, and tries to assassinate them, it feels like all of their hopes are dashed, and Nephi gets that inspiration. We left all of our gold and our silver and our precious things behind. Perhaps this was wisdom in God so that we could take those things and buy the plates and barter and use those to trade. Like God's opened up a way for us and to convince his brothers to give it one more try and to say, this is what the Lord wants, and to go and take that attempt and yet again have the rug pulled out from under you. When Laban steals all of that and still tries to kill you, and now his rubber brothers are beating him with a rod like, what do you mean it's going to work out? It didn't work out. At what point are you going to give up this fantasy and stop believing and realize that you're wrong and God is wrong? That's what we're talking about, is having that patience to wait on the Lord and see it through. Even when the floor falls out, when. When every inspiration, revelation that you received seems like it's wrong, how do you still hold on believe? [00:36:49] Speaker B: I mean, I'm. Yeah, it's a good. It's a good thing, and I'm glad you brought up that talk. You know, it's like, it's at what. At what point. At what point do you basically stop believing. And hopefully these scriptures provide some good advice for if you're ever feeling like that. But the truth of the matter is, again, sympathize. You know, it's tough, can be, oh, extremely, extremely. [00:37:20] Speaker A: But I think Joseph Smith said, you know, you go to lectures on faith, he said, no religion will ever produce the faith necessary to save its people. That doesn't require the sacrifice of all things. And when you're talking about having to lay something on the altar, he said that he expected that all of us would have to do a sacrifice similar to that of Abraham. And you think, sacrifice of Abraham, how gut wrenching would it be when God asks you to give up the one thing that you laid all your hopes on and promises, right. Sacrifice your son. That's the one thing that you went to the Lord and asked for. And the Lord saying, give it up, take it back. It's, it's not easy. And I think the New Testament puts its, put, it puts it well when it says it is a fearful thing to find yourselves in the hands of a living God. [00:38:16] Speaker B: It's a crazy statement, but yes, it's. [00:38:19] Speaker A: Not easy to be a believer, and yet it's worth it. Uh, one other thing, one other thing I want to point out, and I kind of touched on this when we started talking about timeline. You look at how slow the events in the beginning of the book of Mormon are rolling through and, and covering hundreds of years with not much happening. And now all of a sudden, you get to this micro condensed where. Right. [00:38:46] Speaker B: It's like, it's like five years at a time or whatever. Like it. Yeah. Or, yeah. No, I mean, it is funny. It is funny that I've never noticed that till, like, very recently, by the way, because you always kind of see it as evenly spaced out, but it's not. [00:39:03] Speaker A: I think you get the same effect when you go to the Bible. Right. Because the Old Testament Adam lives 900 years. It's even more exaggerated. Right. Instead of a 400 year period of time with nothing said, you're going thousands of years without much being mentioned. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Yes. [00:39:19] Speaker A: And so what happens when, when Christ comes? It's not even Christ's life. It's three years of his life, makes up four books of the gospel. And so that effect, to me in literature, as I'm reading this, it almost feels like all of time is slowing down. Right. It's going super fast at the beginning because you're just going through these large swaths of time without mentioning, you know, just like this one crazy story. And then next couple hundred years and then this. Another crazy story. And then when it comes to Christ, time slows down, and the effect of creating, like, time slowing down is to hyper focus on this three year period of time and all of the things that are happening and the miracles and the whatever. Just to me, it creates an interesting effect of this is the reason for all of it. Christ is the reason for all of it. It puts him at the focus of the scriptures and puts him at the climax, I guess, of the written record. And I don't think you get that climax just in the Old Testament by itself. You miss the point. If you don't read through into the New Testament, that brings it there. The nice thing is the book of Mormon branches both worlds and shows that effect of both of them being climbed there as. As if it was its intention to begin with. Like, there shouldn't have been a disruption between old and new. [00:40:50] Speaker B: Great insight, man. Good stuff. [00:40:54] Speaker A: All right. [00:40:54] Speaker B: Good stuff. Let's keep going. [00:40:57] Speaker A: Let's keep going. This might be a short lesson. That's. [00:41:02] Speaker B: No, it's great. I think we're already. Yeah, we're already 50 minutes in. [00:41:07] Speaker A: Fantastic. [00:41:08] Speaker B: No, dude, I think. I think everybody's getting. Getting a good. Getting a good reading this week. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Three through or one through seven? All right, I guess we'll end it with this chapter seven. You know, you got. I don't know, it's kind of interesting because you have Helaman. Helaman. Pahoran. Pahoran. Laconius. Laconius. But the second generation, for whatever reason, there's not a lot mentioned here. Moroni. Moroni. Ha. I don't know why they threw that ha. In there afterwards, but Pahorn, excuse me, Laconius number two gets murdered. And how many times? You don't see a lot of kings getting murdered at the beginning of the Book of Mormon, but now, all of a sudden, it seems like every other one is getting murdered on the judgment seat. And so when you have this, I don't know. To me, this captures the internal turmoil probably better than anything. When you're slaying your own ruler and think about the symbol of that for apostasy, what is it that governs yourself? And when you're slaying that own part of you that is over your self control, to give up to sin, to give up to temptation, to give up to your own appetites. And I think we do that often. There's a part of us that tries to teach temperance or moderation and tries to. To keep us focused on sacrifice, repentance, and becoming, because repentance, like we said, is a process, and it is a discipline. And there is. There's something there that needs to overcome the natural person that is in us. And when we slay that natural person that's governing over us because we don't want to be governed, then we give ourselves over not to be free. Like you said, Nate, the irony of that is we become controlled by someone else. Right? There's always a master there. And when we kill our chief judge in us, we end up being ruled by one that was worse. That's it. That's all I got. [00:43:18] Speaker B: I love it, man. These lessons keep coming in very timely with people trying to kill rulers of countries. So, yeah, it's terrifying. And when we were told World War one, when we were told as kids that this book is made for us in our time, I think that we need to take that a little more seriously. [00:43:45] Speaker A: Think so? [00:43:48] Speaker B: Was that a question? You think so? [00:43:50] Speaker A: I think so. I think so was how it was supposed to come out, but it came out almost as a sarcastic, you think so? [00:43:56] Speaker B: No, I know, but that's what I liked about it. I liked it. You think so? [00:44:01] Speaker A: You think so? [00:44:02] Speaker B: I do. Cool. Anything else you want to touch on this week? Okay, Jason, you are the man. Greatly appreciate you spending time to be prepared on this stuff as always. And you are always very well prepared on this stuff. We appreciate all you listening. We hope that we can continue to give you some unique perspective and a little bit of insight and hopefully just maybe enhance your own scripture study. If you have any questions, comments, feedback, you can get ahold of [email protected]. and I think that that is all we have for this week. So until next week.