Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the add on Education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend Anna, this show's producer, Nate Pfeiffer.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Hey, Nate, how you doing?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: We try to add a little insight and unique perspective. We do our best. We made a very conscious decision.
We made a very conscious decision early on to not just recite the stories, man, but to try to, like, actually give. Give something to hopefully inspire you or to think of it different.
We always try to make sure we don't just get caught storytelling, because we more or less always know the story.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: So it's just fun, right? When you can dig into the scriptures and see something different or understand something new, it just. It's exciting, right?
Hopefully, that's the journey we get to take you guys on, is we're sharing our experiences with the text and the things that we've kind of discovered and learned, and hopefully that is enough to encourage you to find new things for yourself, too.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: We get to talk about some fun things today. Can't wait, because this is really the introduction of the Gadianton robbers secret combinations.
And interesting enough, I think, begading comes back into play on this.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: You said the magic words.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Let the begatting begin.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Let the begatting begin to.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Are you ready?
[00:02:19] Speaker C: You've been waiting for it.
We've been building for it.
The began.
And Adam lived a 130 years and began a son in his own likeness. And after his image and called his name set in the days of Adam, after he had begotten Seth were eight, and he begat sons and daughters.
And all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died and Seth lived, and 105 years of Begati knows.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: So seeing as we've gone down this road, what does Bugatti have to do with Helaman at all?
And I think it actually has quite a bit to do with it. And here's where I'm. Well, let's start with where we're ending. Right. The last chapter, I believe, is Helaman five. Is it Helaman five? Helaman six. Helaman five is a powerhouse. Yes, it is. Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: This is my favorite scripture in the Book of Mormons in this.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Is this the look to the rock from whence you're hewn?
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Helaman 512.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: It's my favorite scripture in the book.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: And see, that's where we're going with this. So let's start there, I guess, the crowning moment. Let's spoil it and start there with the beginning. Helaman 512. And now, my sons, remember. Remember that it is upon the rock of our redeemer, who is Christ, the son of God, that you must build your foundation and that the devil shall send forth his mighty winds. Yea. And his shafts and his whirlwinds.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yea.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Yea.
When all this hell, all his hail. Sorry. Thank you. When all his hell and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to draw you down to the Gulf of misery.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: You're reading the book, and I've got this thing memorized. Drag you down to the Gulf of misery and endless woe because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation. A foundation whereon if men build, they cannot fall.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Dude, you thought I was going to tell you it was my favorite scripture in the book and not have this memorized by heart.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: I love you, Nate. Fantastic. And in here, not only are we talking about a reminder to look to the rock, to look at the savior, to look at that, but also helaman counsels his sons to remember the source of their names, because he names them Nephi and Lehi, and he wants them to go back and remember that right where they're coming from.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: It's a big deal to me.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: It's a big deal.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: It's a big deal to me even now in my life. But continue.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: Do you want to? Do you want to.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: I know. I feel like I'm just interrupting you. I felt bad about this, man. No, I'm just saying, like, I'm glad we're starting here.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: What I want to say here is going to be a lot more important than what I do.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: I don't think so, because I think.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: You need to lay the found work on this. The founder, the foundation, the groundwork.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: I know we kind of joke about the begetting. I know we do. I do. And it's. To me, it's like, it's a joke that kind of just works a lot because there's an absurdity about when you're a child and you first start the begatting scriptures, and it's just so and so, begat so and so. Begat so and so. And if you can't come from a good family like mine and you're doing scripture study at 06:00 in the morning before your father's going to work to make sure that we you know, that we all have a chance to do it. And you're a pre teen, so tired that you can barely keep your eyes open, and you're reading, begatting, begatting, and begat and begat and begat. And you really go, what am I doing right now? I could be asleep. Right. So there's just. There's some funny kind of just big pictureness about it, but the seriousness of it is like.
And this is one of the reasons I love doing this podcast with you, is because names mean something, and where you're from means something. And whether you know it or not, in your youth, I do feel like as you begin to really try to understand who you are, which I think is part of the human experience. Right? And a lot of us do that in our youth and then redo that again when we become a young adulthood and you have a child and you go through that process again. Like life is constantly a cycle of trying to understand who you are and learn who you are and figure out your voice, where you fit in the universe. And this is why I love the anchors that names can be or take on. It's why in our family, we take naming our children so seriously.
It's why you have the.
What's the genealogy company, the family tree company, 40 ancestry.com and 43 andme, or whatever it is. I don't know what the name of it is, because there's something even outside of a religious community that is so.
It's its own unique emotion. When you see pictures of three generations back and you realize, I am part of this person, literally, this person is a part of who I am, there's something that's so emotionally anchoring about that I don't know how else to describe it. But even outside of a genealogy context, there's something as humans that we feel a connection to where we come from.
And this is why, within a religious context, there's something so powerful about the message of where did you come from first?
Like, who are you?
Much bigger than who's your parents? Who's your grandparents in the family tree, right? Who are you fundamentally?
It's funny because we were just texting about this, right? The idea that even back in greek philosophy, not philosophy, during the time of kind of the great philosophical movements of Greece and Rome, you have people creating gods that more or less look like them, right? There's just trying to be, like an understanding. So even though they had all these superpowers, there's still a quest to be like, who am I? And how do I relate to some higher power you have then the influence of Christianity, early Christianity come. I mean, we read in the acts about where we have, I think it's Peter or Paul that's going to Athens and actually describing and flipping the understanding of, no, God made us in his image, not the other way around, but even from, like, there's a fundamental human need to know what is my actual place in this universe. And so when you look at so many of the things that we do as a church, like, what is the first thing that we promise to do each week when we take the sacrament? Always remember him and take his name upon us.
And by the way, those two things go hand in hand.
Those two things go hand in hand. When you're. When you're called a name over and over, you're hearing a name. If you. Nobody in Utah wants to name their kids layman and lemuel, it would be hilarious. But nobody's doing it, because what is the message that that child is going to receive every time they hear that name? Because when you hear your name, you are always remembering. Right. The whole. All of this comes down to, for me, fundamentally, and why it means something to me is. Is it feels perfectly aligned with that scripture. Is that. Is that if our testimony is built on the rock, if we are always remembering him, if we are taking his name upon us, it will inspire us, I feel like, to become him, to do everything that we can to live a life that he modeled for us. And this is why the begatting, as much of a joke as it might be at times, means a lot to me.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: It connects to me deep, but you've nailed it, man. This is beautiful. And I'm going to mix in here an article that I read that's outside of the scriptures, outside of what we typically talk about. But they did an interesting study where they took pictures of infants, and they had people try to guess the names just based off of the pictures.
And the accuracy was terrible, of course. Right?
You couldn't pedal.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: I thought you were gonna say it was off the charts good. I was gonna be like, this is some magic show stuff, but okay.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: But then they took pictures of adults or older people, and then they did the same thing, and they found that the accuracy, that they were able to match names with people with a much higher, significantly different amount of accuracy than they were kids. And so the conclusion that they drew from this study is we grow into the names that we have.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: That's fascinating.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: How is it that we're better able to assume people's names based off of later in life when they've kind of grown into. And so taking that into the context and the concept of taking the name of Christ upon us, and have you received his image in our countenance? And as we are every week reminded of that and trying to be like him and become him, we literally do become more like the savior. Does that name not apply to us? And do we not see the savior in some of the examples that we've had in our life? We look back at some of our mentors and some of our leaders, our heroes, our parents, and do we not see Christ in those people?
So there's some profoundness to that.
There's also something less important, but not, I say, less important, and I undermine it already. It's not that it's less important. In fact, I think it ties this all together quite beautifully when we go into the book of Mormon, it's interesting that we've come across this line. Nephi and Lehi's dad is Helaman, whose dad was Helaman, whose dad was Alma. Whose dad was Alma. And you get these generations that are just spanning.
And the only other place I see this is when you go back to the beginning with Jacob. You have Jacob, and then you have Enos and Jerem and Omni. And you go through that line all the way down, but you don't see it in other places.
Why don't I know who Nephi's son was?
Why don't I know who? Captain Moroni. He's got Moroni. Ha. And then what? What happens to his line?
He's great, isn't he? And we got Pahoran's line here. And we have his three sons, Pahoran, Bakumnai, and Panchi. And what happens to them?
He had many sons. Those three die. But where does that line go? And so you keep seeing all of these lines that just kind of wither and die in the Book of Mormon. But then you have these two lines that are a little bit longer, and I honestly think that they're one in the same line.
And the reason why I make that argument when you go back to Nephi makes Jacob the high priest. And so why is that line important? It's the priesthood. It's the authority, and it's representative of the savior. So I'm going to draw a parallel to this and the Old Testament, because in the Old Testament, you come to notice that the Old Testament really is just a family story.
And it starts with Adam, and it goes down Noah, Abraham, it goes through, and there is one line, and you go even to the kings David and Solomon, and you follow the king list. And what is it? It is a story of Christ's family line. And you have this line that goes out. And every now and again, you get these little branches, right? That wither and die. That wither and die. But why does this one line get preserved? Because it ties into Christ, and it's this one family line. So I go back to the book of Mormon, and I draw this parallel. The high priest was the symbol of Christ.
And through here, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't Christ call on NepHi to lead the people and the apostles, like, this is his rock, or this is. But he represented. This is this priesthood line that rolls through. The Book of Mormon is symbolic, I think, of being tied to Christ. And I also see a parallel in this with Moses and Aaron, because Moses, he's the leader, right? He's the king.
He is the one that pulled them out of Egypt, that established him in the land of Canaan. Let me ask you this question. Who's Moses son?
Who follows Moses?
It dies just like Nephi. And you're like, wait a second. Nephi is this Moses character. He's this strong person that leads them, that guides them, that builds the boat, that crosses the sea, that does all of these miracles. But then he anoints his brother.
And through his brother's line, I can name all of Aaron's descendants because that's the high priest, and it kind of rolls through there, right? And you've got this symbolism there. And then even take this example to Joseph and Judah and Joseph. You got Ephraim and you got Manasseh. And there's some importance with Joseph's line, but Judah is what it follows all the way down until you get to Christ. And so I think the core of it, why some lines tend to be preserved while other ones wither, is because those lines represent or encase Christ.
And I think this is going to go back to tie this in.
When you go to Moses anointing Aaron and the high priest coming through there and other Levites saying, wait a second, we're just as important as Aaron. Why don't we get to be the high priest? And they challenge Moses and say, we want the authority. And Moses says, okay, here's what we're going to do. You put out a rod for you and your family, and Aaron will put out a rod for him and his family, and we'll see what happens. Aaron's line, his rod buds and blossoms and grows. And then I take that and tie it to the New Testament. When Christ says that any vine to produce fruit has to be tied to me, Christ. That's where a line blossoms and grows as if it's tied to Christ, whereas in the line of the detractors withers and dies on the stem. And I'm not trying to say that Nephi is an apostate and his line is going to wither and die. I think the reason why Jacob's line is preserved is because of the high priest role that he fills and the importance of representing Christ, and that tying it to Christ and kind of showing that. I don't think Nephi ever stopped tracking his line and his genealogy. But for the point of the story is this line in this book is our symbol of Christ. And therefore it is important that this line continues. And now, going back to why, I think Jacob's line in the beginning is the same as Alma. Alma, Helaman. Helama and Nephi. Nephi going out to the end of the Book of Mormon is because when you follow this down into those little micro books, at the end, what happens? The end of Jacob's line says, I went to go give this to the next person. And where was he? He went to the land of Nephi, and so he wasn't here. And so I had to give the records to Mosiah, to the king. And you look at that, and that's the end of the line. But then go back to the land of Nephi, and what happens? Alma is a priest in the land of Nephi. And what is the priest? The priest is the continuation of Jacob's line. I think Alma is still a successor in that line of Jacob. And then when you bring him back into the Nephites and this line continues on, I think that's why it's so important. I think that's why it's significant. So we get back to Helaman talking about the importance of the rock from whence they're hewn, and really tying it to Christ. I think that's what this line is doing. And I think this is why we have such a longstanding line in the Book of Mormon. And just as you had the rod of Aaron that blossomed and was able to produce fruit, whereas in the rod of the others kind of withered and died in the Book of Mormon, you contrast this longstanding line with the line of Bakumni, who withers and dies right after with the line of Moroni, that kind of withers and dies right after. These are great Mendez. These are leaders. These are inspirational. But it doesn't matter how great you are. What matters is being anchored in Christ. And because this line is anchored in Christ, there's a continuity, and it will always continue to. That's. That's kind of the message I get out of. Out of here.
Not to take away from, but to kind of pull it in and tie it.
All right. Should we go into our gadiantons?
So with Pahoran's death, we get kind of something interesting here.
Boy, talk about bringing old themes into one lesson where we're just kind of regurgitating some things.
Pahoran has many sons. It says it right there in the text. But of the many sons, there were only three that were interested in the throne. Pahoran, Bakumani, and Panchi. And I think Panchi was actually named second. Who knows? I don't know the order either way. Three sons.
Who else has three sons, even though they had many children, but only three sons are mentioned. I go back to Adam. Adam has three sons that are mentioned, Cain, Abel, and Seth.
And Noah's the same way. But what ties Adam, I think, even closer than Noah per se is it explicitly states that he had many other children besides these three. And we go back to Adam. There is no way you're populating a world with just three boys. Not going to happen.
But there's a reason that there's the three mentioned. And I've made an argument that I look at the story and every time you have this re beginning in this genesis. So I'm glad you bring up Noah into this mix, because it's going to fit this pattern. It almost feels like God is telling his story through the scriptures, God being a father. And he has his children. One third of his children rebel and are cast out from rebellion. Two thirds come down to the earth to receive their next inheritance. And so you kind of get this perspective that way. I feel like that story is being told with Adam. Adam is here. One third of his children that are mentioned rebel, cast out, and then the other two thirds are counted for righteous. You have this reset. You mentioned Noah. Now all of a sudden, the flood destroys the earth, and you have a new creation, a new beginning, this ark and the animals coming out of this Eden like situation into the world. And he has three sons, and two are accounted for righteous, because they cover their father's nakedness, which there's also significance, I think, in even mentioning the word cover, right? And nakedness. And then you have one whose line is cursed to the priesthood that they can't inherit it. So you have this one third, two thirds replicate. With this new beginning, Abraham becomes the father of many nations, and he has three families, first with Hagar, then with Sariah, and then with another wife afterwards. But unfortunately for Hagar and her son, they're cast out, they're sent away, and yet he keeps the other two families and maintains them. And you get this one third, two third imagery again to where this theme in the Bible kind of shows up every now and again. And it kind of runs through the text.
When we get to the Book of Mormon, and we've talked about this at the start of the Book of Mormon, you see this with Nephi and Jacob and Joseph and Sam, four of Lehi's children being righteous. Four out of six is two thirds. And then you have Laman and Lemuel. Two out of six is one third. And you have one third who feel like they're being cast out of Jerusalem. They wish they could go back to Jerusalem, but they're being pushed out. Whereas in the other four, look at the land of promise as a land of promise, coming to America to receive another inheritance. So you have this reestablishing of that pattern. But this pattern is also just like it ran through. The Bible is going to run through in different places, through the Book of Mormon.
I look at Alma when he's counseling his sons. You've got Helaman and Shiblon, which were righteous, that did the right thing, and then you have Corianton, that went kind of doing the wrong thing. And you almost have the same one third, two thirds pattern set up with alma with this new deal. And now we get to Pahoran and his three sons, Pahoran and Pekum and I. You know, they don't see eye to eye at the beginning, but Pekum and I unites with his brother and says, okay. And then you have Panchi, who's just absolutely rejecting this and coming. And so I don't know. I don't want to make a big deal and say, every time you see one third, two thirds, this is establishing something. But I do see a thread that runs in the Book of Mormon parallel to what you see as a thread running through the Bible.
For me, for what it's worth, it's just something that might be there. Anyhow, Bakum and I does not live long. This is where you have Gadianton. And the Gadianton robbers start to make their. Their play in the Book of Mormon. Kishkumen who, I wonder, is this guy, like parkour? Because he's super fast. He's running away. They can't catch him.
And then you have Pekum and I is up next, and the Lamanites come in and just trash the place. And that's kind of where I want it. Before we dive too much into the secret combinations and gaddian robbers, let's talk about this lamanite incursion.
And the guy that's leading the lamanite armies is Zarahemla. He's not an ephite. He's not a Lamanite. He's from one of the new groups that you have in Zarahemla. But something that's interesting is he has the name Coriantumr, which is a jaredite name.
And you start to see jaredite names come into the Book of Mormon after the discovery of the plates, after Mosiah translates them, and after these stories are getting made known to the people. So they do have familiarity with them, he takes this name, but this guy is a large and mighty man. And talk about growing into your name. I mean, that's the reputation that Coriantumr had among the Jaredites, this large, mighty, impressive man as far as fighting goes. And the Lamanites see him in his skill and say, hey, you lead our armies. And the guy is bold, the guy hits hard.
But as far as intelligence, strategy, and tactics go, he's just not there.
And he comes in and strikes the heart of the knee fights. And I'm sorry, this is getting a little bit narrative in how I'm doing this, but I'm going to pull out real quick.
When he comes in, he doesn't strike on the fringes like the Lamanites have in times past.
And Moroni and his son Moronihah have been fortifying these cities because they were traditionally known as the weakest. And because they're so focused on the outside, they. They don't even put any attention into zarahemla. They think they're never gonna strike us here. This is the heart, the core, and it's where we're strongest. But that's where he comes and he takes it away. And so where I want to back out of this is, I think, in life, we focus so much on the outside areas that we tend to think is weak, that maybe some of the things that should be core, that should be our foundation, get left neglected to where that's where we can crumble.
And that's what the Nephites did.
And I think there are many things that kind of catch our focus or catch our attention.
I think Christ, when he says the parable of the mote and the beam kind of comes back down to this because we see that in someone else's eye and we're so focused on trying to fix them that we miss that our own core, our own heart has strayed from it. Even in scriptures, right? Sometimes in the church or in the doctrine, we get so caught up focusing on what we've called missing the mark, the mysteries, or trying to describe something new.
And we get caught up in this fringe because it's something that we don't know a lot about or something that we're weak in, that we feel like we need to fortify, we need those answers, we need to build it, that we've left off understanding the sacrament and what it's about that we've left off understanding the covenants that we're making in baptism. That we've left off being anchored in studying the scriptures and feeling the spirit and being nurtured, because we're trading a lot of that in for trying to make these weak things on the outside become strong. So I look at what the Nephites have done, and I'm trying to take that and apply that to us today and what we do.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: I think you see that even outside of a lot of religious contexts, you see something that I've been trying to study a lot more about, and reading a lot about, is finding ways to keep people healthy just by the foods that they eat. What we do as a society is we spend all kinds of money on treating the symptoms of a disease instead of figuring out how to actually, like, cure the disease in the first place. And so I guess there is very much a direct kind of parallel is that we.
You can see the outside, and it's sometimes hard because you can't see the inside. Right. As a person who, you know, I'm trying to be a healthier dude in my life in general. You know, my weight has maybe fluctuated up and down over the years, but it's. It's. It's the. The outside appearance is always so much more just telling of what's happening inside. And not even just from health, but mentally and emotionally and spiritually in a lot of cases, too, right.
That so much of the time I'm going, hey, I need to go to the gym so that I can fit into my clothes better. Instead of, hey, I should really maybe do some self exploration and figure out some of the root causes of why I feel compelled to live an unhealthy lifestyle. You see what I mean? It's like this. I think all of these things as a society, we could benefit from that idea, which is, I mean, it's kind of like, it's kind of like Captain Moroni wrote in his letter. It's like you do got to kind of cleanse the inner vessel. I mean, that's a real principle that I do believe in, man. And I am learning how to be better at identifying causes for issues in society, in our personal lives and family, in relationships, in my job, in politics, in the world around us. So much of it, I think, could benefit a lot from what you're saying right now.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: And as you were talking about health, I mean, something that came to my mind, and you went far better than I did. But something that came to my mind is when we start buying all these pills, supplements or vitamins or whatever else to try to be healthier, but then we neglect exercising or whatever, right. We're trying to take care of these little fringe things that we think are going to make the big difference and leave out the heart of it. But you took it. Even, I think where you went was even more beautiful. The idea that what are my motivations? Or why am I not like what's happening that I am, you know, that self reflection? And what is it that's leading me to make these decisions? Or how can I prioritize or change more, not even addressing things from the outside, but like you say, the inner vessel. Like, what do I need to do within myself?
[00:31:40] Speaker B: We started with my favorite scripture in the book, and that's build upon the rock of Christ. And you, nobody. There's nobody in this church that hasn't been affected by somebody losing their faith, or I mean, having questions of faith themselves.
This is, by the way, I do think part of it. I think part of the journey is having your faith pushed against it. I'm a big, big believer in ideas being purified in the fires of debate. I'm a big believer in faith. And ideas should be pushed against because it makes them stronger or it clears them out for other better ideas to come in. When our faith is anchored internally on the most important and the only sure foundation, and that is a testimony of Christ and his atonement, then the external things that could easily trip somebody up or get hung up on some of the things that maybe we might not get complete answers to or fully understand in this life. Those things don't destroy our faith. Those things don't wreck us because of what we are built upon, which is the most important thing, which is why I think you and I sometimes, I don't want to say critical for me. I would use that word critical, but I'm not going to drag you down with me. At times I'm critical of a fast and testimony meeting, because so much of what I feel like a fast and testimony meeting should be is a chance for us to testify first and foremost of the rock upon which we are built. And at times I feel like it's kind of a group therapy session. And so it's no wonder you see a lot of, a lot of people having their faith destroyed or shook by things that are the periphery, the things that aren't, the things that shouldn't affect or be affected whatsoever by the one thing that we have to anchor our testimonies in, and that is the atonement.
Yes, the outskirts are going to be attacked too. Fine. You can fortify those later. The point of this story should be just because you feel like you're secure, just because you feel like that the internal core of what you are and believe in is fortified.
To put the final point on this, you see a lot of people argue all the time, even within the church, about the periphery. You see a lot of people spend so much time trying to do research to find out where specifically the Book of Mormon takes place and exactly which states of the current United States. If you're like the homeland theory or if it's the south american theory, it's like you see people within the church who are very.
Would come across as very anchored and religious and all in. And you just see so much time spent on some of these details around the outside. Right? You see the. I want to prove to, in some sort of a physical way that there is evidence of x, y and z here, here, here.
And in a lot of cases, you see a lot of those people lose their faith too, just as much as a lot of people that don't spend any of the time with that too, for the exact same reason, which is if I can find a way to prove this to myself from something that I can see and reason through and logic through and make sense, then that's my way of proving maybe to myself that all of this is real and all of this is true. And you see people like that fall away all of the time too, because it still comes down to you have to one cleanse the inner vessel. And then I believe I'm totally with you. That's where all effort should be, is to make sure that you're constantly making sure that you're fortified inside before you're worried about the outside. I don't know. Does that make sense?
[00:36:04] Speaker A: 100%. 100%. And it's cool that the lesson we learn from the Lamanites on the flip side is like, the yang to the ying or the ying and the yang, right? Because what happens, Corey anthem takes Zarahemla. He has the capital of the Nephite area. He has their biggest city.
And rather than sit there and strengthen this or take advantage of what he has, what does he immediately do? Abandon it to reach further in. Right. And he stretches his forces thin to where, when Moroniha is able to come back with his armies, now he's, he's cut them off and they have no way of retreat. They're stuck in the middle of nephite land with no way out, surrounded on all sides. Because he's overextending, he's overreaching, he's, he's doing the exact same thing on focusing on the outside rather than focusing on the core. And you see somebody, I mean, the parallel is crazy. You see somebody doing that and you reach out to point out and correct them and what are you doing? At the same time, you're overextending yourself. So worried about how they're doing that you've also left yourself vulnerable at the core. So it's kind of cool to see how these two actually complement each other and play off of it. My dad had a dream about me a long time ago.
He said he saw me as a tree, and, and in this tree, he said it grew up really tall, but it was thin and the wind could blow it and it could sway and it could move.
And he came to me and he said, look, what I see and what I saw in this dream is you like to explore. You like to search, you like to reach. You're like this tree that just grows up and trying to search and understand all you can. You've grown into this very long, slender, tall tree that can be easily blown. What you need or what you lack is the base, is the girth of the tree, the strength. Right. He says you need to be grounded in the testimony, in the gospel, in the faith, in the spirit and experience.
And I think a lot of that.
It's what happens in life and as youth, we are eager, we stretch, we reach. We want to know, we want to learn. We have that excitement. And it's good, it's natural, it's what plants do. But at some point, you have to focus on the roots. You have to grow the roots and you have to build a wide enough base to sustain the growth of that tree that you can withstand the storms when they come.
And if we don't ever get our root system in place and those storms come and those winds blow, we'll be uprooted, we'll be upended, we'll be tornado tossed and torn and destroyed. And I guess that's the.
We've probably just hit this from five different angles, but no, it's good.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: I think it's worth it. My youngest son, he's not my youngest child, my youngest son, his middle name is Oak. Oh, there you go. And even now, even when he's only six, he talks about it all the time. I try to always make the opportunity to explain to him why we named him after a mighty tree.
So I appreciate that story you told and I appreciate your dad for being willing to have that conversation with you too. So it's good stuff telling you this all comes back, man. Names are important, dude.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Names are important.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Weakly, sickly I know.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Machlone, Chilean.
What's going on over there?
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Seriously, if somehow I ever have twins, it would just be funny to throw layman and Lemuel out there just to see what the community does.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: Those poor kids you brought in, Ruth with Machlone and Chile. Weakly and sickly.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: That's right. Do you, my youngest daughter's middle name, Ruth.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: Do you want a tangent on names or do you want.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Come on, just quick, give us a quick tangent.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Naomi, when she loses her sons, changes her own name and she says, call me Marah, which is in Hebrew bitter because she was pretty upset and bitter about the whole deal, right?
And then at the end of the story, when her daughter in law gets married to boaz and restitution is all made and it's blessed and happy, right?
In Hebrew, there's something strange in the law of Moses and it's called the bitter waters test.
And if you suspect that your wife had committed adultery, then you take her to the priest and they give her this bitter water, the mara, the bitter water test. And it's bitterness. And if she's guilty, supposedly the waters ends up killing her. And then you're like, there's the judgment of God. But if she's innocent, then the water turns from bitterness to sweetness and she's preserved. And then not only that, but the vindication, like this was this bitterness actually becomes the source of your truth, the source of you being saved, redeemed, knowing that you didn't do it, right.
And so going back to the story, and I'm sorry, I even went down this tangent you threw. Oh, I'm ready. Machlon and Chilean, right? This even becomes the name that Mary is named after, Hebrew Mara, right? This bitterness.
And how bitter is it that she's with child outside of wedlock?
And the questions that are abound and like, is she guilty of something that she didn't do or go back to Naomi, I call me bitterness, but yet that same bitterness ends up being the source of her redemption or the source of her rejoicing, the source of her pleasantness later on, the salvation. And so you go to names.
When you went to Maghalon and Chilean, that was just one other name in there that I thought was kind of interesting, that conversion from the bitterness to the sweetness and that test in there.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: Sorry. That's what this podcast is all about, dog. That's what the listeners want, man. Just, they want those nuggets. They want those nuggets. If they don't, I don't care. I do.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: Good, good.
All right, last thing on. The last thing on being anchored and just going to, before we go branching out, I think of our quest for understanding the things that we don't understand in the gospel, in life, and in searching. I look at it as a spacewalk, and you leave the shuttle and you headed out there, and there's all sorts of anything and everywhere.
And if you go out on a spacewalk without being tethered to something first, you can easily be knocked off course and drift away to where you have no means of pulling yourself back.
And so my only advice to anyone who's looking and studying the scriptures and who wants, like Moroni, to strengthen those cities on the outside that are easily attacked, to find first the way to tether yourself to the ship.
And that to me, is the testimony of Christ. When you have a solid testimony of Christ and you start going out to strengthen those other areas and you come across things that are going to batter you or push you, you can always turn back and rely on that anchor to keep you grounded and to know where you stand. That helps you as you push out and kind of explore and understand that.
All right, sweet.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Anything else you want to hit this week?
[00:43:41] Speaker A: The only other thing is just our secret combinations. You know, you got Huntington robbers and, and, you know, there's some interesting stuff in here when you consider Helaman becomes the king. Okay, I said king.
And this is something I also wanted to mention. I know we've got to kind of wrap this up.
We look at the book of mormon governance when they go from a system of monarchs to chief judges. And we see similar parallels with our government, but something that we should recall.
The people that are taking that next chief judge role are typically the childs. We have dynasties even within this chief judge system. Its not a direct comparison with what we have today.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: I beg to differ.
Oh, man.
I feel like there is absolutely not only nepotism, but absolutely royal families in our, in our political system, too. But continue.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: No, you're 100% right. And even though we call them presidents, do they not fill the same role as a king? Yeah, and you look at the chief judge, and I just made the mistake and referred to them as a king. But are there not serious parallels to kings?
[00:44:59] Speaker B: Because. Yes, because human beings are human beings, and any system gets corrupted when people.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Want power, which is dropping back into that.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: I know, because it's a theme that will continue on until Jesus take the wheel. I'm just saying I am excited for when we actually have an official king again, when that king is Jesus.
That's it. But you're right. I didn't mean to derail you.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: You didn't derail me. This is it.
This is what needed to be said. And you have secret combinations, and you have secret combinations.
And I'm saying it two different ways, because some secret combinations are wicked, and some secret combinations are righteous, or are they not?
How did Helaman save his life? Was it not because he had a double agent, somebody, his servant that was pretending to be someone he wasn't, who was, who was involved in a secret combination to get the information and the intel that Helaman needed? How were they so successful in war? Was it not because they had scouts and spies? Is it not some of these secret things that happen? And I think there's even parallels when we talk about what we do and the covenants that we make in the temple, which are kept shielded or in a sense, secret from the rest of the world? And so where do you draw the line? And we've drawn this line so many times in the imitation of God. It feels like Satan and his host are evil or wrong or whatever you want to call the opposite of what God is doing, imitates it in a lot of different respects. And we like to refer to them as sacred when it's under God's roof, and then secret when it's under Satan's. And light when God, because he's inviting all to come in and participate, and it's darkness and Satan. But how do you judge between the two. And I think it's something that we've even discussed and you've pointed out, Nate, I think it all boils down to the fruits and life, and that's even where this went with the start of this podcast. Between the two rods of Aaron and the rod that doesn't, the line that's preserved versus the line that doesn't. One produces life and one produces death.
The secret combinations are scheming to try to overthrow, to try to kill, to try to whatever. Why? To empower themselves.
Whereas in on Helaman's side, you've got scheming to try to go to preserve life, to save life. And that's what Christ came to do.
But that line sometimes seems so vague because how did Christ save life? By killing his own? And how does he ask us to save our lives? By sacrificing it. And so we do kill to save, and so do they. But their killing to save, I don't know, leads to death and destruction. Nate, I'm just winding us in some weird.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: No, I don't think you. I think you're. I think you're making the point.
Say it.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: More beautiful than me, please.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: By their fruits, you shall know them. There you go.
I mean, you have to, you have to be able to judge, you have to be able to have discernment. I think that there is a reason that you have such sometimes fine, and maybe even blurry lines between Nephi going and lopping the head off of somebody that's drunk and passed out on the street, dressing up in his clothes, tricking his servant to go into his house to steal the scriptures.
You could very easily, from a worldly perspective, make the case that that is a secret combination in a immoral way. In an immoral way. And you could also take a look at the plan of Satan from the very beginning and say, hey, he actually just wanted everybody to be saved because he actually believed in love and hope and wanted everybody to be able to come back to heavenly father and live as one big happy family.
Do you see what I'm saying?
This is why I think I, even though I'm really hard, I feel like, on people that I feel like just make really terrible decisions when it comes to decisions that they make that are maybe different than mine or maybe who they vote for versus who I don't for, you know, it's. The easy way out is to be like, how can people be that stupid? Well, that's. That's not fair. That's not fair because life is more nuanced than that. And when you have very compete, strong voices competing for your attention and for your allegiance and for whatever that is, you can make sometimes very, very compelling cases for why bad is good and good is bad. And at the end of the day, this is why I feel like the prophet and his apostles and the scriptures continually tell us, if you do not have a relationship with Christ, if you are not anchored on the rock that is Christ, you will fall.
You will. Because there's just, there's too many convincing arguments.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: It's too easy.
[00:50:20] Speaker B: It's too easy. And if you don't have your own personal line of communication and understanding, I'm not even just to Christ, but to truth, because it's one and the same man. I just don't know how you can, I don't know how you would be able to survive religiously. I don't know how you would be able to survive as a country, as a citizen, as whatever you want to extrapolate that out to be. I think that having and cultivating a relationship with Christ, when times are still calm enough and peaceful enough where you still have a very safe environment to really be cultivating that relationship, it's just going to get gnarlier and you.
So it's funny. Full circle.
The whole story, God's story from the beginning of time until now, like you just said, is two thirds of his people staying and a third of them leaving. I don't think that that story stops. I think that that story continues. And we're told that mighty men will fall. We're told that there will be a sifting of the wheats and the tares cake said it best, man. Sheep go to heaven. Goats go to hell. Dude, this is not a new.
This is not something that just stopped after the war in heaven. This is not something that stopped after Adam and Noah and Abraham and Nephi and whoever this is.
Man, I'm so glad we started with my favorite scripture, because it just keeps explaining why it's my favorite scripture to me, which is the devil will send forth his mighty winds. They're already being sent forth.
We need to be that mighty tree. We need to drill our anchors down deep into an immovable rock. And if we don't, I don't know how you can survive.
And I, you know, I have felt this. I very recently have felt it more and more, just really telling me, not only do I need to do a better job with myself, but I need to do a better job of this as a parent. And so much of our conversations with my children in our family meetings and our councils lately have been so much less about the stories that we're reading about in the scriptures and so much more about in your youth while you are in the safe environment of our home. You have to spend this time wisely. You have to use this time wisely to learn how you communicate with heavenly father and how he can communicate back with you more than any other thing that we've been talking about. And this is what I have felt strongly and prompted to encourage my family to do. And in the process, remind myself that I need to be doing it better. Because at the end of the day, that's the only thing that really, my kids can know every story in the book. But if they don't know how the spirit speaks to them, what do they know?
And, yeah, so to answer the question, the long way about answering that question is I don't think that it's going to be easy to tell the difference between a secret combination versus a sacred combination in the future. It's easy for us maybe because one we do in a temple, right, and one you do, I don't know, in some secret room, whatever. At the end of the day, by their fruits, you shall know them. And hopefully we've been cultivating and learning how to judge righteously. Not judge, but learning how to actually judge correctly so that we'll be able to reject evil when we see it and know, you know, good when we see it as well.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: You nailed it. You nailed it.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: Just doing my best, Jason.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: I mean, there's a lot of thoughts.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: On my brain these days. Dude. Sorry if I've just totally steamrolled you this whole episode.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: No, this was beautiful. I mean, and I'll wrap up on my end.
You can argue and say that the temple ordinances are to exalt us, but can you not all also argue that secret combinations, like, hey, if you come with me, I will give you this position.
Is that not what Satan offered? Christ in the wilderness? All of this, I'll give you all of the kingdoms if you bow down and worship me. Is that not to exalt Christ in the sense that I will give you everything, I will put you in charge.
[00:55:04] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: And that's what happens in politics. It's what happened in government. Like, hey, you give me your vote and I'll give you a position here. Let's make this deal. Let's make a. It's to exalt, right? And so if we tried to say, well, the governing measure that I'm going to use is, does it exalt. Or does it show that I love. Go back to the very beginning when Christ says, not my will, but thy will, and I will serve you. And then. And then Satan's like, I will rule over you and say, okay, now I get it. The difference is service versus ruling over. That's how I'm going to make my decisions. But then look at Satan saying, and not one soul will be lost, and I will love them, and I will serve to all of. And you're like, oh, well, maybe that's not the metric.
[00:55:45] Speaker B: Well, there's two sides to every equation.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: There's two sides, and it all comes down to, thou shalt have no other God before me. Do I trust God? Is my anchor in him in Christ? Because if it's not, then who am I trusting? Myself. And I am putting myself above goddess. And if I am the anchor from which I am building, then that's like going out onto the spacewalk with no tether, because I am the tether.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: You might get lucky and wander into the right decisions, but I'm just saying, look at Jason. You're what, 40? Almost. Are you 40 yet?
[00:56:22] Speaker A: 41.
[00:56:22] Speaker B: Oh, you really. You're almost as old as I am.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: I'm catching you.
[00:56:25] Speaker B: Come on, baby. You'll never catch me. I'll never catch you.
Look, over the past 30 years, of all of the times that you've had to go, oh, I was not really totally spot on about that one.
I mean. I mean, and you and I feel like a relatively good dudes. We're not bad people.
I look back at my life and sometimes go, oh, wait, I was even arguing that point. You know what I mean? It's like I was like I was defending that idea with, you know, a sword and a shield for a time.
You nailed it, man.
If we anchor our trust in ourselves and our own ideas and our own intuition, oh, you're lost. You're toast.
In 30 years, the positions that I've had a realignment on and understood better in just day to day things, my goodness, I'm terrified to think that I would be the same person I was when I was 20 and to feel exactly the same way with all of the new life experience and information that I've given. Hopefully, I'm a much more compassionate person than I was when I was 20. I think I am. But at 20, I would have. At 20, I would be arguing with myself right now probably more than anybody else is. The point is that I'm backing you up on completely on this.
This spacewalk without the tether. I hate space. I hate the idea of space. I don't like openness.
[00:57:57] Speaker A: But Christ did it first when he said, your will, not mine.
[00:58:02] Speaker B: Well, but that's the two sides of the equations. I will do this. And what's the other part of that equation? And the glory be to God, I willing to sacrifice, I am willing to give of myself. I am willing to sack of myself so that you can have the opportunity to whatever. Now look at the two sides of Satan's equation. By the way, Satan's plan can sound good. If you don't have the other half of that equation, everybody makes it back. Is a really great sounding pitch. What is the other side of the equation?
You lose your agency, I get the glory. You don't. You get, you have no other option than to do what I tell you to do.
That's the other side of the equation again.
It's the time of the year. But you look at the political system around us. Promises by every candidate you'll ever have are always given to you. I'm going to do blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. Be wary of the ones that can't tell you what the other side of that equation is. That's all I'm saying, man.
Because that's how you win elections, is I can give you blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.
The wise people among us, I would hope, can go well. What's the other side of that equation?
If you can't tell me what the other side of that equation is, I can't make a fair judgment on your position. If you can't get up and explain to me what the other side of the equation is, that explains to me enough. That tells me enough.
My goodness, there is always the other half of the equation.
That's my point again, I don't mean to derail you, dog. I'm sorry.
[00:59:40] Speaker A: Didn't derail me.
[00:59:41] Speaker B: I'm on one today, dude. I need to chill out.
[00:59:44] Speaker A: I like it.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: I need to chill out, man.
[00:59:46] Speaker A: No, this is been good.
[00:59:48] Speaker B: I don't know what side of the bed I woke up on this morning.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: Finish us off with a good, positive, awesome message, jason.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: No, I'm just going to say if space scares you, it does.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: Terrifies me. And the ocean.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: Let's ground this where it should be.
With what Christ said in the New Testament, any vine that's not connected to him, right.
I think that's what it all boils down to. Are we firmly connected to Christ? Are we firmly anchored to goddesse? Is our branch tied into the roots that is our savior that is more important than anything else and that will help us to navigate these waters, to see the deceptions, to understand and make sure that we have the testimony we need to get us through our growth, our exploration, our discovery, our learning that there might be a continuation, that we might produce good fruit.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Amen to that brother.
We appreciate you listening. We appreciate those of you that are willing to share your insights, questions, comments with us. You can get a hold of us at the email address. Hi deepdive.com, we always do love hearing from you and we always appreciate any chance that we have to hear of the stories of you sharing this with your friends or yeah, anything that you got for us. We are here to learn as well but we really do thank you for listening and sharing with your friends and I think that's all that we have for this week. So until next week, see ya.
