Helaman 13 - 16

[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 and this show's producer, Nate Pifer, in studio. [00:00:36] Speaker B: For the last time this year. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Maybe. [00:00:39] Speaker B: I don't know. When are you coming back? [00:00:40] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Will it be before the end of the year? [00:00:44] Speaker A: Who knows? Probably not. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Is this our last year doing the podcast? [00:00:48] Speaker A: That's another great question. [00:00:50] Speaker B: So this could be our last time in studio? In theory. [00:00:54] Speaker A: I mean, potentially. I'd never thought of it. Thanks, Nate. [00:00:57] Speaker B: You're welcome. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Dude, I came in here all excited, warm and aglow, and you just took a bucket of water. [00:01:01] Speaker B: It doesn't mean that. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Right over. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Dude. It doesn't mean that. It's the last time we're going to be podcasting, but this may be the last time we're doing this in studio. We better not blow it. [00:01:08] Speaker A: Better not blow it. [00:01:09] Speaker B: All right, what are we. What are we talking about, dude? [00:01:12] Speaker A: Samuel the Lehman Knight Freeburg. This is another Freeburg classic. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Okay, so here's what I'd never understood about the Freiburg part of this picture, which maybe. Okay, so this is what I have to say about this. [00:01:24] Speaker A: All right, I'll hear you. [00:01:26] Speaker B: You know how much we love talking about how the art sometimes diminishes influences and sometimes diminishes the miracle a little bit? [00:01:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:01:36] Speaker B: I think this one's the opposite. [00:01:37] Speaker A: This magnifies the miracle. [00:01:39] Speaker B: This kind of does, because in this, you have a dude standing up on a wall. [00:01:45] Speaker A: I think I know where you're going with this. [00:01:46] Speaker B: A whole army shooting arrows at him. The dude's running up the wall, and supposedly he jumps off the back of it. [00:01:52] Speaker A: That's right. You were going with. [00:01:53] Speaker B: Doesn't break his leg and is able to run back off into the forest. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Hardcore parkour. [00:01:58] Speaker B: That's hardcore parkour for sure, man. Like, I don't know. To me. To me, this is one of the ones that, as a child, I was so confused by this picture, because as soon as we would read the story about how he jumped off the back, I was like, that wall seems high two. And this. This was further illustrated this week. We were up at this. I told you that my. My parents and my brother and I were investing in some. Some property down in Bear Lake. Up in Bear Lake. And on our balcony, we have, like, a metal guardrail around the balcony, because it, as our property goes down, it's about a 15, maybe 20 foot drop from the top of the rail down to the bottom. And as I was putting some stuff over the railing, I fell head first and I toppled over. I lost my balance and toppled over and luckily grabbed onto the two metal railings. My feet went up over my head. I bashed my head against the thing and then I was just hanging on and my wife was watching this. I was just hanging on, luckily, with my hands kind of gymnast style wrapped around my head. And she started screaming and I just started, like, smiling because I think I was in shock because I thought I was going to die. And then I kind of just slowly let myself kind of shimmy down and then I still had to drop 10ft below onto the dirt and the rocks. And luckily was not seriously harmed. But it messed me up. I was like, I almost just died right there. But now that I'm looking back on this thing of Samuel the Lamanite, like, how tall in this picture do you think that that wall was? [00:03:47] Speaker A: I'm still trying to recover from your story. If there was a sound that expressed dumbfounded amazement, like, other than just staring at my face, because that doesn't translate into a podcast. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. No, you should have seen the look on my wife's face as she was screaming, thinking that I was kind of like trying to mess with her and do it on purpose. But it wasn't, it was me. [00:04:06] Speaker A: No, you don't do something with it. [00:04:07] Speaker B: It was me, terrified, in shock, swearing underneath my breath and then hanging on for dear life. And then when I realized I wasn't going to die, then I just started smiling because I was like, oh, that was terrifying. But anyways, I'm saying that's 15ft. That's, that's, you know what I mean? That's not, that's not, that's like a. Yeah, that would have sucked to die, but I'm not jumping off. What, a 30 foot wall? How high do you think that wall is in Freiburg, dude? [00:04:32] Speaker A: I'm still trying to figure out, like, are your arms all jacked from catching your weight coming down on that? Like that? [00:04:37] Speaker B: Okay. Just because you won't move on from this, I will tell you this. I will tell you this. I cracked, like, my cheekbone. I had this funny bruise on my head and my cheek to where I still. Now when I smile, it hurts on my cheek and my back hurt from slamming against the things. My arms didn't hurt though. But I will say this, I'm glad that I lost some weight over the last year because if I still weighed 280 pounds and had done this, there's no way I'm catching myself, and I am at best, a cripple, so. Yeah, but anyways. [00:05:14] Speaker A: All right, sorry. [00:05:14] Speaker B: I'll let it go. That aside, I look at this picture of Samuel the lamanite, all these dudes are missing him with arrows. There's dudes running up the wall. If you scale this to size, it's a 30 foot wall, 40 foot wall. I mean, that's a tall wall in this picture. If he's jumping off of this thing and then running off into the forest, that's the miracle. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Well, okay, so going off of what we know from the Book of Mormon, they would build up their. Their walls, right. And what they would do. The wall is not. This makes it even crazier in my mind. The wall is not terribly high on the inside of. But what they would do is dig a big trench on the outside. And so this makes it easier for them to shoot on the inside. Right. You're talking about not super high, but whatever. The thing is, it's a lot higher on the outside than it is the inside. [00:06:06] Speaker B: So you wouldn't have it higher on the outside and lower on the inside. [00:06:09] Speaker A: That would defeat the whole purpose, because you want them to. Not to be able to scale it as they're coming in from the outside. Right. They're digging up dirt and throwing it up there and creating this mountain on the outside. So whatever it is on the inside, it's got to be at least twice as deep on the other side. And it's not like he jumped down the wall on the inside and is like, oh, excuse me. Pardon me. Sorry. And it's walking his way to the fence. [00:06:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:33] Speaker A: So I don't. I don't know how high it is. I don't. I don't. I don't have a good take on nephite architecture. But I suppose. I mean. [00:06:42] Speaker B: But let's look. I mean, we can look at some of the architecture from Central America and things like that. Like, there's definitely some high walls. [00:06:49] Speaker A: You look at forts in early America. Sure. [00:06:51] Speaker B: That's what I mean. It's not a new concept. [00:06:55] Speaker A: It's like, where's the miracle? There's a scale, right? So if the wall is not that high, then the miracles, they couldn't hit them with arrows, shooting at somebody who's right in front of them, which, by. [00:07:05] Speaker B: The way, if you're far away, it is hard to hit people with arrows. I would imagine we all went to boy Scout camp. That target was 10ft in front of us. And I had dudes, you know, my thing, shooting arrows through their hands. True story. At Bear Lake, actually. And having to go to Montpelier to get stitches. But I'm just saying. [00:07:22] Speaker A: What? [00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the arrow broke. It's Nate's story day. Apparently as he pulled it back, he accidentally pulled it back too far away from the thing and then let go of the arrow and it went through that skin that's between his thumb and his forefinger. [00:07:35] Speaker A: Are you sure the arrow did it and it wasn't the fletching? Cause I've done that as a kid. Because you got the feathers right and you gotta. And if you're putting it too close and that feather runs right over there. That feather will. [00:07:44] Speaker B: No, it was stuck through his hand. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Oh, snap. [00:07:47] Speaker B: And they had to take him to the hospital for them to appropriately break it off and pull it out the other side of his hand. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Ding. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Rest in peace. He's still alive. But throwing John under the bus right now. Sorry, John just told your story. But anyways, needless to say. Needless to say, it's not the easiest, so it's a good miracle. But it's not the miracle. [00:08:12] Speaker A: There's, there's a bunch of miracles in this. Okay, but, but I mean, like you say, right? If it's not that high, then the miracles, they can't hit him. But if it's super high, then you're like, well, no wonder they couldn't hit him. But then the miracle on the flip side is then how did he get all that jumping off that thing and. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Running off into the forest with people chasing him? [00:08:30] Speaker A: I'll tell you what it was. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Tell me. [00:08:31] Speaker A: It's the first wing suit, man. That guy squirreled it. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Well, I mean, from, you see the cape in the picture, right? [00:08:37] Speaker A: That's what it was. [00:08:38] Speaker B: What if he just grabbed. My gosh, what if he just grabbed the two side of his cape? He's like, man can fly. We're giving the wrong people credit for this. All right, so, no, he didn't break his leg. I mean, dude, I step out of bed sometimes and roll my ankle. I don't know how a dude would jump off a wall and then run off into the forest with other athletic people chasing him. [00:08:59] Speaker A: I mean, that's the, that's the, that's another point. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Maybe he just rolled really well. I don't know, cuz. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Cuz if you come off that, you know, the people wanting to kill him, they're like, this guy's not going far. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Jumping off a wall like that, you'd just be able to haul them off from right on the other side of your wall. But to have to be able to get off and run, you bring up great points. [00:09:18] Speaker B: All right. I guess there's also that whole thing about him nailing the. Within five years, Jesus will be bored. I mean, there's. I guess there's that. There's that part of the miracle, too, that he kind of, like, nailed it down to the date. But, yeah, there's a stack of miracles in this story. [00:09:36] Speaker A: There are some impressive miracles here. And you got me running down story tape. Maybe we should push the story off until a little bit later, though. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:09:45] Speaker A: I have my own Samuel Lamanite story. [00:09:47] Speaker B: Oh. When it's appropriate, put it in there. [00:09:51] Speaker A: All right. [00:09:51] Speaker B: All right. I can't be the only one dropping bombs. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Mine aren't near as good as yours. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Seriously. You should ask my wife, who had to witness the whole thing. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I just can't believe your arms didn't. [00:10:02] Speaker B: My arms were the things that were. [00:10:03] Speaker A: Fine I as a kid, and I don't remember why. We were preparing at church. You've got the table, the sacrament table, and you've got the room behind. And it probably wasn't a Sunday. I'm trying to remember. I doubt it was. We wouldn't have done this on a Sunday. But for whatever reason, the ceiling tiles, we moved them out, and we were, like, headed up into the walkways, cat walks above. And I'd pulled myself up, or maybe I was coming down into the room, and as I lowered myself and just dropped, and then my arms caught it. It pulled some muscles. It did stuff. It didn't feel great. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I was sore, but it wasn't my arms. [00:10:45] Speaker A: I'm impressed. I'm glad you caught those bars athletically. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yes, me too. [00:10:50] Speaker A: It's one of those things you remember, and you're like, mandy, I can do that. But you would never replicate it. [00:10:55] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. I would blow it if I ever tried to do it again. [00:10:59] Speaker A: All right, well, as I was reading this week's lesson, I noticed something, and I don't know, maybe this is just becoming my thing or maybe this is. Maybe I'm too obsessed with it. Samuel, he goes to Zarahamla and they reject him, and so he's going away dejected because he's not from there. He's a lamanite. He's coming. All the Lamanites did control the city for a time, right? Apparently he's coming from the south. He's returning back to the land southward. And the lord stops him and says, go back. And when I thought about that, I'm like, wait a second. We've heard this before. It's a theme, right? We heard it before with Alma. You've got to go back to the land of Ammonihah. And we heard it with Abinadi, but this is the first time when I stopped and I thought, wait, how many times have we heard it before? And I'm like, wait, there's three instances. [00:12:00] Speaker B: We haven't even gotten into the Bible ones yet either. [00:12:02] Speaker A: But, yeah, okay, so in the Book of Mormon, you have three instances where they're stopped and they're told to go back to the land where they came from. And usually when they want to kill you the first time around, they don't usually receive you. Super nice. The second time. Of those three instances, one was killed Benedi, and two were miraculously saved, Alma and Samuel. And I'm right back on that whole one third, two third things that I keep getting stuck on seeing. And I'm like, I don't know. It's just interesting to me. Now, Samuel says a few interesting things here when he talks about the destruction of the city until the fourth generation. And I'm like, what does that mean, until a fourth generation? And I think as a kid, I've always read this, and I was thinking about, oh, it will be four generations until it's destroyed. So after they all repent and they're all good or whatever, four generations later, they're going to fall and they're going to die. And then I just associate it to 400 years after Christ came. And somehow that's what it made. I don't know. Somehow that's what made sense to me in my mind as a kid, reading this and understanding it, and I started thinking about that, and I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. That is so disconnected from what Samuel's talking about. What do you mean, four generations from you guys? Four generations. You can't tell me it's four generations from them to when the Nephites are wiped off the face of the earth. But you can't also tell me that there's four generations between when Samuel's talking to and when the land itself is destroyed at the death of Christ before he comes and visits the Americas. So that got me thinking a little bit, what does it mean unto four generations? I started kind of diving into a little bit of research on this, and obviously, it comes from the Old Testament, when the Lord says, until the third and the fourth generation, I will. And this idea that, that the decisions that you make today are not just contained to yourself, but have an impact on your children and your children's children, and your children's children's children, until the third and the fourth generation, is a lasting impact. But then he always caveats that unless they repent. And see, for me, the book of Mormon becomes a fascinating lesson. Like, we look at the destruction that happens before Christ comes, and we look at the destruction at the end. And some people look at it as our day, as inevitable that we are going to be destroyed. But I look at the Book of Mormon as a warning that perhaps we can learn from them so that we aren't destroyed. And I go back to the story of Job and Nineveh. What happened there? Job's prophesying to Nineveh that they will be destroyed. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Job was. Or Jonah. [00:15:06] Speaker A: I'm sorry. Thank you, Jonah. Jonah's prophesying to Nineveh that they will be destroyed. And then what happens? They're saved. So was Jonah not an accurate prophet? Was he a false prophet? Because he didn't accurately. Orlando. There's the thing the Lord says, unless you repent. And so there's some interesting balances in this between repenting and being saved and repenting not, and being destroyed. And as I was trying to understand this idea with until the fourth generation and looking at how would that be fulfilled and how did that react? The timeline. Do you know how long this is before Christ comes and visits the Americas? [00:15:50] Speaker B: Within five years. [00:15:51] Speaker A: It's within five years from when the sign of Christ's birth, which means. [00:15:56] Speaker B: So then 35 years. [00:15:58] Speaker A: 30. [00:15:59] Speaker B: How old was Jesus when he died? [00:16:00] Speaker A: 33. 34. Right in there. Right. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Okay, so 40 years. [00:16:04] Speaker A: 40 years. [00:16:04] Speaker B: Less than 40 years. [00:16:05] Speaker A: It's right around 40 years. Right. And so as I started thinking about that. Wait a second. It's kind of interesting. Until the fourth generations. And so we have generations being different definitions, different ideas. Right. A generation is typically thought to be about 40 years, because then in the next generation, your kid. So four generations could be 160 years. But generation x is not 40 years. Generation y, generation z is not 40 years. We start describing those generations in terms of society and changes in society, and that period is much smaller. That's more like a 15 year than what we're seeing. And I go and I look at Samuel and the distance between him. And when Christ dies and he comes and visits America, which is about 40 years, there are different. There's actually four different transformational times. One, some actually repent and are baptized and listen to Samuel. But the Gadianton robbers kind of rue the day the city's getting destroyed. And then you have Laconius, which we're going to read about later, who's one of my favorites, rallies them, saves them. A lot of people repent, they're saved, and you're like, man, there's only 40 years between here and Christ. What's rallying them is when they see, to your point, the five years, when we prophesize the signs of the coming of Christ, and they see those signs and they believe, and there's peace, and they're converted and they're whatever, and then they fall off into another apostasy. And then Laconius tries to rally them in and they fend off the Gadiantons. And then what happens? The entire government just dissolves. Then you have all of these just little factions, and there's just wickedness again. And you almost break this into four periods of wickedness. Repentance, wickedness, repentance, wickedness. And then you have everything kind of come to an end. But when I realized that this was a 40 year period of time that we were talking about, it made me think about exodus, Israelites in the wilderness, and they're 40 years before they come into the land of Canaan. And what was the thing, we need this generation to die off. And so it got me thinking about, you know, we were already in the two thirds. What's 40 have to do? And just to give you guys a little bit of context too, a little bit more to this. In the ancient near east, in the babylonian system, in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, they used a sexagesimal system. And what I mean, we use a decimal desk, meaning ten. So it's ten based. Ten, a hundred, a thousand. We're very much ten based. We have to round it off to the nearest whole ten or whatever. They used a six base system, sexagesimal. And we see that today because our calendar, in a sense, is influenced by it. The twelve months of the year, it's not ten months, it's twelve, which is sex suggestible. There's 60 seconds in a minute, there's 60 minutes in an hour. There are 24 hours in a day. All of this is divisible by six. It's your sexy gessimal system. Well, in a seximal system, you're not going all the way to 100, you're going to 60. So go back and look at the number 40 again, what is 40? It's two thirds of 60. And I thought, here it is again. And it keeps haunting me. It keeps haunting me. But when we looked at, I was having a conversation with a professor of mine who was at BYU, and we were talking about these triads, and he provided me with some context to 40. And this is something that I should have caught on a lot sooner, having had six kids. But 40 is also the number of weeks for the gestational period of a human, for a child to develop and be born. It's a 40 week deal. And so he said, what was going on with Israel and having to stay in the wilderness for 40 years? It's like the 40 weeks, he says, yes, it's the death of a nation, but it's the birth of a new nation. That generation had to die off so that the new one could be born. And that 40 years was symbolic of the 40 weeks that it takes to develop a new infant. And now you're being, birthing a new nation. And he said, think again about Christ. Right after he's baptized is when he goes into the wilderness and he faces those temptations for 40 days. And again, that 40 becomes symbolic of this, this, this birthing process. He has just gone through baptism, and he is being born and starting his ministry, starting a new phase, a new cycle, a new what he was going to do right at the end of his life. And so I started thinking about that one third, two thirds, again, two thirds, 40 out of 60 is not symbolic of the children that were going to be born here on earth and that process of being born and being created and starting all over. But it's fascinating that the birth of a new nation to welcome in the coming of Christ here in the book of mormonization, is it not also associated with the death of the previous nation? And think about their wickedness and the destructions and the abominations, and think about the destruction that happened at the death of Christ. Mountains falling on cities and the upheaval, the massive amount of destruction. It's the death, but is it not also the birth of anew? And why is it the birth is always associated in the sense of, with the death of something? And is that not baptism? Yes, baptism is coming out of the waters as a new person, but is it not also coming after we drowned the old one? Isn't that why the water is at ground level is because it's representing us going into the grave. And so this dichotomy of death and destruction with the birth and the rebirth, it all kind of came together a little bit for me as I was reading about Samuel, and I was seeing these patterns repeating in my mind, and patterns, you know, they can be ridiculous. You could be seeing shadows, you know, when you're scared, you see your own shadows, wherever, whatever. But to actually have it start to come together in a way that made sense or told me something a little bit more was something I kind of appreciated. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:23:13] Speaker A: Love it. All right. That was kind of a long rant. [00:23:18] Speaker B: That's good stuff in there. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Let's, uh, let's take a look at something that he says that I find also fascinating. And. And that is the sign of his birth that you point out. Right? And. And he says that when the savior come, when. When he's gonna be born in the world, they're going to experience a day and then a night as if it was day and then another day. But this night, that was going to be a day. The sun is going to set, and he says, and that's how you'll know that the night came as the sun set, but it will still be just as light as if it was daytime. And then the sun will rise again. And it's an interesting sign to give for his birth and the coming of the savior. Obvious connections with light being associated with his birth, and darkness that's associated with his death. But I think this raises some interesting questions. If something like this happened, how come it's not written about in the New Testament? Why don't we have a day and a night and a day where there's no darkness at night in the New Testament? And what could have caused such an event? What could have caused the world to stay light in the middle of night? And I was thinking, you know, is this associated with the new star? I mean, if you have something go supernova not too far from here, here it can get bright enough that it lights up the night, but then we don't have records of that happening. And again, why wasn't it written in the New Testament if that was the case? And as I started to look through the historical accounts, Pliny. Pliny the elder, who was a roman citizen. More than that, he was a commander in the navy, but he was also a natural historian. He lived 23 ad up until 79. And it's easy to know that he died in 79 because he actually died in Vesuvius. You know the. You know the phrase, Nate? Um. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Wait, he really did? [00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker B: That's a bummer. How do we know that he did? Who kept track of those records. [00:25:30] Speaker A: His nephew tells the story. All right, Pliny the junior, or that you got the elder and the younger and. And so he was, okay, here's, here's how the story goes, right? He's, he's a natural historian. He loves history. He's also a commander in the Navy. And he wrote, what is it, 37 volumes, collecting, like, all of the human experience of the time, everything we know about the world and how the planets work and the stars and the natural history of the earth. He wrote a pretty comprehensive book. And they saw Vesuvius and the eruptions going, and he got in a boat to try to go help him, right? So he's riding in there and as they're getting close, pumice and ash and things are falling on the boat. It's risking starting the boat on fire. And the captain in the boat says, we need to turn this thing around. And he says, fortune favors the brave onward. And so he pushes them on and they get onto the land and they're trying to rescue some people that were caught in this thing. And they get to the house and they're trying to wait it out to see if things will calm down. It's just getting worse. And they're worried that the house is going to collapse. So they're making their way back to the boat. And he already suffered a little bit from asthma and just choking in the cough, like, he collapsed and died and they left him behind. And so they got on the boat and left. And so he's the one that didn't make it out, but he saved some people on the way out. So pliny, his nephew, tells the story. [00:26:55] Speaker B: All right, all right. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Fortune favors the braves. [00:26:58] Speaker B: I'd be like, no, it's a bad move. We're going home live to tell another story. [00:27:04] Speaker A: But in his natural history, he writes, he calls them nocturnal sons. And he recorded an event, he said, in 44. Around 44 BC, shortly after the death of Caesar, there was a nocturnal sun where the nighttime was just as bright as the daytime. And this has actually happened in couple times. There's records of it happening in the 18 hundreds. And so scientists have been trying to research these accounts because we've never seen it in our modern time and try to understand what it is in the accounts that we have that are more modern. They say that it was so bright at night that you can actually sit outside and read a book in the light. You can see it. And so these nocturnal sons and what Pliny was describing. Researchers in Canada 2017 published a fascinating article. They were trying so to understand how this worth the earth works a little bit in the atmosphere. This is kind of fascinating. In the atmosphere, we have an ozone layer. Ozone is three oxygen molecules bonded together, and oxygen is two oxygen molecules bonded together. Oxygen is really good for us. Ozone actually kills us, but if we breathe it in, but in the atmosphere, ozone is what saves us. In order for it to change from an o three molecule to an o two molecule, it needs an energy source. And the sun's radiation, the ultraviolet radiation, provides it the energy it needs to split off that third oxygen become o two. And so it's absorbing the ultraviolet radiation and protecting us from the harmful rays of the sun. That's our ozone shield. And then when the sun sets at night, as the earth rotates it around in the darkness and there's no more of that radiation, what happens? Because if it just depleted the ozone, we would get to the point where we ran out of ozone. It would be the end of it, right? But no, these oxygen molecules start to bind together again to form the o three. But where it took energy to. To release it, now it's releasing energy to form it. So when the oxygen bonds back into the ozone, it emits light. And so these researchers in Canada, they created sensors to measure the glow in the sky and try to detect it. And what they found is that when you have different waves of atmosphere start to stack on top of each other, it magnifies the light that's produced. As the ozone starts to reform to where if you get, like, seven layers in, it's a tenfold effect to where they think that what is causing these events is just this stacking of these waves in the atmosphere, of oxygen rebinding and emitting light to where they say that this causes the sky at night to become as light as if it was daytime, if you stack enough of these up. But the fascinating thing about what they said is, when these events happen, it's not a global event, it's a local regional event to where the broadest area where you would see something like this is maybe the size of Europe. So if you think about it, if this happened in the continental us to where the sun sets, regardless of what the phase of the moon is, all of a sudden it is bright enough as if it was daytime. It would be something that is regionalized to the entirety of the United States, if you will, or the new world, to where you wouldn't be seeing it in the New Testament. And so no biblical authors would have been observing it or writing about it. It was a sign, special and specific to them. Where I think this gets most fascinating for me is Joseph Smith writing about it. If you're trying to convince the world that your book is true, why in the world would you record something like this that is not attested for in the Bible? If he is just copying the Bible, oh, why don't we just talk about the new star that's born and leave some of these things out? Because how do you explain the night being as light as day in his understanding in the world that they lived in when this discovery is not even made till 2017? We don't even understand. Tell me. Joseph Smith had a comprehensive understanding of how ozone layers worked and the emission of light and the stacking of atmospheric lenses to be able to create an effect that's only seen in the new world. So I'm going to write about this and convince people that just is not there. [00:31:49] Speaker B: Yeah, he wouldn't have done that. He might have. I mean, he might have known about it because Jesus taught him about it, but he didn't know about it before he started translating the book. I'm with you. [00:32:06] Speaker A: I mean, if he did, he doesn't care if people believe it because I don't think a lot of people would believe a book that's just got these random things. Like, why would you include that? If it was me and I'm trying to write this book, I would have been very cautious and like, man, I think we should leave this part out. People are going to have a hard time trying to understand how this miracle happened. It also shines light. That's a poor choice of words. But on the miracle of Joshua in the Old Testament, because that's another one that's really had me stumped. How is it that the Lord can command the son to stay still? Right? And in the old Testament, Joshua's fighting, and as the night's falling, they're winning their enemies, and their enemies are looking forward to the night time to just try to, like, get away and recoup, right? But the Lord pauses, and the day just keeps going until they can smite all their enemies dead. And I'm like, how in the world? Because if you were to stop the earth's rotation. Yeah, that would be a bad day. That would not be good. So I guess another point in hammering this in and spending all this time trying to explain it. Let's go back to what President Monson always used to say. The wisdom of God at times appears like foolishness to Mandev. But the single greatest lesson that we can learn is that when God speaks and a man listens, that man will always be right. Because some of this thing, some of these things seem like foolishness, like, no, there is no way that happened. There's no way. And because we can't understand how it could have happened, we become easy to dismiss the wisdom of God. And I think there's a lot of things like that that we don't fully understand. Are we going to have the patience to wait on God to the point we get the understanding that matches the faith that we had to where we see the wise, the hows? Or do we simply think we know better? Right? How could it be that we know better when what we know, if there's anything that we know, it should be that we know we don't know enough. If that wasn't the case, why would we have science? Why would we have astronomy? Why would we invest so much money in all the science and learning if we didn't know that really our knowledge is lacking? [00:34:29] Speaker B: It's awesome. Let's keep going. [00:34:30] Speaker A: All right, Samuel on the wall. You ready for my sad story, my random story? [00:34:38] Speaker B: Ready? [00:34:38] Speaker A: It's not as good as yours. In my first area in my mission, I had a companion. We lived in the house. There was four of us there, and we decided it would be a good idea to do a reenactment of Samuel the Lamanite. So as my companion, we made him get up on the, on the wall, which was the counter at the kitchen at that time, and we were just going to throw things at him. And miss. I didn't miss. That miracle did not happen. Poor Samuel. I'm sorry, Elder Villegas. I kind of drilled him in a place that guys don't like to be drilled. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so I'm sorry. Terrible story. [00:35:19] Speaker B: Sorry, elder Viegas. What's that, his last name? [00:35:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Sorry that Jason's a jerk. [00:35:25] Speaker A: If your name was Samuel, maybe you would have survived. Oh, man, wrong name. Don't put your trust in elder. Well, that's a, that's a worse lesson that was. [00:35:34] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know. [00:35:35] Speaker A: That story went from bad for worse real quick. [00:35:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it did. I mean, it's worth it. All right, let's. Let's do this. Samuel. Unfortunately, fortunately, unfortunately for the people trying to hit him, they couldn't. Unfortunately for Elda Viegas, his name isn't Samuel, and Jason was 2ft in front of him, so. All right, what do you got for us? Ann was 19 at the time. Or 20 at the time. [00:36:02] Speaker A: 19. [00:36:03] Speaker B: We gotta. We need to be nicer to our 19 year old selves. I feel like some mistakes were made. All right. What do you got for us, Jace? [00:36:16] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, you do. I think I'm out. I think I ran out of gas. No way. What do you got for us, Nate? [00:36:25] Speaker B: One of the things that I did, one of the things that I've been trying to kind of explain to my children, because they. And that it taught me a profound lesson in trying to explain this to them, is when you hear knee fights, you think, what good guys? When you hear lamanites, what do you think? The bad guys. And as we've been kind of doing some of our study, it's been really hard for my kids to kind of keep up with who are the good guys in the story, and who are the bad guys in the story. And for whatever it's worth, again, my oldest being twelve, and I feel like all of my kids are relatively bright people, and so I can try to have some of these deeper conversations with them, but my older ones get it a little bit more than my younger ones, and that is the story wouldn't make sense if there were good guys and bad guys as a whole, because that's not real. And this is, again, it's such a small detail, but I do think that it's at least worth mentioning that Christ's children are those that know his voice, that to be a disciple of Christ, you don't have to be born into the right family. You don't have to be born. It's like none of that is the qualifications for who is and who isn't God's people. And I'm happy that the book does a very good job of trying to make us have to understand the nuance and the depth of how entire nations can. Can fall away, can repent, but that also, a lot of the people that we may perceive as the bad guys may be the righteous ones that are. That are there calling us to repentance. And I'm trying to do my best to teach my children, hey, when you read this book, there aren't the good guys and the bad guys as a through line for this whole thing. And in the end, as a child, a teenager, and maybe even as a young adult, you kind of see the end of the Nephites as this tragic ending. But at a certain point, you have to kind of go, you know, along the way, the nephite nation was more wicked than the lamanite nation in a lot of these stories that we read about as well. So, yeah, I guess there is a tragedy involved with this. But at the end of the day, people are people. I guess it shouldn't shock us when we read this and go like, yeah, why would God protect them if they aren't looking to him? Like, why would God continue to protect them if I believe that when, and we'll get to this when we read the third Nephi. But it's important to realize, like, Christ comes and visits the Americas, not the Nephites blank period or not the Lamanites period, Christ came and visited everyone that was righteous and that was there and that was waiting for him. So again, as subtle and as dumb as a detail, it is like, I think that there's something that's actually beautiful, that we call him Samuel the Lamanite, because he was the righteous one that was there, clearly telling other Nephites, quote unquote, the good guys, they needed to get right. So that's something I at least wanted to throw in this week. [00:40:13] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's really good. As I think about this week's reading, I mean, we've covered some of the kind of the interesting things and trying to go into semantics and understand patterns and whatever else, but I think it would be wrong to leave this week's episode without maybe diving into some of the message or the context of it. Because aside from the miracles, and maybe that's even another question, why does he give us a miracle? A sign of his birth, a sign of his death? And isn't that so that we can believe and have faith on him, that he's going to do his part, which requires an enormous amount of faith that the atonement actually works? How do we actually take the stoneman, study it, see it and prove X equals it requires faith. And there has to be a signs and miracles and things to help us to trust the Lord. He is building confidence with us with these miracles. But as we get into the heart of his message, there's two things that really stand out to me from Samuel's message, aside from the prophecies. One is procrastination and why we shouldn't. And as I read his message, to me, it is just as strong as what you read in Alma 34. Do not put off the day of your repentance. And we talk about as we get harder and our hearts hardening, and it almost sets us up like we're concrete, right? We're very workable at the beginning, but we start to get stuck in our ways. And it gets harder and harder for us to change as our heart starts to set and harden. How workable is dried concrete to try to maneuver and move and work with? And as you think about it, if I have practiced my whole life on putting something off, at some point I just give up on doing it because I've trained myself that it's no longer important, it's not a big deal. And to me, it's not worth doing at that point, and it's done. But if I can do it quick and get it out of the way and work on it, then I've trained myself that this is important and I can change. And so part one, in procrastination, I think, bleeds into the second message that I really take away from Samuel's preaching, which is repentance, right? And maybe they're one in the same. He's saying, don't put off repentance. But the other thing that he's really talking about is repentance. And as I talked to my kids this week in our come follow me lesson, and the question is asked, I think I asked my kids what is repentance? And they come back with, oh, you've got to, you know, you've got to say you're sorry, and you've got to, like, here's the, here's the things that you do to show repentance, which is appropriate. But at the same time, I don't think, I don't think that's what's going to hold us back when we get to the kingdom of God is did you, did you make sure you produce this list of things in order to make sure that you cross that and it's balanced and you're okay? Repentance, to me is much deeper than that. In that repentance is I change, right? Repentance is turning, is becoming, it's something that we've talked about, the atonement. I don't think the atonement is a way to save Jason. Where Jason is at today, where Jason is just, you know, what Christ paid for that. So I'm good. I'm free. And he saved me how I am, and he loves me for who I am, and I'm saved. To me, the atonement is Christ was perfect. Christ was saved. And Christ created a portal, a tunnel, a way through which I can be saved if I want to go through him. Or in other words, Christ saved Christ, but yet opened it up for everyone who wants to be saved, if we want to through him be saved. He says, I am the way, the truth and the light. No man comes to the Father except through me. And you brought this up on a recent podcast, Nate, when we were talking about the night that we were there at the tabernacle, guarding it on guard duty, right? And to walk through the tabernacle and see in the holy place all of the symbolism tied to Christ, the menorah, which represents Christ, as we've talked about with the book of Revelation in John and also in Nephi, when he sees the tree of life and the light, the fruit of the tree, and Christ is the light of the world, and the fruit of the tree of life is that not life? And yet Christ's body is the fruit that we eat. His bread and the water, the blood and the body of him is the fruit of the tree of life. And right across from the altar, you have the show bread table, where you have the bread of life, which is a symbol of Christ. And you have the incense altar, where the prayer is. The intercessory prayer is being raised up to heaven. And Christ in his great intercessory prayer, before he goes and offers the atonement, everything is a symbol to me of Christ in that holy place. And so no man can enter into the holy of holies on the other side, which has the throne and the presence of God. No man can enter into the Father, except he passed first through the holy place, Christ. And so I look at the atonement as a funneling, as a way to bring us in that I have to change and become like Christ if I am going to enter into the presence of God. And so repentance for me is, what do I need to do different today? And if I am not constantly changing, then I'll never be like God. I'll never be like Christ. I'll never make it. And so that procrastination and repentance comes in and it says, preach nothing to this world, save it. Be repentance. They put a huge emphasis on repentance. Cry repentance. And all the day long cry, repentance. Cry repentance. What is it to cry repentance? And as a kid, I always thought, cry repentance. Or repent. Repent. Repent. It just seems like you're scolding. It just seems like you're saying, you know, you're wrong, you're bad. It's diminutive. It makes you feel like you're less than the dirt, or you have to repent. It's very negative. But when I start to see the atonement, as an enabling power to become like Christ and be like him, it's not so negative anymore. If repent means proactively become like Christ, seek to be like him, seek to imitate him. It's not so much a negative of what you don't do as much as it's a positive in what I am trying to emulate and who I am trying to repeat what it means. And, Nate, you really teach me, taught me this when you talked about, don't take the Lord's name in vain. And I always, as a kid, you can't say God without referring to goddesse. And then you said, but don't we take his name upon us? And if we're not acting like him, are we not doing it in vain? And that idea of taking his name on us and becoming like him and trying to represent him and working towards that, to me, the atonement becomes a very positive message, but repentance becomes a positive message. It's not about all the negative things that we have to focus on to leave behind and the checklist of who we need to talk to and saying our sorries. It's about actively developing our potential and reaching that potential in a lot of different ways. How do we become better physically, socially, spiritually? [00:48:15] Speaker B: Well, in the repentance process, as we kind of believe in our church or teach and kind of detail out, that isn't the finish line. Like, the finish line isn't going, like you said, checking off the list. Like, okay, I made restitution. I felt bad. I said, I'm sorry, confessed my sins, and now I'm good, right? Like, that's how the Pharisees worshiped. And you're nailing this and really bringing the point home, which is those things aren't the finish line. If anything, those are a great way to get us moving on the path of what we should be doing, which is becoming different, changing different, making it so that our behavior in the future is different, not necessarily just going to confession. Plenty of churches can do that, right? Plenty of churches can offer you go and sit in a booth and tell somebody the things that you've done wrong. It's like, that's just, that's not the finish line. But I do think that there is still value in doing those things if it. If it gets us the momentum moving in the right direction. Right. But I will say, like you, having needed to very much continue to repent my whole life, but in my youth, before going on a mission, needing to take care of some things, a lot of that repentance process wasn't a checklist. So much of that was actually truly going, oh, I don't like that person, and I don't want to be that person. It wasn't going down a list going, have I made restitution? Have I done this? Have I done this? Have I done this? [00:49:55] Speaker A: Just to clarify, that person being who you were yourself. [00:49:58] Speaker B: That's exactly right. And by the way, that, to me, is the catalyst of so much more of the things that I'm trying to improve on my life anyways, is an honest assessment of, I don't like who that person is referring to myself. I don't want to have to feel like I have to keep defending that person's bad behavior. What can I do so that I don't have to keep doing that? It's so much less about a checklist of things. And like, well, you didn't technically check that box of point number five on the repentance process. It's like, no, no, no, those things are really. And it's. And it's helpful to teach those things, especially to young people, to explain, like, yes, to become somebody different. You do need to make right the things that you've made wrong. You do need to confess and take responsibility for the things. All of those things are still good. I guess all I'm saying is, is that you brought up a good point. I only want to say there is still value in those things, but not as the finish line. And I have friends, dear friends, who went through the repentance process because it felt so much like a weird checklist at the end when they still didn't feel forgiven. And it actually was kind of the catalyst of them leaving the church. It felt so much the way they've described it is like, I don't understand how I can be forgiven from the things that I've done wrong by simply confessing some things and things like that. And you're like, you're right. Those aren't the things. Don't leave because of this. That's only a, hey, this is so we can start having this conversation. Yes, if you feel like you haven't put that person away, then, yes, there is still so much left. But the fact of the matter is, we're all in that same boat. Truly. We all. Maybe not just to certain degrees, but at the end of the day, our finish line is, I feel, probably long after we're dead, that finish line isn't in this life. Therefore, you're right. But also take heart in the fact that we're all going through it in different degrees and different levels and different things like that, too. And, you know, I can't speak for other people and I can't speak for how other people feel, but I do. I can sympathize with the idea, which is, I know I've done something terrible. I feel like I should be feeling a lot worse about this, and I do feel a lot worse about this. Sometimes it almost feels cheap to go, no, no, no. Just go make restitution, confess your sins, miss the sacrament a few times, and you're good. And I don't think that, I'm not even suggesting that that's how that whole thing went, but I could see if it felt like that to go like, oh, yeah, that feels unfinished. It's like, well, yeah, a lot of people unfortunately skip the last couple steps, which is then you need to have an accounting with God. Right? That's a pretty important part that you can't have with a bishop, that you can't have with a stake president that you. That's the hard one, right? Is that you. And I guess then to throw it back to you is. Isn't that kind of what we're saying, though? Is that isn't then that relationship with God between you and him to go, here's where we need to be making these changes line upon line, you know? [00:53:39] Speaker A: Well, I mean, look at two siblings, right? If you've got one that's just punching the other one, saying sorry every time. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Nobody believes that. Nobody believes you're sorry, right? It doesn't matter if there is no change of behavior. And the change of behavior really stokes from a change. Because if you try to just change your behavior on the outside, I mean, even all these lessons that we've been learning about Moroni and cleansing the inner vessel really gets internalized here. A mighty change of heart when you have no more desire to, when that change happens from the inside out and you become a different person, and you would never dare hit your sibling, because how could I? The very thought of that seems wrong or off, right? We change from the inside. And that change of heart that we pray for and that we seek about, that's repentance. That's what repentance is. And I feel like I want to flesh this out just a little bit more. And I know I've been talking about this for a while, but I want to come back and revisit this with light. But before I do, I think it's worth saying that maybe the greatest enemy to repentance. And the greatest thing that stops our progress is a false notion or idea that God loves me for who I am, which is true. He loves me for who I am. But this idea that if God loves me, he'll let me be who I am, and he's going to let me. I don't know if I'm stating that right. [00:55:14] Speaker B: I do think you're stating that right. And I also agree with you that there's. But the thing is, what you're saying is it gets used in very manipulative ways. [00:55:28] Speaker A: Love me for me. Which means that I shouldn't change and what is changed. So we've been talking about defining repentance, and I am trying at the root of it, to define repentance as change. And what's the enemy? To change. I don't need to change. I am fine how I am. What is that? It is blocking repentance. It's refusing to repent. It's damning. It's damning. [00:55:57] Speaker B: And not just to change too, but change very specifically to what become like Jesus. Like, that's. That's the other thing, too, is that I want you to keep going. But I'm saying it's not simply, dude, we can change all the time, but we can also change for the worst, too. So I guess I'm just saying it's like, it's. It's not change for the sake of constantly changing. It's changing for the. For the constant betterment of oneself, to emulate the only person that we believe that you can be saved through. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Thank you. Yes. Yes. When Christ says anything to us as an invitation, what is it that he says? Come follow me. And it's more than just a lesson that we're doing every week like it is, how do we get up from what we're doing and move towards him in a positive direction? How do we change? It's repentance. Come follow me. Is repentance at its heart? [00:56:54] Speaker B: Come follow me, by the way, too, and I know a lot of people who would not like to hear this is the exact opposite of I love you just the way you are. I'm sorry, those are two conflicting statements. [00:57:08] Speaker A: One is the antithesis of change. [00:57:11] Speaker B: Yes. By the way, come follow me isn't enemies with I love you? You know, like those two things are hand in hand. I think that, unfortunately, a lot of times is I love you and accept you just the way you are leads to an idea of, like you said, no need to change. And I feel like that butts right up against. And by the way, I don't know anywhere of the scriptures that it says that. I'm unfamiliar with anywhere in the scriptures where Christ says, I love you, and I'm fine with you just the way you are. And in fact, I think Christ's entire ministry proved that that's not what he meant. Because even the people that he healed, even the people that he. That came to him to seek repentance, what was so much of the charge after? We always forget the last line of the woman, and that's go and sin no more. There's still always an expectation, and this is why I have a hard time sometimes even with the idea of unconditionally. I just don't. I am of the belief that every transaction has two sides of an equation, including all of the transactions we have with Christ. Go and sin no more is the other side of that equation. Right. Your sins are forgiven is one side of that. And the idea of I love you just the way you are, that doesn't compute. There's no other side of that equation. By the way. Come follow me, and I love you more than you'll ever be able to understand vibe perfectly. Those two things don't conflict. Come follow me because I love you so much. Come follow me so that I can. What? Exalt you? [00:59:07] Speaker A: That's it. One of them is exalting, one of them is bringing us up, and the other one is actually damning because it's keeping us from being exalted, it's keeping us from progressing. I think the closest we get to Christ coming to me is the 99 and the one where Christ leaves the sheep and goes to the one to do what? And that's it. That's it. That's what I want to nail the idea that he leaves them to go get that sheep. But what does he do? He doesn't take all 99 sheep and follow them out and say, you're going to be like this one. We're going to build a house. And it's okay that you're out here in the wilderness. Yeah. Where you're at is perfectly fine. Let's just, let's just. You know what? Stay here. No, he lays that sheep on his shoulder and brings him back to the 99, to the fold. And so, yes, he finds us, but he doesn't save us because we're going to be stubborn and stay where we're at. There always has to be that movement, that progression back to the fold. And you said, how did you put it? Love you. [01:00:18] Speaker B: How you are yeah. I love you just the way you are. [01:00:21] Speaker A: Okay. And I want to take that statement and put it up next to the natural man is an enemy to God and has been forever and will be forever and ever unless he yielded to the enticing. [01:00:31] Speaker B: There's the other side of the equation. [01:00:33] Speaker A: Of the natural man. So how do we. What's the word I'm looking for? No, no. I'm a lack of wordsmithing. How do we reconcile? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Nate. How do we reconcile those two? Because God. Doesn't he love me? Absolutely. He loves us. But what if I'm not doing great? Am I saying that because we are sinful, God doesn't love us? Absolutely not. He loved us so much, he sent his son. And so how do we rectify the. Well, I'm out here, and God's gonna. No, no, no. That's not the case. But yet he still loves you. And I think. I think one of the best ways to look at this is I'm gonna take this and kind of bring it back to light and the earth revolving around the sun. There's a time of the year when the earth is a million miles closer to the sun or more than when it is out further. And you would think, okay, probably the summertime then, right? The earth is closer to the sun in the summertime, which is why it hot, why it's hotter. Makes sense to me. No, no. The earth is closer to the sun in the winter time. Like, well, how does that make sense? And it's the tilt of the earth's axis that causes the northern hemisphere to face towards the sun in the summertime when it's further away, so that it can feel warmer because of the direction that it's facing and the light that it's getting. And so when we go to this and we see the sign of Christ coming bathed in light, the darkness becomes light and the sign of his death as the light is chased away in the darkness. I love this contrasting, this idea of imagery. So how I reconcile God loving me even though I'm not perfect and yet my need to, even though he loves me still being the natural man and being an enemy to him, and my desire, my need to change is he loves me on the direction that I'm facing. If you love me, keep my commandments. [01:02:45] Speaker B: And it goes even beyond that, that a lot of people don't love that. Read the New Testament is he also says, if you love me, I will love you back. Like, I mean, it is conditions. He puts conditions on his love like, I know that this is a very uncomfortable topic for a lot of people, but the thing is, is that I believe. I believe I'm taking Jesus at his word here. If you love God, he loves you. Okay? And by the way, too, it's like a lot of people will use the words unconditional, usually as a way to what? To not improve? Or to say, this is just how I am. And a lot of people will say, and I'm trying to make this as crystal clear as possible, a lot of people will use, God loves me just the way I am. Okay, but where's the rest of that equation? Because what? Because I don't want to change. Well, you're not arguing with me at this point. You're arguing with Jesus. You're arguing with what Jesus had to say about that. It's not me saying that that's not a correct statement or that there's a flaw in that statement. If you say, God loves me just the way I am because he knows that I'm doing everything I can to change and improve and become like him, then I'm like, okay, cool. You gave me another side of that equation that checks out. And again, this isn't me, as in, like, Nate that's judging this, because I'm not. Because I don't know. I don't know your heart. I only know my heart, and even then, it's suspicious. I'm doing my best. My point is that so many times we try to use the word love as such a manipulative word to serve our own purposes. And when it says, put no other gods before me, that means your heart, too. That means my heart, too. That means that we aren't putting our desires, not statues, not distractions, those things. Yes, to. But this all comes back to the idea of, and I agree with you 100% on this, is we cannot be saved unless we become like Jesus, unless he can see his image in our countenance. We are. We are just clubbed over the head with this idea of go and sin no more. Repent. Repent. I want to see my face when. When I. Other people should see my face when they see yours. I want to see my reflection in you. Come, follow me. Not go do whatever it is you want to do. And I just love you unconditionally. That's. That's wrong. That's not. We don't. If that's what you think, you're not. You're not following the same Jesus that I am. Sure, fine. I'm following the one in the scripture that says, go and sin no more. Okay, I'm going to do my best to do that, but other than that, it's manipulative. I'm sorry. And I know that this is very uncomfortable for a lot of people. Now, what I will say is, thank God that he did love me when I was being a knucklehead, because I think he knew in my heart I still believed and I still wanted to change. I think that God's love stretches so far beyond what any human being can comprehend. And not only that, too, it's like. But also in the New Testament, every story is him also reaching out his hand. Every story is still him going to find the one. I'm not trying to minimize the love of God. What I am saying, though, is this is a contract between two people to be saved. It requires sacrifice from two people. One already made that sacrifice. What are we willing to sacrifice to show that we love him instead of just. No, no, no. It's all about me. It's all about me. It's all about me. Well, that's not what he said. He said, follow me. Become like me. Become like my father. Go and sin no more. Okay, cool. Are we. He tells us what he requires of us. A broken heart and a contrite spirit. He lays out the parameters of this. I'm sorry that this isn't so Kumbaya. It's not, though. It requires work, and by the way, it requires pain and it requires sacrifice, and it requires a lot of things. But that's the Jesus that I know. That I understand. But thank God, his mercy and his love span far beyond what I would ever be able to even give myself at times that this isn't. This isn't a one. This isn't a one way contract. I'm sorry, it's not. And I'm glad that. And by the way, I am speaking to myself, please, before you're like, oh, man, the dude's on his soapbox. Believe me, as I'm saying this, it is the constant reminder of. I feel it sometimes. I get casual because I go to church and I do a podcast with my buddy. I try to do my best to bear my testimony. I get to teach these lessons where I get the chance to study. You see what I mean? Like, I very much fall in the camp of. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job staying on the path, right? Like, I'm in. I'm all in. And yet sometimes I look at my behavior outside of church, I look at the things that I say or do that. I'm like, that's not great. This is to me too. I fall in the camp of maybe at times procrastinating the things that I really should be fixing, not saying I'm sorry for not being the sibling, punching the other sibling, saying I'm sorry over and over and over, but actually, like, changing. Changing. This is. This isn't. This isn't a soapbox at all. This is self reflection. And for the mes of this world that am doing my best, sometimes it's almost harder for us to be the ones looking in the mirror, being like, cool, but what are you doing to change? Like, there's plenty. There's. Man, there's. There's a lot that I need to be working on. Maybe I'm one of the few that at conference, when he says. When the prophet says, hey, everybody knows the. Everybody knows something that needs to hear from this lesson, but it's probably you. I'm like, no, it's me. [01:09:35] Speaker A: As I self reflect and I think about the miracles of salvation, the atonement. And yes, I'm grateful that we get to resurrect from the dead. But, Nate, if I was resurrected to be the same person that I always was, what kind of heaven and salvation is that? Wouldn't that be hell? To live with myself forever, knowing that I was that kind of person? Yes, I look at the resurrection, and I'm very grateful that I have life. But what brings me to tears and warms me is to look back at who I was and who I'm becoming and to realize that somebody cared enough about me to help me change, to leave some of those things behind. And I don't have to live with being that jerk or that person or whatever the mistake was. I didn't know better, or I did know better, and I did it anyways. And I just didn't have the willpower or the self control or I just. I wasn't right. I was wrong. And I start to look at myself as Enoch saying, the residue of the world, and why not just sweep it off? And maybe it gets depressing. You start thinking about the decisions and the things that you've done and viewing yourself as the waste. There's so much better people out there, so much cooler people. Maybe the world would be better off without me, or maybe I should just. But to save me from that and give me the desire and the want to be able to live because I am better than that and I can be better than that. [01:11:14] Speaker B: And they expect you to be better than that they love you enough that they expect you to be better than that. [01:11:19] Speaker A: That is salvation. [01:11:23] Speaker B: Amen. I completely agree. They love you enough that they expect you to be better. That's true love, by the way, too. That's actually, I believe, the meaning of the word. [01:11:41] Speaker A: That is the love of God. To love you enough to help you overcome all things, but to expect it. [01:11:49] Speaker B: To, like, I'm sorry that I keep saying it, but to not just casually hope and hold your hand and walk you along through it, but no, to put expectations on you that is like, I know you can rise to this greatness. I expect you to rise to this greatness. I expect you to be better. I'll help you do that. But it's got to start with you. Thank God, by the way, that somebody loves us enough that they. That they. That they probably correct me if I'm wrong, probably have higher expectations than usually we have for ourselves. But that's good. That's inspiring. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Mm hmm. That's it. [01:12:29] Speaker B: You and I have both taught at school, man. If you just. If you. If your expectations of a class are just pass, what grades do you usually get out of that class? [01:12:39] Speaker A: Oh, it's terrible. [01:12:39] Speaker B: It's terrible if on the first day of school, you say, I know all of you, and I know of all of your potential, and I won't accept freaking crap from this class because I know how great you can be. What does the class do 100% of the time? They rise to it. [01:12:59] Speaker A: There's whole movies about it. [01:13:01] Speaker B: That's it. Because it's human nature. We rise to the responsibility that we're given. [01:13:09] Speaker A: So let's stop being weak around this. Let's, as parents, expect more from our children, as ourselves. Let's expect more from ourselves. Yes. [01:13:19] Speaker B: Yes. Agree completely. [01:13:22] Speaker A: And let's also respect that other people have that same ability to change. I mean, can we not forgive others and realize that people are different than who they were five years ago? Because if we don't allow people to be different than who we have in our mind defining them, then we've limited who we are, as well. The same judgment that we give is the same judgment that we receive. Let's allow others the same ability to change, to grow, but also the same expectation. Let's. Let's try to expect better from them as well. Repentance, that's the heart of it all. [01:13:58] Speaker B: That's the perfect bow you could have put on it right there. I'm with you. All right, good discussion. Hopefully, it's not our last one in studio, but if it is. If we went out, we went out with a bang in the studio. Love you, buddy. I appreciate all the time and the work that you put into preparing these episodes. I know our listeners do, too. If you would like to tell Jason how much you appreciate his time and preparedness, you can email us the email address. Hi, deepdive.com dot. If you would like to tell us that you disagree with us and there may be some that do disagree with what we've had to say this week, we are open to hearing it. [01:14:40] Speaker A: Email us at bye. [01:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah, [email protected] dot if you don't get a response, don't worry about it. No, I'm just kidding. Email us [email protected] dot we'll hear you out. We'll hear. This is what's great about this world and this gospels. There's still so much left to be understood and discovered. And it's the whole reason we even do this podcast is because we've been in it for 40 years and we're still just, we're learning new, simple, beautiful things each week, and we do our best to share those with you. So please add your, your thoughts and perspective in here and we will, we love to hear from you. So thank you. [01:15:20] Speaker A: You make it sound like it's our last episode. It's in the studio. We're still gonna be recording. [01:15:24] Speaker B: I know we're still gonna be recording next week, guys. We'll be, we'll be, we'll be recording next week and we'll, we have fun doing it. So anyways, that's all we got for you for this week. So until next week.