In this episode of the Deep Dive podcast, host Jason Lloyd and producer Nate Pyfer delve into Mosiah chapters 18-24. They explore Alma’s transformative journey to the waters of Mormon, the dramatic fall of King Noah, and the deliverance of Limhi’s and Alma’s people. The discussion highlights the significance of covenant making, the role of baptism as a testimony of faith, and the deep symbolic connections within the Book of Mormon. Join them for a thoughtful and engaging exploration of these pivotal chapters.
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 discussions 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 Pyfer.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Hey, buddy.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: What’s up, Nate?
[00:00:32] Speaker B: I just love how over the years, that little intro has evolved, and it all has evolved around me being our friend.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Our friend.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Oh, man. That’s so funny.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: It’s great.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Last week. Last week in the studio together.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Last week in the studio. And then we change up locations a little bit.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Let’s not blow it.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Let’s. Let’s. Let’s knock it out of the park.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: I’m so. I’m so bummed on so many levels, but I’m also, like, in a weird sort of way, like, looking forward to be able to. Being able to do this from my, like, spare bedroom, a little home studio going forward in the future. You know?
[00:01:16] Speaker A: You know what? It might. It might even open doors for us because there’s a chance, and I don’t want to promise anything at this point, but there’s a chance. The way we do this, we could be getting some video recordings, posting it on YouTube. There’s a chance.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Dude, you have to remember, you’re going to be recording this at, like, some, you know, insane hour in the morning. But, dude, mine’s going to be on a Sunday night at some insane hour. Dude, I don’t want to be on video.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: So you’re saying there’s a chance.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: No, I’m literally saying the exact opposite of that is that there’s no chance that that’s happening.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: All right. Sorry if I got any of you guys excited.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and just shut that down immediately. Nobody needs that, dude, you can listen to us. That’s exactly right.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: On the weekly podcast if you want to.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: If you want to listen to us, you can still listen to us. We’re gonna still make that happen, but we are not gonna be doing video anytime soon.
Dude, I’m gonna be.
Dude, even just like, dude, even rolling into the studio some nights to do this, I’m always just like, bro, I’m glad nobody can see us.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Isn’t that just on brand, though? Come on.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: I mean, it is.
All right, anyways, let’s go ahead. Let’s get into it.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: All right.
This week we’re covering Mosiah, chapters 18 through 24.
And it’s kind of a lot, but it’s good.
It’s Alma, who goes off on his own to the waters of Mormon and brings in a bunch of. A bunch of people.
It’s gonna be Limhi’s reign and Noah. The end, the death of Noah. He meets his.
Ignominious. I said that right?
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Ignanimous.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Ignatimus.
This is gonna turn into a tuberculosis type situation.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Sorry if you guys don’t get that reference.
Yes. He’s gonna meet his end, and we’re going to talk about Alma’s people, and we’re going to talk about deliverance, because Limhi’s people get saved. Alma’s people get saved. And you know what? The road to deliverance is kind of unpleasant.
It wasn’t as comfortable as maybe we would hope or expect, but that’s kind of the. In a nutshell, if you will, the chapters that we’re talking about tonight.
So let’s. Let’s dive in. I don’t think I have anything else to bring up. Let’s just start. Let’s just start, you guys. All right, first off, you know, I’m going to start chapter 18, and I’m going to read verse seven. And I might go backwards here in a little bit, but I’m going to start in verse seven. And it came to pass after many days. There were a goodly number of people gathered together at the place of Mormon to hear the words of Alma. And that’s the stage I wanted to set with the very first question.
Why is it when a Benidi goes, everybody is critical of the guy?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: It’s totally. What’s going to be my first question, too. I’m glad that we’re on the same wavelength here.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Go ahead. We don’t like him.
Send him to the king. You got to execute this guy. And then Alma, and all of a sudden, a goodly number of people. I mean, is Alma winning popularity contest that a binai couldn’t? I mean, was a binai just an outcast? Was he socially awkward?
What’s the deal with the Benidi getting nobody listening, nobody caring versus Alma?
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, as I’ve been. It’s so funny you bring this up, because I totally am with you on this question.
Do you want thoughts on this, or do you have the answer?
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Both. Let’s dive in. Go for it.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Does it have anything to do with.
Because the Lamanites now have already come in and started causing trouble again, right?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: I think they’re about to. They haven’t yet.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Cause one of my answers was gonna be maybe if. Maybe if the timeline is a little suspicious, maybe the Lamanites are coming in because we gotta remember the reason that everybody was having problems with the Benidi in the first place is cause they got comfortable, right? They just won some battle. So even though. Cause my kids actually asked a fantastic question when we were talking about this just at dinner or whatever, kind of going over, you know what we learned at church today? My kids asked the question, like, why were Noah’s people okay with Noah during this time when he was taxing them, when he was gnarly, when he was, like, a creepy dude, when all of the people that he had creepy dudes too, they’re like, why would his people. Why, why? Why were they upset at Abinadi, of all people? Why weren’t they more upset at the king? I was like, that’s a great question. But I think it came back to the idea that it’s like, well, at least the king helped him win some battles. And maybe, or, you know, whatever. It’s just like they had kind of.
They were kind of high on the hog at the time and maybe felt comfortable. But the thing is, like, even that’s a great question. It’s like, yeah. Why did. Why were the people upset at Abinadi in the first place? Dude, their king was the freaking jerk in the first place.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: You know, that’s an interesting question. And when you look from a historical perspective at past rulers, and you go back to Herod, right? They call Herod Herod the Great, by the way. That’s his moniker. And I don’t think anybody reading the new testament reads the New Testament and wants to call Herod great.
But the deal with Herod is he was successful, and successful in the sense he establishes his kingdom.
And a lot of times, historians judge kings on what they’re able to accomplish. And you look at Noah, and he is accomplishing a lot of building projects, architecture. He’s building these towers. He’s lining these things with gold, construction. And so I think people are looking at him and maybe viewing him as a successful king by a lot of different measuring sticks. And yes, he is pulling in taxes, but with those taxes, he’s building infrastructure. He’s building, I don’t know, try to find equivalency to this, even with Herod, like a hippodrome or a gladiator ring or, you know, and it’s not a one to one comparison, but what he’s doing is investing in the city, and it makes them feel like they’re more wealthy people, there are more powerful people. The government has money. The government spending money. The government, as goes the government, so goes the people. And I think the people see the government, that it’s rich, that it’s powerful, and that makes them feel rich and powerful. And maybe they’re not as hard down on Noah for taking their money as what we see this after.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: And that’s what I think that. I think that’s kind of the point that we came to, which would have made it make sense then, if still then the Lamanites are coming in, you know, I mean, stealing people’s wives and kids and, you know what I mean, doing the whole thing, then it would make a lot more sense that you would have a healthy group of people break off and be like, this sucks. Maybe Ben and I wasn’t such a bad dude after all. If that hasn’t happened yet, I guess I’m confused.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought I could be wrong on this. I could be remembering this wrong. I thought that the people were kind of, the Lamanites were kind of picking off their, the people in the crops right on the field and starting to renege a little bit on their promise, right? And Noah sends armies out and Noah puts an end to that. And they’re looking at Noah and they’re starting to celebrate and think this guy is the greatest guy ever. Because not only are we wealthy, we have all these building projects, but we have a more superior military that can drive these guys off and he’s able to keep us safe. So they’re, they’re looking at an exchange of. They’re paying for security. They’re paying for.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Exactly. But I’m saying after Ebenady is killed, after Ebinadi is killed, and Noah’s basically saying, hey, like, to the, to his men and stuff like that, like, hey, we’re under attack. Like leave all the wives and kids behind. Like, we gotta get out of here.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: See, that’s happening still after Alma, right? So Alma’s able to have success with the people before that happens.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: That’s why I’m confused. And this is why I was trying. This is why, as I was like trying to go through this and make sense of this, I was going, well, that would have made sense to me because then they would have lost their sense of security as well as these other things. You see what I’m saying?
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I see exactly what you’re saying. And in fact, that’s what we see with, with Limhi. In the aftermath of everything going down with Noah and the Lamanites, like you’re bringing up, they start to ask the question, where are the people of Alma. We wish that we could join with them today. And so Alma’s actually having success pre any of this. You do have this repentant people that sees the prophecies fulfilled and want to join, but Alma’s actually able to rope these people in before they even see the writing on the wall.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: What do you think it is?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: I think there’s a couple good lessons we can learn from this. In one sense, it’s a second witness, it’s a second voice. If a banded eye is saying, this is the case, that’s one thing. But now, to have somebody, and particularly somebody who was a priest, a person in power, a person of position that you look to for answers, you looked to for information. And he has had a dramatic change to accept, to listen. It gives credence to what Binadai was saying. Now, all of a sudden, it doesn’t seem so crazy. Now, you know what? There might be something to that that is worth listening to. There’s something to be said about multiple witnesses, two or three witnesses. And that’s what happens with Alma when he finds Amulek. And now, all of a sudden, he gets more traction because somebody else is willing to say yes.
And I think the other thing that we can learn from this is Alma’s doing this in private, where Abinadi is standing on a soapbox and addressing the entire group. These are two very different approaches. And so if you have a large crowd of people gathered together, and you’re trying to teach them the words of Isaiah, you’re trying to warn them about what’s going on, all it takes is a few negative voices in the cloud, cloud crowd to drown out what you’re saying and to make it seem ridiculous.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: It’s a good freudian slip, though, considering fighting with people online.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: But, yes, that’s interesting, I think.
Even, in fact, I think what drives this point home is when King Noah is going through the rigamor with the binadi and trying to figure out what to do with him, and he sees the power of a binadi, that they can’t touch him, and he hears him testify, and he hears him say everything, and he’s afraid and wants to let him go. But the voices of the priests say, we can’t. You know? And now, all of a sudden, I think that’s what you see with the crowds that are listening to Abinadi. Even if you are influenced, even if you feel the spirit, even if you have a desire, and you say, why I want to. It’s so easy to put that little flame out with the voices of others there. And so when Alma’s going in private and talking to people, it blocks out the noise, and you’re able to cut through that noise and talk to people with them in a way that that noise isn’t going to put that little flame out.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: It’s funny that it’s. Throughout the scriptures, there’s always the dudes that are going in there, like, preaching against God, and those dudes always do really successful in big groups of people. I wonder why. It’s like. It’s funny. It’s like the opposite’s true. It’s almost like a dude. It’s like Samuel the Lamanite, right? He gets up on the wall and he’s trying to do it, and they’re shooting arrows at him. It’s like the dude’s trying to, like, preach the gospel in big groups. It doesn’t. It doesn’t usually work out that well, but it’s always that one Antichrist dude that usually has a ton of success in a big group of people bagging on God. I don’t know, that’s kind of a weird. That’s like a weird, I don’t know.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Social, you know, that’s an interesting observation.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I wonder why that is. Yeah, you know what I mean? It’s like, you hear there’s always the stories of, like, early church missionaries and stuff like that, going over to England very much, trying to do kind of the soapbox thing. And, you know, I don’t know if people are actually throwing food at them, but you just, like, so many of those stories, right, are just like, everybody’s just like, get out of here.
And there’s always the one. I mean, maybe that’s kind of. Maybe that’s like, the lesson to be learned from there is that at a certain point, God asks us to go do these things. And even if we can look at it and be like, I don’t know how there is going to be anything successful from this. You go do it. Cause there might be. There might be Alma in the crowd, right? There might be the one, dude.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: You know, from my own experience, too, I know every night we try to gather the kids in for scriptures or for prayers, or in the morning, we try to pull them together, right? And it almost becomes.
You almost hate to hear that, you know, come for prayers. Come for prayers. It’s like the kids shouting from the bathroom, like, mom, I am dad, I need some help.
And. And nobody. Nobody really listens to it. Like, you can sit there and call out every. Every other minute for 15 minutes, and it just takes 15, 2030 minutes, because the people that aren’t coming aren’t coming because they’re waiting for somebody else to come. And they know if they’re not there, then it’s just gonna be wasting their time, right? So I’m not coming until they come, and I’m not coming until they. And then nobody comes.
But if I. But if I go and find the one and say, hey, we’re trying to say prayers, come for prayers. And I get them to come and then go to the next one, and the next one, then, man, it saves me, like, 1015 minutes on just gathering everybody. You go to the one. And I think a lot of what Christ did when he came was also finding the one.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Oh, sure. I mean, as much as he spoke to multitudes, I think it’s, in a lot of those cases, the multitudes were. Multitudes were coming to him at that point.
You bring up a good point, because it also only takes one kid when you’re trying to take a family picture. You could have, like, you could have the whole family there smiling, and all it takes is one person that goes, are we done yet? I’m done taking family pictures. And then everybody starts, like, I’m telling you, like, group psychology is fascinating to me.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Like, what you just brought up. It’s like, I’m trying to get them all to come and say prayers. It’s like they’re all kind of tenuously waiting for, like, something to happen. But even when you do have them all together and trying to take, like, a photo and just be like, hey, if everybody would just to stay still for 25, 5 seconds, it wouldn’t take us 25 minutes to do this. But instead, all it takes is one person going, ugh. The. The reason. The reason that this is fascinating is because we’ve talked about this, too. When. When Christ is with Pilate and he’s desperately trying to release him at this point, right. He’s really trying to convince the mob to let him go. It’s just like, it’s. You’ve, you know, you’ve seen the church produce videos. It just takes a couple people in the crowd going, crucify them, and then a couple people around them, and then everybody’s like, oh, okay, cool. Now here’s what we’re doing. It’s like. I’m just saying, like, it’s. It’s funny how. Well, it’s funny how, well, you know, the tormentors do in a mob and how hard it is to really get the mob to come around to the positive influence in a mob.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: You’ve seen it the other way around.
You’ve got somebody that’s the life of the party.
If you have a bunch of friends there, and you’re all just sitting there quietly and whatever, but, you know, if you get one person there and they can just have fun, no matter what’s going on, it’s almost contagious.
They can kind of bring life into a party. But like you say, it seems almost more often that you run into.
It just takes one person to deflate all the life out of the party.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: There’s something. There’s something interesting there.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: It’s a shoot, man. You don’t know what you’re gonna get with the crowd. And if you can focus in on the one and block out the door.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Do you think a Ben and I would have done better if he would have just gone around knocking on doors?
[00:17:45] Speaker A: I don’t know if that was his role, though.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: I agree. I think that was gonna be my point was, is that even this discussion and kind of like the thought experiment that we’re having, or just. Or the conversation about the social.
Whatever it is, right. The social discussion, maybe it’s not as important to what God needed a Ben and I did be doing.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Maybe he needed him to be doing this in a crowd so that he would get taken to Noah, so that the whole thing. Right. It’s like. It’s a sequence of events that we can’t.
We can’t know what the alternative would have been.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: And I like the symbolism of Noah as Christ in the sense that he had to give his life.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Noah or Benidi.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: I’m sorry. Abinadi think you’d be like, no, I was interested.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: I was, like, going for it.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: No, that he would go was rejected by his people, because Christ is being rejected by his people, except for a very small few that accept him, in the sense, at the very end, and does this so that a nation can be redeemed or saved.
I’m trying to look at this the other way around. Right. What happens if Ebina takes the private approach at first, rather than the crowds? And I am envisioning in my mind, if you’re knocking on a door and you’re going in and you’re talking to a family, I can almost see the person in the family saying, this is great, and I see it. Why don’t you tell everybody? Why aren’t you telling the city? Because what can I do? What am I going to do about this? You almost have to bring it out to the city to see that. No, nobody’s going to listen for the individual to not naturally go to tell the world when you see the world, reject it. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a progression there with that.
All right, next, I did want to talk about. I mean, this is where I’m going to go backwards a little bit. So chapter 18 again. But I wanted to go to verse four. And it came to pass that as many as did believe him to go forth to a place which was called Mormon, having received its name from the king, being in the borders of the land, having been infested at times or, excuse me, infested by times or at seasons by wild beasts. And there’s two things here. Verse four right there. The end of that verse is where I wanted to kind of hone in on it. But at the same time, while I’m here, it does seem kind of funny how much Mormon pulls out that the name of this was Mormon. Like, do you think he’s really trying to. I mean, it’s his name.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
And he says he’s doing it. He’s doing it in a good way.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: He is. He is. Where is it? Because he says, the water was Mormon, the forest was Mormon, the land was Mormon. It was all called Mormon. I don’t know. It just seemed kind of funny for me, dude.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: He was probably stoked, man.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: I bet he was like, this is his heritage. This is where it comes from. We have that whole speech from Lehi saying, I named you Nephi and Lehi because of your forefathers. And I want you to remember that. And here’s Mormon reading this. And he’s like, this is the story of where I get my name from. And he really latches onto that. I love it, dude.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Taking pride in your name, man. I’m never gonna bag on that. I think that’s rad. I think it’s sweet. I think that I have zero issue with Mormon being stoked that it was called that.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: No, I like that he was. And it’s almost. You can see his excitement by how much he’s bringing.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Awesome, dude.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Let’s go. So the end of verse four, this is what I wanted to point out, the land having been infested by times or at seasons by wild beasts. And I thought, that’s an interesting detail to include in the story. Why do they care that the land was infested by wild beasts?
And I’m thinking from a practical purpose, maybe that’s why they’re able to remain hidden because this place has got kind of a. Yeah, so a couple reasons. Right. One, it’s got a reputation. If there’s a bunch of wild beasts there. Wild beasts don’t go to areas that are commonly frequented by people.
They’re going to areas that are maybe a little bit more off the beaten path.
And the other thing, if you’re talking about wild beasts, maybe people aren’t going to be searching for people here because it’s a scary place to be trying to survive. If you’ve got predators that are out here regularly, that’s, that’s not going to go well.
But I also think there’s fresh water. It’s a, the waters of Mormons, a fresh water source. It’s just going to attract wild beasts from wherever to try to come and drink the water. You’re going to have. You’re going to have a lot of that there.
I just think that this detail is included in the Book of Mormon. For me, there’s a little bit of profoundness to this. And here’s what I mean. Symbolically having wild beasts coming to the fountain of water to get life to drink.
Symbolically in the story of these guys who are putting off the natural man, who are coming to the waters of Mormon to seek a new beginning, a new birth, a baptism, and leave the wild beast behind in the wilderness, per se.
I think there’s some symbolism there and some meaning. And I look at Joseph Smith, if you’re just making a story and you want to draw that point out and make a point of it, then why aren’t you expanding on it? Why aren’t you talking about it? Why aren’t you going? And this is why the wild beasts. Or why aren’t you like, it takes a lot of discipline, right. And if you’re not noticing it, then why are you even including it in the first place? You’re not beating the reader over the head with it, but you’re also, it’s just something subtle enough that I think some of these nuances, some of these little complexities in here, I think nod a little bit to the authenticity of the book and the claims that Joseph Smith is making.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that’s, I think it’s a great detail.
We talked. I sent you that little, I sent you that little thing where it talks about what is. Was it zif, something like that. Meat. And you’re just. Or the. Or not meat. The metal.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: The metal. When he’s talking about the different types of currencies.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah. That Noah’s collecting. And there was a little thing that was just like, oh, yeah, it’s very similar to the hebrew word that means shiny or bright or something like that. And I’m just like, dude, at a certain point, like, at a certain point, you know, a lot of. A lot of the things that I feel like people antagonistic against the church try to say is like, well, there was a lake that was kind of by the Smith’s house in a neighboring state that kind of had a name that sounded like one of the names of a character in the scriptures. And you’re like, oh, that one really got you, huh? Like that. There was other things that sound kind of like other things or whatever. And I’m like, cool, man. Well, in here, we’re referring to a type of metal that literally sounds exactly like a hebrew word that means shiny or bright or, you know, things like that. I’m like, which one of these is actually maybe more of a profound thing here? You know? Like, at a certain point, you’re just like, this is.
That’s. You’re like, that’s hard to be able to know.
Unless we’re also just going to give Joseph Smith a degree, we’re going to assume that he knows the Hebrew language that well, that he would be able to include those details. I’m just like, okay, I don’t base my testimony off of that, but it is hard for me to see details like that and then to still have people arguing, well, he also had an uncle that went to college. And you’re like, oh, okay, I guess you got me on that one, you know?
Do you see what I’m saying?
[00:25:49] Speaker A: I see exactly like, at a certain.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Point, like, come on, Occam’s razor, right?
[00:25:52] Speaker A: The simplest explanation, it’s like, that’s some.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Of these details that are being included. To your point, it’s like for Joseph Smith to not only be able to make them up, but to be able to be making them up on the spot as they’re being written down and not being able to go back and really kind of, like, self edit this thing over and over and over and rewrite it and kind of rework it. It’s like you have to also consider the process of the translation when you realize the miracle that is the Book of Mormon, which is why, in my opinion, still the best way to ever convince anybody of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon is to have them read it. Read it. Don’t be afraid.
Because once you start reading it, the idea that it was being made up on the spot by a kid, really, a young adult. Right. This still, it’s absurd.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: And in fact, I’ve got, I’ve got two more things from this week’s lesson to kind of back that up a little bit more.
We’ve talked for any of you that were hanging out with us during Old Testament, something that we noticed, a theme that keeps, keeps popping up is how in the Old Testament, names took on significance. Moses. Moses name means to draw out. And his Egyptian, would you call it stepmother, adopted mother, who pulls him out of the water, names him because she’s drawing him out of the water.
But it’s a fitting name because Moses draws the people out, Israel out of Egypt, just like he was drawn out of the water.
And I think, you know, well, let me give you a couple more examples and I’ll come back to what I’m trying to say on this.
And the cool thing about Moses name, it’s not just that in Hebrew it means to draw out, but in Egyptian it means son of.
You see that with Ramesses Ra, Moses. Ra is the God and Moses is the son of. So the son of Ra, tut Moses, the son of toot, the son of Thoth.
And it’s a very common thing in Egypt to name them after a deity. And in Moses’s case, if we’re going off of the egyptian name, it’s the son of. And it doesn’t have a name.
And it makes sense when you’re drawing him out of the water and you don’t know who his parents are and he doesn’t have a mom and he doesn’t have a dad, I’m just going to call him Moses. He’s son of. I don’t. He’s an unknown, he doesn’t have a father.
But when Moses is out in the wilderness and he’s coming back to Egypt to pull the people out, and the Lord appears to him in the bush and he asks God and says, who shall I say sent me? And God says, I am who I am. I am the unnamed God. He doesn’t give a name.
And because you have to understand this, in egyptian mythology, the great God, the father God, had a secret hidden name that he didn’t reveal to anybody, because if you knew the name of God, you could possess the power of God. And so his name was supposed to be the secret name, the unknowable God, the unknown God, the hidden God. And now here comes Moses, and he is the son of blank because you couldn’t say his name. And now you have this battle of the gods Ra, the son of Ra. Moses ramses, versus Moses, the son of the unnamed God. His name takes on significance in egyptian, in Hebrew, and all sorts of meaning in dual nature. Just how does that come together?
And the other example that I wanted to point out was, I think we mentioned this from time to time as Ruth, the story of Ruth, because she marries a man whose hebrew name means weakly and his brother means sickly. Weakly and sickly. Ironically enough, both get sick and die.
And what mom names their kids weakly and sickly? I mean, you just have to ask that question, right?
And not only that, but they’re coming from Israel in a time of famine. And famine in Israel is often, if not always, associated with apostasy. And the commandment was that they were not supposed to marry anybody from the Moabites, and weakly and sickly take moabite wives. So we see a demonstration of israelite men breaking the laws, the commandments, going outside of Israel, turning away from God, symbolically in the story, by doing what they’re doing. But Ruth, on the other hand, is turning into God. And she talks to the mother of these boys and says, let your God be my God. And she’s coming from a position of weakness into strength, where Israel’s fading away from strength to weakness. She’s coming from weakness to strength. And so it’s fitting that in the end she marries Boaz, whose hebrew name literally means strength. And you see this interplay between Israelites and Gentiles, and one working their way out while the other one works their way in, which is significant all throughout, I mean, even the New Testament, after Christ and his teachings.
And one might ask the question, what hebrew mom would name their kids weekly and sickly, do they just assign characters names after the fact that names are going to fit the story?
But I wonder if it’s not God, his signature in this work.
To say you couldn’t control how you were going to be named, it was out of your control. And yet this happened exactly how things from before you were born, before you were conscious, before you were aware, almost as if to say he had a plan worked out before the foundation of the world that was going to work and be successful throughout your life. I see God’s hand in this, even in Moses, especially in Moses, where you have a name that’s dual in nature, that works in the Egyptian, that works in the Hebrew. But this is a common theme in the Bible. And we’ve talked about this a lot in the Old Testament. If you want to dive more into this, feel free to check out some of our old episodes.
But the reason I bring this up is because I see this play out here in the Book of Mormon. We’re running into the story right now with Gideon and Noah. The name Noah in Hebrew means rest or repose. And we talk about Noah in the Old Testament. That makes sense because he’s able to build an ark and find rest when the rest of the world is troubled and he enters into God’s rest. And there’s legends, if you go to the outside of Israel and to the akkadian legends of Upnapishtim, who was this Noah guy, he actually enters into the presence of God and becomes a God because of what he does. He enters into God’s rest, this Noah.
How do you see him enter into God’s rest instead? It’s like he is resting. He is taking his own rest, his own vacation. He is a wine bibber. He’s building breastplates of gold breastplates, breastworks of gold for people to repose on, to lay on. He has these architectural buildings, these towers, to try to defend his people, but he doesn’t even staff them right. It’s all show. I’ve built this tower to keep it safe, but he’s not willing to commit to actually putting people in it. It’s all on the show while he’s actually vacationing. He’s not going to take the responsibility to follow through. He’s resting. He’s reposing. He’s lazy.
And so here you have a man who encapsulates lazy in what he’s doing, and his name is rest or repose. And then you have Gideon, who’s going to come chop him down. And Gideon’s name in Hebrew is the hewer of the axe. Hewer to cut down. And so here comes the axe hewer. The axe is laid at the root of the tree because he’s been resting and not being diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord. And this story kind of plays out. And in the end, Noah is almost, in a sense, chopped down like a tree and burned like wood. Just as, I don’t know, it’s interesting how these play out. And this idea of the names taking on the significance and the stories is very Hebrew. It’s very what you would expect from the Bible.
But with Joseph Smith, who didn’t know Hebrew at the time, to be able to take names and find names that work in the situation, to weave them into the story that fits just like biblical storytelling. Same thing with Lehi. If we take a little bit of a tangent on this. Lehi’s name means jawbone or ja. And ja means to be able to talk, to converse. If you have a gift of ja, a gift of. It’s like a gift of jab or gab. Gab.
And read that, knowing what Lehi means and see how many times he’s able to speak powerfully. An orator who’s able to convince his sons, just off of his speech to completely change course. He is a man known for his ability to speak, to negotiate. He’s a trader. He’s a merchant. And so it fits. So I look at some of these details, and to me, that just kind of furthers what we’re saying with Joseph Smith and pulling this record together, that maybe this record has a lot more layers of complexity to it, and maybe there’s a compelling reason for why we should be taking this serious and figuring out for ourselves if it’s true or not, just off of what we can see here in the text.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Glad you went down that road.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: There’s. There’s one more road.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: Hit it.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: What we’re talking about. I mean, we talked about the. Okay, so this is gonna be.
It’s a small detail again.
And this is when.
Okay, let’s just fast forward through the story a little bit.
Gideon chases Noah. They go up the tower, they see the Lamanites coming, and Noah begs with Gideon to spare his life. They go down, they tell all the people to gather their stuff and run. The women and the children are slowing them down, so Noah commands them to leave the women and children behind so that the Lamanites can. I mean, it’s kind of sad and depressing, right? Like, who leaves your family behind to be slain so that the Lamanites are taking their time.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: That was the other questions that my kids asked tonight, which were just like, they’re like, you would never, like, leave us for this type of thing. And I’m like, no, what the. Like, this is. It takes. I can see why the dudes people rebelled against him when they, I think, maybe got caught up in the moment. My son did bring up a good point. My son, my nine year old was like, well, they had to do what they were commanded to do. You know? If they were commanded to do that, like, don’t they have to follow the orders of the king and stuff like that? I’m like, yeah. I mean, that was maybe their excuse.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: That’s a. I mean, that’s a tough thing. You’re right. I mean, if you have a king commanding you, there’s a sense of obligation, a sense of duty.
And there’s also a sense of, I want to survive. I want to live.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: That’s the thing, is, maybe the sense of duty was the excuse to still act selfishly.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: I think selfish is kind of the root of this. We see the nature that a lot of these people were made of, and maybe a lot of these people that couldn’t see beyond themselves were the vocal few that was making it so. The others willing to stay behind and do the right thing didn’t listen to a binadi because their voices were influencing them the wrong way. Right. But there’s one detail about these guys when they come back with their hats in their hand to try to figure this out to Limhi and his people and see if their families are still alive.
This is chapter.
Okay, this is chapter 19.
And when they come back, let’s see. The verse 21.
And the king commanded them that they should not return. And they were angry with the king and caused that he should suffer even death by fire, which we talked about. And then they come back. Verse 23. And the people told the men of Gideon that they had slain the king and the priests and fled from them farther into the wilderness. Verse 24. And it came to pass that after they had ended the ceremony, that they returned to the land of Nephi.
That’s a small word here, ceremony, but how does it fit? What ceremony are they performing? Why is it that they had to do a ceremony outside of the land of Nephi before they were allowed to enter back into the land of Nephi?
Again, I think this shows complexity in this book that I don’t think Joseph Smith would have included if he’s just writing this on his own. The idea is, if you participate in death, if you’re in a room of somebody that’s dead, in fact, this is Christ right before he does the atonement. And, you know, Christ, he enters into the same building of the woman, the girl that’s dead, and raises her from the dead. He’s willing to make himself unclean, in a sense, to perform all sorts of miracles. But when it’s right before the atonement and Lazarus is dead, he, instead of going into the room, which would have made him ritually unclean, he shouts with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
And rather than touch the corpse and unwrap it, he has somebody else do it. And he maintains that ritual purity. There is an uncleanliness that happens when you’re participating in the work of death. And more so, these people are unclean, a very different, more levels than one, is what I’m trying to say.
Not only did they kill Noah, but they killed Noah. And what I mean by that is, remember the story of David and Saul.
And Saul was not exactly the most righteous of kings. He’s kind of lost his mind. He’s making some questionable decisions and trying to kill David for all the wrong reasons.
And David, in preserving his life, has the opportunity to kill Saul, but he refuses to lay a finger on Saul because he is the lord’s anointed.
And these people, here’s the king who’s anointed of the lord, and they killed the lord’s anointed. And there’s something with that, right? Like that’s a line you’re not supposed to cross.
And so I think these people having one abandoned their wives and kids to die, it’s almost as akin to killing innocent people.
You’ve killed your king, who was the lord’s anointed, which you probably shouldn’t have necessarily done, and you’ve participated in killing for, I think, these reasons. These people felt like they needed to be ritually cleansed or purified. And the rules for ritual purification before you can come into the city and make yourself clean, is almost like a leper. You go outside the camp, you go outside the city, you go through this purification, purification process, and then you can come in and present yourself to the priest or to somebody and to be pronounced clean and to make it clean. And so when they mentioned the ceremony had to be performed before they could come back into the land, that’s where my mind goes. And I think there’s a level of complexity here that a boy not familiar with exactly how this society worked would have naturally included in a work that he’s just making up on kind of these similar lines.
When Ammon from Zarahemla comes and finds these people, they’re desperate to be baptized.
They didn’t know where Alma went. Why is it that Alma could baptize and we need to go, this is probably where we need to finish? This is probably the meat on this, too. Is Alma baptizing at the waters of Mormon and the covenant that’s happening there, and we’ll get into that in a second. But what I want to talk about is it talks about Alma having the authority to perform this. Why then is Limhi’s people not able to perform these baptisms? What happens to that authority?
And that’s another detail that I think Joseph Smith is including in here in a story that you just don’t make up Limhi, who’s anointing him? Priest. Who’s consecrating him as priest, who’s announcing him as priests. You go back to the story of Mosiah and Benjamin. Benjamin makes the announcement, Benjamin anoints him. And whatever, in this case, his father does not get a chance to do that. He’s out running away from the family, which is kind of interesting. Limhi, being his son, is ditched, is left behind. How old is Limhi even to be left behind?
Limhi is not anointed by a priest because all the priests also went with him. They have a break in continuity here. And the priests are all cut off and chased away, and the king is cut off. And so what happens to your authority? There is a break in authority. Hence Limhi’s people are looking for a lifeline authority to be able to administer these ordinances. Baptism that they don’t have. The Alma, because he was a priest, does have, and I think the Alma, not only is he a priest, when they talk about the priests, Noah let go most of his father Zenith’s priests and anoints his own. I wonder if Alma still isn’t coming through from the line, from even Limhi, Zenos priests. And the reason I say that is when they reconnect in the land of Zarahemla again, Mosiah, even though things are going well in Mosiah, with his territory, with his kingdom, with his people, still recognizes Alma and has him create the church. And like, wait a second, why is he doing that if the church is alive and well and he fights, why is Alma now all of a sudden in charge of the priesthood and anointing priests if he’s coming from this break off group? But remember, this is where it comes in. Kind of important from the book of Omni, Jacob’s line, the very last man there had a brother that went into the land of Nephi with Zenith’s company, that maintained that same line of priesthood from Jacob being anointed by Nephi. So I wonder if Alma does not descend from Jacob’s line. So when he comes back into the land of Mosiah, they look at it and say, wow, this is the original line that Nephi had anointed to set apart. Let’s reestablish and reconnect that and make this our line going forward. I wonder if we don’t see kind of an interesting reconnect with that.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: That’s good to know because we talked about this a little bit last week, because that was my question. I’m like, how did this happen without the priesthood authority being done correctly? So I’m glad we were able to clear that up.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Yeah, just an interesting little side note on that. Love it.
One other thing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we see Zenith and then Noah and then Limhi at the same time that we’re seeing in Zarahemla, Mosiah, Benjamin and Mosiah. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mosiah, at the end of his reign, has a speech about government and says that a king is the best thing if you have a righteous king. But if you don’t, things fall apart pretty quickly, because this is the lesson they’re learning from this group that broke off down into the land of Nephi. And you’re comparing Zenith, Limhi and Noah to Mosiah, Benjamin and Mosiah. And you have three righteous kings on one side of the coin. And you can look at them and they have all the right character and the best interest of the people in mind, and they’re serving them versus these guys. They exhibit a lot of weakness. Zenif, we see a lot of weakness. We talked about that last week with him always saying, I did this and I did that, and just kind of this self inflated sense of, I am the most important Noah. We almost see kind of this laziness that grows out of wealth and power and this decay and this reposing, if you will, where it’s kind of falling in. And I think even Limhi here, Limhi seems like a good king because he delivers the people.
He’s wise. But I think you see a lot of his youthfulness and his lack of confidence and security under Limhi. The people come to him and say, we want to go fight the Lamanites. And Limhi doesn’t say, okay, let’s go and lead his people and say, I go and fight them. Just like Noah, right? He’s or not Noah, Zenif, he’s the opposite extreme. The people said it, and so they went and did it. And he’s excusing himself from all of the actions. He’s trying to dismiss himself like, it’s not my fault. I let them do it and they lost. And they wanted to do it again, so I let them do it and they lost. You’re like, well, wait a second. Aren’t you the king? Whose fault is this? If you keep blaming the people?
At what point do you take accountability for this?
And I also see weakness in Limb high when the Lamanites come in and they make the peace treaty with the women and the children and the men that stay behind. And they say, in exchange for the peace that we’re going to establish with you, we want Noah’s head, we want him dead. And Limhi says he knows that his father was a wicked man and he knows that he should forfeit his life, but refuses to carry that out. He’s not willing to go through with it and he’s not going to do it. He’s got a blind spot for family and he’s got kind of a lack of decisiveness, being able to make a decision to being able to stand in front to be able to lead his people. So you see a pattern of weak leadership with Limhi and Zenith and Noah, contrasted with strong leadership between Benjamin and Mosiah and Mosiah. So Benjamin is pulling this experience together and learning from that. And this is the catalyst that gets them to move to a chief judge ruling system moving forward, which again highlights complexity that, I mean, where’s Joseph Smith pulling this from?
[00:48:39] Speaker B: I just said it and I’ll say it again. The best proof of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon is reading the Book of Mormon and asking yourself those questions of like, could this really have been being made up on the spot as it was being dictated to somebody who’s writing it down? And the more and more we’re starting to get to see some of the old kind of original manuscripts and things like that too, and realizing that this wasn’t undergoing revisions and edits and revisions and rewrites and whatever, you’re just like, this is, it’s miraculous and it’s just such an incredible book and it’s powerful. And I love the fact that each week when we talk about this, we get to highlight these subtle details that all stack up to make just a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of this book.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: Yeah, in fact, it talks about the Lamanites making an oath with Limhi.
This is covenants. And I think covenants is kind of the next step of where we need to go with this episode. We talk about the covenant of peace that’s established with the Lamanites, and then I promise we’ll finish this with the covenant of baptism because I know we need to hit on that too.
But this again is a nod to the ancient world. And I think what we don’t realize, we’re so used to peace in our time, and we read the Book of Mormon and we think, why in the world would the Lamanites go fight them when they have this treaty? Why in the world it just doesn’t seem congruent. It doesn’t seem like it fits with our society today. But we got to understand, in the ancient Near east and the world where these guys came from, every year there was the planting, there was the harvesting, and there was the fighting. And you go out to war, it was expected. Everybody had to do this. Every male had to go out and fight. And you go fight for which country is more dominant than another. And you have vassal kingdoms that are going to be swearing loyalty to the larger kingdoms.
And they have tribute that they’re going to be paying. And this is what we see with the Lamanites. And they’re going to be leveraging tribute off of this, and we’re going to come in and show that we’re more powerful than this is especially needed coming off of defeat from the Nephites who sent their armies in and kind of pushed them back and maybe freed up some of that tributary, the tributes that the Lamanites had leveraged on them. And so to reassert dominance, they got to go in, beat them at war.
And this is what you’re seeing, this pattern of Lamanites coming in, beating them, exerting a higher tax, and then the knee fights each year sending an army. That’s a decision they have to make. Are we going to pay the tax or are we going to send an army to fight to free ourselves from the tax or even potentially leverage attacks against them. This is an annual tradition. This is what happens.
And that covenant that they’re making when it talks about the king of the Lamanites making an oath with Limhi, it’s worth mentioning, these oaths and these covenants that they made at treaties after wars involved taking animals, involved cutting them in half, and involved taking the conquered nation and requiring them to walk between those pieces of the animal in a sign that we are able to destroy you. In fact, we are saving your life, and you owe us for saving you, because we could have kept killing you, our armies could have killed you to extinction and kicked you out of the land. But because we’re being merciful, because we’re saving you, this is what you have to pay us. And if you do not pay us this tribute, then we will send our armies in. And just like these animals are dead, you will be dead also. This is covenant making in the ancient world. This is what we’re seeing here. And we’re going to see this play out throughout the Book of Mormon. And it has ties to the covenant that Abraham makes. And I know we’ve talked about that in a lot of other podcasts. I know we’re running out of time on here, so I’m not going to go, I’m not going to go into Abraham’s covenant right now. But I will say just on the Abraham’s covenant, it is probably one of the most talked about covenants in the church, but maybe perhaps one of the least understood covenants. And when you understand that covenant making patterns and who’s submitting themselves to those conditions and what they’re agreeing to do, it makes the atonement come to life and it brings Christ and even what we’re doing today in our sacrament more meaningful for us.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: All right, baptism and the baptismal covenant.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Oh, baby, let’s wrap up with this. Now. You’re speaking my language, and I don’t.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Know how much we have to speak because we did a whole episode on covenants and baptism.
[00:53:23] Speaker B: I was saying that. I was saying that because I could feel all of the people listening to this podcast groan all at the same time.
It’s just a collective, like, ugh, this.
[00:53:33] Speaker A: Is as close as we get to a baptismal covenant. This is, I’m glad we’re reading this.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: Because when we talked about this before, this was one of the, this was when I said, what is the baptismal covenant? I’m like, well, it depends on who you ask. Depends on if you ask Nephi, depends on if you ask Alma. Depends on. Depends on who you ask in all of these situations. And this is exactly what I was talking about.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: So this is as close as we get. And I see this is Mosiah, Genesis 1810. Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, and remember, this is where he’s talking about comfort. Those who need a comfort stand witness. Right. Charity. If this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord as a witness before him that you have entered into a covenant. And so here we have it, this covenant relationship, right?
But here’s the deal.
I say unto you, if this be the desire, what have you against being baptized as a witness before him, that you have entered into a covenant. So what is baptism? Baptism is a witness of a covenant that you have created.
When did you make the covenant? And it almost, to me, it almost sounds like the covenant is made, and then baptism is the manifestation of a covenant that you’ve already made. Right? But it’s not necessarily to me. I don’t see that this is necessarily the covenant in and of itself. And I’m going to fast forward because it mentions it a second time. And this is verse 13. And when he had said these words, the spirit of the Lord was with him. And he said unto Helaman, I baptize thee, having authority from the Almighty God as a testimony that you have entered into the covenant. So it doesn’t sound like he’s making the covenant. It’s a testimony that he did enter the covenant. And so at what point did they enter the covenant?
And to me, it comes back to Abraham’s covenant.
And here’s what I mean by this.
Let’s take Abraham’s covenant and branch up a little bit further on that when Moses pulls the Israelites out of Egypt and he brings them into the promised land to Canaan, what he does is he has six tribes go on one side of the valley up in the mountain, that has blessings, and then he has six tribes going to the opposite side of the valley in the other mountain, and it has cursings. And so here you have the blessings and the cursings, and it’s establishing the terms of the covenant. And then Israel passes between those two pieces. And it’s the same thing as what we see with the abrahamic covenant. When the animal is split and cut in half and divided, and you have the two pieces and it’s passing through the middle. Israel is establishing a covenant with God to be his people. And if they don’t live up to the terms of that covenant, they will be scattered and pushed aside. Just as the mountains are divided and split, they’re going to go to the north and to the south. That’s what happens when they disobey. The Assyrians come in and they’re scattered to the north, or they’re scattered to the south because they did not agree to the or they did not hold up their end of the covenant. So the people have a standing covenant that they have established with God. Abraham has a covenant with God. Moses has a covenant with them. And baptism becomes a testimony that we’re agreeing to this covenant, this covenant is made. And we talked, when we talked about covenants, that perhaps when we make this covenant, it’s almost like we’re making the covenant in sacrament. It’s almost like it’s a sacramental covenant. Because in there, we are agreeing to take the name of Christ upon us. In there, we are promised to have his spirit, and we are promising to obey. And it’s saying, this is my people. And interesting enough, when the people come into the land of Utah, having been chased out of the east, when we’re talking about the church, the latter day saints, and our time and our dispensation.
You come through immigration canyon, and you come through with the mountains being split on either side. And you’re coming into the valley that has a dead sea, just like the dead Sea that has a Jordan river, which is literally called the Jordan river leading into a fresh lake, where it’s reestablishing Israel a second time on the american continent, where we’re coming in and we’re being his people. And to be called a member of the church, to be part of his people. Baptism is the witness, the agreeing. In a sense it is, but maybe the covenant is more than that. And we talk about this covenant. I think it’s the same covenant that Moses establishes with his people. I think it’s the same covenant that Abraham makes with the Lord. It’s this pattern of covenant making.
And it’s a covenant today.
And baptism is a witness to the covenant, but maybe not the covenant by itself.
[00:58:29] Speaker B: I think you bring up a really great point, and I love this, and I love thinking through this and I love really trying to understand this deeper. You do bring up a great point, too. Didn’t Moses also part water on two sides and they passed through that, too? I mean, really, baptism is almost just as symbolic as the children of Israel passing through the sea with water on either side, like passing through a valley or like passing through the divide between those two things.
It totally tracks that the ordinance itself of baptism has very strong links to. Okay, well, then what was the covenant with Moses? What was the covenant with Abraham? And it really was kind of as simple, right. As this is you basically saying that you’re the weaker party that relies on me. I mean, even the symbolism of baptism is death, right? Death and then rebirth. Our old way does die and we are born again as a disciple or as the seed of God, of Jesus. Right. I think that I love the. I just love not putting necessarily all of our kind of, I don’t know, meanings on that. Which, again, it’s not that it’s good or bad. I just think that sometimes we couple things together that shouldn’t necessarily be coupled together. And it was really nice, even in class day, kind of starting to change the conversation of the way that we even talk about baptism, of, like, we need to stop doing the thing where we bring the kid up and be like, hey, now here’s the cleanest, purest person in the world right now. And you’re just like, well, that’s.
I don’t find that anywhere in the scriptures. I think that that’s just something we’ve kind of said so many times that we kind of just have adopted that as, like, a thing. When I’m like, man, I was told that that eight year old wasn’t accountable for any of their sins. Like, I don’t believe that just because they went in the water and came, came back up now that they’re the most perfect person on the face of the planet for that five minutes or something, you know what I mean? Like, that doesn’t make any sense, instead of going, hey, if we’re going to try to understand what the baptismal covenant is, you nailed this. I’m just amening what you said, which is maybe we need to then be learning what the covenant God made with Abraham was. Maybe we need to be spending time with Moses, covenants with God, baptism. I love the idea that it is. That’s what that covenant is. And we are just witnessing that. We are entering into that same covenant. Don’t we believe that to be saved, we need to be adopted into the house of Israel?
[01:01:24] Speaker A: Don’t.
[01:01:24] Speaker B: On some level, we acknowledge that for us to. For us to be numbered with God’s people, we need to be adopted into his chosen people, we need to be. We need to be numbered with his seed. We need to be his children.
Baptism feels like the perfect ordinance, then, to make that first step right, to say we’re part of, we are witnessing to God that we want to be part of that seed, that house, that tribe.
[01:01:58] Speaker A: In fact, two prophets are going to back up what you’re saying quite nicely.
I think it’s powerful that it’s John the Baptist that says, you claim Abraham as your father, but I say to you that God can take of these stones and raise up seed. And so you’re talking about, how is he going to be raising up seed to Abraham that’s not literally born of Abraham, it’s John the Baptist.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: What is he doing exactly?
[01:02:24] Speaker A: And Joseph Smith says, when you are baptized, you are adopted into the house of Israel. And he says, he actually even goes on to say something quite interesting. He says, if you’re already house of Israel, you don’t notice as much of a change. But if you’re not already Israel, your blood literally changes and you become Israel. He kind of goes into that a little bit more detail. But for him, baptism was being brought into Israel. And so it kind of goes along with what we’re saying. If the covenant is with my people, and it was established with Moses, it was established with Abraham, it was established with Noah, it was established with Adam, and we call it a new and everlasting. How can it be new if it’s everlasting, but it’s new for us, but it’s everlasting. It’s the same covenant that God keeps making with his people. And baptism is the door through which we enter to where we can be his people. And that covenant applies to us because he made that covenant with his people.
[01:03:23] Speaker B: I love Noah, too. The idea still, of parting, of the water. Right. Or of, like, the, you know, the separating, eventually of the water. Right. The baptism of the earth. I’m just saying, like, there’s. I love a lot of the symbolism in that as well. Continue.
[01:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And I said I didn’t want to dive too much into Abraham because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot. But you know what? It’s worth saying, and it’s worth repeating.
If you want to understand Abraham’s covenant, go back and read Genesis, chapter 15. And you get to God telling Abraham that I will establish your seed.
And Abraham says, how will I know? And he says, prepare the covenant. Prepare the sacrifice, cut the animals. And this was a conversation he had at night, and he’s going to be sitting there all day trying to chase the flies off and keep this meat ready for when he’s preparing for himself to go between this and make that covenant with God. And when God shows up that night, it’s God that goes between those two pieces of meat. And the idea, the symbolism there is that JehOvah God, the God of the Old Testament, if your seed breaks these terms, these conditions, the blessings and the promises, I will be torn. I will be cut, bruised, and beaten to pay the price of their disobedience. And that’s the covenant that God made with Abraham, is that he himself would come in the form of man to pay the price for Abraham’s seed’s disobedience. And then go for Genesis, chapter 18, who is Abraham’s seed? He tells Abraham, you will inherit the nations, all nations. So this goes back with John the Baptist, what he’s saying, I can raise up stones through all nations are salvation will be offered to all nations through the covenant that I’m making with you. When they become your seed, when they’re born again in your house, they are qualified for this covenant that I am establishing with you. And the last point on this is Christ says, come, follow me. And where did he go? He went between those two pieces of meat. He went to Golgotha. He went to the cross. And he said to us, take up your cross and follow me.
That covenant, we are also going between there. We are also putting ourselves in his feet and doing the best we can to try to give of ourselves, give of our lives, give of what we can to try to bring. And that’s the message of Abinadi, to bring this gospel, this peace. Abinadi is willing to go all the way to the cross and die for salvation to Alma and his people.
[01:06:09] Speaker B: And that’s what baptism, the ordinance represents, is death.
[01:06:12] Speaker A: It is.
[01:06:13] Speaker B: It’s death and rebirth. It really is. It is. It is going between.
It’s separating of the waters, right. It’s still a separation, a going between things, right? Like when you break the plane. But that’s. It’s the full submersion under the water. It’s the whole thing is that. Is that there’s still all of that symbolism wrapped up in that covenant.
And again, I guess you could say, well, there’s all of the complexity of that then. And I’m kind of going, that feels, though, it just simplifies that covenant. I think for me, instead of trying to have a list of all of the things that that thing represents, like, yes, I understand that. That there is a lot of complexity in being a follower of Christ. I get that. I get that there’s a lot that comes with that. But on a certain level, at its most basic level, is I’m going to walk the same path that you walked.
[01:07:15] Speaker A: Sweet.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: That’s enough.
That’s enough. Right?
Because throughout our life, I think we understand more and more what that means. We talked about this when we. When we. When we had our bonus episode, which is you and I think understand what that covenant means, the more we’ve kind of learned and understand what it actually means to be a follower of Christ, to actually be his seed. Great. But for these kids that are being baptized, these children that are being baptized, I truly, I think that. I think that Christ is completely okay with what Alma is saying, which is, if you have a desire to love God and love your fellow men, what have you against being baptized, right? Or Nephi. This is the gate. This is the doorway to walk the covenant path. Here is the first step to get going down. That’s like, okay.
I love how simple this is. We need to, you know, I think we need to keep it that simple. We don’t need to couple it with every other ordinance that we do in the church. We don’t, you know, I mean, as far as. As far as all covenants are still tied together that point to Christ. Yes, but I guess I’m just saying, like, let’s love and appreciate the simplicity of this ordinance. I’m really glad you brought this up again, because I do think it’s worth talking about.
And I’m hoping that at baptismal talks, maybe this is what we can start explaining a little bit more, is the simplicity of this. And not a, here’s the most pure child, but you get to be this child every week when you take the sacrament. You get to get re baptized each week. And you’re like, I don’t.
As you’ve been talking about the covenants being made with Moses and with Abraham, with Noah, like, did God go back to Abraham and say, we need to continue to make this covenant every week? Or did he? Was he just like, hey, here’s the covenant. And you entered it, and I entered it, and we’re good? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I’m missing something there.
[01:09:21] Speaker A: I think he says, always remember him. Right? And in the ancient temple, the flame had to always be lit. There was something that needed to be happening in perpetuity and to symbolize that this is going to keep going, that this is going to last. And I feel like the Sacrament becomes a part of that.
And we talked about this covenant was made between God and his people. It’s a covenant that’s been made and established. What we’re doing is becoming his people so that that covenant applies to us.
[01:09:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:09:54] Speaker A: And I can see the Sacrament, in a sense, as a renewal, a reminder. Maybe reminder’s. But the better word.
What was the original covenant that he made with Abraham? It was the dividing up of the animals, right? But you look at that altar and sacrament on Sunday, and it’s the body of Christ who was the lamb of God, who was the animal that was sacrificed, and his body is torn in half.
And not only is it torn in half and bruised and broken, and you can’t break bread without squishing it to bruising it, right? You’re breaking it.
But not only was he torn in half and ripped and torn for us, but as you’ve pointed out before, that bread coming down the aisles, and what does it do? Is it puts the congregation in between the meats. We’re going between.
We’re walking that same path that Christ walked, and we’re becoming one with him. And this is a reminder to us of the covenant that was made.
[01:10:54] Speaker B: And a witness, by the way, too, like we just talked about with baptism is a witness, right? I mean, that’s what it says. That’s what Christ asked us to do in third and Nephi. And that’s really what, even in sacrament prayers, we’re witnessing to God that we’ll always remember him, that we’ll take upon ourselves. His name keeps commandments, like. So I love the. I love the idea of the reminder of it, but I also love that it’s our opportunity to physically show and witness to God. This is who I’ve chosen to be. This is the life that I’ve chosen to live. So even more, because, again, like, I don’t think I’m with you. And by the way, I think always remembering him is a huge deal, but I don’t think that that’s enough. I love the idea that we get to, and that’s why I love the idea of baptism being a witness. That we just talked about, too, is that it’s more than just a nice reminder. It’s more than just a weekly chance to go, hey, let me reflect on the week. It’s like, I want it to be more than that.
I love that it is a chance to physically do something, to show God physically where I’m trying to be spiritually and man, I’m really glad you brought this back up again. In relation to Alma, I love the idea that it is witnessing, that I am accepting my role in this covenant. I want to be part of this.
And I love that Alma’s qualifications are. Do you have the desire to do this?
If so, come on in.
[01:12:32] Speaker A: And it’s becoming one.
I mean, God became like us so that we could become like him. He’s broken to heal us, who are also broken. I mean, we are broken.
We look at that altar and does that bread apply to him or does it apply to us?
[01:12:49] Speaker B: Well, he asks us for a broken heart and a contrite spirit. That’s his requirement of us.
Part of that sacrament is quite literally us needing to be separated, us needing to be broken.
I think I’m saying I agree with your point. It has to also be us. It can’t just be Jesus, right?
[01:13:10] Speaker A: We take his name upon us, we’re taking his body, physical body, into us, and his blood into us, and his spirit into us and saying that we will be like him. So if we’re acting like him and taking his name and his physical aspect all upon us, is that not what can be more one uniting than being him? Literally, we’re saying, we will be like you. And that’s what it means to be his people, is to be like Christ.
[01:13:38] Speaker B: Yep, great stuff. Always anything else you wanted to hit.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: On this last, last thought, and I promise I’ll be done.
What does it mean to enter that path? And it doesn’t mean that.
That everything’s all going to be fantastic.
[01:13:57] Speaker B: I think it’s the opposite. I think you’re accepting. I think that you have to go into it knowing that the path gets harder once you start to walk it.
[01:14:06] Speaker A: I agree. And if Christ is walking between those pieces of meat and asking us to follow him, and he’s being broken and asking us to offer a broken heart and a contrite spirit, I think it’s fitting that both of these stories end with them being under captivity. I mean, look at Alma and his people who split off and are spared. The Lamanites coming in. And then what happens when the Lamanites get lost? And the priests of Noah, who used to be Alma’s.
[01:14:38] Speaker B: It’s such a wild twist in the story.
[01:14:40] Speaker A: You think the irony, right?
But the reverse, it’s terrible. And they’re oppressing the people, and you think, wait, they did everything right. How come God didn’t save them from that? And I think that’s something that we often ask. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why did job have to go through what he did? Why is Jonah having to go through difficult things happen? You enter the covenant path, go back to Lehi’s vision. That’s when the mists of darkness come. That’s when you start to. And that’s maybe the best thing to encapsulate all of this is Jacob’s wrestle with God. When this happens, do we hold on and persevere and earn that name? Israel, which means to persevere with God to get that name, to get that, to become like Christ. Are we willing to follow him and take his cross upon us? And life isn’t fair.
It’s going to be exacting. It’s going to require a lot of us.
Are we willing to hold on through all of that to get the blessing at the end? And the promise is, you will be delivered. Alma was delivered. Limhi’s people were delivered. The blessing on all of this is deliverance, redemption, salvation. It does come.
We just can’t expect it to happen before we go through the darkness.
I think a lot of that road that we travel gives us the empathy.
And you know what? The book of Job is a masterclass on how to help people going through afflictions. And it’s not by pointing at them and saying, you deserve this.
You know, maybe. Maybe going through what job went through it’s a little easier for us to render the kind of aid, the kind of assistance and the kind of love that the savior would have us issue having become like him.
And you know what? This is what I wanted to end on. I remembered in the Old Testament, they talk about Christ going, the covenants and God going through those pieces of meat and what it’s meant, but it’s never explicitly stated. It’s symbolic. You have to understand, what I love and appreciate about the Book of Mormon is the clarity with which it’s all spelled out that the God of this world, we’ll come and we’ll pay the price. I mean, there is. There is a level of clarity here that has been censored, edited, or just. I mean, it’s there, but it takes more work to find in the Bible than what you see here. And I appreciate the clarity.
[01:17:12] Speaker B: So funny you brought that up because, you know, I’m preparing a talk for church and it’s. It’s so funny you said that, because I have written down where I was like the Old Testament for the first time. It was nice to start seeing the way that God used patterns, symbols and covenants to very metaphorically testify of the coming of Christ. I love how the gospel specifically shows the embodiment of what all of those covenants actually meant and were meaning. And what I love about the Book of Mormon is the detail and the clarification and like, the further explanation of what so many of those things in the Old Testament, right, like the Old Testament really set this. And I’m telling you, I have this written down in my nose. It’s so funny you brought this up that I think finally, for me, all three of these clicked in that way. And it’s part of the reason that I’ve been really loving going through the book of Mormon with you, is just all of the incredible talks and explanations on Isaiah, which really have opened up understanding, I think, for scriptures that otherwise would be really, really, really tough to draw meaning out of. Right. Because even in the New Testament, we see a lot of Isaiah’s prophecies fulfilled. But even then, in just such subtle ways that clearly have, I think, kind of gone over the heads of a lot of other, you know, I’m not trying to bag on a bunch of other religions or anything like that, but a lot of the symbolic things from Isaiah have kind of gone past the understanding of a lot of other religions. I’m sorry, again, I’m not trying to be negative, but I’m saying that it’s clear that really, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints as a whole, as a people, I think we really appreciate a lot of Isaiah because whether we realized it or not, we were getting just really incredible in depth breakdowns of what Isaiah meant all throughout the Book of Mormon and really giving us incredible insight and details into what a lot of that old testament said was. So I’m really happy that you brought that up. I was having completely the same thought as I’ve been preparing for this talk, which, ironically enough, has nothing to do with the talk that I’ve been preparing for. It was just as I’ve been going through, through it, it was something that kind of came to mind. So maybe, maybe it was. Maybe it is something I need to include in my talk now.
Jason has always appreciate all the work that you put into this, all the prep that you do for this. We appreciate all of you who continue to listen.
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[01:20:58] Speaker A: I think it was both.
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Brothern it was another great episode
Thanks Jerry!