Join Jason Lloyd and Nate Pyfer on this week’s episode of the Deep Dive Podcast, where they explore profound insights from the “Come Follow Me” lessons. This episode delves into the conversion of Alma the Younger, the transition from kings to chief judges in the Book of Mormon, and the powerful teachings of Alma 5. Jason and Nate discuss the significance of geographical details in scriptural battles, the dangers of Nehor’s philosophies, and the essential role of the sacrament in spiritual renewal. Through personal reflections and scriptural analysis, they offer a thoughtful perspective on how to stay spiritually awake and emulate Christ in daily life. Tune in for an inspiring and enriching discussion that promises to deepen your understanding and faith.
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.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: You mean your studio?
[00:00:34] Speaker A: You know what? Not even remote virtual studio in presence studios.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: All right. We’re in studios. I like it.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: How you doing, Nate?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Well, I can see you this week, so that’s also, that’s already a huge bonus.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: It makes a big difference. You can kind of like, see the body language and kind of know when someone wants to jump in or not and just kind of run with it. The quality of the show has already gone up. We haven’t even started.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you for your patience. We have had a, we’ve kind of had to figure this out a little bit over the past couple weeks, but I think we’ve, I think we’ve locked into something that’s going to work.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: I think so, yeah. Thanks, guys. We are dedicated to kicking the show out every week and keeping this content rolling. So thanks for paying, being a little patient with us.
I’m excited.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Okay, let’s. I think. I think this, for this week, going to. Correct me if I’m wrong, Jason, we’re just going to hit a couple points from the week, from the episode we would have done last week, which we just didn’t have the connection to do highlights of that, and then basically just kind of the meat and potatoes of this week’s without too much fluff as well.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Correct, correct. So that’s going to run us into Alma the younger’s conversion, the experience that he had with the angels. Really? Yeah. We’re merging two lessons into one for you guys. Try to get caught up on pace here. And then we’re also going to get into, I don’t know, I think it’s one of the most powerful chapters in the book of Mormon, Alma five, you know, and it’s a good one. Yeah.
Have you ever sung the song of Redeeming Love? I love the way he describes that. And the potent question of if so, can you now? Right? So we get some great opportunities to dive into some good scriptures. So that being said, I’m just going to dive right into it.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Can’t wait.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: First off, we’ve just transitioned from an era in the book of Mormon of kings into an era of chief judges. And boy, correct me, did we talk about this last week? Maybe it’s an unfair question to ask you, Nate, remind me, it’s interesting to me how complementary the Book of Mormon is to the Bible.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we did talk a little bit about this.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Perfect. When we go from kings to chief judges here, in contrast to in the Bible, them going from judges to kings, and the transition here in the Book of Mormon, this, to me, is just one more small, subtle detail. And what’s the best way to put this?
There are so many details that manifest the complexity, the intricacy of the story that would be hard to think of to include if you’re making up a book. And this is, again, one of those for me, when I look at the transition from a king, a central power, somebody who’s, who’s consolidated that power to where he’s giving that up and spreading that out to all these chief judges, it creates almost a power vacuum.
And when you see that power vacuum, you start to see all of these people rising up to feel that vacuum, to try to take on that role.
And that’s where we’re going to get one of the bigger apostates, right? This is a knee horse going to show up in here. And who’s the one that’s going to be battling Alma right off the bat when we get Amaleci. Amalekite.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Amalekite, yeah.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And his deal is he’s trying to get enough of the population to vote him in. And I think we’ve seen this all over the world, right, where you’ve got a democratic nation that chooses a dictator and votes him in. I mean, we’ve seen it all over these political powers here. He tried to get the vote and still lost the popular vote, and that wasn’t good enough. He takes his followers to try to overthrow and take it by force. And I don’t know, I’m rambling a little bit here. But more than anything, it’s kind of interesting to see these things taking place at a time when the king spot has been vacated and you see that swell in it, because now there is a vacuum. And people anxious to kind of try to fill that role and take that back on when he goes and fights.
And Alma kind of raises the army as his job as the chief judge to try to put this down and maintain the liberty of the people.
There’s a lot of specifics detailed in the geography of where they’re fighting, and they talk about the hills and the river Sidon and where the fighting takes place.
And it’s something that maybe we look at and like, why? Who cares? We don’t know the area we’re not familiar with the terrain. We’re not familiar with the hillside or the river. Why are these details being included? And I think that’s a valid question. They’re engraving these details in plates of gold.
Mormons not got a ton of time. Moroni doesn’t have a ton of time. And the effort that they’re taking to try to preserve these records is time consuming.
It takes space. That’s valuable. Why is it that they’re taking the time to record these? And from a military commander’s perspective, geography makes a big difference in warfare. You go look at the battle of Thermopylae, you have 300 greek soldiers holding their own against thousands of Persians. And why are they able to do that? It’s because there’s a narrow neck of land they have to defend that funnels the enemy in. That gives them an advantage to where a couple hundred can stand versus thousands. So geography plays a big role in warfare. When we get to the description of this battle, and Alma’s going to be full of battles, right? And we’re going to hear about Mormon, Moroni, and all sorts of battles that they play or that they have throughout this section of scriptures.
Geography makes a difference.
Mormon gets that, and he’s including those details to help us understand, or at least from his perspective, maybe he’s not even doing it to help us, but from his perspective, he can see this, and it’s his eyes. It’s his vision. I think these are details that a Mormon would include in a writing that a young farm boy, Joseph Smith, wouldn’t necessarily think of to try to, because it’s not overt. It’s not like he’s sitting there and saying, let me tell you why this is so important. Let me tell you how that he’s not describing it out. These are just natural things that come up in his mind because he’s trained to think that way.
And so when you start looking at the casualty count, and Alma’s side has fewer casualties than amalekai side, Alma’s playing the terrain to his advantage with where they place the river, with how they fight, with how the hillside. And so these are details in the description of the battle that I find valuable, that are very subtle in the text, for what it’s worth.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: All right, let’s go on to the next little detail.
We include this army as they’re going to war, and they flee away from the people of Alma.
They end up joining with the Lamanites, and then they go back to war with the Lamanites.
To destroy the Nephites and try to use the, you know, the.
What’s the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
So they team up with the Lamanites and try to start destroying the Nephites. The Nephites are wise enough to send out scouts to watch the movement of the enemy camp to see where they’re going to go so they’re not caught by surprise. They see him team up with the Nephites, and they see him come, or the Lamanite, excuse me, and they see them going in and starting to destroy the lands and all the people, the people fleeing, trying to get to Sarahamlet, and they have to turn around and try to route them and again, fight in the terrain to where they’re going to try to get an advantage and drive these Lamanites out, even though they’re significantly outnumbered when they do this.
He points out that the Nephites marked their face with red paint, and by doing that, they fulfilled the prophecy, talking about how the lord had set a mark on the people. And when they joined the Lamanites, them marking themselves and joining a marked people and whatever it means to be marked, just selected different. Highlighting themselves ended up kind of fulfilling and complying with what the scripture said, even though they were fighting the scriptures.
And I like that detail. I think it’s worth pointing it out. It feels like every time Satan or the opposers that are trying to tear down the church of God or the will of God usually end up fulfilling or bringing it about.
We see this with Satan and Adam and Eve in the garden, trying to destroy and frustrate the Lord’s work, and yet this was a critical movement in the progress of the Lord’s work. We see this in Christ and the crucifixion, the atonement, trying to frustrate the plan, trying to get them to kill the savior, and yet that’s what was needed in order to carry out the Lord’s plan. There is no such thing as frustrating it. And here these people are marking themselves to spite the Lord, and yet in so doing, they’re doing exactly what the Lord said would happen, and they’re bringing it about. And one powerful parallel I see in that is Joseph Smith in modern days, restoring the church, bringing the gospel back to earth. And here he’s translated the Book of Mormon. He’s put the Book of Mormon out there, and at the end of his life, he’s killed by a mob who’s trying really hard to tear down the church, to tear down the prophet, to destroy what the prophet has started.
And how do they do it? If you go back and you read the description of the mob, when they storm the carthage jail, they’re going in with gunpowder and oil all over their faces to try to hide their identity. They have marked themselves.
And thus, and so when we read the scriptures, and thus they fulfill the word of the Lord without even knowing it. Yet the same thing happens, like they are acting out the Book of Mormon, setting a mark on themselves to go in through and try to frustrate and destroy the Lord’s work. Yet their very action, is it not also testifying to the same pattern, the same thing that we see in the book of Mormon? It’s almost like their actions to destroy the Lord’s work. For me, at least, add one more testimony to the veracity of the Lord’s work and the way that the Lord can use those actions to validate what he said and to bring about his plan.
Is that making any sense?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: It’s fantastic insight. It. I guess I’m trying to think of this in kind of bigger picture contexts today. I got to teach a lesson on Elder Gong’s conference, talk about how God consecrates all things for our good, for those that follow him. Right. And so, I mean, the whole point of the discussion was us, you know, trying to think through, you know, so many of the hardest things that we’ve ever had to deal with. And then you look back and you go, oh, all of these things were able to be consecrated for the overall good of either our lives or lives of people around us, even the things maybe we can’t put like a fine point on part of the discussion today.
You know, we were talking about, you know, some tragedy that happened with somebody, you know, in our, in our group. And it was, it was uplifting to hear other people in the group find meaning or find, you know, a bigger positive purpose, even hearing kind of some of the tragic stories of others in the room. So I guess this is just another thing that kind of adds to something that’s been not only on my mind, but in discussion, which is even these terrible things that you look at, if you try to have some sort of a more eternal or big picture perspective on them, you see how all of these things can be consecrated for good and, and even subtle details like this. I think it’s incredible, and it absolutely is important to see and highlight these deeper connections that kind of run throughout all of the scriptures.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: And I know personally in my life, there have been moments I wish I could create a time machine and go back and change what I was going to do or do things different or not mess up. Right? And I think we. I think we tend to be a little bit hard on ourselves.
We have a goal to be better, we have a goal to be perfect. But sometimes we get stuck in ruts, we get stuck in traps, we look at it and we think less of ourselves.
And looking at this, I think we can find peace and consolation in knowing that, honestly, this is the plan.
Why was it so relevant that Christ was chosen before the foundation of the world and the whole purpose of him being chosen was so that we could have moments like this.
It’s not a mistake, it’s not a deviance from the plan. It’s not the plan being thrown away. It’s the reason there’s the plan, it’s the whole purpose. It is the plan.
And maybe instead of being so hard on ourselves or so hard on others.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: That’S what I was saying for what.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: We see in them.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: One of the. You bring up a great .1 of the questions that I had that I’ve asked myself because part of our discussion was talking about, you know, a pretty traumatic near death injury I had when I was ten, where again, you know, you and I have probably talked about it and I may have mentioned it a little bit, you know, on the recordings. But when I say near death, I mean like.
Like a threat of life type of moment. When I was saved and rescued by the amazing people up at primary children’s hospital after a couple different hospitals between Logan and Salt Lake did their best to try to neglectfully, let’s say, not kill me, but definitely not looking out for my. For my health, for my best interest.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Anyways, we don’t need to go into all of that. But the question that I’ve asked myself and the question I even had for some of those in our class today were now, knowing what you’ve learned from these traumatic experiences and trials in your life, if you could go back and change it, would you? But if you do, you have to, one, lose all of the perspective that you’ve gained positively from it, and two, you have to deal with the unknown consequences or things that will arise because of that deviation in your life’s path. And for me, I’m like, well, I survived, I’m alive. I don’t really know. A lot of intensely deep lessons I learned from my personal injury and experience and near death experience, but part of the lesson was me reaching out to my parents and for the first time really asking them. Can you tell me what you learned from that as the parents of this child? And the, the thoughts and the feedback that I got back from them was, was so profound and incredibly emotional. And it opened my eyes to the idea that we get so hyper focused on these things through our eyeballs right through first person, that I think it’s important to also acknowledge that sometimes maybe these things that happen to us aren’t about us, man, and even what we’re reading about in the scriptures right now. Right. You could. You could very well say so many of the tragic things that are happening to these characters in these stories or early church prophets, right?
It’s not without a possibility that maybe in their lifetime they didn’t get that question answered of why is this happening to me or why is this happening to my people?
Yet you and I are talking about this a thousand years later, right? Hundreds of hundreds of years later going, wow, this is profound and it’s life changing. And it may be the thing that saves generations worth of souls.
So maybe it’s not even, I think, so many times in life, and I know this is kind of sidetracked probably from where you’re wanting to go, but I still think it’s an important discussion, which is so many things with what we’ve been conditioned to in life now and the conveniences of modern life, which is, I want it now. It’s the Veruca salt, dude.
I want the answers now.
I want to understand why or else I reject it. I want things done on my timeline, right? And so much of what I learned in preparing this lesson and reaching out to my parents and listening to some of the other stories of people in our group today in class, so much of what I took out of this is you have for me, I have to stop thinking about this as just me and go, as long as I’m doing my best to be a good person.
And in the scriptures, something popped up that I was going to send you, that it said to remember our covenants, things will be blessed for our good when we follow Christ and remember our covenants. It’s an interesting phrasing, right? The way that that’s worded, especially with what you and I have been talking about, obsessive kind of going down.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: For the past couple years.
And that I feel like I need to be more okay with trusting. Even if I don’t get the reasons why in this life, I can still trust that I’m doing what I can.
I’m doing my best to remember my covenants. I’m doing my best to be a good person and hopefully a good example.
And I can trust that if the answers don’t come for me, there was still a purpose and God will still consecrate my trials.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: It’s kind of turning into a theme, too. As we look at the book of Mormon, even with the last couple chapters, you know how it is. Sometimes we discover a theme or something that is talking about is a new Testament, right? And as we start going into the next section and the next section, it just keeps finding a way to work its way into the text, where a lot of the texts build on that same idea. And I feel like that’s what’s happening here, because we were talking about this with Amulon ruling over Noah and how wicked that was, you know, death penalty for praying and how wicked he was and an opportunity to teach. The Lamanites put in a position of power, position of authority, where he can make a difference. And he refuses to teach them anything about God, the scriptures, or the words of Abinadi. Instead, he’s teaching them how to take advantage of each other, but he’s teaching them their writing system, the words of their. The language of their fathers, to be able to read the records. And if he wasn’t there to teach them the language of their fathers, they wouldn’t even be able to read the records when they’re made available to them. I don’t know that the power of the scripture would have the same effect or impact on them without that knowledge, without that understanding. And so you can see how such a bad thing. And you might ask if you’re part of Alma’s crew, like, wait a second. We repented. We. We are listening to the words of Ben and I, trying to avoid all of these bad things that are happening to. To Limhi’s people in there with the Lamanites coming in and destroying them. We escaped. We got out. How come we’re the ones being punished? How come we’ve got the priests of Noah ruling over us? Why are they being exalted? They were the ones that were pushing the wickedness in the first place. And they’re the rulers. They’re the kings.
This isn’t fair. God’s not fair.
And why is it that we are being subjected and punished in the short run? It’s just kind of a short sighted vision. You don’t understand. You don’t see how things are going to play out and how it’s going to have an impact and how that’s going to be the tool that the Lord’s going to use to later send Ammon in to change the perspective of the people and to convert thousands to the gospel.
And it’s, oh, go ahead.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: I think it’s good perspective. We’ve mentioned this before, but even extrapolated out even more, you’ve brought this up. It’s like the Nephites were the losers at the end of the day, you know what I mean? Like they were the ones that lost.
And you’ve talked about this, how history is usually almost always kept and pushed forward by the victors.
And the point that we kind of landed on was, well, but whose records are still being read, whose people are still being studied?
Who did God still find a way to give a longer life, right if through their words and through the teachings. And so it still comes back to, I know that this is a super sidetrack and we may edit this out later, but when I was in Oakland, we got invited to the prayer breakfast. I’ve talked about this a few times because it was one of my favorite things that’s ever happened. But we got invited to the multi religion prayer breakfast that they would do where they invite the missionaries from our church. But then, you know, teachers and pastors and priests from all different kinds of different religions. And some are invited to pray. We were invited to pray. And that was sweet. Somebody invited to give a talk. But one of the first talk was it started out and we were at the table like almost like full on applauding because the person’s like, you know, in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are with God and we’re like, okay, we’re good so far. Yeah, we’re in it. And it’s like, did you know that we’re all meant to become gods? And we literally are like looking around going like, yes, yes, we do believe this. This is great. And then the guy, you know, and he goes, look in the scriptures, and he starts quoting all the scriptures like children of God and heirs to the throne and the whole thing. And we’re like, I’m back there, like, hallelujah, brother. Like, I’m doing the whole thing right? And there was definitely a lot of puzzled people in this place, but not us. I was like, bro, the Mormons are back here. We’re broing down with you, dude. Keep going. And then he’s like, you know, and then Satan came in and he’s tempting Eve and this, this whole thing. And he’s promising, he’s promising a way to become a God. And this is. And we’re seriously, back there going, what alternate reality are we living in right now that, you know, I’m assuming that this baptist preacher is going, and then he’s like, and then God’s plan got ruined. And then we were like, dang it.
We were like, we were this close. And then he’s like, and then Jesus tried to come back again and get it back on track, but we made him fail again. And we were like, oh, dang it, we were so close. We were right there. We wanted to get up and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on. No, this was all part of the plan. We didn’t, you know, we didn’t, we didn’t disrupt the plan. Like, this was baked into the plan. But anyways, it ended up being kind of a funny story. But it did get me thinking, like, oh, I guess I can see if, with. If incorrect perspective, how you could come away with that, right? That God wanted this to happen and Adam and Eve blew it and didn’t make it happen. Or Jesus Christ came back and tried to save all of the world, but we killed him and we thwarted his plan again. And it’s like, oh, man. With the wrong perspective. We’re both looking at these stories, you know, these situations completely different, where we’re looking at like, no, God’s plan succeeded because of this.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I mean, that’s the purpose of the plan.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: And the scriptures make it so. How many times does it say, before the foundation of the world? Before the foundation of the world? Like, this was Christ was chosen before the foundation of the world. This is not an afterthought. And, I mean, just to kind of wrap this up and take it right back where we began, I think we need to give ourselves that same flexibility. Not that we should be using that as an excuse to sin, but we should be using that as an understanding that God can make it work. In fact, it’s not frustrating. The plan. I’m not ruined because I did it. It’s not like I was doing so good, and then I threw it all away and I, and I rejected it and God, and it’s now gone and it’s garbage, and I’ve given up. I mean, that it, that is the plan. And how can I be more patient with myself and like you, you know, kind of hinted at, how can I be more patient with others, knowing that this is important for their development, for their experience, for their improvement as much as it is for mine?
[00:27:57] Speaker B: It’s one of the things that, again, when I ask my parents of what they learned from my near death experience, both one of, I think both of their number ones were be living a life worthy to give a priesthood blessing at a moment’s notice and the power of the priesthood. And I’m like, I’m completely. And that is one of the things that I feel like I have always kind of learned from that, even myself. But both mentioned showing more kindness and forgiveness to others, including, including the doctors that just got it wrong that night and would have killed me had my parents listened to them. But luckily, we’re both feeling, I mean, a direct connection with the spirit at the time. And both went, nope, that doesn’t sound right. And we’re not. That’s not what we’re doing. What’s our other options?
And, you know, it would be very easy for, it would be very easy for my parents to still hold grudges against, you know, these professionals that their job is to protect a ten year old child who clearly has something going on and not kind of being distracted or pushing it off. But, you know, something my mom brought up was something that she learned was also just be more kind and patient with people because you don’t know what they’ve had to go through to get to this point. You don’t know their experiences up till this point. And it doesn’t hurt us to show grace and to show kindness.
And it’s. And it’s amazing that that, again, like, that is something that I need to learn to be better about, I feel like.
And that that’s something that was learned from a tragic experience of mine. I’m like, oh, this is good to, this is good for me to hear this feedback. So, anyways, I just wanted to add that final thought in.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah, and, you know, there’s so many times that something happens in life that we, we wonder why, you know, child gets run over a car. Why didn’t God prevent that? Why didn’t God tell me to move him? Or why didn’t God, like, God saves people all the time? How come he didn’t save my son? Or how come he didn’t save me? Or how come. How come he allowed that to happen? Or how come. How come he didn’t send an angel to come knock on my door at the right time to keep me from doing something that I regret?
And maybe that’s not the right question.
Maybe the right question is, how can this save me or somebody.
Or somebody else? And it’s hard because. Yeah, I don’t know that it’s something you necessarily want to hear when you’re going through something like that.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: And I also don’t think it’s our job to tell people that when they’re going through it.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: No, that’s not.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: You know what I mean? Like, I agree with you. I’m only adding that in because sometimes from the third party, I feel like we do a very good job of, like, armchair quarterbacking other people’s lives. But I think that this is more, and I think that what you’re saying is that this is so much more.
Can we develop enough faith and maturity and spiritual maturity to be able to, on our own, go, what can I do so that the Lord can consecrate this trial for my good or for the good of somebody else?
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And if I could just reframe the perspective on this, rather than it being, why? Why is this happening? Rather? This is an answer to another question. This is why we have a savior. This is why we needed Jesus before the foundation of the world, so that somebody could step in and consecrate these things for our good, so that somebody could restore this and make this right, whether it’s today, over time, or how it works, the fact that there is a resurrection, the fact that we can be put together, the fact that we could receive a body because we could not come here and receive a body were it not for a savior willing to come here and make this happen. And these are the whys to why we have a Christ, why God’s plan was so important.
And it’s not. We keep saying this. It’s not plan b. This is plan. This is God’s plan. And it hasn’t been frustrated, even in the small details and the ways that we’ve tried to throw this away.
That’s why we need it. That’s why it works. And let’s just be patient with ourselves and patient with others and use these to help us understand and testify to that.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Great. Let’s keep going.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: All right, going. You know, I almost want to take a little bit of a tangent to talk about.
I guess it’s not a tangent because it’s part of the scriptures here. But when we knee whore is introduced and, and his, his teaching, I think, is dangerous enough that we should kind of touch on this a little bit.
And. And let’s see.
This is going to be alma, chapter one. This is almost the opposite extreme, verse two. And it came to pass in the first year of the reign of Alma. In the judgment seat, there was a man brought before him to be judged, and a man who was large and was noted for his much strength. And it is kind of interesting.
They do point out guys that are particularly large and strong in the book of Mormon, that Nephi, having been large, and there’s somewhat of a size obsession.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: I mean, dude, according to, according to our boy Freeberg, one of my favorite artists of all time, they’re all Charlton Heston clones that are like bodybuilding muscle men.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: It keeps popping up.
But to go, the thing is, they.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Dude, I bet you dudes back then were in a lot better shape than we are. That’s.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Oh, I’m sure they were.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: All right.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: So this, this, this large guy, much strength, verse three. And he had gone about among the people and preached to them, which he termed to be the word of God. And this is interesting. What is his version of the word of God? Bearing down against the church, declaring unto the people that every priest and teacher ought not to be popular, or, excuse me, ought to become popular, and they ought not to labor with their hands, but they ought to be supported by the people.
Now, just out of the gate going in and kind of bearing down on the church, I look at that, and sometimes the church gets steeped in tradition. Sometimes the church gets kind of steeped, and this is the way things do without really questioning much of why it is. And so when someone’s coming in and saying, wait, wait, wait.
Maybe there’s something more to this, or maybe we need to not just, isn’t this what Christ did was bear down on the church and bear down on the. Why are we doing things? I don’t know that I’m necessarily looking at this and seeing it can be wicked, but it can also be. Isn’t it good to question sometimes and to, I don’t know, inherently I don’t.
Let’s just keep going down this, that they are not to labor with their hands, but that they might be supported by the people. I mean, this is direct opposition to Mosiah, who even as king, worked and labored to support himself.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Benjamin, too.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: And Benjamin.
But can you not see the validity of what he’s saying? If I’m taking the time to try to research, to put this together and have answers for you and present it to you, what’s my time worth? Shouldn’t I be compensated for that? Why? Why am I not being compensated?
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Can I jump in real quick?
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Isn’t that where you’re going with this?
[00:36:12] Speaker A: No.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Oh, dang it.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: But but I mean I look at gay. Let’s, let’s take his argument today.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: All right. I’m. Dude, you know I love going down the pre priestcraft conversation. You know. You know I’m up for it.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Okay. But at the same time. Now hear me.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: I know. I know. That’s what I’m saying. I’m up for it.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: President Nielsen.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Twelve apostles.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Have dedicated their lives.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: I agree with this so far.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: And they’ve had to step away from their professions and focus their time full time to teach the gospel, to preach, to organize, to administer to set up to put together to do all of these things.
And is it fair that they should do that at the expense of their families, at the expense of their livings, at their expense of. I mean should we not support them in that effort?
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Can I.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: It’s a full time job.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Well yes. Can I throw this out there? I mean isn’t part of what they do is basically put all of their, their savings up to that point and they’re. You know what I mean? Like they’ve all had professional careers up to this point and again I don’t know logistically how this works out. It might be worth looking at but I’m under the impression that they very much dedicate what they have built financially up till this point.
And I mean I don’t know if they necessarily. Again I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is, if there is some sort of consecration of their wealth and various things to support each other. I know. Again, I know. Or wherever that’s donated because again I do know that they get.
I do know that they get you know like their, their needs and various bills and things taken care of once they become you know a full time apostle. But they’re not, they’re not like building up some four hundred one k. I can only assume.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Well I mean that’s a good point. I think they’re getting a stipend. I think they’re being compensated but I don’t think they’re being compensated to the tune of millions of dollars. I don’t think it’s.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: I mean when we go on, when we. When I went on a mission my parents very much paid you know a monthly you know a monthly amount and to the church and my needs were taken care of plus a little bit of money each month to eat you know and make sure my bike was repaired. I definitely was not making, I definitely was not making money from the little amount that got put into my bank account each month. So I guess maybe that’s, it’s the, it’s the question of what is it? Where do you draw the line between me starting a mega church and making millions and millions of dollars doing preaching full time versus me having my bills taken care of while I’m out preaching the gospel full time and relying on members to be fed and, you know, basically just trying to make sure that I’m appropriately allocating my bike repair money each month.
I mean, is that really what the question comes down to?
Is that the difference between, is that the difference between, you know, priestcraft and having your needs met?
[00:40:00] Speaker A: Well, let me ask you, what’s, what’s fair compensation?
[00:40:03] Speaker B: That’s what I mean.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: This is for, for a CEO. Let’s, let’s put it in this perspective. A CEO of an organization with 12 million members, that’s global, that has to administer the affairs. I mean, what’s the average salary for a CEO of a massive enterprise of this size with this wealth behind it?
[00:40:27] Speaker B: I understand that, but that’s the dangerous question that in a lot of times, I think, gets a lot of people in trouble when it comes to them trying to decide what is fair for them to have versus what’s fair for other people to have. And the answer to that question is, I mean, even when people say like, oh, you know, we use the term like they need to have a livable wage, it’s just like, well, that number changes depending upon wherever you live in the world, right? And there’s a lot of political philosophies that I abhor that the whole premise is, you know, let somebody else decide what it is you actually need. And as soon as your needs are met, then everything else needs to go to the greater good. But who’s the one that gets to judge what your actual needs are? I think it’s just a dangerous game to try to let that happen. So there’s, this is why I’m saying this. I’m always, I’m always down to have this conversation. I’m not afraid to have this conversation, I guess, is all I’m saying. Because at the end of the day, there is still a lot of, if you’re leaving this up to simply a group of people not being inspired to figure out what is fair, good luck. Right. Because there’s going to be a lot of difference opinions. The whole reason I think that this works out correctly, the way that the church does it, is because we believe that it’s inspired. We believe that it is being done in a way that’s not to try to have people chasing leadership callings in this church to try to make money and get rich because a lot of these professionals, when they were at least the apostles, were making a significant amount of money. If you realize, you know, heart surgeons and lawyers and various things like they were putting, they were, I’m sure it.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Was a pay cut.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: Oh, that’s a well said, I guess a pay cut is. Yes, one way of putting it.
I mean, again, dude, I don’t know. For me, this all always comes back to, is like, what’s your goal? Where’s your heart at? If you’re trying to, if you’re, if you, if we are setting up leadership callings in this church to have them be profitable money making lucrative positions. Yes. That’s, it’s very easy for me to see how corruption immediately becomes a factor.
If you look at the bare minimum needs that are being paid for for the leaders of this church, I think that it would be pretty hard to argue that they’re out making money doing this.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Well, and maybe, and maybe there’s a key in here, right when he says, and they ought not to labor with their hands, but that they ought to be supported by the people. And it almost sounds like he’s saying supported without even putting in the labor for it. And I don’t know.
You look at the amount of labor that’s performed by the leadership in the church.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: They, I mean, they travel nonstop.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Their labors, I mean, they’re working into ages where most people retire.
They’re probably putting in as much, if not more work than what they did when they were active. It’s incredible the amount of work that they’re putting into to what they’re doing. But I mean, it’s a, it’s an interesting question. And so far, when we start looking at the accusations, I guess the case that the book of Mormon is building against Nehor right now, I’m looking at it and saying, okay, we’re talking about new blood versus old blood. Isn’t there always problems with the younger generation looking at how things, and questioning the way things were done by the older generation? And at the same time, isn’t that healthy? Isn’t, I mean, look at how we’ve changed in some of our parenting styles and in some ways for the better and some ways for the worst, maybe. And, and maybe we should have a little bit of the old school into what we’re doing now. But, but isn’t there a healthy amount of pushback that sometimes that we give and is it not reasonable to expect that if you’re sacrificing so much of your time that there should be some sense of compensation or else that couldn’t even take place, how could we be supported if we weren’t, right? I mean, he, his arguments, I don’t see a problem with it up to this point. And, and this is where it even gets scarier for me if we go to verse four. And he also testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day. And that they might add, that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might rejoice and lift up their hand, their heads and rejoice. For the Lord had created all men and also redeemed all mankind and all men. And in the end all men should have eternal life.
And, and I look at that and I think, well, wait a second, to a certain degree, don’t we also teach this as well? Do we not teach that all men will be resurrected?
Do we not teach, when we talk about the celestial, the terrestrial, the telestial kingdom, that even the lowest of the kingdoms is such a, it’s a kingdom of glory, it’s heaven. Are we not also teaching that all people to some degree are going to be experiencing heaven and are going to be saved because of the atonement of Jesus Christ?
I think a lot of times we are. And instead of teaching this hell fire and damnation and this fear and this trembling, we’re trying to focus on a gospel of hope centered on Christ, centered on what he did. There is salvation. Let’s not be so critical on people, because the Lord’s going to find a way to save all men, that it’s all part of the plan. Do we not find ourselves also teaching the same things that Nehor taught some of them?
[00:46:37] Speaker B: I mean, this is not shocking to me ever. When we read these things, what do we believe? Satan promised from the very beginning to supply the world with ample amounts of philosophies of men mingled with scripture. I mean, that’s the whole purpose of all of these things, because I am one that doesn’t believe that. The way that the evil that tries to creep into our lives, I don’t think it ever presents itself as an all out rebellion to God. I don’t think that that’s the way that the adversary approaches us, especially those that are trying to live a spiritual life or a gospel focused life, not even just our religion. But let’s just say people that are trying to live good lives and be genuinely good people, evil doesn’t try to creep into their lives by telling them, hey, give up on all of those things that you believe in and do and just do the exact opposite. That would be silly because it would be able to be the most obvious thing in the entire world that we could say, no, that’s not what we’re doing. That’s why it’s so devious is because I truly do believe that where we get into a lot of trouble within religion, within our communities, our gospel communities, our wards, our whatever, is that Satan knows that he can try to take advantage of our goodness and of our want to do good, and that’s his in. And then he can from there try to do what he can just tweak it 10% or to convince us that we our version of things and not God’s version. Look, we’re still trying to do the right thing, but we’re going to do it our way instead of God’s way. And I think that that’s always the subtle tweak. So when we read these scriptures, I’m like, yeah, dude, this is literally par for the course, man. Like, this is literally the script that we see from the very beginning.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: I might even refer to it as spiritual judo. You know, the idea that if someone’s going to hit you, that you’re not going to want to run into it or try to stop it. Right?
What was Bruce Lee saying? You got to be like the water, right? You’ve got to flow with it.
If somebody’s coming at you, instead of trying to stop them, you use their momentum, you use their energy and you pull them. I mean, you use it and just divert it enough to where it’s not going to hit you, but you use that to push them even further or use that against them. Like you say, it’s not thou shalt not kill. So now I need to try to teach you and tempt you and get you to go do the exact opposite and start killing people. No, it’s is, how can I take what you’re already doing and use that momentum to try to propel you slightly, a little bit further?
[00:49:31] Speaker B: That’s right. Slightly off course.
[00:49:34] Speaker A: That’s it. And I think that’s where we need to be careful.
When I look at Nehors teachings, he is the bad guy. Right? But how do we know he’s a bad guy? It’s not necessarily that he’s trying to get support for the teachers to use their time to teach. It’s not necessarily that he’s teaching that people are.
[00:49:52] Speaker B: That’s his.
I know, but that’s the easy in.
That’s the easy in, which is, isn’t it a good thing if we’re supporting these people instead of having them to do their thing?
Right? Like, that’s how it always, it seems like that. That’s how it always works. It’s why the word love itself is always such a dangerous word to try to base where you’re at spiritually off of, because love means so many different things to so many different people. Like that word. That word can truly be used for the best of humanity and the most manipulative and at times abusive ways. And so this, again, it’s why these case studies in the scriptures, I think, are so profound, because I can just, I literally can picture him going like, well, isn’t it a good thing if we make it easier for these good people to be preaching all, it’s like, that’s his in. And then everybody go like, yeah, we can generally agree on that. Hey, and everybody’s going to be saved. Isn’t that great? Okay, cool. Yeah, that sounds good. I can generally agree on that. And then fill in the blank and.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: You can see what’s motivating him when it gets to the point where it comes to blows and it comes to blows where he’s willing to kill over his philosophy. Right. And I think that’s. I think that becomes the true revealer of what’s driving this or who’s behind it or what spirit you’re listening to. When. When the spirit. I mean, and isn’t that the irony of it? I’m here to teach. I mean, you use the word love, Nate, and I think love is the perfect word to use in this case. I’m here to teach that God loves us and that he’s going to save all of us and that. That we are all going to be saved. We should love each other. Isn’t that a message of love? And you don’t agree with me, and so I’m going to kill you over it. What happened to the whole message of love and the whole message of I’m willing to, you know, we’re going to be saved and you’re going to be saved that you’re willing to sit there and smite on somebody? And it’s interesting when they. This is something that also pops up a few. A few times in the Book of Mormon. That just seems weird from, from, from my perspective, being removed from this time period. Verse nine of chapter one of Alma. Now, because Gideon withstood him with the words of God, he was wroth with Gideon and drew his sword and began to smite him. Now, Gideon being stricken with many years, therefore, he was not able to withstand his blows, plural. Therefore he was slain by the sword. It’s interesting to me, like, in my mind, with all the movies that we grow up with and see, like, you stab someone with the sword and that’s, like, the end of it, right? It’s just like a one and done, but in the Book of Mormon, well, no, there’s a lot of hacking and.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: Smiting in real life, by the way. I mean, that’s. That’s the thing, right? In the movies, I love black and white movies, and they would never even show blood, right? In the old black and white movies, so you never really know. It’s like, wait, did that person actually get shot, or are they dying? Or are they not supposed to be dying? It’s like, it’s so confusing, right? Because in the movies, somebody gets shot in, like, the leg and they’re dead, or they even. Or even they, like, get shot in the stomach and then they’re just dead. I’m like, well, that’s. That’s literally not how it is. Like, you’re going to just be listening video games, right? Totally. You’re going to be. You’re going to be listening to that person dying over an amount of time, and it’s going to be terrifying, and it’s going to be gruesome. Like, that’s. That’s reality. And by the way, with a sword, especially, like, yeah, dude, you are going to have to hack at somebody, and it’s going to be ugly, and it’s going to be traumatic, and it’s not going to be instantaneous. That’s real life. Like, I’m just saying the way that it just got described in the book is actually physically how that happens.
It’s not like one. It’s not like one shot with the sword, and they’re like, oh, that’s it.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: Well, and I think that really reveals the character of Nihor. Right? He’s sitting here trying to get, what is his motive? I mean, Nate, you said this.
It boils down to, what is your motivation? Why are you doing it? What is your why? And what is the why of a guy who’s willing to smite on an older man who can’t protect himself over and over and over again until he dies simply for having an old mindset that you don’t agree with? I mean, this not a great guy.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: He’s a bad dude.
Even if he had a couple good things to say.
[00:54:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, there’s a lot of fun things in this, and they talk about, you know, there’s not a law to punish somebody based on what they believe, but there is a law based on if you lie or if you steal or if you whatever, then you’re held accountable for it. And it’s interesting to see how people try to work around this, and, well, I believe, and so therefore, I can’t be punished for that. But I don’t know.
This part of the book of Mormon is kind of fun for me to read. And I like how they phrase some of these things, and they describe this time period and the intricacy of trying to deal with a new government and where the church fits in with that government, where it’s not just your king is also your prophet and it’s the spiritual guidance. But there’s this separation of state almost that you start to see between the religious versus the political kingdom, that it’s just kind of fun to see them wrestle with this and grapple with this as they go.
By the way, as we’re rolling into Alma five and as we get. I mean, we talked about this a little bit earlier with Amaleki breaking off, joining with the Lamanites, and the Lamanites coming in and Alma having to go to war. Alma gets wounded in the battle and has to sit the next one out, but he ends up being victorious.
There’s a lot of things to unpack with this. The first one that I wanted to kind of go with is think about the timeline of this connected with Ammon.
What’s going on? Ammon, at this exact moment is teaching. Lamoni is down living with the Lamanites while the Lamanites are out there attacking the Nephites.
And think about that for a second.
When Lamoni goes to meet with his father and his father can’t stand the knee fights, just realize Lamoni’s father is coming off of a smashing defeat.
Having dealt with Alma and his people and having to retreat and losing thousands of his people in the wilderness from. From battles and wild beasts that are kind of tearing them apart, that feud is really real and live and going on. It’s kind of interesting when you start to look at these stories and realize they’re happening concurrently and where they fit in with each other.
The other thing that I wanted to point out, Alma becomes, at least in Mormon’s eyes, and how he’s describing this kind of a strategic general that’s well prepared, the way he sends his scouts out to observe the movements, the way he uses the terrain to his vantage, the way he goes into battle with the leader of the other people to try to end this sooner, the way he rallies the people.
Mormon sees him, and he’s impressed with him. And I think Mormon has a lot of military training and experience. I don’t see that Alma does.
Alma comes from. From his father being the high priest. Right. And he’s going to become the high priest. He’s got an ecclesiastical background. He was kind of an apostate trying to tear down the church. But I don’t see anything in here that I don’t know. Was everybody a tactical genius? Was everybody well versed in the art of war? Or maybe more likely, Alma’s connection to the Lord allowed him to be inspired on how to position his people, on, on what would be important to do as he starts thinking these through, and how do I survive and what do I do? Lord, help me with the situation. And the Lord’s inspiring him to send scouts out or spies out, or inspiring him to make the most of the battles. When we talk about how the Lord delivers the Nephites and they’re winning ten to one, or they’re able to outpower the Lamanites, I think a lot of the reason is grounded scientifically in some of the strategies that they’re doing and how they’re using terrain, some of the situations in the environment, but also the reason they’re able to use that terrain like they are the reason they are sending out the scouts, the reason they are preparing and arming their people, is because you have a prophet in tune with the revelation of the Lord to feel inspired to make those small changes, to employ those different methods, if that makes sense.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: And I think the Nephites really, starting with Alma, maybe even going back with Benjamin Mosiah a little bit, I think you start to see a transition from Mosiah and Benjamin when they’re supporting themselves and everybody has to support themselves and everyone has to fight. This is how it was in ancient Israel. Everybody had to plant the seeds to put in the crops. Everybody had to go to war. But you didn’t have a standing army. It was everybody just went and fought when the time was ready to fight. But the Nephites start to make a transition to where it says that they’re arming the people, they’re providing the armor for the people. And instead of everybody having that responsibility, you almost get to where you have a standing army. And I think that’s what’s going to start separating. That’s an advancement that you see, in the nephite nation that you don’t see with the Lamanites, where the Lamanites, you rally everyone up. Okay, it’s time to go to war. Let’s go fight. The Nephites have an active military, a standing army. And I think that advancement, that change is going to lead to a lot of training, better arming, because now it’s not just what farming instruments you use. They’re used for farming a month ago, and now we’re using them in battle. It’s actually, these are dedicated to war, and this is what it’s government issued or state issued to provide better arming, better training to the people.
It’s an interesting transition, but it’s probably not worth spending more time going down that road.
[01:00:36] Speaker B: No, let’s keep going.
[01:00:38] Speaker A: All right, let’s get into Alma five. And I think this is kind of the heart of where we want to go and. And talk about atonement, to talk about some of these verses.
Before I jumped in. Did you want to say anything on that, Nate?
[01:00:51] Speaker B: No.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: Okay, here we go.
Alma, in seeing that the people were falling away from what’s happening, in a need to kind of stir them up and to try to keep them dedicated to the Lord so the Lord can continue to provide them with inspiration, with. With that edge, with that guidance, with what they need to be better in their lives is going out, and he’s going to really start preaching to his people and taking his role as high priest as the most important thing he can focus on.
And he starts with the center. He starts at the core. He starts with Zarahemla.
And when he goes to teach the people, he wants to remind them of where they came from. And, Nate, you said it right towards the beginning. The power of. Remember, always remember.
For Alma, that’s critical.
And let’s go to chapter five, verse three. I, Alma, having been consecrated by my father Alma, to be a high priest over the church of God, he having power and authority from God to do these things. Behold, I say unto you that he began to establish a church in the land which was in the borders of Nephi, and land which was called the land of Mormon. Yea, and he did baptize his brethren in the waters of Mormon. And behold, I say unto you, they were delivered out of the hands of the people of King Noah by the mercy and power of God. And behold, after that, they were brought into bondage by the hands of Lamanites in the wilderness. And I say unto you that they were in captivity. Again, the Lord did deliver them out of the bondage, by the power of his word. And he began to establish the church. And he wants to talk about this deliverance.
Verse, verse six. And now, behold, I say unto you, my brethren, that you that belong to the church. Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers? Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance his mercy and longsuffering towards them? And moreover, have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance. That he has delivered their souls from hell? So three times just in that one verse. Have you retained sufficiently in remembrance?
That’s critical. That’s a big part of Alma’s message. I’m glad you started with that, Nate. The importance and significance of remembering.
And when I’m trying to look back at the stories and remember the Lord delivering the people of Alma from Amulon. The Lord delivering the people of Limhi from the Lamanites. The Lord delivering them. I keep seeing the real, the physical.
Where the guards fell asleep. And were able to stay asleep long enough for the people to sneak out. And where the people were able to get out of the burdens and be saved physically and as real and physical. And what we see stand out to us. As that is Alma, when we look at it, remembrance that he has delivered their souls from hell.
He’s talking about the spiritual.
These people were saved. And we look and see the physical. But the physical salvation was just one aspect of it. There was also a real spiritual salvation.
And he’s going to talk about that. These people were sleeping.
These people remember a minute, I went to go talk to them.
And they brought Abinadi to the king to have him killed. We might look at it and say it was Noah and his priest that killed Abinadi. But was it not the people that brought Abinadi to Noah to be killed? It was the people that rejected Abinadi before Noah could, before the priest could. The people didn’t listen.
They didn’t want to listen. How do you save a people that don’t want to listen?
How do you save somebody who turns away from the lord and does not remember the lord?
And that, I think, in Alma’s eyes, is the bigger salvation even than the physical deliverance that we see. Even the exodus is the big stories of them being brought out of the land and saved. Like Moses taking Israel out of Egypt. As impressive as that is, sometimes it’s the spiritual salvation that’s even more impressive. How do you wake up a people that are sleeping? And so he builds on that verse seven. Behold, he changed their hearts. Yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep. And they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in mists of darkness. Nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word. Yea, they were encircled by the bands of death. And the chains of hell and everlasting destruction did await them.
And now I ask, brethren, were they destroyed? Behold, I say unto you, nay, they were not. The bands of death were broken, and the chains of hell which were encircled about them, they were loosed.
How do we deal with somebody who’s asleep? How do we help somebody who’s turned away? I think we all know people like this in our lives. I think we all know people that we just feel like we can’t reach anymore.
Is that the greater miracle? I mean, what do we do in a situation like that?
[01:06:18] Speaker B: Oh, man. You might not like my answer.
[01:06:21] Speaker A: I love your answers. Let’s hear it.
[01:06:25] Speaker B: A lot of this is influenced, just again, about where my mind’s been for the last couple weeks as I’ve been preparing a lesson that was taught. And my answer to that question is that that’s not our responsibility. It’s not our responsibility to wake them up, man.
Our responsibility is to do everything that we can to make sure that we are, number one, living the way that we’re supposed to be, first and foremost, right. Second of all, doing everything we can to support and sustain our families and our loved ones and minister to them, administer to them the whole thing. Right.
And then really trust that all things are consecrated for our good as long as we’re doing what we can.
And the thing is, your question is, I’m not trying to be dismissive at all. I think your question’s incredibly valid.
And I just think that so much of it is learning how to let go a little bit of the idea that it is our responsibility to shake people awake like we can. I mean, truly, man, we can only do so much. But at the end of the day, I think that as long as we’re doing everything that we can to be a disciple, whatever that means, not just in words, but in deeds, right. As long as we’re doing everything that we can, I think that we have to be better about putting more of that trust back into God and out of our hands and not feeling like we need to just be in control of those things all the time. And maybe this is me just speaking to me. Maybe. Maybe this is. Maybe this is me just speaking to my experience to this point. And so I want to just be careful to not ever come across as, like, I’m not making some definitive statement as like, this is the answer. But it’s a great question. But for me, recently especially, I feel like I’ve just started understanding that question in a very different, deeper way.
[01:08:32] Speaker A: No, you make some really good points a minute. I went right to wake up the people.
And you might argue that he wasn’t even successful at that. I mean, it’s not like he might have felt turned around.
[01:08:47] Speaker B: He might have felt that, right? He may have felt that.
You never know. You and I are hoping, right, that he got a glimpse of the eternal perspective as he was being lit on fire. Right? We hope that he. We hope that maybe that was one of the mercies of God, that God was able to, in that moment, go, hey, here’s what your sacrifice is worth. We’re good. We hope.
But what if he wasn’t?
Couldn’t he, with a very short term view, look at that as a failure?
[01:09:25] Speaker A: That’s the difference. That’s the perspective, right? On the short term, you look at it and like, man, nobody even cared. You sent me out here and nobody even cared.
[01:09:32] Speaker B: And they lit me on fire.
[01:09:35] Speaker A: And they lit me on fire. Isn’t that how it happens sometimes? Isn’t it? Sometimes we feel inspired to share a thought with somebody who maybe is less than appreciative of us sharing it. We reach out, we send them an email, we send them a text, and we think, this is coming from a place of love. Here’s something that I feel like I need to share with you. And they light us on fire for it.
[01:09:59] Speaker B: That’s what I mean.
[01:10:01] Speaker A: How dare you? And you look at it and say, why did I even do it? Why did I even feel like that? Why did I even put myself out there?
But you don’t know. You know.
[01:10:09] Speaker B: And I think is you don’t know.
[01:10:12] Speaker A: And I don’t going to. What you said earlier, Nate, I think this is critical.
Is it our responsibility? I don’t think it is. I’m with you on this. Is it not God’s job to save? And he says, come, follow me. And we do what he does, and we try to save, we try to reach out, we try to help. But in the end, is it not God that’s going to redeem his people? Is it not God that’s going to help wake them up? Yes.
It’s not Abinadi that delivered them from the Lamanites.
[01:10:42] Speaker B: Can I throw this out there to add to this?
[01:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:10:45] Speaker B: There’s Jesus.
In talking to Peter made it very clear, I feel like what his expectation of Peter was when he was resurrected and came back and said, feed my sheep.
Christ’s ministry was feeding physically and spiritually. Right.
I don’t. I, what I don’t read between the lines is it’s your job to redeem my sheep.
And you might say that this is semantics or whatever, but I think that you just nailed it, which is, that’s, that’s Christ’s job. Now, it. He does call us to be saviors of men, but I don’t think that it, that’s not going to determine our salvation is how many. I don’t think there’s a checklist in the next life of how many people you were able to convince to repent of all their sins and to follow you.
Right. That’s not the goal. And the more I’ve tried to understand better what that means to feed my sheep, I feel like one. I need to do a better job of the physical aspect of that.
One of Christ’s main themes was, I’m going to feed the people following me physically, I’m going to break bread. I’m going to make sure that there is more than enough food for them to be eating, whether it’s fish, whether it’s bread, whatever it is. I think that that’s something that we need as a world to be better about and me specifically need to be better about.
But as far as, like, spiritually feeding, like, you can’t. I have an 18 month old daughter. I can’t open her mouth and just shove food in it, man, and expect that she’s gonna be like, cool, right? Like, dude, if she’s not hungry, she’s not gonna eat, man.
And the more that I try to force feed whatever that is down her throat, what do you think her feelings towards me become during those processes?
Like, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, man, I’m just trying to better understand these concepts for myself.
I’m expressing these to you here again in a very non definitive way. But this is what has started to, I, like, help me better understand what my actual calling is as a disciple, hopefully, right, as a disciple. And that is, I do need to be more conscious of the physical needs of people around me and in places that I can help, I need to. And on the spiritual aspect of it, it is not my job to convert and force feed my testimony down people’s throats. It’s not my job to force feedback somebody that is like, I’m not hungry for what you’re giving me right now. Instead, what I can do is say, okay, cool, I’m not going to put that on you. And we’re good, and we’ll always be friends, even if that never becomes any other part of the sins. But what I’m going to do is try to live my life in a way that if ever you are going like, hey, I really actually do wish I had more of a connection with that. Hopefully, people would know that. I would love to be there to have that conversation with them. Then I would love to be there to do anything I can on my part to be available if that becomes something that they are wanting to be a part of or to take advantage of.
[01:14:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I think we need to be in a position where we can feed his sheep.
[01:14:41] Speaker B: Yes. And that’s a better way to put it.
[01:14:45] Speaker A: And I love the way he phrases this. Right when he says, you know, and again, this is verse nine. And again, I ask, were the bands of death broken? And the chains of hell which were encircled about them, loosed? I say unto you, yea, they were loosed. And their souls did expand and they did sing redeeming love. And I say unto you, are they saved?
And on what condition were they saved? And he goes through this. And if I were to fast forward.
Verse 14. And now, brethren, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have you spiritually been born of God? Have you received his image and your countenance? And that phrase right there, Nate, let’s circle back to that. The image in his countenance, I think is worth visiting. Have you experienced this mighty change in your hearts? Do you exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God, to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body? And I say unto you, can you imagine of yourselves and hear the voice of the Lord saying unto you in that day, come unto me, ye blessed. For behold, your works have been works of righteousness. And let me fast forward just a little bit on this. When. When he says, have if you have.
Let’s see, verse 26. And now, brethren, I say unto you, my. My brethren, if you have experienced a change of heart, and if you have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can you feel so now?
And I think that’s powerful, that I think we’ve all experienced that joy of feeling like you’ve unburdened yourself, or that the Lord has. Has saved you or. Or that maybe you weren’t worthy of it and you’re beating yourself up and you feel that love of God, and it just makes you want to sing the. Sing of the song of redeeming love. It’s an interesting way of saying that.
And then he asks, can you feel. So now, if you’ve felt that before, if you’ve experienced it, are you still in a point where you can experience it?
[01:16:54] Speaker B: Do you remember?
[01:16:54] Speaker A: And can you remember? Remembrance was a huge part of this. But here’s, here’s a point I want to make with this.
Can you, can you, can you. He makes this very personal. And it’s not like he’s saying to me, hey, can Nate, can Nate sing the song of redeeming love? How’s Nate doing? Maybe you should go check on Nate. Can Nate have that? Did Nate have this? I mean, we look at this and we. It’s like President Nielsen’s talk. Instinctively, I’m trying to look at somebody else and how this applies to them, but he’s saying, do I, and how do I internalize it? How do I really save myself instead of trying to save someone else, instead of trying to wake someone else? Because if I am not myself awake, then how can I feed his sheep?
How am I internalizing this? And it’s the moat and the beam.
Do you want to talk about image of Scotland?
[01:17:59] Speaker B: Oh, you know, I love that.
You know, I love the purification of silver that they talk about in Malachi. You know, I’m all about that.
Do you want, do we have time. Do we have time to go down that road again? Old Testament, dude, you’re, you’re, you’re the.
[01:18:15] Speaker A: One with the clock. You’re the producer. You tell me.
[01:18:17] Speaker B: I mean, dude, at this point, we’re, we’re just blowing past the barriers at this point. Like, it’s.
[01:18:21] Speaker A: Yeah, but it’s like two weeks.
[01:18:22] Speaker B: I know. It is kind of two weeks and one, and it sounds a lot better than it did last week. So I’m much more okay with us just blowing past the governors at this point. Yeah. And Malachi, remember how it talks about he’s going to be a purifier of silver.
We’ve talked about this before. I mean, again, anybody that’s been listening with us since the Old Testament times is probably like, no, we already heard this, but I know there’s a lot of people listening that haven’t been with us since the OT. But I always loved the idea that the, or when I read about and loved the imagery of the purifier of silver. And when somebody was asked, it’s like, oh, yeah, you have to heat it up to burn out the impurities.
But the master knows how to not overheat it to where it actually damages and burns and makes the metal worthless.
And when asked, when do you know? When do you know that it’s pure? It’s when he. And the master said, when you can see your reflection in it is when you know that it’s purified and it’s like, man, what an awesome little nugget there in Malachi, right there at the end of the old testament. But I love that it’s, it made its way into Book of Mormon as well, image in his countenance.
[01:19:46] Speaker A: And I almost want to take this back to sacrament. I mean, we’ve, you know, I’m down sacrament.
We’ve been, we’ve been going down this lane a little bit and bringing it back to sacrament again. I want to ground this in another old Testament story. You, you bringing up Malachi. I want to bring up Jacob and Esau, and it’s such a weird story, but Jacob, in order to receive the blessing, has to impersonate his older brother.
And you think about the process that he has to go through to receive this blessing. Esau is a hunter who prepares meat. And so what does Jacob have to do? Well, in this case, he employs his mom, or his mom, rather, employs this strategy. We need to behave like Esau. We need to prepare this meat for this venison for his father.
And so you’ve got this imitation, this acting going on, and then you’ve got to dress like him, you’ve got to have his appearance. So we’re going to take this hairy Raymond, and we’re going to put it on you to have his image in your countenance, to appear like him.
And so when you get closer and he feels you, thinks it’s you, you’re taking him on you, and then you’ve got to take his name upon you and say, I am Esau.
And so that imagery to me, in order for us to receive the blessing that was reserved for our elder brother Christ, he is offering us to do what Jacob did. And Jacob, by the way, is the one whose name was changed to Israel. Do we not take that name upon us too, Israel? Are we not asked to go through the same steps, the same processes that Jacob did in calling ourselves Israel to receive a new name as well?
And so I look at the sacrament, and we’re taking his image upon us. Are we not taking everything I’m taking his body, his blood, and bringing it into me, and I’m taking his name.
And if I do this so that his spirit can be with me. So his name, his spirit, his body. What else am I lacking? Well, I’ve got to imitate him. Is that not to keep his commandments, to be like Christ, to follow him? Are those not the actions?
[01:22:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:22:16] Speaker A: So the sacrament itself is this process where we remember him.
[01:22:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say, don’t forget. Don’t forget that one. Because, again, are we not trying to say, are we also not impersonating him in both our actions and our thoughts? Like, keep his commandments in our actions and always remember him in our thoughts? Like, I mean, the whole point is to become him from. From top to bottom.
[01:22:41] Speaker A: That’s it.
That’s it. And we do this regularly, every week in a. This imitation game, so that we can be like him. And that’s what repentance is, is how do I align myself closer to the savior? How do I learn from what’s happening? How do I become more like him? How do I imitate him a little bit better?
[01:23:05] Speaker B: How does our behavior change to more imitate him?
Emulate. I shouldn’t say imitate to emulate.
[01:23:13] Speaker A: I like both.
[01:23:14] Speaker B: I do, too. But, you know, I just. To me, it’s like, I think that at a certain point, it’s like, you know, when you learn how to play the guitar, do you think you start by writing, you know, Metallica style riffs and, you know, I mean, but all from your own original creative genius, or do you take out the guitar, you learn basic chords of your favorite songs, of the people that you listen to. And as you begin to play them more and more, it becomes less and less about you learning other people’s songs and more and more, just about what’s coming out of you, what you are creating. And I think that’s the process of learning how to do anything in this life, right, is you first emulate or imitate a mentor or a passion or whatever that is. And once you’ve done that enough times, it really becomes an actual part of your DNA, who you are. All of those influences are expressed through you, at least in art, right? And this is the same thing. It’s like the more and more you go, as corny as the phrase is, what would Jesus do? I’m not saying corny, but you know how I mean, it’s like it became kind of a meme, you know? It’s like we all had the bracelets and the whole things, but you see.
[01:24:41] Speaker A: What I’m saying, though, somewhat loses its meaning. But there’s depth.
[01:24:44] Speaker B: That’s my point, is that there’s actually depth to the idea of, well, what would Jesus do in this situation? Shouldn’t that basically become, well, here’s what I would do in that situation, because I’ve been. I’ve been over and over and over and over practicing what Jesus would do in that situation where I don’t have to keep asking myself that every time. It’s part of who I am. It’s part of my DNA. I truly have become more than just imitate.
[01:25:14] Speaker A: And I get to know the savior through examples in my life, too.
I look at my dad and the example that he’s always been to me in the priesthood, and I feel like I know the savior better because of him, because of the image in his countenance, or my mom or. Or my family, my friends, the people I interact with, the leaders that I’ve had throughout my life, the way that they have emulated Christ. And I see Christ like aspects in their life. I come to know the savior through them. And an important question maybe to ask or reflect on who is coming to know the savior through us, who feels like they’re getting closer to the savior because his image is in our countenance. We are becoming like him. And how we support ourselves, how we take care of others, the small actions that we do, do they come to know the savior through us as well?
[01:26:20] Speaker B: Man, it’s a great. It’s a great way to just always hopefully be checking where you’re at. That’s a great, profound thought. Continue.
[01:26:29] Speaker A: I’m just going to say that I think the greatest lesson that I get from Alma here, and I think we all know this, it may be. It’s almost impossible or an act of God to wake somebody up, but the important thing is to not fall asleep in the first place. And I think that’s where we have more power. Right? I think. I think that’s what Alma is looking at and saying, how do I better keep them awake? And the critical part of that, Nate, I mean, remember, how do we always remember him? There’s a reason why the sacrament is repeated every week, whereas in the other ordinance, ordinances are a once in a lifetime experience for ourselves.
For ourselves to remember.
[01:27:14] Speaker B: Yep.
Yep. I I completely agree. I completely agree. It’s why. Yes, in third Nephi, it’s why Jesus was explicit with why he wants us to be partaking of the sacrament often, and that’s to continue to witness to God that we will always remember him.
[01:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:27:37] Speaker B: Good stuff.
[01:27:38] Speaker A: I’ve taken enough time on this. I’ll tap out.
[01:27:41] Speaker B: Okay. Awesome.
Is there anything else you wanted to hit before we wrap this up? Almost 90 minutes in, dude. But it was good. It was a good 90 minutes.
[01:27:51] Speaker A: I think I’ll spare you guys.
[01:27:53] Speaker B: No, this is.
[01:27:54] Speaker A: I just. We’re back. That’s all I want to say. We’re back.
[01:27:56] Speaker B: We’re back. That’s. That’s. That’s the. That’s our message for the week. That’s.
[01:28:01] Speaker A: Expect consistency because it will come.
[01:28:04] Speaker B: Thank you for being patient with us. We really do so much appreciate you all listening and for the patients you’ve had with us over the last few weeks. We’ve just been trying to iron out some of the technical side of this, which we knew we were going to have to work out a few of the kinks kind of when we were, you know, making the move. But we really do appreciate you sticking with us. We appreciate you sharing this with your friends. For those of you listening for your first time or for the first few times, we really do appreciate the little bit of your time, which we know is precious to let us hopefully inspire you to. To maybe uplift your day a little bit. If there’s anything that we can do, feel free to email us at the email address. Hi, deepdive.com. that is hiaweeklydeepdive.com. we do everything we can to respond to the emails, the questions, the comments. If there’s anything in particular you would like us to address or talk about with the next few lessons coming up, let us know and we will work it into what it is that we’re doing.
I think that’s it. Right? For all of the technical side of it. All right. Jason and I can see each other. I’m getting the virtual almost thumbs up. So until next week.
At 22 years old I went on a mission. Being older than the majority of the other missionaries, I often wondered how different everything would have been, had I gone at 19. There were people there that I met, taught and were baptized that, in my hindsight at least, meant I was where I was supposed to be when i was supposed to be there. The plan cannot be frustrated, and He who makes it and sees the end from the beginning, knows how best to use us, even in our imperfections.
Spot on, thanks for sharing!!