Melchizedek Priesthood. The temple. What does Testament mean? The ordinances are a remembrance. Darkness after illumination. The Word of God is unique to the individual and time. Esau. Shaking out.
Transcript:
[00:00:15] Jason: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add on education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight, unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with yours truly, our friend, yours truly, and this show’s producer, Nate Pyfer.
[00:00:36] Nate: Hello.
[00:00:37] Jason: Hello, Nate.
[00:00:39] Nate: Yours truly. Wow. That’s amazing.
[00:00:43] Jason: You know what I’m excited about?
[00:00:44] Nate: Tell me.
[00:00:46] Jason: You’re filling up enough to get back into basketball. I mean, that’s neither here nor there, but I’m still excited about that.
[00:00:54] Nate: Okay, well, I’m glad you’re excited about that. I haven’t committed to coming out of retirement yet, but we’ll see.
[00:00:59] Jason: Let’s go.
[00:01:00] Nate: Let’s go.
We got some good stuff to chat about tonight. But before we chat, we got some fun business announcements.
[00:01:10] Jason: We do. We’ve got two big announcements for you guys this week.
[00:01:13] Nate: Okay? You hit them with one. I’ll hit them with the second one.
[00:01:16] Jason: All right, first off, this is something that we’ve been requested over the years. Transcripts for the show and the service we use to host our podcast has now offered free transcripts. They use AI, and so they don’t get it 100% perfect, but I think it’s better than our first initial foray into this. It’s close. It’s not terrible. So we have transcripts if you want to check out the show and look back at what we said. And if you’re wondering, was it this episode that talked about it or where was it, you can even do a little word search and find it. And it’s got timestamps, and it’ll have my name or Nate’s name, and you’ll be able to see exactly where it was. So it’s kind of nice. Check it out, addoneducation.com. We’ve now got transcripts.
[00:02:02] Nate: And the second one is we’ve been excited. We’ve been kind of holding this card in our sleeve for a minute here. We’ve got a new podcast coming out on the add add Add on education network. Going to play you the promo right now.
[00:02:17] Jason: Hi, I’m Emily Christensen McPhee. And I’m Jay Kirk Richards. We have a new podcast debuting January.
[00:02:23] Nate: 2024 called Inevitable Art.
[00:02:26] Jason: In the Inevitable Art podcast, we discuss how art helps us better understand ourselves and the world around us. Join us for inevitable art.
[00:02:36] Nate: Debuting January 2024. Part of the Add Add on Education network. Couldn’t be more happy about this.
[00:02:42] Jason: I am stoked.
[00:02:43] Nate: So as a lot of you listening probably know at this point, because I’m not shy or bashful about my love for art in so many different formats, we have been recording and prepping and basically building up some episodes. We have two incredible hosts, Emily and Kirk, who are both incredibly incredible artists, but they also just their credits and their experience, and they’re prominent artists in their various spheres. And it’s a dream come true for me to basically get to produce this podcast where each week we kind of talk about it’s based around visual art because they’re both visual artists, painters, sculptors.
So even though it’s based around visual art, it really talks about all of the things that we can learn from understanding the language that is art in general. And I’m just going to tell you this straight up.
It’s helped me understand how to be a better parent learning some of these lessons. It’s made me understand how to better do music. It’s helped me in my spiritual understanding, again, of God and the universe, because God, in my opinion, is the embodiment of art, and it’s why I’m a disciple of God and a disciple of art simultaneously. There’s just so many incredible things that we can learn about ourselves. So, anyways, it’s not like a religious based podcast.
I think the first question that we get this is very much not a I don’t know, how would you describe it’s?
[00:05:01] Jason: Not like a maybe more neutral that way.
[00:05:03] Nate: Not even neutral.
It’s about art. And it’s not necessarily about, like, where this is a very religious centered podcast. This one’s not. But it’s very obviously like.
[00:05:21] Jason: How do I say that you find what you’re looking for there’s obvious undertones, but that’s not the main.
[00:05:27] Nate: Yeah. And both Emily and Kirk actually are very prominent artists in the, like, art community.
But we’ve made sure to keep it very neutral when it comes to that stuff. Because, again, we’re wanting to learn more from art as the language and the communicative thing that it is, more so than trying to tie it into spirituality or politics or anything else. Right.
It’s very much pretty neutral when it comes to that type of stuff. But we do feel that if you enjoy this podcast, the weekly deep dive that inevitable art will be something that you would probably also be into.
[00:06:15] Jason: I’m super excited. I’ve been kind of chomping at the bit, wondering when this was going to be ready to go. As you know, I sat in the studio for a couple of the recordings and it just really impressed me. Something I wanted to share, something. I couldn’t wait to see it out there to kind of let other people experience it as well. They do a really good job.
[00:06:32] Nate: So we’ll be promoing that the rest of this year on our podcast. We’ll be playing The Little Bump, and then January of 2024 is when we’re going to debut it.
[00:06:44] Jason: Yeah.
[00:06:44] Nate: Okay, let’s get into our thing.
[00:06:46] Jason: All right. This is Hebrews and this is the second part of Hebrews. So it’s chapter seven all the way up to the end of chapter 13.
And let’s just dive in.
I think the first thing that we need to hit when we get into here is a very legitimate question in verse 14 of chapter seven. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the priesthood. So I think this is a very valid question and concern that was on people’s mind.
We call Jesus the Great High Priest and we talk a lot about him in terms of the temple and in terms of being able to enter into the holy of holies where God sits to be able to enter into his presence. And if only a high priest could do this, then obviously Jesus had to have been this high priest. But how? He’s not.
So where does this come from, then? To try to address this concern.
They begin at verse one for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him to whom also Abraham gave a 10th part of all.
And the point that the writer is making here, Melchizedek, was before Abraham. And Abraham, as you know, if you go through your genealogy, begets Isaac, who begets Jacob, who begets? Now you have your twelve sons and Levi. So before Levi was even a sparkle in his father’s eye, abraham was paying tribute and tithing to a greater priest than himself. Melchizedek. And Melchizedek held. Not this levitical priesthood that’s going to come through the line of Abraham and not this ironic priesthood as Aaron is the line of the priest and the high priest, but a separate priesthood, a greater priesthood. And he’s going to call this the priesthood after Melchizedek or the Melchizedek priesthood.
And so there being a separate independent priesthood than this line that levi has that was outside of abraham and outside of israel was for them a way of saying you didn’t have to be born of levi to have the priesthood.
In fact, if you try to track down even where Levi gets his priesthood and it’s not even Levi. Let’s go back. The priesthood really becomes a thing when moses takes them out of egypt and brings them into israel. That’s when the tribe of levi gets chosen. So before Moses, what were they doing for the priesthood? And if you look at where Moses gets his priesthood from, if you try to track that back, it’s not from Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob or even coming down any of the tribes and coming all the way up to where it gets to Moses in an unbroken line. Moses himself is actually receiving the priesthood under the hands of Jethro, who’s outside of Abraham’s line as well. So you have these independent so what’s going on?
And this is a bigger discussion in the Old Testament, so I’m going to try to shorten this a little bit. But you had patriarchal orders where you would have a family and the father, the head of the family, would be the one that presided over the family and had that priesthood authority. And then he would bless his children and the firstborn would receive this double portion and this inheritance and be blessed with the priesthood to be able to preside over their family. And You Had these different groups of people, these different tribes, that they would have their priesthood lines and the patriarchal line. And that’s how it operated before you get to now. You’re switching from just a family unit to now, where you’re taking a lot of families and joining them together and creating a national unit. And this nation unit requires a different structure, a different organization, a different order. Now, these patriarchs tended to roll up into even this Melchizedek Priesthood, as you see from Abraham going and paying tribute and paying his tithing to Melchizedek, who is this great high priest. But this Melchizedek Priesthood is not bounded by the same laws and limits that Moses is now instituting among Israel with Levi and the sons of Levi, I should say, and Aaron and these lines. And so there is a separate Priesthood, a greater priesthood outside. And it’s not uncommon to see somebody possessing this greater Priesthood. And this is kind of their justification of where Christ gets his priesthood. It’s a greater priesthood. It’s a malchistic priesthood. This is going to be significant when you look at Lehi leaving Jerusalem and yet still able to officiate sacrifices with his family, and you start talking about an order of priesthood in the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Mormon, you’re not talking about a Levitical priesthood, you’re talking about Melchizedek Priesthood. So all priesthood in the Book of Mormon is going to be rolling up under the Melchizedek Priesthood. And this becomes significant for us today, because today the Church, when it’s restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, is not restored, as in taking this Levitical Aaronic Priesthood from the family of Israel and having that right that you’re born into and having this tribe officiate these ordinances, well out the Church. All of that’s actually done under the direction of the Melchizedek Priesthood, separate from the Levitical line. And all priesthood is Melchizedek. Through the Melchizedek Priesthood, we’re able to administer in the Aaronic Priesthood and ordain people to the priesthood. And so it’s just a whole spill talking about where this priesthood comes from and try to provide a little bit of context and understanding that this priesthood existed long before Levi was even born, long before Moses and Aaron came around, and it’s existed outside of the structure of Israel. And so we should not be surprised to see Christ becoming a great high priest or these units like Lehi’s family coming out and operating under the direction of the Melchizedek Priesthood or even Joseph Smith today. So it’s kind of interesting to see that continuity.
Love it. All right, there’s a lot we could say about the Priesthood. I think I’m just going to cap it at that. If you want to see more about this for a greater discussion, I would just point you to Doctrine Covenants 84, the episode we talked about that a little bit more and then maybe even go back to some of the Old Testament conversations that we had early on in Israel. But it is going to roll into some other discussions about the temple and it’s also going to talk about Christ offering himself as a sacrifice and talk about this role in the priesthood. And so let’s go into chapter eight a little bit more and we talk verse two. A minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man.
That’s interesting, right when we’re talking about the true tabernacle and what is a tabernacle? And here we’re referring to a temple and we were referring to a heavenly temple, what is the difference between the heavenly temple and the physical temple? So let’s go to verse five. Who serve under the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was set to make the tabernacle. For see saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern shown to thee in the Mount.
So when Moses creates the tabernacle, he’s doing it based off of a pattern that was shown to him when he was in the mountain. And Joseph Smith talks about this. He says, when the people are gathered together and they don’t have a temple, before they can build a temple, they’re allowed to go into the mountain to act as a temple in the place of there not being a temple until a temple can be built. And the reason for this with the temple and the mountain is the idea that heaven is above the Earth and it represents a higher sphere, and then the earth represents a lower sphere. The mountain is going to represent the intermediary, the place where the heaven meets the Earth, where you’re exalting the Earth to go up high, but the heaven is also descending to meet down. So it’s this transitionary period where heaven meets Earth and it kind of comes to represent almost if we were to look at this as celestial terrestrial and celestial as a terrestrial sphere that balances celestial on the one side and celestial on the other. And you try to look at the tabernacle that Moses built, which becomes the pattern which subsequent temples are going to be built off of. You have the Holy of Holies on one end, which represents, if you will, the celestial or the highest degree of glory that you can obtain in the which God is sitting on his throne. And then you have the room just outside of that, the holy place which represents this temple space, this terrestrial, this holy space. And in here, all of the imagery is going to be pointing to Christ. You have the Menorah, which is shaped as the Tree of Life. And Christ is this image of the Tree of Life. You have the showbread and the water. So a sacrament, if you will, that the priests are partaking of every week to remember.
And it’s going to be also pointing to Christ. And you have the incense altar where the prayers are going up. And Christ we pray through his name to the Father. So everything here is an intermediary that stands between God on one end of the holy space and then the outside world on the opposite end. And so anyone who wants to go and obtain the holiest has to go through this holy place to be able to obtain to that and that space. I mean, that’s what embodies the temple. That’s where most of the actions that are happening within the temple. And it’s kind of this terrestrial sphere, this middle ground between the outside world and the heavens above. And this is the mountain. And so when you hear that Moses builds the tabernacle based off of what he sees in the mountain, the mountain experience for Moses is really an endowment experience, a temple experience where Moses is going through, he is elevating himself, going up into the mountain. And then from that mountain, God is catching him and taking him into the heavens and showing him great things and writing the Commandments and instructing him. And this is a temple experience that he’s using this as a pattern to teach and prepare and train his people to try to help them to enter into the presence of God as well. And it becomes a shadow, a representation, if that makes sense.
[00:17:49] Nate: Yeah, totally.
[00:17:53] Jason: All right. And kind of building off of that, let’s go to chapter nine then. Verily, the first covenant had also the ordinance of divine servants in the world sanctuary. And there was a tabernacle made. The first, wherein was the candlestick and the table, the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. And after the second fell the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which is the holy of Holies, which had the golden censor, the Ark of the Covenant overlaid roundabout with gold wearing the golden pot that had manna and Aaron’s rod that butted and tables of the Covenant. So they’re describing this tabernacle in this temple.
And part of this is going to be covenants. You can’t have temples without covenants. And it’s going to talk about this as we turn the page in chapter nine, verse 13. For if the blood of bulls and of the goats and the ashes and the heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to purify the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Now, this is where I’m going to take this a little bit different.
Verse 15. And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament. And I want us to focus on that word testament because I think we hear testament and it brings all sorts of different ideas to our mind. Right? We have the Old Testament, the New Testament, and sometimes we refer to the Testament as a covenant. I want to look at this and maybe apply a different understanding of what testament means here, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgression that they were under the first testament, that which they called, might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Yeah. Why?
Where there’s a testament, there has to be a death of the testator. Think about that for a second. Going on verse 17. For a testament is of force after men are dead. Otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. So what is the testament that they’re talking about?
This is the last will and testament.
So when we’re talking about this testament, this covenant, it’s really an inheritance, an endowment, an endowment.
An endowment that we don’t get unless the person who’s leaving that inheritance to us dies.
And so if I write in my will that my son gets this or that or this or whatever, it’s of no force.
He can’t go to the courts and claim this while I’m still alive. It requires my death. And so it’s interesting that they wrap up this term here for the testament. It’s not just referring to any kind of covenant, any kind of promise. It is a last will and testament. And it’s really literally, like you say, referencing an inheritance, an endowment, a gift. And the only way that any of this is made possible is by the death of Jesus Christ. Even in the Old Testament, down to the New Testament, to any testament, it is only the inheritance of a God that dies.
Now, think about that. Even from Old Testament, if this was a testament saying that you can only receive these blessings if God dies, you have to anticipate that God would at some point be born on Earth, become a person and die so that you can inherit those blessings. This is not something that was only taught thousands of years later as a change of plans. This was always understood from the beginning that maybe kind of got lost somewhere in the mix.
[00:21:56] Nate: That’s what I was going to say. It sounds like it wasn’t understood. It should have been understood, but wasn’t.
[00:22:02] Jason: It should have been understood, and I think it was understood by a lot of people. I think the gospel of Jesus Christ was taught in early times.
And maybe as Christianity comes and wanting to separate from Christianity just as much as Christianity is trying to separate from Judaism, maybe a lot of it is trying to hide some of that from their past or forget that or censor that or change it. I don’t know.
[00:22:30] Nate: Then why did the Pharisees have such a hard time with Jesus then? Or are you saying it was just with him specifically?
Because, again, I guess I’m just saying, like, I have a hard time.
I have a hard time understand, if you know what I mean.
I guess maybe there wasn’t a misunderstanding necessarily of the idea that or what.
[00:22:57] Jason: Was the Messiah even to them.
[00:22:58] Nate: I guess that’s what I mean. Is it’s just like where was the confusion when it just seems like all signs, even during Jesus’ministry would have pointed to, hey, this is fulfilling thousands of years worth of what you all believe.
So I guess I’m just wondering if it was just with him specifically or what were the other things that were just kind of getting in the way, if you know what I mean. I don’t know. Yeah, I’m having a hard time understanding how it could have been missed while Jesus was here.
I’m sure there’s a million things, but I don’t know. I’m not trying to derail you here.
[00:23:37] Jason: You’re not derailing. This is perfect. I mean, look at in terms of Abraham who god visits him in a night, and Abraham says, years ago, years ago you promised that I would have children and now I’m past the childbearing years and that promise, what happened?
Someone else is going to be inheriting my house. And God says, no, you will still have a child. Go out, look at the stars and see if you can count them.
And that’s what your seed is going to be like, not through someone else, but through your own loins. Right.
And Abraham believes him and it says that and Abraham believed him and it was counted to him for righteousness. That’s it.
But then God tells Abraham something different. He says, and you will inherit the earth.
I brought you out of the land of Ur from the Chaldeans, from your dad, from where you came from. You left something small and you’re going to inherit something much greater than that. You are going to inherit the earth.
And that should resonate with us a little bit, particularly when Christ comes and the Sermon on the Mount and says, the meek shall inherit the earth and what does it mean to inherit the earth?
And at this know, Abraham had no problem believing him when he would pass the childbearing years, he says, and he believed him and it was counted for him for righteousness. But when God says you will inherit the earth and it’s not just you, but your seed will inherit the earth, I wonder if it’s not the spirits the followers of Abraham are going to inherit. What was the earth created for? Was it not created for our inheritance to come here and to live? And that’s Abraham’s concern and he’s saying they shall come and inherit the earth and receive bodies. But also like as Christ was saying on the Sermon on this Mount, an eternal promise that you’re going to resurrect and inherit this earth and live here forever in a more long term deal.
[00:25:51] Nate: Well, and we believe that the earth is going to be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. I mean, to inherit the earth wouldn’t be quite literally to inherit the celestial kingdom.
[00:26:00] Jason: Yes. And so at this juncture, Abraham says, how shall I know?
[00:26:08] Nate: He doesn’t say, interesting. Instead of saying, I believe, right, he.
[00:26:12] Jason: Said, I believe when you’re going to give me a son. But when he says, and you will inherit the earth now, he says, how shall I know? And that’s when God says, get the animals, cut them in half. I’m going to make a covenant with you. And how shall I know? How do I know that this is going to happen? How do I know that this is possible? How do I know that this and we’ve talked about this when it wasn’t Abraham that went through those pieces. It was God himself. It’s not only that he’s covenanting that he will at some future point do this, but how shall I know that these spirits will be able to come and possess this earth? Because there was one willing God who was going to come down and like those animals, be torn and cut and die so that we could inherit the earth. So that, one, inherit it the first place to be able to receive bodies and come and live here, and two, like you pointed out, inherit it. When the earth receives a paradisical glory. This idea that we shall live here forever, it requires a lot more faith. And that’s what Abraham was asking, how shall I know? And that’s what God was demonstrating. The reason that this is made possible is because I myself, God, will be made mortal, will die and will provide this opportunity for you. So I look at that relationship, that personal relationship with Abraham and God, and I see it.
And maybe I’m looking at this Hindsight 2020, and it makes a lot more sense to me. But I also have to believe that the early prophets saw and understood that we know that they went through patterns of apostasy. We know they went through patterns of apostasy where once was plainly understood, became lost somewhere along the line and had to be restored. Isaiah had that vision to who shall believe our report? And he’s going to come like a lamb, and he’s going to be cut off from the land of the living, and he won’t have any seed who shall declare his generation. But when you make his soul so who is he? And he’s talking about God being made a mortal man. When you make his soul an offering for sin, you will become his seed. He shall see and he shall rejoice. And he’s describing and explaining this process. David in Psalms writes about this over and over again. And so I look at it and there’s a disconnect between what they believe now or what they believed even in Christ’s time versus what scriptures suggest they would have believed then.
I think it’s lost somewhere along the.
[00:28:54] Nate: Lines in apostasy that makes sense.
We see that even from when Christ came. When we look at the great apostasy. I think that maybe because it’s a little bit closer chronologically to where we are than versus where things were happening kind of in the Old Testament time. So maybe it’s sometimes it’s just when you read, it’s hard for us not to see the Old Testament and the New Testament as like this really truncated kind of condensed time period. But you have to consider that this was thousands of years of history and so it shouldn’t be that hard to comprehend. Yeah, of course information was lost. Of course things were changed. Of course there was misunderstandings from time. I mean, you saw what happened in the hundreds of years after Christ had left and where there was apostasy and misunderstanding happening even in just those few hundred years and then yeah, I think my greater point is as we talked a lot in the Old Testament.
When we were doing the year of the Old Testament, it’s just so hard to understand how you could have not seen every sign pointing to Jesus is the Christ.
This is fulfilling every prophecy, see, that you’ve had from start to finish. And it was hard. But you also just made a great point hindsight is 2020. It’s a lot easier for us to see that now.
And that kind of, I guess, helps answer my question.
[00:30:41] Jason: Well, I think oftentimes when we look back at history, we’re guilty of looking at history through a modern lens and trying to understand what was going on through our experiences today. Right. And I feel like part of that is looking at ancient Judaism through a modern Judaism lens and trying to say that the ancients believed exactly as they believe today, based off of our experience of what they currently believe that this must have been. But I wonder you look at go back to the example of Abraham. Go to Genesis, fast forward to verse 17 and the Lord says you will inherit the Gentiles. And so you go back after these promises are made and Isaac is born and then God commands him to sacrifice Isaac. And how is he going to sacrifice Isaac and still obtain those blessings? How is he going to give up the one Son that God promised that he would have and yet he had all the faith in the world that somehow he wasn’t going to lose Isaac by being obedient and by sacrificing that one nation, that one son that won everything. He was going to inherit all nations, this type, this pattern, look at Isaac as the Jews and then look at this nation of the Jews being destroyed.
And you know the phrase, how odd of God to choose the Jews and this poor people, right, that have been just downtrodden and destroyed and treated poorly, almost like Isaac being sacrificed by the Father, though not as odd as those who choose a Jewish God and spurn the Jews because the Jews went through this and. Provided us with the Old Testament and were this nation that in a sense died for us, the rest of the world became Christians. The rest of the world was introduced to the Bible, to the Old Testament, to the Hebrew God. The rest of the world was converted to the Lord by sacrificing his son. He was able to receive all of the nations. So I don’t think you could look at Judah and see them destroyed by the Babylonians and yet restored back to their land as this death and this resurrection. And yet through this one country dying and being born again, the rest of the world would be converted and follow and whatnot this is the story of God through his people and like you say, hindsight is 2020 and we have that opportunity to look at it. But everything about the story of the people, about where they’ve been to, even Adam and Eve being covered in coats of skin and an animal dying to cover for their mistakes, pointed to this happening.
[00:33:35] Nate: Amen.
[00:33:38] Jason: And the temple embodies that and that’s what Hebrews is going to be teaching us is the temple, as special as it is, is really only a shadow of reality. The real point isn’t to go through a building and pass through a veil. The real point is to return to the presence of God and pass through that veil. This is preparatory. This is to help us to remember. So man, Nate, it’s good that you bring this up and we talk about this and apostasy and how easy things are to forget because it almost seems like the point that they’re going to be drilling through our heads over and over and over again is a very valid point. Part of our ordinances today, how do you remember?
[00:34:22] Nate: Yeah, this is right on the nose of everything you and I have been that’s been on top of our minds for the past few months.
[00:34:33] Jason: Yeah. In fact, chapter ten and just read the first three verses for the law having a shadow of good things to come and see. Isn’t that not what we’re talking about with Abraham and his covenant with Adam and Eve, with Isaiah, all of these things having a shadow of that which is to come and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers there unto perfect.
And we don’t do sacrifices today. So I almost want to take this and modernize it in terms that we could understand or relate to. And if you’re talking about all of these sacrifices, what we have today that kind of stands in the place of those sacrifices are the ordinances. And so if we look at this as the ordinances that we do regularly, these ordinances having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things can never with those sacraments ordinances which they offered year by year or week by week, continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
And this was our point, Nate, when we were talking Matthew 27 about Christ dying for our sins.
The idea that you were put under the water and raised back up and now this is the cleanest member of the church, or that if you partake of the sacrament now, you’re magically purified or cleansed of all your sins and you can just renew that every week and be the cleanest that there is.
We’ve missed something. If that’s what we believe, if that was the case, then would we not also believe that when somebody’s on the deathbed, we better run there and get them that sacrament quick, that they could be purified cleansed and ready to enter into the kingdom of God? And this is what this is saying, right? It’s a shadow of the things they can never with those sacrifices which they affect year by year make the comers there unto perfect, for then would they not have ceased to be offered. If they made you perfect, then why would you keep taking it? If they cleansed you, then shouldn’t you be cleansed? Why would you have to keep doing it?
Let me keep going. Why would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers, once purged, should have no more conscious of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of the sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away the sins. It’s not possible that the bread and the water should take away the sins.
It’s not possible that the baptismal water and the clothes that we wear takes away our sins and we get caught in that trap so easy. That’s the trap that they got caught in the Old Testament. And if you don’t believe me, if you don’t understand what I’m saying, go read Isaiah chapter one, when it says that your sins or excuse me, your sins, your offerings and your sacrifices are offensive to me. Like, wait a second, didn’t he ask them to do that? Why is it offensive? And he said, they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Going through the actions will never purify anyone. All the actions do is establish a covenant, a personal relationship with Christ. It is and always has been Christ that will purify your sins.
[00:38:08] Nate: And the Word that just continues to pop up over and over and over is remember, it’s the Word again, as you and I have been going down these rabbit holes and just trying to really get to the heart of things. It’s the Word that has risen to the top in every single one of these things. And as we talked about, you and I have talked about in third Nephi, when Christ is establishing the sacrament and it’s like he lays out exactly why he wants us taking the sacrament each week. And it’s to witness to God that we will always remember Him, that we always remember Him to witness that we remember.
Again, when you sent me the scripture to look at again this week in Hebrews, it’s just like the word just continues. Because the question would be if these things that we’re doing, if going through these actions and performing these ordinances, I don’t even want to say going through the actions because I feel like that cheapens it a little bit, right? If performing these ordinances aren’t the things that save us, as it’s saying here, well, then why do we do it right? Because, I mean, that’s the natural follow up question, right? If by taking the sacrament that’s not purifying, if the action of that isn’t purifying us, then why do it, right? And this is why, again, this word has just continued to pop up over and over and over. And that is it points to the person that does purify you. It all continues to point back to Christ. And this comes full circle on why, when we say we’re renewing this covenant, as you all probably know, at this point I just continue to push back against this because again, it’s like it’s almost focusing on the action of the sacrament as the thing. That’s the purifying thing for me, instead of going, this is the chance to each week witness unto God that we will always remember Him. And we talked about this last week. My son asked me an incredible question. He said, Why is the prayer different to the water than it is to the bread? I was like, that’s a great question. You know what I mean? Like, hey, that’s a great question that I don’t know the answer to off the top of my head.
Give me some time to think through this. And the next week, again, I listened even with more intent to the prayer for the water.
What do you think is the only thing that we say or that the priests say in the second prayer they leave out, keep the commandments, take upon ourselves his name. What’s the one thing that stays in there? That stays in there, remember?
Okay, now, I’m not going to say that I even have a definitive answer on what all of this means yet because I’m still in the throes of trying to figure this out, right?
And it’s a part of the reason why I’ve been hesitant to come out with a definitive and here’s why I believe X, Y and Z. And it’s part of the reason, again, you and I have been preparing it’s funny because you and I have been ready, quote unquote, to kind of do our definitive, you know what I mean? Here’s a bonus episode of Y-X-Y and Z. And it just seems like every time we’re ready, we read something or something else comes up and it’s just like, oh, my goodness.
This is a whole other you know what I mean? A whole other angle to this.
But what I love is that there is definitely shape taking to this for me, and that is like, it continually focuses on that word. And I don’t think that we can overstate maybe how important that is. And as we’re trying to understand this, and as the picture, for me at least, is becoming clearer and clearer on this.
And again, this is why the follow up with conference when you’re hearing talks where you have an apostle going and saying, yeah, I fell into the same trap as you all did, where we’re just like, well, why wouldn’t we wait till right before we were baptized? Right before we got killed to get baptized? If the action of that is the thing that makes us clean and it’s like every salute in the world is coming from me, you know what I mean? I’m going, thank you for finally, like, let’s start changing the language of how we talk about these things, because in doing so, I think we’re doing the same thing, like you said, that could potentially lead to so much more focus on the actions and performing the ordinance and missing the action with the action pointist. That’s exactly right.
That’s exactly right. And and as this picture becomes clearer and clearer for me personally, the word again has just like and again, I had a fantastic conversation with my father about this. And really, actually, that conversation kind of was the thing that really even just set kind of realigned my focus a little bit on even the word, remember, it’s like, oh, man, that is something that I don’t think that I’ve done a good enough job of understanding. And then ever since that conversation months ago, it’s just like that word just continues to just find its way into every part of this discussion.
And therefore, then why? Right? Because ultimately, that’s the question.
Ultimately, the question is, Jason, why do you and I care so much about trying to understand better and in the process of that maybe realign the way that you and I refer to this, right? It’s like, for me, it’s like, okay, cool, instead of just saying the same thing over and over because that’s what we say. Why do we say that? Well, it’s to point to the bigger why, which is the dissonance in me with some of these terms that we use that I think are not fully accurate or incomplete.
And I think the dissonance in me is because I’m feeling like it all is because eventually those things can take the place of understanding why it is that we do what we do. And the sacrament being the thing that, yes, I’m kind of on a bit of a crusade about, no pun intended, I guess I was going to say whatever the idea is, for me, the more and more I’ve tried to better understand the why, the clearer it’s been. Oh, because all of these things, including the temple, including everything that we do, covenant wise and physically like the ordinances that we do, all point to the same thing, which is it’s the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. It’s the atonement of Jesus Christ. It’s through Him that we’re saved, not through the quote unquote purifying waters of baptism. That’s a step. That’s a thing. But even then, everything in that ordinance points to the sacrifice that Jesus made and the promise that we have because of that. When you go through Jason, as we’ve been going through this and kind of even understanding the parallels more and more of the ordinances and covenants that we make outside of the temple and their parallels to the covenants that we make inside the temple, all of this is to just continually reinforce that it’s Jesus Christ.
It’s not bread and water.
It’s not a baptismal font.
It’s not the clothes we wear.
It’s not those things that save us.
It’s Jesus Christ.
It’s the atonement.
[00:46:58] Jason: It’s it’s not putting any of these ordinances down. Absolutely. It’s not. It’s not underappreciating, in fact.
[00:47:13] Nate: But that’s my question is and I want you finish, but why is it that for some it feels like that it is when you go because the thing is, at any point did we say that they’re not important? At any point am I saying that they’re not important?
No.
In fact, the reason that I’m saying that they’re so important, Jason, is is because of what they point to, of what we are committing to as we do these things.
[00:47:46] Jason: It’s changing them from a dead ordinance to a live ordinance.
[00:47:52] Nate: I wish you could all see me right now raising my hand in the meme of the baby at the church meeting. Preach on, baby. Preach on. Jason. That’s exactly right.
[00:48:03] Jason: Because when we understand them in terms of our relationship with the Savior and how it points us to the Savior, and we’re remembering the Savior and remembering, by the way, that the reason we even exist here in the first place is because when God said, I have a plan, christ responded, here am I, send me.
And only with a plan could this world be created, and only with the Savior could we be sent here. And he’s done that for us, and he’s promised that he would do that for us, and he fulfilled his promise, and we’re going to have life again. We owe him a debt of gratitude for existing in the first place and for being able to inherit the earth, not just as spirits coming here, but inherit the earth in a resurrected state as well, in an eternal state that we can run and not be weary and walk and not faint. Because we’re going to live forever.
And understanding that and having that point us to Him and realize that he is who we are covenanting with and he’s done this and he’s created this, makes this so much more powerful than simply, I took a bath today and now I’m good for me.
And I want to even point this to the scriptures. We keep referring to the scriptures of the Word of God, and I will say that the scriptures are the Word of God in the sense that it was the Word of God to certain people.
And I can read it, and I can be inspired by it, but what good is that to me if the Lord’s not speaking to me as well?
If I were to read the Word of God and see that Noah was saved because he built an ark, and so then I go and build an ark in my backyard, and I’m ready.
[00:49:57] Nate: To go, you should be like, look, this is how you get saved.
[00:50:00] Jason: Noah was saved. I read the scriptures, I’m good, right?
But that act is not going to save me.
That act was specific and particular to.
[00:50:10] Nate: Noah, and you can still learn something from that. But hopefully the thing that you’re learning from that is no matter what God tells you to do, no matter how crazy it might sound to those around you, you see it’s like, to your point, we can learn a lesson in that, by the way. We can learn processes in that. We can learn the pattern from that. But what’s more important, reading Noah’s story or having a relationship with the Spirit to where you’re receiving revelation from God, right?
[00:50:39] Jason: Yes. And so the Word of God becomes live within us. We take inspiration from Noah’s story. We learn about how Noah connected with heaven. We seek to connect with heaven. The scriptures are the conversation starter, and it gets that pump primed, and we receive that inspiration, we receive that revelation, and we can check those revelations against the scripture, against all these other examples, and it will feel good, because the scriptures build familiarity with the Word of God. I wouldn’t say it’s the Word of God to us, but because it was the Word of God to so many people, we become so familiar with the Word that we recognize it when it speaks to us. The scriptures are critical to build a recognition so that when the Lord speaks to us, we recognize it. And I’ll say the same thing with the ordinances. These ordinances can be a saving ordinances.
[00:51:36] Nate: By the way, too.
[00:51:37] Jason: Saving ordinances.
[00:51:37] Nate: We call them saving ordinances. The thing is, we’re not dismissing them as, hey, you don’t need to do this. I just wanted to throw that in there. Continue.
[00:51:45] Jason: But like they say here in Hebrews, they are a shadow.
It’s almost a dead thing.
It’s not that that’s going to it’s that that points our attention to the live thing and that’s Christ Jesus has to be the live thing.
[00:52:02] Nate: Because in my opinion, when you are remembering Christ, this is when you actually change this is when your heart actually changes. And I’m saying this from my personal testimony, dude, I’m saying this from my experience now, as we have again, like months ago, kind of had this thing pop up, had some pushback against it, which is great. I invite all pushback, pushback against my ideas because it’s either going to show me that I’m wrong or it’s going to force me to either make the muscle stronger or it’s going to be like, okay, cool, here’s where I was misled. Well, it’s just made it stronger for me and in the best of ways, because here’s what’s happened, Jason. For me, as I’ve began to try to understand this, I’ve realized how casual it was for me to just go, oh yeah, I’ve heard it and that’s what it is and whatever.
And then you take the sacrament and go, okay, cool, this is my weekly baptism, whatever, the things that we say, right? Like, okay, cool. So I began to understand that and begin to be honest enough with myself, which is going, oh, the act of this didn’t purify me. The act of taking this bread and water in and of itself didn’t change me, right?
It didn’t change my heart.
It didn’t forgive me for my sins. Oh, no, there’s a whole other process for doing that.
There’s a whole other process for being forgiven by sin. Yes, I understand that. But as I’ve been focusing on the words of that prayer and the remembering and then understanding and thinking, wow, what does that bread actually represent? What does that blood actually represent? And by the way, that’s heavy when you really start thinking about it and when you might not thinking, remembering what that represents.
Here’s what it’s done to me is it’s made me think those things that I continue to choose to do each week that are stupid, that was a drop of blood, that was a lashing on that body, that’s being separated right up on that altar.
And it’s made me actually, scary as it sounds for the first time, really try to understand what that means, by the way, when I’m just doing my dumb stuff through the week, right? Like, the things that I know I should be better about this.
And as I’ve been taking the sacrament, having really started trying to remember this better, I can absolutely say I really am feeling the actual change, man. Like, I’m feeling the changing of my heart that only I feel like the Spirit can do, that only Christ can do.
So why do we care so much about this? I care so much about this because I can feel and see in my daily life what it’s actually doing for me.
It’s not going through a process anymore. It’s not relying on the act itself to have some magic change, right?
It’s that as I’m trying to better understand why I’m doing this each week, I can see where my focus is during the rest of the week, I’m starting to think, oh, my goodness, like, look at the parallels with this and the temple. Because, my goodness, when you start really trying to not even trying to when you start accepting the parallels between the sacrament and the temple, it’s made me go, hey, man, the clothes that I wear, the words that I use throughout the week, man, I need to be better about this.
I need to take this more seriously because it points to the one person that can change me, right? The one person that can purify me.
And so why do I care so much about driving this point home? Is because I can see the changes that it’s making inside of me.
That’s why I care so much.
[00:56:36] Jason: That’s it.
It’s about who we become, not necessarily what we did, it’s what we did and how that helped us to change or to become. We have to be like God. And if we flip this and look at the other, if you say a man who intentionally sins and he’s not out there to repent, he’s not out there to change. In fact, he’s out there to stick it to God and let’s say all week long, he’s just racking up whatever he can do to just drive that point home and say, take that.
In this imaginary scenario, imagine God just waiting for the vengeance to catch up to this guy. Then he goes and he partakes the sacrament just to clean that slate and like, foiled again, right?
You can’t get me because I did this and this has now purified me and cleansed me.
It’s not that that’s what the point of it was. The point of it was like you say to remember Christ, to be like Christ and we make sacred covenants and these are the most important things. We’re not trying to belittle any of this, but understanding that these will not save us, but help us remember and turn to Christ and through Him we can change, change and become like Him and these ordinances become so much more rich. And even look at this in Hebrews, chapter ten, as we’re going through this, maybe to come back to the Scriptures a little bit, and we talk about the sacrament and the blood and the body in verse 19, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. So when he says holiest, he’s referring to the holy of Holies. And he’s saying it is by the blood of Jesus that we’re allowed to enter into the holy of holies. Now you go back and we’re missing some context because they would have to sacrifice an animal and through the blood was the priest made clean that he could enter into the holy of Holies, right? And he’s saying, by Christ’s blood, we’re able to enter into the presence of God, because that’s what the holy of Holies was, the ark of the covenant, what separates us from the holy of Holies? A veil. And it says verse 20 by a new and living way through which he hath consecrated us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And now all of a sudden we have an image of the blood allowing us to pass through the veil, the blood flowing through underneath the flesh being allowed to enter in but almost even. How did it get to that point? And you opened my eyes to this, Nate, as we were talking about the atonement of Jesus Christ. And really you look at it taking in two stages and when he dies on the cross at Calvary, the veil is rent in the temple, men can now enter into the kingdom of God. Because of his death, the veil is rent, that separation is removed. But take this a step back into a more quiet, subdued gethsemane when he’s praying and everyone else has fallen asleep. And a sign that maybe everyone else is going to miss.
And his flesh is that veil. And what happens? That blood comes out from every pore separating, pouring through the flesh, allowing that blood, allowing you to pass through the veil. It’s passing through this imagery, these ordinances, what are they doing? Help us remember Him so that we can be like Him.
[01:00:15] Nate: That’s exactly right. So that he can change us again.
I’m hoping that our point is being just pounded into your brain at this point, which is not only are we not trying to dismiss the importance of these saving ordinances, we’re trying to highlight why they’re required of us, why we’re told you have to have certain ordinances to be saved. The whole point of this is why does God require us to do these things?
Because he knows that we need to remember.
He knows that we need to do these things to better understand, right.
That by keeping the promises that we make during these covenants, they will help us do what? Change. Right. They will help us look to the one person that can because all these ordinances continually point back to the same thing, which is Christ, the atonement. Right?
That’s the beauty in these saving ordinances is that they all point back to the one person that saves us, that can save us. And how does he save us?
Because he’s the one that can change us. He’s the one that can help us become like Him. Right?
That’s why these ordinances are so incredible.
That’s why not, not why they’re not important. That’s why they’re so perfect and brilliant on so many levels, right?
Our whole point is understanding better why we have these ordinances and these covenants is to me, the beauty of these things is that they all point to the way that we can change and become like Him. It’s why they’re incredible.
[01:02:24] Jason: In fact, kind of building on to this to the next point in chapter eleven, verse six. But without faith it is impossible to please Him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And when we talk about becoming like Him chapter Twelve looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. So he’s not even just the finisher, the beginner.
And I almost look at that when you say the Author and finisher, the Author, the Creator, him saying here am I, send me, becomes the Author, the creation.
But then also Him resurrecting from the dead and resurrecting us. We get to inherit the earth not once, but twice. Our spirits get to come here and we get to live forever. The finisher of our faith. But in order to do that, the Author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross.
Why did he go through the cross? Why did he suffer? Why did he go through gethsemane? Because of the joy that was before Him and being able to do this. And this was what he had to do in order for us to be saved. But as we talked about last week, he didn’t say, here am I, send me. He said, Here am I and the children that Thou gavest me send us.
Each of us had the opportunity to do something important like Christ.
How can we follow Him if we’re not doing something similar? Without faith, no man can please God. And so go to chapter eleven and it starts to outline all of these examples. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he has obtained witness to the righteousness God testifying of the gifts, and by it he being dead, yet speaketh. And by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death. And they’re going to go through all of these examples noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses and then they throw in rehab. And it’s interesting that going through all of these examples, what do all of these people have in common?
That they had to exercise faith. And by exercise faith go back in chapter four. It said that the Jews did not mix the word of God with faith unto salvation.
I don’t know a more faithful people than the Jews.
I don’t. Thousands of years they’ve maintained the integrity of the holy days.
Thousands of years they’ve maintained strict dietary restrictions in the light of a world that’s changing around them.
Isn’t that faith to act on what you believe?
So if they had faith, why is the writer saying that they didn’t? Because it wasn’t mixed with the word, the living word. The living word.
And that’s such an important distinction, because was it. Not the word of God that gave them the holy days.
[01:05:58] Nate: This goes right back to what we were saying, which, again, I know is sometimes like a rub for some people.
I mean, I know it was a rub for some people last week when we were talking about the Scriptures and saying, hey, you got to be careful to just rely on this as like, pure information that like, hey, this is what we need. I mean, this has caused personal apostasies for entire denominations of religion where it’s like, we need no more Bible.
We got what we need, and if it’s in there, then it’s true. I understand that this is a rub, dude, I know that a lot of the stuff that we talk about is a rub for some people, man. And it’s because what you just said, but you just followed it up with exactly why when you say, cool, the Scriptures are the word of God during time to some people for specifically some things in certain circumstances and not. And yes, the Scriptures were written for our time.
[01:06:57] Jason: We believe all of this.
[01:06:58] Nate: We’re with you on all of this. But think about what we just got done talking about here in Hebrews. If you rely only on what God spoke to other people, this is where you’re setting yourself up for trouble, is all we’re saying.
[01:07:17] Jason: What use would Moses have been to God if he built a massive ark in the desert and never returned to Egypt?
[01:07:25] Nate: That’s right.
[01:07:27] Jason: And what good would it be for me to go sacrifice my son today?
I would be in jail and no one would be edified.
[01:07:34] Nate: That’s dude preach.
[01:07:39] Jason: It’s not that you have faith. It’s that you have faith in what the Lord is telling you, not what he told.
Come. How come wrestling with God all night was enough to save Jacob and give him a new name, but not Abel.
We have to hear the word of the Lord and then not harden our hearts and be able to follow the word of the Lord. It’s that simple.
And the Scriptures are a powerful tool that allows us to build that familiarity, see those examples and seek that opportunity and allow us to square up what we receive. And we receive that inspiration to know what we ourselves need to do. And only through knowing what we need to do will we be able to save ourselves and save our family. And that process is going to be very similar to Christ going through his sufferings and dying, yet having that hope to be able to pull Him through that experience.
How many people, when they were taught the Gospel, sometimes it meant leaving their friends and their family to follow that light. And they talk about this in chapter sorry, I’m going to pause just for a second. I say chapter in chapter ten.
It says verse 32, but call to remembrance the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions.
Now think about this in terms of Lehi’s vision.
What happens when they saw the tree and the path and the iron rod that would take them there. And as soon as they found the path and entered in on the path, clouds of darkness, a great and spacious building, any number of opposition to try to pull them off. So go back to here. Remember when you were illuminated and right after you were illuminated you endured a great fight of afflictions. Partly wilts were you made a gazing stock, so you were made a laughingstock, a gazing stock, the center of attention both by reproaches and afflictions and partly wilts you became the companions of them that were so used.
And they talk about when you receive the word of God and what the Lord is asking you to do. Think about what that meant for Abel. Think about what that meant for Moses. Man, I bet Moses wish he could have just checked out and stayed in Jethro’s house and not go back and square off against Pharaoh.
In fact, think about what Moses did as I go to chapter twelve. By faith, Moses when he was come to the years this is verse 24 refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
How much easier would it have been for him to just hang out in Pharaoh’s house and enjoy status and enjoy wealth and enjoy privilege and enjoy whatever it was. And yet he decided to go side with the slaves and suffer affliction with God’s people because that was what was right for him.
And what’s right for Moses was the opposite of what was right for Joseph.
Joseph was thrown in a pit, joseph was sent to prison. He’s starting on the opposite end of the spectrum of Moses and what’s God’s desire for him to be pulled out, to put into Pharaoh’s court and to rule over Egypt where Moses walked away from Pharaoh, joseph was embraced by Pharaoh and ruled over Egypt. You can’t just say turning away from wealth and power is going to save you every time because for Joseph it was the exact opposite. God asked him to embrace that.
And you don’t have to be this amazing person set up spiritually whatever they include the story of Rahab here. And I want you to think about Rahab for a moment. She was a prostitute. By why would you be a prostitute? Because how else are you going to support your family? You are barely making it. You have resulted to this just to get by.
And then she houses these spies, she’s committing treason, a capital offense in her country, and she lies about their whereabouts, putting herself at great harm and risk. So here she is making morally and legally I wouldn’t even say questionable, outright wrong decisions.
Why?
To try to survive one more day. It’s not that she’s set up and has everything for her. Sometimes we get stuck in a situation where it’s just anything we can do to make it one more day. And yet when that opportunity comes and the word of the Lord reaches us, and we know that this is what we need to do to be saved, and she saves those spies and she makes that deal and she lowers her family out and gets them out of Jericho before they’re destroyed it’s salvation.
It doesn’t matter if you’re coming from a state where you’re impoverished and you’re just trying to live day by day, or you’re coming from the most wealthiest, powerful area, or if you’re going from prison to power, or from power to prison. All that matters is what the Lord is asking you to do. And it’s not a universal thing that’s going to save everyone, it’s specific.
When God said, I have a plan, you also said, Here am I, send me. And what you agreed to do, or the important work that the Lord has entrusted in you, is different from the important work that the Lord has entrusted for me. And for some people, like Abel, all he did that we can read about is just the simple offering, the sacrifice that he’s asked to and doing what he was supposed to do. He’s not leading people out of Egypt, he’s not building an ark, he’s not wrestling with God all night. He’s just living his normal life. And some people, like you’ve said before, Nate, I’ll stay where you want me to stay, or I’ll go where you want me to go.
For some people, it’s quit your job. For some people, it’s stay in your job.
But you’ll never know what it is if you don’t hear the voice of the Lord for yourself.
[01:14:32] Nate: And can I? Again, like, dude, you’re firing on all cylinders and it’s inspiring to me. I want to bring this even more full circle again.
What is the beauty of these covenants and ordinances that we make? What are we promised in return when we take the sacrament each week?
The Spirit?
How can we know what God wants us to do? How can we know if he wants us to stay? How can he know if he wants us to go? All of this continues. This is why, again, when we’re baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, right?
Again, think of the promises in the temple.
Think of the covenants that we make.
And again, how all of these things continue to point back to Christ.
Why?
So that he can change us? Well, how are we supposed to know what he wants us to do?
Well, all of these things continue to promise that again, through the purifying atonement the blood of Christ, we can be clean, and as part of that, be open and receptive to his spirit and to His Word and the living Word, right. Of God. So this is how all of these things continue to just go hand in hand, is that we say, okay, cool. Well, you can’t just rely on the scriptures.
You need to be having the living Word with you. Right. You need to be getting personal revelation. Well, how are you going to do that? Well, by remembering, by taking upon ourselves his name. By doing all of these things that we do. Right. Again, why this is so beautiful and incredible is when you start just looking at the connective tissue between all of these things, and it’s why, again, so many people I think a stumbling block outside of maybe and inside of our church, too, is, well, if grace is what saves us, then what are the need of works? Well, we’re told that by our actions, we’re going to be judged.
And it’s like when you look at those things as independent nations, it’s just like, okay, cool. I can see how that would be a conflicting thing when you finally start to understand how perfectly tied together all of these things are.
This is the beauty of Paul going, just performing ordinances aren’t going to save you, but you need to do these. But here are the saving ordinances and here’s why we do you see what I mean? Yeah.
[01:17:26] Jason: He didn’t stop administering them.
[01:17:27] Nate: That’s exactly my point.
[01:17:29] Jason: They’re important. But why are they important?
Because they turn us to Him.
[01:17:36] Nate: Again, I will continue to highlight the hand in handness of this whole thing, because that’s the point that we’re trying to make.
You just said it. Sometimes I’ll stay where you want me to stay. Can be harder than I’ll go where you want me to go.
And I love that you brought up the illustration of Moses and Joseph, because that’s kind of it. Right. One is, okay, I’ll go where you want me to go, and the other one is, okay, I’ll stay where you want me to stay, and in both cases saved a nation.
Right.
[01:18:14] Jason: Yeah.
[01:18:15] Nate: And luckily, both had the open communication with God to know what he wanted them to do in those circumstances. Bring this back to us personally, right.
Where you’re making life plans right now with you and your family that are very different than the life plans that I’m making with me and my family. And I feel very, very secure in what I’m doing because of the confirmation that I feel in my heart. Right. And I can only assume that you feel the same way, even though those are two very different directives. Right.
I would say it’s a good thing that you and I both have a good relationship, at least enough with the spirit that we feel good about the decisions that you and I are making in our life, even though they’re very different. Right.
Shouldn’t that be a fairly universal I don’t know, example, hopefully right to what you’re saying, which is, yes, we love the scriptures, please read them. I need to read them more even. You know what I mean? Like, yes, this is the beauty of them and they alone aren’t going to save you. They alone aren’t going to give you your personal revelation that you need from God without having a relationship with the Spirit.
Which is why it’s so dope that we get to have all these awesome ordinances and covenants that we make.
[01:19:44] Jason: They build our familiarity. And he brings this point really hard in the end of chapter twelve.
And this word yet once more signifyeth the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain wherefore we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably and reverence, and Godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. And I even should have started that one verse earlier, verse 26, whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heavens. And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things which are shaken as of things which are made, and those things which cannot be shaken may remain. And think about that.
Are the sacrifices that God instituted with Abraham still enforced today? Are those the things that can’t be moved? Or was it Christ who’s immovable?
[01:20:55] Nate: What a great point.
What a great point. I mean you just what a great freaking point, man.
Because those were saving ordinances, weren’t they, to the people before Christ?
Could we not consider those ordinances, saving ordinances and those sacrifices and the covenants, I mean, that was instituted as a saving ordinance for those people, right?
[01:21:23] Jason: Yes.
[01:21:23] Nate: Well, if we’re not doing that anymore.
[01:21:26] Jason: It gets shaken out. And if we were attached to that and not Christ, then we got shucking out with it.
[01:21:35] Nate: That’s exactly right.
[01:21:38] Jason: We need to be attached to something immovable and that is God. And these ordinances are the way through which we become attached to Him.
[01:21:50] Nate: The point of those ordinances didn’t change, right?
The core foundation of those ordinances didn’t change because they pointed to what the atonement of Jesus Christ and what happens.
[01:22:07] Jason: When the temple ordinances change.
Are we attached to the way things were or are we attached to Christ behind them?
[01:22:20] Nate: I would say mic drop, but that’s maybe a little irreverent for what we’re talking about. But I just said it anyway, so sue me.
Write me a mean email.
[01:22:32] Jason: There’s one last thing here. I want to approach this almost kind of from a negative point of view. And it’s also chapter twelve and it’s a little bit earlier and it says looking diligently lest any man fall of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up and trouble you and thereby many be defiled lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterwards when he would have inherited the blessings he was rejected for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
This, to me, is kind of a harsh warning.
If I’ve received direction from the Lord, I need to find every way I can to hold on to that, to do it, to take inspiration. Who was Esau’s brother? Jacob. What did Jacob do? He wrestled with the Lord all night long.
And when the Lord dislocated his thigh and tried to shake him loose, he didn’t. He held on.
And Esau was also shaken of the Lord, and he was shaken to where he thought he was going to lose his life. And he was willing to trade his blessing for a bowl of lentils.
When the Lord shakes me, do I find a way to hold on just that much longer, like Jacob? Or do I look for the easy way out and say, this is too hard. Give me the lentils.
Because afterwards, looking back, esau carefully sought it with tears, trying to take that back.
And if the Lord has asked me to do something and it gets too hard, am I going to later on in my life look back at the time that I didn’t listen and regret it with tears, wishing somehow I could go back in time and do that again and make the right choice?
No man can please God without faith. And we’re all going to have that opportunity. And Christ himself asked all of his apostles, I’m sorry, didn’t ask. He told all of his apostles, one of you will betray me.
Not to spare them guilt or heavy feelings or hardness, but to shake them.
And how do we respond when we’re being shaken by the Lord? How do we respond when it’s the Lord we’re wrestling with, when we have that conflict or we feel that dissonance, or we feel like things aren’t adding up? Do I turn from the Lord and go to a bowl of porridge that’s going to feel a temporary peace and satisfaction and escape that shaking that the Lord is giving? Do I fall out like everything else? Or do I find a way to dig in and hang in until I enter into his rest at the end?
That’s what it means to be called. Israel.
[01:25:54] Nate: Said that so amazingly. And again, I hesitate to even want to add to that. But you highlighted even just a new aspect of that story with Jesus and his disciples that I just wanted to bring up and kind of emphasize what you’re saying, which is Jesus could have easily said, judas is going to betray me.
Why would he do that to the rest of his disciples or apostles? Why would he do that to them? Right?
Why would he even float out that idea to the ones he knew weren’t going to betray him.
This is maybe a good thing to think through all the way and that’s because it inspired their response.
Is it me? I think that he gave them the opportunity to probably have a little bit of a very humbling, maybe uncomfortable personal conversation with themselves.
Because when he said one of you is going to betray me, I bet you all the people in that room probably immediately thought of the things that they needed to work on, right? Like the spirit probably stirred something inside of each one of them if they even felt like they had to ask that question and like you say, maybe.
[01:27:21] Jason: Warned them of what they needed to do. So it wasn’t there.
[01:27:25] Nate: That’s my point, right, is that we’re all imperfect man.
And I think that sometimes we have such a we’ve kind of we’ve kind of started talking about guilt or dissonance or even shame from the Spirit as like a, hey, we’ve got to get rid of this completely.
I just disagree with that.
I think that the spirit stirring us to a remembrance of the things that we’ve done wrong is the first step in addressing those things so that we can become better, right? So that we can become different. And so instead of taking offense at the guilt or the dissonance inside of us, I think it’s an incredibly healthy thing to do to go, well why do I feel like that? And understand and then go, okay, well, what are the changes that I can make to not have to feel like that? Right, but I think that you just highlighted such an incredible part of that story, which is if the other eleven all felt like they needed to say is it me?
There was probably a very healthy internal dialogue happening within each of them going, oh my goodness, have I done something or am I going to do something? Or what do I need to do? Really? So that it’s not me, right? And I think that you just highlighted such an incredible part of that story which is Christ gave them the opportunity to ask that question by not just coming right out and saying judas is going to betray me, right?
And we should, I think, maybe consider again, like I just also wanted to highlight what you said too, which is that we are provided the opportunity sometimes to not just get answers right away and to not just have things fast and easy in the way that we expect it. And I think that again, I just wanted to highlight that as well because I think that a lot of times that there is a falling away and again I can only speak for myself and through my experiences are sometimes at that time where you go, the holding on can feel painful and uncomfortable.
And I really appreciate you using the story of both jacob and Esau, and they’re two vastly different experiences. Right. I think that sometimes we think that by hanging on and I’ll let whoever’s listening to that make of that statement what you will, but there are times where it feels like there are a lot of unanswered questions.
And sometimes hanging on can be a very painful process in the fact that, yeah, the answer isn’t always easy, and finding answers isn’t always easy. And sometimes there isn’t an answer in the way that we think that we need it. Right.
But what Jacob’s reward was was everything right? What Jacob’s reward was was everything that God has was inheriting the earth, was the fulfilling of every promise and blessing that any human being could receive. Right. Because he persevered with God.
And I do hurt sometimes when I think of if there are people close to me or in my life, I do sometimes worry that there will be a time later in life that there will be a look back and go, I wish I would have hung on just a little bit longer.
And the reason that I think that that’s healthy for me is because then it keeps me in check, too. And I get to continually ask that question, is it me?
When I’m kind of in the midst of the storm and when I’m deciding each day whether to hang on or not, it helps me to think of what you just said, which is what I don’t want to do, is look back with regret going, I should have hung on a little bit longer.
It’s kind of a bummer way to end the episode.
[01:32:23] Jason: But no, dude, I think I can spruce this up real quick at the end.
[01:32:28] Nate: But I’m sincere about it, for whatever it’s worth.
[01:32:31] Jason: No, I’m with you. And I thought I was done. I closed my books, you saw me. I thought we’d hit the end. But as you were talking, you kind of inspired something else from Hebrews.
We hit this last week, but I think it’s worth ending on this.
Though he were a son talking about Christ, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
And suffering doesn’t necessarily mean touching the hot stove.
How many of those apostles learned obedience when he asked excuse me, I keep saying asked when he said, one of you will betray me. And they all suffered.
Was it me?
[01:33:13] Nate: That’s right.
[01:33:14] Jason: And yet that’s how they learned obedience. It’s not that you sin all the time.
Sometimes you suffer without sinning. Sometimes you suffer without even going through the actions, just that turmoil. You talked about this, that feeling. Right? And then when it talks about Christ being tempted and maybe this is the verse I end on it’s. Chapter two, verse 18, again from last week. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. And when he talks about succor, that’s a weird word. We don’t use the word sucker very much.
In fact, I was asked by a friend today, what does the word sucker mean?
And I looked up the etymology on this, and it comes from the Latin, from the old French, the su coming from sub, meaning underneath, to sink down, to drop.
And then the core in Latin and then the French core, or in Spanish, to run.
And it’s when someone is going under to run to them that’s the English. But the Greek here actually comes from two different words, and it’s the same thing. The second word means to run to. The first word means to cry out.
And so he being tempted when he recognizes someone else going through the temptation, having known what it’s like to be tempted, runs out to their aid. And this is Peter sinking in the waters, sub, su, going under, crying out. Then Jesus runs to him.
And this is the verse I’ll end on. This is chapter four, verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Wait, what?
Because we’re seeking this help, and because we’re going through these hard times, and because we’re like Christ going through Gethsemane, or like Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, or Moses dealing with Pharaoh or whatever the case may be, we recognize this in others, and we run to their need to comfort them. We approach the throne to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And going back even to the New Testament, those who are heavy laden and burdened, come unto me. Not to be unburdened. I’m going to throw a yoke on you. I’m going to add even more burdens to you. And you’re going to help somebody else. And by helping someone else, why? Because you recognize that in them what you yourself went through. We become saviors as we learn obedience through suffering. And maybe sometimes we miss that call to act. Maybe sometimes we’re like Esau and we sell that porridge and tearfully. We wish we could take that act back. But because we’ve learned through that suffering, the next time that opportunity presents itself, not only do we choose the other direction and find that strength to hang on a little bit longer, like Jacob, but we can also see someone else crying out for help in a similar situation. And we run to them, because isn’t that part of the baptismal covenant we talk about to strengthen those who need strengthening, to mourn with those that mourn, to run to those that cry out, just as Christ did to Peter as he sunk in the waters.
[01:36:52] Nate: Thank you guys for listening.
We really appreciate all of the feedback that we get, the comments, the questions, all of those things.
It makes it really fun for us to do this thing, to to just realize that people actually listen to this and care enough to write us back or send us thoughts, questions in perspective as well.
You can get a hold of us at the email address of hi@weeklydeepdive.com.
Make sure that you make sure that you check out our new content coming out at the beginning of next year. Thank you guys again so much for listening. Until next week.
[01:37:42] Jason: See you.
And how many people TODAY can’t see it either? The Lord has provided so much knowledge about HIS SON to us! Yet, here we are! Saints that have once felt the Spirit testify to them plenty of times and simply walk away because of the lies of the internet. Paul described the internet as PERFECT, as we can see it today!
Beautiful. No other words. Just.. beautiful.🫶🏻