[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Come Follow Him Podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: This podcast is created by the Boise Nampa Institute of Religion for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here, we hope to help young adults find relevant principles each week as they study the Assign Come Follow Me in Scripture Block as outlined by the Church.
[SPEAKER_03]: This episode is simply two institutors talking about what they see in the Scriptures that might be relevant to your life.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is not intended to speak for the church or to definitively define doctrines or policies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Any opinions shared here are just that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our opinions as we have learned to come follow him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host Matt Swanson.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's jump in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, welcome back, everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's good to be with you this week.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are with Sister Cassidy Piper, Sister Piper, welcome back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Glad to be here.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's good to have you back.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love our time together and learning from you and praying with you and all the things that come with our time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am excited about today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have, we get to spend all of our time in one section.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a huge section and it's got a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got ninety seven verses.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, sorry, hundred, two, hundred, twenty verses.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's all generally about one topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll be in section eighty four today and talking about the priesthood generally.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and I'm very excited for this section.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have learned to love this section.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this episode will air during summer when we're still probably in the throws of our youth being out in FSY experiences and you've just had one yesterday, you were a teacher yesterday, you've done one that wasn't in Colorado already there earlier this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you do another one next week, is that right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're a world traveler for FSY right now, which is great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you be willing as we start today unless there's some massive news in your family you want to share to share an experience you had during your time with the youth or with the young adults maybe because I know the young adults are the teachers and the and the counselors with those kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this week was a really, really sweet week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the teachers you don't get as much interactions with the teachers as you do a session advisor or the counselors.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this time, I feel like I got more interactions with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just so many of them came up to me afterwards, like who had been sitting in my session and just talked with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe so many.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like three or four.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even in the middle one of them came up to me and was like just so you know you're doing such a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: That just filled me because especially sometimes when you're looking at the faces of a hundred teenagers it's really hard to engage.
[SPEAKER_01]: sometimes it doesn't look like it's going so well and I had one of those lessons where it just did not feel like it was going good and just to have this counselor in the middle be like you're doing so good look at my nose and I just how like I mean in age I'm older than them and but they feel so much just my peers and just the difference that you as me I'm a adult can make even to like older adults if you will
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're encouragement and your love of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it was just a sweet thing to me that I felt buoyed up by these counselors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like I could do it because of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had an experience last year as an FSY advisor to work with one of the senior counselors there that the leader counselor was so fantastic just her way with the youth and that was just amazing and literally taught me about how I should be with the youth after having had a career with them for twenty five years now and and I just remember learning from this
[SPEAKER_03]: twenty-one-year-old girl that just how to be with them and how to love them and how to see them and it was just a fantastic experience for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're right, sometimes sitting in front of the youth, you don't really know what they're thinking as they're.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I will say this too, being a teacher at FSW is hard because they get to choose where they go.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so like the first lesson, there's like six of them that they get to go through throughout the day that they're getting trained or taught, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So the first lesson they're all like, we have no idea, we're going, they just pick one and go, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They go with their friends.
[SPEAKER_03]: But by the second and third one, it's like, oh, you guys either go with this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so yeah, it becomes a little bit of a how well are the teachers doing in their lessons because the students vote with their feet by the end.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're right, kind of fun, kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thanks for sacrificing some time away from home and whatnot for all of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm grateful for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like my own two two of my children are today at their FSY.
[SPEAKER_03]: experience and Thursday is the spiritual day where they have their testimony meetings and and some things together that way so thank you for helping with that with that let's just jump in section eighty four again about the priesthood I know there's a little bit of context you can give us so give us some context and take us in what should we know
[SPEAKER_01]: great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is in Crono, Ohio and just with his just barely returned, he went on and visited Missouri.
[SPEAKER_01]: And elders are returning from their missions, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The church has been trying to send out a lot of missionaries.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord has been telling them to do that and a lot of elders really recent converts, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of these people have just been members for
[SPEAKER_01]: matters of months and they're going out and they're sharing the gospel and they're coming back and we're having a return and report with the prophet and then he also receives a revelation, a really important revelation that's going to help them continue their missions and just be excellent missionaries.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a revelation that is really imperative for every member of the church to understand there's some incredible doctrines in here that will bless our entire lives, whether or not we are full-time missionaries.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even consider that a mission section as much as I do a section on the priesthood, which the prophet says that you see that in the section header, the prophet designated it a revelation on priesthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to be the bulk of it, but in hopes of helping these missionaries.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It reminded me as we were preparing for this reminds me of the sons of Mosiah and the Elm of the younger coming back after their mission of four years and they meet up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how they did it, but they randomly met up in the middle of the wilderness on the way back home.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can imagine those trails must have been pretty specific that they were taken to get home after them all to be at the same place at the same time.
[SPEAKER_03]: But just a joyful experience they had when they were coming back together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then for one of them to receive a revelation about the priesthood that they were wielding as they were out amongst the Lord's children doing his will.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's kind of maybe a little bit of what was going on here.
[SPEAKER_03]: These brethren were coming back and spending time together talking about their experiences.
[SPEAKER_03]: and in the profit gets this revelation helping us understand what the power is that they're using to go out and to preach the gospel and not just men and it's not keys that we're even talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just literally how the priesthood authority guides and directs to do the will of the Lord and the work of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it ties to that story a little bit and I think that's kind of a cool correlation maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, historically.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse two, I think this is going on with what you just said that the revelation says this is the word of the Lord concerning his church established in the last days for the restoration of his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this revelation really is for the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: This revelation is supposed to help continue to restore his people back to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's up?
[SPEAKER_01]: If we really understand when it's talking about, I think it's some of the most important parts of the gospel that do bring us back to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, I think that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it's to his people, all of his people, even though there's a group of just having served missionaries in the room, it's not to just that group, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it starts off to the six elders.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's just a few elders there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I was reading about some of the context, it looks like they maybe received it on two days.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a breakup and later he talks about more elders.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the actual individuals who are receiving it at most is about eleven elders of the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I love that in verse two, he wants to make it really clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, I'm talking to who's in this room.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is going for everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that I think you said before we hit record that the sisters in the church should learn this and read this and understand this just like the brethren should right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And President Ellsons, to me, this is like a landmark talk in October, twenty-nineteen has talked spiritual treasures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually talked about it when I was on when we did Dr. Cummins thirteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: It like as well as talks that changed me personally because he talked about
[SPEAKER_01]: how he urns for us to understand that the restoration of priesthood is just as relevant to you as a woman as it is to any man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says, I intrigued you to study prayerfully, all the truths you can find about priesthood power, and he specifies you might begin with Dr. and Covenant Section Eighty Four.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and then I even found Elder Luke Dorf, and his talk your potential, your privilege, in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in
[SPEAKER_01]: Read this section to understand the Savior's power.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for both of them, they say so that you will know how to draw upon the Savior's power to help you and your families.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are both these listen about families, which is just cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you're studying this section, I invite you to think about what does this teach me, whether I'm a man or a woman, where are they're I holding off this of the priesthood or not?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this teach me about how to access God's power to bless my entire life?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I really love that idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is interesting, I think, when good for us, right, that we are counseled all of us to study priesthood power, a priesthood authority, priesthood keys, that we all understand them, whether we have the capacity to wield those individually or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: That we understand how they function on our behalf in our life.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think is really important.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: This section starts and maybe there's some stuff you want to spend time on in here, but but the beginning of this section kind of reads like a lineage when we get to verse five, verse five says, for very this generation shall not pass away until and how shall be built under the Lord and a cloud to rest upon it.
[SPEAKER_03]: which cloud trouble even the glory of the Lord, in which he'll fill the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the sons of Moses, according to the Holy Priesthood, which he received under the hand of his father in Lord Jethro.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we keep getting now the priesthood line of Moses back to Adam through verse sixteen, says the end of verse sixteen, who received the priesthood by the commandment of God, by the hand of his father Adam, speaking of Abelhood, received it from Adam.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we get this like priesthood line of authority which is I think kind of cool that we can tie the priesthood line of authority to Moses back to Adam and then because some of the priesthood keys were restored from Moses we get that the house of Lord will be built and these priesthood keys will come through the hand of Moses
[SPEAKER_03]: But then we get in verse eighteen that the Lord confirmed priesthood also upon Aaron.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is the beginning of the eronic priesthood and his seed throughout all their generations which priests had also continued to buy it forever and priesthood which is after the Holy Son order of God.
[SPEAKER_03]: That both priesthood, the preparatory priesthood and the Democratic priesthood are described here and the origins of them are described.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's instructive and important for us to understand
[SPEAKER_03]: that couple of things first there is an order to the way God institutes his priesthood on earth there is a structure to it there always has been there are people who hold it there are people who don't that is a historical proof that we could find in the scriptures that there were times when some people didn't hold the priesthood for lots of different reasons wickedness was a reason just being not a member of the right tribe was a reason
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, all the, all the reasons God has, which he never gives, it just, they're just there.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are reasons that priesthood is, is relegated to one group and not the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think in fact, when you look at who held priesthood on earth, it really was one family from Abraham down, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got Abraham at covenant made and then all of his posterity was the only group on earth who really held the priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: So anyone living outside of
[SPEAKER_03]: his family who didn't hold priest authority so this while it might read kind of dry I think is really important in understanding that there is a structure that there is a priest of line of authority that if you're a male and you can find your priest of line of authority back to Christ you should I have my my wife made mine in a picture
[SPEAKER_03]: of me and my children, my boys and has the priesthood line back to the Savior where we know the Savior gave priesthood authority.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think there's some value in reading this and thinking about it a little more than just okay bouncing through it because it's just a lineage of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's more to it than that I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: See if you read it like I do with those verses you started with five and six and today for the first time as I was studying over this I noticed it kind of starts weird like verse six when it starts this lineage and the sounds of Moses like just that and so I went and looked up the original
[SPEAKER_01]: manuscript of it and there's a comma between house and end.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this is how I read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a cloud shall rest upon it being the temple, which cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the glory of the Lord will fill the house or the glory of the Lord will fill the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the sense of Moses.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way I see it is that God's glory will be upon his house and upon his priesthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he explains that this is always as it's been.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as I read this for the first time, and then we get to verse twenty where it says, therefore in the ordinances of the power, therefore thereof the power of godliness is manifest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that when the temple and the priesthood power of God is combined, that's where God's power is the most, like he needs both of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the thing that I understood that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any other insights for me?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the understanding that the whole purpose of the priesthood is to is to seal upon us the ordinances that are necessary for our salvation, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the whole of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the reason we have it.
[SPEAKER_03]: that the ironic priesthood exists was because of the lack of willingness to live up to the standard that was required of the Melchesitic priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have this lesser preparatory priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think lesser is the wrong way to say it, but it can't perform some of the higher ordinances, and so I think it does qualify as a lesser priesthood, but maybe the right way to think about it is a preparatory priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the things that it can do are the only things required for
[SPEAKER_03]: salvation, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The only thing required for salvation for all of us is the ordinance of baptism.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is something that the lesser priest that has a priest, as a priest in the eronic priesthood, you can go and bless someone with the ordinance of baptism.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, the gift of the Holy Ghost has to be given by someone with the Melchizedek priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: So even in the very beginning ordinances that the preparatory priesthood allows for,
[SPEAKER_03]: It still requires the Melchesitic priesthood to be a stamp or a seal on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think you're right to identify that the ultimate objective then would be to be back with our father in heaven, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So that the progression of ordinances would be Melchesitic is required, but first you've got to do something that is a preparatory to all these other things that our father in heaven has.
[SPEAKER_03]: by way of blessings.
[SPEAKER_03]: And all of those ordinances then become stepping stones once I've gotten into the pathway, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Enter into the gate and there's one gate.
[SPEAKER_03]: And once you've done that, you do that through opening the gate through the eronic priesthood power of baptism.
[SPEAKER_03]: that ordinance.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then all of the ordinances that follow are all Melchizedek level ordinances that are things that allow for you to become more like your father and heaven and to have access to him with the highest being that of the ceiling of a husband and wife together in the temple.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yes, I think you're right that the temple being the pinnacle priesthood experience where the cloud of the Lord exists, but all of those ordinances falling underneath is really the whole purpose of the church to house the ordinances and the power that that wields those ordinances.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you for kind of helping film the gaps for me there because that makes sense to me that it starts with the priesthood receiving that ordinance of baptism and then the glory of the Lord continues until when we receive a faithfulness in the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that makes me think of this quote by President Nelson from the same talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he says, every woman in every man who makes covenants with God and keeps those covenants.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that starts at the earliest eight years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: We make covenants with him then if we are baptized by the priesthood and who participates worthy and priesthood ordinances has direct access to the power of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are endowed in the house of Lord receive a gift of God's priesthood power by virtue of their covenant, along with the gift of knowledge to know how to draw upon that power.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's cool to me because if you notice he makes like a very small distinction, but if you made covenants and ordinances with God starting with baptism, you have direct access.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you are endowed in the house of the Lord, then you receive a gift of his power.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, I don't really know totally the difference, but there's even from the lesser priesthood I have access to his power to the greater priesthood as it says in verse nineteen by making comments with him in the house of the Lord only possible through the Melchazic priesthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I then have received me even as a female have received a gift of God's priesthood power.
[SPEAKER_03]: it's interesting you say that and brother Edwards and I earlier today recorded an episode where we're talking about priesthood power and the temple in particular and I made the comment that you know without having received your endowment of powers what the way it's called you literally don't know how to go back to live with God you don't have the tools or the skills necessary to go through the veil and and obtain his presence again and so for a long time I think I have looked at the temple as a place to learn how to obtain
[SPEAKER_03]: of the celestial kingdom and to be with our father and heaven.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Jim's comment this morning made me think a little differently about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, it is that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is true.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there is also a power given in the temple that helps us in our current day get through the trials and challenges of our current life.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I started thinking about, well, okay, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_03]: And is that true?
[SPEAKER_03]: And obviously it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was an interesting mental gymnastics game because I think when you go through the temple and you're learning, you're learning about things that were and things that will become, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We get tools and knowledge that will help us understand what has happened and what will happen in the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: But because of that, we are also understanding who we are.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're obtaining knowledge about who we currently are.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if I gain that knowledge, who am I currently, I have more power in my day-to-day life now to act within the knowledge of who I am.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I really am a child of God, if I really am a son of God who has power and authority and rights and privileges,
[SPEAKER_03]: and has made covenants with promises, then those covenants and promises I can lean into and obtain blessings that are associated with those covenants and promises because as soon as the covenant was made, the promise was affixed to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I have to be obedient to the covenant and my side of the covenant in order to obtain the promise.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the power comes in
[SPEAKER_03]: right just living up to the covenants that I've made and thinking about what covenant I've made so that as I lean into that righteous action the affixed blessing that is mandated to be given to me what is eighty-two-ten I'd alert him bound when you do what I say but when you do not what I say I have no promise it is it is a fixed law that by obedience to this command or this covenant that I've made this instruction I've been given I will be given a blessing associated with that
[SPEAKER_03]: and that blessing in all cases will empower me to become better.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so while it is also a method to learn to obtain the celestial kingdom and get to the veil, it is a constant process of learning to become and understand who you really are and the better you understand who you are, the more likely you will become who you're to become.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that makes me want to can we just jump in and look at the blessings?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The commas we make these covenants are two of these priesthood ordinances.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all all point out the ones that I saw and you tell me what I've missed.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the first nineteen, this starts with the first thing you were talking about, we receive the knowledge of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we get more of his knowledge, which I love that it's both knowledge to return back to him, but also knowledge from him to just kind of survive my everyday.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we have verse twenty two that through these this power I will be able to see him and live one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a pretty incredible power that I can see the face God and live
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we know also from the lesser priesthood that we can receive the ministering of angels.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we can see all the blessings that are associated with the preparatory gospel, which he specifies in twenty seven as repentance.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can be cleansed of my sins, dabbed to them, receive a remission of my sins, and receive commandments that can help me return to my heavenly Father.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, those are beautiful.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's, I think you've touched on some things there that I think are worth expanding on just a little bit if you don't mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's go back to nineteen because I think the way that it's worded is instructive.
[SPEAKER_03]: The greater priesthood ministereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_03]: even the key of the knowledge of God.
[SPEAKER_03]: So knowledge of God, who he is, what he is, how we're related, I think is ultimately the biggest thing we come to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: But along the process of becoming that and knowing that, the mysteries of the kingdom are also divulged, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We learn that there is a mother in heaven by virtue of what we know in the temple.
[SPEAKER_03]: by understanding that we can be sealed eternally, there is a concept that is then evoked in us that, well, the plan must be bigger than just coming to earth obtaining a body, getting back to live with God.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I have an eternal spouse, well, what's the purpose of the eternal spouse if it's not to have eternal family?
[SPEAKER_03]: And if I have eternal family, what does that look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we back up when we look at what did it look like to God?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, to God, it looked like as soon as he had an eternal spouse,
[SPEAKER_03]: They had children, spirit children, and those children needed to go to an earth and have a spiritual experience and a physical body.
[SPEAKER_03]: That plan then becomes a mystery that becomes unfolded to us as we start thinking, celestially, about the covenant that we're making.
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean that I have any eternal spouse?
[SPEAKER_03]: What does it mean that I have a heavenly mother?
[SPEAKER_03]: Those things tied together and teach me that there is more than just getting back to live with God.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is about becoming like Him and having what He has, the cuplet that comes of that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That as man is God once was and as God is man may become, that cuplet is something that came out of vert by virtue of knowing the mysteries of God at a celestial level and at a temple level, without the temple and without that higher degree of Melchizedic understanding,
[SPEAKER_03]: We wouldn't have a bigger path.
[SPEAKER_03]: The mysteries of God would not be unfolded to us.
[SPEAKER_03]: We would be like every other Christian on earth who literally believes, I just need to follow Jesus and I'll be okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: But God wants us to have more.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wants us to have the mysteries unfolded to us and that only comes through the covenant we made and the power that is given to us through those covenant.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's actually, there's a lot in there as we think about even just those small phrases
[SPEAKER_03]: And as we stop when we dissect them a little bit more, we come up with a lot of stuff there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's something that keeps building on each other, you know, like every time you go to the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: There might be some new knowledge of God that's unfolded or deeper understanding of what you just said.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's so much of it that I'm still trying to grasp.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the beauty of it is we can go back thousands of times and still walk away saying, I've learned something new.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the, I don't know, the priesthood power is this, this power that can just unravel the mysteries little by little line up online, preset by preset, but that there's so much to it that it's going to take us more than a lifetime to understand.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, can I share just the thought I had last time was in the temple and without divulging anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we go to the endowment.
[SPEAKER_03]: We receive the endowment for ourselves once.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we go back through for those that have passed away and we obtain those covenants by proxy for someone that's gone, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got to thinking about how frequently those on the other side of the veil come to the temple and just watch the endowment and they're so excited to get the endowment that they
[SPEAKER_03]: But then I thought, why would they be allowed to come to the veil or come to the temple before their person comes to the temple?
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't get to go to the temple and just watch it before I was doing my own endowment.
[SPEAKER_03]: The endowment was done for me when I went for the first time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it just changed the way I look at, you know, those coming to the temple, they're excited to do the work for those on the other side of the veil.
[SPEAKER_03]: And on the other side of the veil, they're probably coming to the temple for the first time and receiving that endowment for the first time, just like you and I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that they get to just sit in the endowment room
[SPEAKER_03]: waiting for their people to come do their endowment for them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they get it the first day and that's their first eye opening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I understand all the things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm making that covenant because I want to just like you and I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that they get a precursor visit to the temple and get to watch it early.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was just kind of an interesting thought.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like so at a roof of what you just said that we learn new things every time we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have new experiences and
[SPEAKER_03]: and little things that maybe are true, maybe that's not true, maybe they all get to come all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Every day they want to be there, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: But just the idea of that made me think a little more celestially and think a little more eternally about their experience and how I can help in that experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That made me think of experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: just talking about in general just the power of the temple and going there for the first time what can happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I teach mission prep right now and a student came to me at the end of class and just said that without divulging what she was going through that she's just been praying about something and asking her parents for help and like
[SPEAKER_01]: just not receiving anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her problem is still very much there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my immediate thought was to ask her if she's been through the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, I'm going through next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And which I thought was just cool that that was what I felt inspired to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought about the initiatory.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the initiatory is probably my favorite part of the endowment experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: It prepares you to receive the endowment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's basically just a bunch of blessings from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that it?
[SPEAKER_01]: simple good okay way to say it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just thought about how excited I was for this young woman to some of the things she needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was going to get very specific blessings for because she was going through some physical challenges.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just was so excited for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I told her like honestly the first time you're probably going to be overwhelmed and may not even remember anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go back again and specifically try to do initiatives and just kind of focus on these even when you're getting in front of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a reminder of all of these blessings God has given.
[SPEAKER_01]: to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just seeing as we're talking a way that I never have before, just this parallel between his power and the temple like how his power, his presuppower really is unleashed in the temple almost.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it just cannot be held back for us or as you were talking about for those on the other side of the veil.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something about it that I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of opening my mind to if I really want to access this power for me and the people I love and for the people I love who have passed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to be in his house more often.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well said.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the idea that your friend could go back and obtain more knowledge about something she's already done, if I go ahead and have an experience again, thinking differently about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is interesting to me in this section, the next portion of this describes the children of Israel wandering around the wilderness and how, you know, they were wicked and they just wouldn't, they weren't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Moses was trying to get them to live up to a higher law that they just refused to live up to.
[SPEAKER_03]: They only wanted to do the things that were tactile, the things that they could, they could do and say, I did and check the box, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And at first, I think we think that's, I think maybe we were judgmental of that, we think, oh, why are they with that way?
[SPEAKER_03]: couldn't they think on a higher level?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the reality is, is these people have been in slavery for generations, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They lived in a world where nobody, nobody was willing to think outside the box because if you thought outside the box, you got punished for it or killed for it even.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so now all of a sudden we have this freedom to live in the wilderness and all they really, all they really needed was just instructions, tell me what to do, how do I do it?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they really were a simple people in that way that they were looking for
[SPEAKER_03]: some very clear instructions, and they really refused to live to a higher law.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if we get through, I don't know, twenty three through twenty six, let me just read the verse twenty six twice, lesser priesthood continued.
[SPEAKER_03]: So verse twenty five talks about how Moses was taken out of their midst, and not to the Mount Sinai, this is at the end when they go into the wilderness and into the Promised Land, and Moses doesn't get to go with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the Melchazic priesthood is taken away.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have the eronic priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this lesser priesthood continued, which priesthood holds us the keys of the ministering of angels, which you touched on, and the preparatory gospel, which gospel is the gospel of repentance, and of baptism, and the remission of sins and now this, and the law of carnal commandments, which the Lord, it is wrath,
[SPEAKER_03]: cause to continue with the house of Aaron, among the children of Israel, until John whom God raised up being filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think about the, the, for strength of youth pamphlet, the changes that happened last three or four years and how
[SPEAKER_03]: instruction from the general young men's presidency after that change was we hope that like the law of Moses and the list of things you could or couldn't do as soon as that law is taken away the the living of and practicing of the gospel becomes a higher and holier practice right we look at the for strength of the youth six years ago with the bullet list of how many things you could do or not do all your dating
[SPEAKER_03]: And now we're given the list of the higher law, which is here's some principles about dating.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not going to tell you you have to be sixteen.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to suggest that that might be a good starting age, but we're not going to give you that as a hard and fast bullet rule and let you and your family govern your choices and decisions about whether you get tattoos and whether you get
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the language you use in the music you listen to, all the things, there's no more lists.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in a very similar way, the eronic priesthood managed and directed the affairs of what they call it, a temporal law, a carnal commandment that forced the men and women of the children of Israel to check the box.
[SPEAKER_03]: Say, I did that thing and I can say I'm good with God, we're okay because I fulfilled my part of the covenant.
[SPEAKER_03]: The higher law is principle-based.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is living a standard not given to me on every line and every jot and total given out.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, here's a principle, go live it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're not living it, you'll know, because it's parallel to tell you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that requires such a different way of thinking, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Such a different way of living your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in verse thirty five he says all those who receive this priesthood and now I'm wondering if it also could be like all those who receive this higher law received me say it the Lord and I like everything about that for strength of youth pamphlet is supposed to say like Jesus Christ is your strength.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you look to him he'll help you make these answers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's really cool to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: that connection that they had to receive really strict laws because they weren't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It almost was like they're stepping tongue to receive Jesus and then now where the Savior is just received me and then you and I can help make these kind of have to understand how you should follow these standards.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's well said.
[SPEAKER_03]: It references verse twenty and verse twenty and thirty.
[SPEAKER_03]: That the offices of bishop and teacher I would probably include deacon in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, deacon's in verse thirty.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bishop teacher deacon priest.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are all necessary appendages.
[SPEAKER_03]: that are required in order to facilitate the priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: Their offices within the priesthood that are necessary, but their appendages to the authority, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the thing we need and this office is in necessity to help function within that thing that we need.
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of a cool separation to helping us understand the organization of a right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Verse thirty one therefore I said concerning the sons of Moses for the sons of Moses and the sons of Aaron shall offer an acceptable offering and sacrifice in the house of the Lord which shall be built unto the Lord in this generation
[SPEAKER_03]: upon the consecrated spot as I have appointed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Man, that's a, that's a verse that harkens back to some other stuff in the Dr. and Covenants, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, I think you and I recorded Section XIII, did we record that together?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and you, I never had really pay attention to that part.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just pay attention to everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you pointed out some quotes that talked about how this, um, it couple profits have talked about how for everything to be restored that might include sacrifices in the temple, eventually in the millennial day or sometime when the Lord comes again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and we don't understand fully why that would happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it will be a fulfillment of prophecy that the sons of Levi, according to Section XIII, will offer again an offering under the Lord and righteousness in the house of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're seeing those references kind of multiplicity of spaces in the doctrine of covenants, which is just a tiny proof to me that Joseph was not making this stuff up.
[SPEAKER_03]: That he just happens to tie in one verse in Section XIII
[SPEAKER_03]: to one verse in section eighty four just in random discussion as he's thinking it through is just not the way man works right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, so maybe let's let's jump into thirty I know you kind of already bounced into thirty five about receiving the Lord, but if we back up to thirty three a little bit
[SPEAKER_03]: There's some blessings associated with obtaining those two priesthood authorities with really just renewing our bodies, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Magnifying their calling, obtaining those priesthood authorities helps us to renew our bodies, becoming the sons of Moses and Varian in the seat of Abraham.
[SPEAKER_03]: church of the kingdom of the elective God.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's how we are adopted in to our respective tribes through the authority of the priesthood, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the ceiling power that seals us to whatever tribe of Israel we need to be tied to.
[SPEAKER_03]: At least as of that's the way I'm reading that verse, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That we are verse thirty four.
[SPEAKER_03]: They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham and the church and kingdom of the elective God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Every man and
[SPEAKER_03]: woman in child on earth joining the church receiving a patriarchal blessing will be assigned whether it's through direct lineage or adoption into a tribe in the tribe of Abraham or tribe of Israel and that is sealed upon you the blessings for that tribe or sealed upon you through the priest authority given to that that tribe but so cool so cool
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's another thing that we received through the power of the priesthood, right, in our patriarchal blessings that comes by someone who's received that priesthood off, is it an office, an office of the priesthood?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, another blessing that comes from his power.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and key is very specifically, there are not very many key holders on earth, many given time, and there are not very many offices that have keys, but a patriarch is one of them that has keys very specifically for prophecy and personal revelation, which I think is pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, so a lot of blessings being given to us here through the priesthood.
[SPEAKER_03]: He never received my father.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a big, but very sporty too.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tells them, like, by my own voice, sent the heavens, even I have given the heavenly host and my angels charge concerning you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't imagine how relieving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would feel no, just feel like.
[SPEAKER_01]: especially they've just come back from these missions and some of them are going to keep going on them and he's just like I'm not sending you alone he says that again I know we'll get to an eighty eight but and who's so receiving you there I will be also for I will go before your face I will be on your right hand and on your left and my spirit shall be in your hearts and my angels round about you to bear you up
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another blessing that I'm seeing here, participating with his presuppower in his ordinances, that we get to walk with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He asks a lot of those who participate in these ordinances, but he doesn't ask us to do it alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also gives them, you know, the scriptures as much as given, much as required.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think we think about the required part, but it's because much is given.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know, I'm giving you my angels charge concerning you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will be in your myth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving you me, the savior of the world, the most powerful being.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is asking us in return to what he's giving us to me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, he isn't that much in comparison to what I get in return that he says already, a covenant that he cannot break.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's going, he's going to fulfill his part.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's going to give me more than I can even hope for.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think there's so much promise given to us through priesthood power, through priesthood authority, through covenants we made.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think he uses a phrase in this that I think we talk about a lot, but I don't know the way we've ever really considered what it means.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says in verse thirty nine, this is according to the oath
[SPEAKER_03]: and covenant which belongs to the therefore all those who receive the priesthood receive this oath and covenant of my father which he cannot break neither can it be moved.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think the way that that's worded to me is indicative of something that I am given.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm given an oath
[SPEAKER_03]: by the father I'm given a covenant by the father that cannot be broken as long as I'm worthy of of wielding that power and that authority right it goes back to whether by the voice of my servants or myself it's the same that section one counsel where you know if the prophet seals up on earth I'm gonna adhere to it in heavens because he said I gave me authority to do that and he just did it so I'm gonna adhere to it that covenant that allows for man to act as god on earth
[SPEAKER_03]: and seal things here and and call down the powers of heaven onto the things of earth is a is a covenant given to to those of us who use priesthood authority to do anything whether it's man or woman teaching a class of young women's class or teaching a gospel doctrine class or being a bishop in a ward or whatever the authority level you've been assigned if you're wielding that authority on earth it says if God himself is doing it as long as you're doing it in direction
[SPEAKER_03]: under the direction of the Spirit and in the name of the Savior, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a pretty powerful covenant that God has given you in an oath that I think when we think of oaths we think of commitments to each other, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That we're going to do this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I make an oath with you, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't know that that's reading to me like I make an oath.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think listen to verse four again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, all those who receive the priesthood receive this oath and covenant of my Father.
[SPEAKER_03]: like God's giving this to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to live worthy of receiving it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you're not making an oath back.
[SPEAKER_03]: God says, I will give you this power and authority.
[SPEAKER_03]: And with it comes all these blessings and all that I'm giving you an oath that you'll have all these powers and privileges.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we sometimes think of the oath and covenant of the priest as something I obtain.
[SPEAKER_03]: and I have to make and live.
[SPEAKER_03]: And while I think that's true, I think the way I'm reading this now, I see this as something my father's giving me, and I just need to live worthy of receiving, which is probably true for all things called covenants we make, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's really not something I stipulate the boundaries on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think God does that, but anyway, I just think there's something interesting there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and to support that, because he specifically says,
[SPEAKER_01]: oath in covenant in forty but in forty one when he warns us to not break he only says covenant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, but who's so break it this covenant after he after seen it, but he doesn't talk about breaking the oath.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, this is my oath to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's make a covenant together and you can have this oath.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that comes into forty-three then.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I give unto you a commandment to be where concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life, for you shall live by every word that preceded forth from the mouth of God.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the covenant really is upheld by my willingness to abide by the Council in direction and being given by God, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that's where I get the power and given warnings to be diligent or that power can be taken and the can live in darkness, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it, and that's where he goes next, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: He does.
[SPEAKER_03]: He goes into the spirit and light and truth, forty five, forty six, forty seven is all about receiving the spirit and receiving light, a forty six in the spirit, give it light to every man that come at the end of the world in the spirit and lighten at every man.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the world that harkeneth to the voice of the spirit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone that harkin' into the voice of the Spirit come with unto God even the Father.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just think that's such a promise, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I just have to be listened to the Spirit and do what the Spirit says.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I share a experience?
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I'm talking a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna stop talking here and then I'll let you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a former student, not a member of the church, who was a former choir student of mine, who I love.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've just wonderful young man, who wants to sit and meet with me regularly, like every quarter, and discuss faith and religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's very Christian.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a born again Christian.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's even a youth minister in his church, wonderful young man, who has a desire to sit and talk with me about
[SPEAKER_03]: But what I've learned in the last six months or so is he doesn't want to talk about religion.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wants to talk about one topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one topic only, because that one topic separates our faiths and is really the great delineator between our faiths and that topic is just the Godhead.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if the Godhead is a single person or the Godhead is three beings.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's interesting to me that the more we talk,
[SPEAKER_03]: the more unwilling he is to agree that we have anything in common because we have one thing not in common and at the same time he has this great desire to come and sit and talk about that topic over and over and over again.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we never come to anything different.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're always talking about the same thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we'll hit that topic and then that's where we'll stay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll have another meeting and that's where we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: We go right to that topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think there's something to the idea that the voice of the spirit comes.
[SPEAKER_03]: and it directs us to go and to address something and to talk about something and to adhere to one thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's worth just paying attention to that there is an effort that needs to be made to listen to what the Spirit's teaching us and identify whether that Spirit is guiding us and directing us towards studying a particular topic for some reason until we have better understanding of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so take us in, where do we go next?
[SPEAKER_03]: Where are we out in here?
[SPEAKER_03]: I just keep kind of bouldering over your plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're actually getting all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll all just jump right into forty eight right where you left off.
[SPEAKER_01]: This I had never noticed before.
[SPEAKER_01]: The father teaches him of the covenant which he has renewed and confirmed upon you.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is confirmed upon you for your sex, and not for your sex only but for the sake of the whole world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just put that my cabinets can me making a covenant, can bless the whole world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he then says like, why we need inverse forty-nine, the whole world.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the imagery in this, lie it in sin and groan it under darkness and under the bondage of sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can just see like, like this image of this, the world just like so heavy laid in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's telling us how to not get into that way ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone has sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like every single person is going to sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that doesn't mean that we have to be under the bond.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just sin and the answer is in verse fifty.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are under the bond of just sin because they come not unto me.
[SPEAKER_01]: they come not into him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if I come into the saber, which he's told us how, by making a keeping covenant with him, then I can help myself and also those around me who are groaning under darkness and under the bondage of sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's just so hopeful because there's so many people that I love, that I feel like sometimes I don't know what to do for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And perhaps some of the greatest things I can do is be a covenant keeper myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: What a great thing to think, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the thing you can do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really what he says next, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Fifty-two, whoever receive it, not my voice is not acquainted with my voice and is not of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And by this, you may know the righteous from the wicked that the whole world grown at the end of the sin of darkness even now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, because you have treated lightly the things that you have perceived.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm remembering that you talked a little bit, and I can't remember if we've talked at the beginning of the episode or before we had recorded about President Benson, his concerns about the church, and the light ways that we were receiving the book of Mormon are using the book of Mormon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Teach me about that, what we talked about there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was from President Nelson, and it was like talking to an October of the
[SPEAKER_01]: Not long after my call to serve as one of the twelve apostles, I was summoned the office of the president of our core and president Ezra Taff Benson, which even I, I don't know when he passed away, but I feel like I was a baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't remember President Benson, but I still know he was the Book of Mormon Prophet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know they see me.
[SPEAKER_01]: really focused on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he, so back to President Nelson's words, he expressed deep concern that members of the church did not fully appreciate the value of the Book of Mormon.
[SPEAKER_01]: With emotion and his voice, he read to me from the eighty-fourth section of the Doctrine Covenants and tell they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and President Nelson ends by saying, I shall never forget that lesson.
[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember being taught I think in my seminary class this verse and my teacher saying this condemnation has never been revoked.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I've never seen that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And said, we are no longer under condemnation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure individuals, like, as a whole, I think the church needs to work on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there are individuals in the church who have figured this out, who really do remember the comments of the Book of Mormon and who really do treat it with, like, I don't know, the opposite of treating lightly, like just so
[SPEAKER_01]: they know the power that it has, they turn to it every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know this is something I'm trying to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: But on every day basis, there are guaranteed some days where I treat the book of Mormon lightly, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of struck me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remembered that and it kind of hurts you.
[SPEAKER_01]: President Nelson did a good job at conveying that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The pain that it's just like he's given us this incredible book.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we just treat it so lightly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, here's the answer to the twenty-first century problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was a book written just for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we just, we've got in our minds better things to do or more things to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting because I think back then things are a little different than they are now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, I don't know that we're not in condemnation for that anymore, but I do think about the seminary, for example, you go back to the seminary in the sixties and seventies and
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember talking with Heidi Weed, who is a teacher in the seminary system for a long time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she said, when I was in seminary, we didn't even take our scriptures.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our seminary teacher taught and we just listened and we had a good discussions and he just taught from the scriptures and we didn't have scriptures in seminary.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I remember when I was a kid, I took scriptures, but I didn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: really dig in, and maybe it just because I was me, but I had them there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there was an advancement from not having the scriptures in the room to then taking them in the room, to now having them in my pocket all the time, constantly with me, and using them in a seminary classroom in such highly advanced technical ways that I think we're getting better at incorporating the Book of Mormon into our life.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I kind of agree, and that's really where the Lord's going here, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: He says, you have treated lightly the things you've been given for, which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a condemnation that is invoked even at this time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the condemnation rests upon the children of Zion, even all, and they show them in under this condemnation.
[SPEAKER_03]: until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments, which I have given them, not only to say but to do according to that which I have written.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is wholly directed at our use of the Book of Mormon and whether we're using it accurately and effectively and efficiently and even enough in our lives today.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that that is so poignant and it makes me think about my own use of the Book of Mormon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Am I in it enough?
[SPEAKER_03]: The answer is just no, it's just not.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think at some of it has to do with, they're all excuses, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of it has to do with my, you know, wanting to stay and come follow me block every week and make sure I know how to teach my children that block and things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we teach those, we teach outside of that block in our seminary and institute classes every day, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're, unless we're teaching the Book of Mormon year, we're not in the Book of Mormon teaching it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So how much time personally are we spending on it?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it is interesting that it is the thing that falls to the wayside when we're lacking something and by way of our scripture study.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse sixty one I feel like he gives us that like how he can fix this because I feel so much the same and that's like a good thing to you're doing a good thing you know but he's making it very clear that the book of Mormon should be another focus he says for verse sixty one for I will forgive you of your sins which I assume he's including these condemnations with this commandment that you remain steadfast in your mind
[SPEAKER_01]: in celebrity or sincerity and the spirit of prayer, and then in bearing testimony to all of the world that those things which are communicated with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think part of the answer isn't just studying it more, but he's saying you also need to be sharing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need a bit of testimony of this book with all this world, and I'll take away the condemnation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you really understood what the book of Mormon was, if we really understood it, if I really understood what the book was, I think I'd be sharing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, heck, even for sixty-two says places you can't go send it as a testimony of you, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, it can't, therefore go you into all the world and unto what's over place you cannot go, you shall send that the testimony may go forth from you into all the world, every square, every, sorry, unto every creature.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as I said unto mine apostles, even so I say unto you, for you are mine apostles, even God's high priests, E are they, whom my father had given me, E are my friends, go and teach the gospel and take the book more with you, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes me wonder if in the countries or areas where we do not have a missionaries yet, do we have the Book of Mormon translated into their language so they can at least assist it that way?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a great question that only the answer.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an interesting dilemma though that the church faces, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do we do anything to assist in that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or do we just like, I don't know, are they doing it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I love this.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's so much in this section.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we could stay forever in little tiny sections like that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love verses sixty-five through seventy-one, maybe, where we're just given little blessings that come from those who
[SPEAKER_03]: are obedient and are faithful.
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, sixty four talks about receiving remission of our sins after baptism, but then verse sixty five, these signs shall follow them that believe.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they says, it says, many wonderful works, casting out devils, healing the sick.
[SPEAKER_03]: opening the eyes of the blind on stopping the ears of the death.
[SPEAKER_03]: The tongue of the dumb shall speak if any man shall administer poison unto him.
[SPEAKER_03]: It shall not hurt them, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That this, just this idea that all these temporal blessings are going to be given to you for your spiritual adherence to policies and practices and things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Covenants, really, that we follow as asking us to live by, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I've found a lot about how faith is the first principle of the gospel and
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that that is so important because these things are true for those who believe, but they have to believe in them for them to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, oh, I totally believe in Jesus, but then we might question, but I don't know if you would really do that for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't like, it's just saying, these signs shall follow them that believe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, well, I'm not healing more of the sick and casting out more devils that open up my mouth more and healing the blind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, he's like, these things should be a part of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said faith, more faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could do these.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so true.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a thing that we don't have enough faith to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: We think God has to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's only if God wants to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we don't even exercise our faith in a way that it could possibly even happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we never even say, Heavenly Father, I want this to happen, please do this, because we're like, what do you want us to do?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, something I was thinking, I tell you this all the time, because, and I probably have said it on the podcast too, I love listening to Sister Piper Pray.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the way you pray is so instructive for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So today, I said to myself before we got together, I was like, I'm gonna make Sister Piper Pray again today, and I'm gonna listen and identify why I like what she does when she prays, and I've identified it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I figured it out today, and I think it's right in line with this.
[SPEAKER_03]: you don't assume that God knows everything in your prayers.
[SPEAKER_03]: You tell him why you're asking for what you're asking for, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: For example, you in your prayer before we started this and I'm putting on a spot here, so sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: You said, you know my life is crazy busy and I shared before we hit record that I'm taking my family to Disneyland later this summer and we're gonna have some time off and that'll be nice.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you said in your prayer, you asked Heavenly Father to bless me
[SPEAKER_03]: with some time off and some that my phone won't rain the whole time I'm gone right but in doing that you said because he's busy because he has he's doing a lot of things because he's because because you you counseled with him about why you're asking for the thing you're asking for and I think that's so important it's not that's not something that people do people don't do that all the time they
[SPEAKER_03]: ask for the thing they're asking for, they just assume Heavenly Father knows why they're asking for it and they move to the next thing they need to ask for or the thing they're grateful for or whatever right but but what you've taught me is in a very similar way to what we're talking about here in the scriptures if I don't say to Heavenly Father
[SPEAKER_03]: I trust that you know all this stuff, but you want me to articulate why I want this person healed or blessed.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've given me the priest authority to do it, and to seal on or something that you're going to seal in heaven.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to ask right justly, and I'm going to articulate to you why I want this thing for this person, and then I'm going to act and faith and actually ask for that thing to happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I never do that, and I just blindly say, this should happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't know that I'm ever trying to even align myself with Heavenly Father, but by articulating through it a little bit with him and saying, here's why I'm asking for this.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a thing that I really would like help with because this is in this, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it allows for an opportunity for us to learn why maybe he says no sometimes, because we're counseling with him, he may be counsel's back to us and gives us some reasons instead of just silence.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think this is, I think it's just so instructive.
[SPEAKER_03]: for us to learn that in order to have these blessings where we're healing the sick and we're raising the dead and we're opening the eyes of the blind and the tongue of the dumb to speak.
[SPEAKER_03]: In order for those things to happen, we have to not just act in faith.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to act in process in faith.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a process to get there.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not just do something.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's to do something that gets me to be able to do those things, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a process to be there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm learning as I'm sitting with here today.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't something I knew that I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I need to do something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of cool to hear you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That did make me think of an experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I wanted you to feel like I'm analyzing your prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, you got good stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you had said afterwards, like, hey, can I get, could you maybe not pray like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a different.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it did make me think, just you reading through all those things, like, and going to Lord and saying, hey, this is what I really need.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe think of probably one of the most incredible experiences I've had with the person.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was pretty close to my heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm in a kind of, keep some of the details vague, but I feel, I've just keep thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that means Lord wants me to share it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went through a period of my life where I was longing for certain blessings and I felt like certain things should be happening in my life and I kept getting blessings that said they're coming, they're coming, they're coming and the Lord uses the word soon and I have learned that the word soon to me and him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been saying that he's coming soon since Joseph Smith started receiving these revelations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, he set up to his apostles.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll come back two thousand years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and the Lord soon and I even said that to people in joking and it's just cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: heard me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one day I went to my dad and I had kind of hit rock bottom with my hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had been studying.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was actually in twenty twenty.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had been studying the priest at a time because of President Nelson's talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because I was in my master's program at BYU and we had to write a paper on any doctrine of the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote it on priesthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I used the paper to fulfill the profits, admonition, for women to study everything they could.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I studied, I remember finding a talk that he had given.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't have it available.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe you can remember it and help me know where it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was about preset blessings and how he felt like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it Nelson felt like when he sat in baby blessings specifically, it was more just like a prayer of hope rather than like an, I bless you with the power of God with these things for your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Give me a minute.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll find it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll find it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I remember reading that and feeling like, whoa, like we really can go to him and say through the power of the priesthood, bless this person with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also know that there's gotta be the, but not my will, but mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think we sometimes do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're just like, whatever your will is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take it because I think for scary and no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of saying, you can do this, do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if not, figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is going to be my number one hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I went to my dad and I said, OK, Dad, I want you to give me a person blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want you to bless me with these things that I've been praying for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want you to bless me with them now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, I don't know if I can do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let me go talk to Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he went into his room and he prayed for a while and he came back and he said, okay, I'm ready to give you this blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this blessing, the Lord said, I will never forget this because he was he had been listening to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, the timing of man and the timing of God are not always the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: but God can work in the timing of man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the timing of man, I bless you with the desires of your heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And those desires were filled within a year, so it was still took some time, but a year compared to I've been told for eight years, these things would happen, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And they started happening within two weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started seeing some changes that led to some of these blessings and miracles that I had been praying for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just want to add my witness of the power of the priesthood and also that if you're living your covenants, I don't want to make sound like you can demand things from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can have very, very high expectations of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so much hope in him that the thing that you want, he will do for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if he doesn't, then it's because he has a really good reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think we
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I think I need to believe more that he's going to make the miracle happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if not, then the miracle is going to be, I'm going to be made strong enough to bear it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But either way, I'm getting a miracle out of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's totally the way you should see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's totally the way you should see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's totally the way you should.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reference for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hang on just second.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is in a talk he gave.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let me say it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me start this way.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I found that I found the talk that you were referencing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's in a talk he gave at a priesthood session in April of, two thousand eighteen.
[SPEAKER_03]: President Nelson entitled, ministering with the power and authority of God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me see if I can find that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm getting close.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I just read a couple of things?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let me read just a couple of things from that talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says, now may I voice a concern.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Too many of our brothers and sisters do not fully understand the concept of priesthood power and authority they act as though they would rather satisfy their own selfish desires and appetites than use the power of God to bless his children.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then he goes on.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says, I fear that too many of our brothers and sisters do not grasp the privileges that could be theirs.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of our brethren, for example, act like they do not understand what the priesthood is and what it enables them to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me give you some examples.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says, not long ago, I attended a sacrament meeting in which a new baby was to be given a name and her father's blessing.
[SPEAKER_03]: The young father held his precious infant in his arms, gave her a name, and then offered a beautiful prayer.
[SPEAKER_03]: but it did not give the child a blessing.
[SPEAKER_03]: The sweet baby girl got a name but no blessing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That dear elder did not know the difference between a prayer and a priesthood blessing.
[SPEAKER_03]: With his priest authority and power, he could have blessed his infant, but he did not.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought what a messed opportunity.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me cite another example.
[SPEAKER_03]: We know of brethren who set sisters apart as primary young women or release society leaders and teachers, but fail to bless them to bless them with the powerful filter calling.
[SPEAKER_03]: They give only admonitions and instructions.
[SPEAKER_03]: We see a worthy father who fails to give his wife and his children priesthood blessings.
[SPEAKER_03]: When that is exactly what they need, priesthood power has been restored to this earth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet far too many brothers and sisters go through terrible trials in life without ever receiving a true priesthood blessing.
[SPEAKER_03]: What a tragedy.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a tragedy that we can eliminate.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks for coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that you remembered that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that you remembered that talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was in a priest's session.
[SPEAKER_03]: So good on you for studying all the words of the prophets, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was trying at that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was studying everything I could.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think someone told me this.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my cousins was blessing his son and his newborn son and said, and I was like, I loved your blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the best, very blessings.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I read this talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had to be read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there's some powerful things in there teaching us about calling down the powers of heaven.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm grateful for your thoughts and inspiration to even bring that up.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Matt, take us to just another thing that I think, actually, Brother Edwards, and I talked about this when we talked a couple of days ago.
[SPEAKER_03]: In sixty three, he says, yeah, my friends at the end of that verse.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says in seventy seven, again, I say unto you,
[SPEAKER_03]: my friends for from henceforth I shall call you friends is expedient that I give you these commandments that you may become as my friends in the days when I was with them traveling to preach the gospel in my power it's interesting I'm in my stake in high counselor and we have to bore everybody this week with our talks and and I've been preparing to talk about being a lifelong disciple of Christ using a couple of conference talks from last session and
[SPEAKER_03]: Something that stands out to me is that a disciple is something different than a follower.
[SPEAKER_03]: A follower is someone who just follows and does whatever they're asked to do behind the person who's leading.
[SPEAKER_03]: A disciple is much more like a apprentice in our day.
[SPEAKER_03]: The disciples of Christ day were people who saw what he did, learned from him and saw him and he saw them as
[SPEAKER_03]: as people that were trying to become like him to learn the skills he had and the things he had.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think what he's inviting us to do here in becoming his friends is not just to follow him and be behind him doing whatever he tells us to do because it's interesting because when he feeds the five thousand one of the things that happens is is everyone was following him, everyone behind him was going to get food
[SPEAKER_03]: but he turns to his disciples to teach them differently than what he was telling everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think in this example here in Section Eighty Four, verse Eighty Seven, he's saying, I need you to become like my friends that walked with me in my life who were like the disciples following me, who wanted to become like me not just be behind me.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the verse seven, eight, four, I suffered them not to have person script neither two quotes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Behold, I send you out to prove the world and the laborer is worthy of his hire.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't need you to prepare yourself and do the best you can on your own.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just go and I'll take care of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will handle all the stuff that's going to come your way because that's what I've told you I'll do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's as simple as it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will take care of it because I said I would.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now trust me and go do it, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It stuck out to me as I was reading.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just the fact because he's just so much better than me and he's, you know, my savior and just the fact that he would be willing to put me on a friendship level with him to just about how much he cares for me and also about how glial I should be to him.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I think maybe this, well, the next section here and forgive me, but maybe for time, I'll just take us into this next section if there's some other things you want to touch on, maybe we do so quickly.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the next section here, I really love as a teacher.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think anybody that has a stewardship to teach or minister in the church really should, should look closely at verse eighty five to eighty eight.
[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe I'll read them as I read them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Consider maybe what this means to you at home.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it doesn't mean something different to you at church.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't mean something different to you in an occupation or in a public setting.
[SPEAKER_03]: But listen these words.
[SPEAKER_03]: Either take you thought beforehand what you shall say, but treasure up in your mind's continually the words of life.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it shall be given you in the very hour.
[SPEAKER_03]: That portion that shall be meted unto every man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, let no man among you for this commandment is unto all the faithful who are called of God in the church in the ministry, for this is your take for this out from this hour, take purse or script, and go forth to proclaim this gospel of the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Behold, I send you out to reprove the world of their unrighteousness and righteous deeds.
[SPEAKER_03]: and to teach them of a judgment which is to come and who saw receive it to you there I will be also for I will go before your face I will be on your right hand and on your left hand any spirit and sorry and my spirit shall be in your hearts and my name goes round about you to bring to bear you up I think is a teacher that there's some obvious places for that to be applicable in my life I think as a as a missionary that becomes a very obvious application to missionary work and efforts there
[SPEAKER_03]: But I wonder in other spaces in our life, what that might look like, what that might feel like.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, where do your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, how does that look outside of, well, maybe how does it look in your seminary classroom, but how does it look outside of that in your sphere and public or in the family or what that way?
[SPEAKER_01]: It actually gives me a lot of comfort.
[SPEAKER_01]: that because I just worry about what's the right thing to say or just the pressure of you know raising kids in the gospel and sometimes we'd be trying to teach our son during family home evening like it just doesn't always go well he just if you're leaving to him is like a curse word even though we try to make it fun and bring treats anytime in years when he goes and then he like hangs upside down on the couch and I just don't know if it's normal
[SPEAKER_01]: But there have been plenty of times where he just asked me a question out of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And those moments are really tender to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes I think I've got a pre plan everything I do for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can't really pre plan when a kid or a student is going to be ready to learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I can pre plan is treasuring up the words of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: know that he's back to the condemnation part like really treating the book of Mormon as my way to tap into Heavenly Father and then just this idea that if it's in my head and I can just trust that he'll give me what to say and it actually just heats back to the earlier verses
[SPEAKER_01]: and anyone where he talks about taking a thought from her what you shut your drink.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's also saying like you don't need to worry about how to answer everyone's question or everyone's problem or like what exactly to say to bring them closer to Jesus when you need to know all that you know and actually brings me a lot of comfort.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, I think they're I think you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's some really great counsel in that and that that maybe even maybe even true about the podcast here that sometimes I think we come so prepared that it just doesn't go well.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not comfortable.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got a agenda where moving from the beginning to the end without really feeling anything and
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the reality is, if I've treasured up continually, the words of life, the scriptures, the things that I've been taught.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't try to force it into a family-leading box.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I let it be a natural, normal experience to teach my child.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think more often than not, that is when the spirit comes to tell you how to teach the thing you learned.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not saying don't learn stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not saying don't go and find answers to the questions you have.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's saying study up and treasure up in your mind's continually the words of life.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean constantly studying and learning and putting stuff in your brain.
[SPEAKER_03]: But then sit back and let the spirit direct your counsel and your words.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think as a young seminary teacher, man, I was
[SPEAKER_03]: I was prepped it was it was forty-eight slides and we were going to get through forty-eight slides and it was going to be awesome and I think I just missed the mark ninety-nine percent of the time when I did that I still prep forty-eight slides but I get to two and there are the two that the spirit says hey these are the ones you should go and spend some time on and
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the vast majority of the time is not on the preparation, prepared stuff, or at least the tactily prepared stuff that you can point to.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's stuff that comes up naturally and normally in the conversation, which I think is so much better.
[SPEAKER_01]: It shows a lot of trust and handling father to do so, but it always has been better, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's never been time where I was like, oh, I wish I hadn't followed the spirit today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Since my friend, I know we're cutting a short word.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's there's a hundred and twenty versus and we're a ninety six of them in eighty eighty nine of them in.
[SPEAKER_03]: What am I messing?
[SPEAKER_03]: What do we need to cover before we we close here that that we really should spend a moment on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, as I was looking over it, there is great stuff, and I hope our listeners read it for themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just felt like, even if we just jumped to the last two verses and just see how the Savior ends this, I think we'll be in good place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything I'm missing from you before we get there?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that would be a great way to close this out here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, as we're wrapping up talking about his priesthood power, I just love the reminder that he gives us about who he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: For I, the Lord, have put forth my hand to exert the powers of heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot see it now, yet a little while, and you shall see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And know that I am, and that I will come and reign with my people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just was really touched by those.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I have necessarily anything to say, just as much as we'll one day get to see the
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a portion of his power now, but one day we're going to get to see all of it and I look forward to that day that I will know him so intimately and he will reign not just spiritually as I believe he does right now, but he'll reign in every sense of the word and we will be his people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the, I love the reminder that you cannot see it now.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're, you might think you see stuff, but you can't, you can't see it now.
[SPEAKER_03]: So be patient, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Little wild.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also like, whoa, I thought I was seeing his power pretty big.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Power that is going to happen is going to blow my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and I think today, if you could take today's, I don't know, even a general conference, and you could take a picture of the general conference experience and show Joseph and these early brethren, hey, this is what it's going to turn into by twenty twenty five, and the magnitude of the prophetic council and the way that they can communicate worldwide now, and if you could just give them a glimpse of what we can do now,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they would say, oh, wow, there's the power of God at work on earth, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: They would see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They would see hands down the power of God.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I still think that there's more to come and was at President Nelson said that in a coming day, Christ will do many of his most mighty miracles that are that have yet to happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's see them.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, sister, yeah, all right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sister Piper, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: This has been a treat to sit with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have you on a number of times a summer and I'm excited to be back with you a couple more times.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited because what we're trying to do is finish the doctor and covenants recordings this summer.
[SPEAKER_03]: and get ahead of the Old Testament for next fall or next spring so that we can keep things moving and keep things available and not be missing weeks.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had a couple of hiccups I think earlier in the year that we want to but we want to not do that so it's not good so I'm excited to have you back on anything you would share with us by way of counsel to the young people just young adults that
[SPEAKER_03]: That I think are like your peers you're like twenty eight aren't you know something like that you're twenty five twenty twenty six and I don't know but they're but they're so pure like to you to you what would you say to them what council would you give them to help them just get through I wish I had took the administration to study priesthood power
[SPEAKER_01]: more seriously when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you could figure it out, whatever age you're, I mean, if you're seventy-two listening to this, you figure it out, but it's calling upon the powers of heaven to bless you in your career, to bless you in your relationships, to bless you in any, maybe internal battles that you're facing, any mental health stuff, just like, God has given us this power and I feel very much that elder Uktor physiology of the man on the cruise ship who didn't eat any of the food,
[SPEAKER_01]: that we're living below our privileges.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just would want, like, encourage them to study this section.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then study some of the talks that we referenced today and just ask yourself, like, how can I call down the power of heaven to bless me in my life right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe he will open up to you, personal revelation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that you will find out that the best is yet to be for you personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you learn to walk hand in hand with the Savior of the world.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wonderful council.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I look forward to having you back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look forward to being here.