today third Nephi chapters 20- 26 really exciting chapters we're going to begin with kind of a larger perspective of God's promises and his work we're going to spend some time talking together about what God is actually doing here why Jesus is speaking very specifically about his work now you'll remember last time Jesus had come down with a set of instructions from the father Commandments to teach all these certain things about the house of Israel to these Nephites and lamanites and he had only gotten partway through that list when he was kind of interrupted and and
changed plans and it was a beautiful experience there in thir Nephi 17 well now it's day two he's back and notice what he says in chapter 20 verse 10 and it came to pass that when they had all given Glory unto Jesus he said unto them behold now I finish the Commandment which the father hath commanded me concerning this people who are a remnant of the House of Israel so he's given them the sacrament right before that in chapter 20 and now he says all right you're refreshed you're you're filled ready to go I'm going
to finish this commandment and you need to know about the house of Israel if you turn over to verse 27 it says and after that you were blessed then fulfill the Father the Covenant which he made with Abraham saying in in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed brothers and sisters that passage that promise that God gave to Abraham that it's through you and your seed that all kindreds nations tongues and people will be blessed that is one of only two scriptures that I know of I'm sure there are probably others
but those are two that I know of that are contained in all four standard works and in that particular case it's not just standard works but it's Old Testament New Testament but also Book of Mormon Doctrine and Covenants pearl of great price ironically the other one that's included in all four standard Works Bible Book of Mormon doctr covenants Pearl great price is going to come in the end of this lesson so we're going to get both of them today it's the passage from Malachi 4 uh verse 5 and 6 so we'll get that towards the
end of the lesson but let's pick up this one here's the key God promised Abraham some things and these blessings this Covenant wasn't just for Abraham it was through Abraham and through his family that all nations kindreds tongues and people would be blessed you'll notice you start this story with the Jews this family of Israel that we've given this label to the Jews the Israelites now what happens all the kindreds of the Earth are going to be blessed from this Covenant given to this family how does God do do that when they stay really really
homogeneous they stay uh very faithful to marrying only in the Covenant well they come into the promised land so here's Jerusalem here's Nazareth where Jesus was was raised most of his uh growing years just a quick overview Abraham's seed comes in and takes the promised land later on it divides into two kingdoms the northern and the southern Kingdom you have 10 tribes up north 721 BC you have Assyria comes in and scatters carries the northern 10 tribes captive what do they take with them they take with them memories stories in some cases scriptures the Jewish
scriptures these perspectives and it now goes out so have scattered Israel and they take with them these uh blessings of the Covenant in memory to one degree or another then what happens the Gentiles the non Israelites that they live among have the opportunity to be exposed to these things same thing happens in the New Testament uh the Jews are taken in in 68 69 and 70 AD and they're scattered again so 30 some odd years after Jesus's crucifixion and Resurrection we get another scattering this time of the Jews who are living in Jerusalem and they
take with them uh their what we would call not just the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament but the the letters and the writings that now have become our new testament so Paul goes on this Mission predominantly among the Gentiles what does he taking a knowledge of God's covenants a knowledge of Jesus Christ and it's scattering this to the Gentile nations in Greece Italy and Spain and other regions in turkey and Asia and down south as a reminder Covenant sometimes is a word that seems kind of a little bit over our heads it really just
means a promise we all know about promises we make promises to the that we love whenever you pay a bill like with a credit card you sign your name you're making a promise to pay that money off and what's interesting here in Genesis 121-3 God comes to Abraham and gives him promises God is the one who will fulfill the promises God doesn't go to Abraham and say Abraham I want you to do these promises God says I will fulfill these promises and this is the work that Jesus has been assigned to do to teach people
how God has and will fulfill these promises this is why the Book of Mormon is such a crucial Revelation for us to understand God's work and if you want to understand what God is focusing on and what his Plan of Salvation is his promises are summarized right here in Genesis 12 1:3 so as we continue today listen to how Jesus teaches what God will do to fulfill promises that he' made centuries before that now have become available throughout the entire world and not just to the Jews and the Israelites which by the way if you
stop and think about that we we want desperately to be a covenant keeping people we want to be more like God we want to be more like the Savior Jesus Christ well they keep their promises they don't they don't tell you they'll do something and then ah never mind I'm not going to do that they never break their promises and yet we do but as we want to be more like him let's start there with focusing on the promises that we've made and strive like never before to keep them in this Covenant relationship notice the
flow here so you have the Book of Mormon people who are a remnant of the House of Israel they're scattered Israel they've left the Homeland they've come over to the new world to the Americas Nephi on down they see themselves as a part part of scattered Israel now here's Jesus who comes to these other sheep and he's teaching them about who they really are who God really is and what their role is and then he in chapter 20 and 21 he is giving them this overview lesson of the whole house of Israel and it's beautiful
pay close attention to these different groups of people as you go through chapter 20 because what happened is Israel broke their promise they broke their Covenant with God turned their back on him so look at it this way to summarize you have this family that's given all of these blessings privileges that they're promised priesthood power posterity possessions the land they're promised all these amazing things then they break their side of all of those promises they're then they've turned their back on God symbolically so they're scattered and now they find themselves among people who hear some
of their stories who hear the narrative flow of what God has done for that people in the past and that group becomes interested and they turn to God so when Paul goes out and teaches you get the Gentiles who are god-fearers they turn to God and they want to become converts to this Christian cause that's being preached and it's beautiful because now you get the rise of the Gent Gentiles as they come into this Covenant as well that came to them through this scattering effort which fills what God was saying that in thy seed will
all the peoples of the earth be blessed and that was the promise here that God actually made use of the unfaithfulness of his people to actually eventually help all people to know him I just love how God does his work beautiful he's able to take what from our perspective seems like a failure or like uh it's all lost and he turns it into part of his plan to move it forward and in some cases even accelerated it seems we'll throw out one more brief thing the largest concentration of the word covenant in the Book of
Mormon shows up right here 3 Nei 20 to 21 through and 22 as well if you want to understand God's covenants what we're talking about here 3 Nei 20 through 22 the largest concentration of the word covenant throughout the Book of Mormon now watch as you go through chapter 20 initially watch how the Gentiles rise up because they've turned to God they they trust in the god of Israel and he's blessing them it's this the ultimate element of the Covenant is where he says I will be your God and the nut shall definition is you
will be my people well now you have his people saying we don't want to be your people anymore but the Gentiles saying we'd like to be your people and so he treats them like their God and you get the rise of the Gentile Nations and then in chapter 20 you're going to notice that something happens with those Gentile Nations they become so prosperous that they don't want him to be their God anymore they want money or power or Prestige or whatever to become their God then the promise says he will then turn back to those
who had been scattered and eventually back here so that the first shall be last and the last shall be first in this in this flow well brothers and sisters we're living in a day when the Gentiles and the Gentile nations of the earth increasingly seem to be turning their back more and more on God and so he's going to increase ly be turning more and more to scattered Israel and bringing them and remembering that Covenant and bringing them in and including to the Jews now if you go to chapter 20 verse 29 he says I
will remember the Covenant which I have made with my people and I have covenanted with them that I would gather them together in my own due time so we talked a lot about the scattering but now in our day in the latter days the focus here in the Book of Mormon is is on Gathering the this Gathering them back into the house of Israel and notice it says uh bringing them into the land of their inheritance which is the land of Jerusalem notice verse 32 then shall their Watchman lift up the tower 33 then will
the father gather together them and give them Jerusalem for the land of their inheritance you could just write in the margin that really kicks off in 1948 when the Jews get to return to the land of Israel verse 34 then shall they break forth into Joy 36 then shall be brought 40 then shall they say 41 then shall go forth brothers and sisters what he's giving them is a this then this then this then this it's an ordered list of things that are going to happen leading up to the events preceding the second coming regarding
the Jews in Jerusalem in the old world now you turn over to chapter 21 and in verse 1-7 you you come face to face with one of the most complex sentences in the entire Book of Mormon or thoughts this one complete thought in verse 1-7 but Jesus is taking multiple tangents and subtangent before he finally comes back around and answers his initial uh setup from ver verse one and it's going to take seven verses to do this basically what he's saying is let me give you a sign that you'll know that God is beginning to
fulfill his promise to then start this Gathering process coming back this direction in the latter days and by the time you get to the end of verse 7 you find out that the sign that Jesus is giving us from the father is this right here when you see this come forth he says then you know you know that God has begun to do his work the the the momentum is now moving forward and God is going to gather the elect out of the four corners of the Earth for the last time and we're going to
fulfill all those promises which he made to Abraham now you'll notice that is as you come down into chapter 21 the focus is more on scattered Israel and the New Jerusalem where this one was more on the Jews and Old Jerusalem over in Israel chapter 21 is more focused on New Jerusalem and the scattered Israelites notice verse 14 yay woe be unto the Gentiles except they repent for it shall come to pass in that day sayith the father that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee and I will destroy thy
chariots your ability to move and transportation and to to have power and Troll and army kinds of things look at verse 15 I will cut off the cities of thy land and throw down all thy strongholds these are strongholds of the Gentiles and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy land and they shall have no more soothsayers just as a side note often we in English read the word witchcrafts and we think only sourcery like it kind of mentions susers at the end of 16 the reality is in Galatians 5 in the new Testament
it talks about uh witchcrafts being a part of the the world the Greek word there for witchcrafts is Pharmaca has to do with drug use in that regard or in that context unfortunately that is a big part of our worlds today it's a tool of the devil to bind the minds and the hearts and to create addictions and it's painful for if you have loved ones or if you yourself have struggled with uh with drugs and uh and those kinds of addictions it's painful but you'll notice there are some promises all of this power is
going to be cut off one day and then he gives you all these other things that are going to be cut off look at verse 20 for it shall come to pass saith the father that at that day whosoever will not repent and come unto my beloved Son them will I cut off from among my people oh House of Israel and then then he jumps into a description of the New Jerusalem and the events leading up to the New Jerusalem in 23 verse 23 and in verse 24 he says and then shall they assist my
people who are scattered upon the face of the land in unto the New Jerusalem 25 then shall the power of Heaven come down among them and I will be in the midst and then shall the work of the father commence in that day brothers and sisters once again he gives you a this then this then this l for the New Jerusalem but he doesn't tell you how the two from 20 and 21 combine together he he leaves them separate Old Jerusalem here's your list New Jerusalem here's your list of things that need to happen this
then this then this and it's a beautiful progression what we want to also show here is the beautiful structure that Jesus provides for this speech so in a previous video with Jack Welch we talked about a literary pattern called kayak where an idea begins and then it repeats itself back we have something similar going on in the greatest concentration uh anywhere in the Book of Mormon of the word covenant there also happens to be kmus that we just went through and the Turning Point well let me tell you the beginning points started off at third
E5 verse 20 verse 10 it seems to end at third Nephi 21: 20 8- 29 and the turning point where the whole focus is is third Nephi 21 verse4 let me read that to you for it is wisdom in the father that they should be established in this land and be set up as a Free People by the power of the father that these things might come forth unto them unto a remnant of your seed that the Covenant of the father may be fulfilled which he have Covenant with his people house of Israel all this
talking by Jesus is centered around God's the Covenant of the Father which goes right back to the promises made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and that God has been doing his work with the Jews scattered Israel the Gentiles and back to scattered Israel and the Jews so as you look at this again you might say what is Jesus and God the Father trying to communicate to me it's that God will always remember his covenants he will always remember the promises that he has made and it is his obligation to make them real and this process
we're seeing at Tyler's reviewed is how God is going to make that happen and again it centered this whole Port these two chapters are centered on God fulfilling his covenants and that's one of the biggest reveals of why Jesus showed up to the need fights in the new world is to reinstate to them God is entirely trustworthy fully trustworthy you can always trust God because He will always remember his covenants and to fulfill them let's shift Focus to what he teaches us regarding how that Covenant is even possibly able to be fulfilled throughout time and
it's all rooted and centered in Jesus Christ and His Infinite and eternal sacrifice that we call his atonement in Isaiah there are a lot of passages in Isaiah that point us to Christ in the Book of Mormon the focal point on Christ's atonement could very possibly be summarized in chapter 53 which was used by abinadi clear back in in mosiah chapter 14 it's interesting this is called The Suffering servant chapter where Christ the greatest of all comes down and he takes upon himself all of our infirmity and and with his stripes we are healed and
and that beautiful chapter showing us what Christ would do here's the irony here's Jesus himself after he's completed his atonement speaking to Nephites and lamanites and back in chapter 20 he gave us a couple of passages or a couple of verses from Isaiah 52 let me just point one of these out if you go back to chap 20: 44 so it's in this seg this little sequence that's being quoted from Isaiah 52 as many were astonished at thee his Vis or his countenance his appearance was so marred more than any man and his form more
than the sons of men it's interesting when you look at this passage in verse 44 where he's talking about his Vis being so marred the word marred in Hebrew if you get to the underlying language in Hebrew it's the same root word as he who is Anointed his Vis is so anointed by God that he becomes so marred by man just by switching out the vowels in the Hebrew um so here he is this being who it's been prophesied would be uh so marred by man performs this INF at atonement now he's teaching the Nephites
and lamanites and what does he do he gives us chapter 54 in its entirety in 3i chapter 22 notice the outcome of his of his atonement from 53 notice how it starts and then shall that which is written come to pass sing O baren thou that did not bear Break Forth into singing and cry aloud thou that did not travail with child for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife saith the Lord brothers and sisters it's as if Jerusalem or Judah or the house of Israel is symbolized by
this woman who is sitting there feeling Barren and desolate because her children have been scattered they've been taken away out of her land and out of her home and she's sitting there quite sad and God saying lift up your head Rejoice sing why look at verse two enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations spare not lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy Stakes stretch it out make your house bigger than it's ever been before and she's like I'm Barren notice for Thou shalt Break Forth on the right
hand and on the left thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited so in this process of gathering you're going to get more people coming into your house than you ever imagined verse 7 for a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee remember what we were talking about before how they turned their back on God and so he scattered them he kicked them out of the land and they broke the Covenant and so he kept those contractual agreements by spreading them throughout the
world for a small moment were they forsaken but with great mercies will I gather thee verse eight in a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with Everlasting kindness will I have mercy on Thee sayith the Lord thy Redeemer brothers and sisters this is really powerful to me when I think in a house of Israel Global context I love it it makes me excited but in my heart I really love verse 7 and 8 because of what means for little old Tyler Griffin because every time we sin it's a symbolic
scattering every time we repent it's a symbolic Gathering every time I willingly use my agency to do things I know I shouldn't do I end up with verse seven a small moment of feeling forsaken but any time and sometimes even before I've repented I experience the these great mercies from the Lord you get this Everlasting kindness that comes from the Lord Our Redeemer so we can read these verses from Isaiah 54 in the big context and get great strength from them but honestly for me my greatest motivation from these chapters comes at the eye level
the me here now I need to be gathered I need the mercy mercy and the grace of Jesus Christ and I love how he continues this on verse 10 for the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart from thee neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed sayith the Lord that hath Mercy on thee Oh thou Afflicted tossed with Tempest and not comforted I would imagine that there are many who watch these videos who are in in the midst of all kinds of terrible storms whether they be
physical mental emotional spiritual Financial relational on and on and on the list goes I love the fact that these Isaiah chapters that Jesus is quoting here bring us back to the reality of he is bigger and more powerful than all of those problems combined times a million he is capable and notice he says I will lay thy stones with Fair colors and lay the foundations with sapphires once again he doesn't give us any promises on timing here which means you may have to endure much longer than you think you should through a a dark trial
or a difficult addiction or struggle but his promise is sure that it won't last forever if you'll turn to him and say I want you to be my God and I want to be thy people then there's the promise that you can move forward these are such beautiful verses I love the scriptures I Love The Gospel and look at this other verse verse 9 for this the Waters of Noah unto me for I have sworn that the Waters of Noah should no more go over the Earth so have I sworn that I would not be
wroth or angry with thee I think about that I'm like wait a second every time I see a rainbow God has now just reinterpreted for us what the rainbow means originally it was hey I'm not going to destroy the Earth he's now telling us every time you see a rainbow that is my direct promise to you I will not be angry with you you have my Covenant of peace and with Tender Mercies and loving kindness I will internally gather you in that's just incredible sure as Tyler mentioned every now and then we all make mistakes
but the promise from God is sure that we will have his loving kindness and he will not be angry and all we need to do is just turn to him for me very significant uh Connecting Point with these teachings is in verse 13 because it's not enough for me to have these promises the real blessing of the abrahamic Covenant is not just for yourself but it's for your posterity and we're going to see that again when we get to to chapter 25 look at verse 13 and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord
and great shall be the Peace of thy children I think it's safe to say that the only thing I like more than my own peace and happiness and and progress on the Covenant path is to see and recognize the progress and the development and the growth of my children along that Covenant path and uh that promises here verse 14 in righteousness shalt thou be established Thou shalt be far from oppression for Thou shalt not fear and from Terror for shall not come near thee brothers and sisters if you've been terrified of the Lord or or
fearing punishment that might come because of stupid decisions we've made in life can I just say let that go drop that at the savior's feet and say yes I have been very very inappropriate in the way I've used my my agency at times and I desperately need help and the promise is he is a god of mercy and we will taste more fully of that Mercy if we stop beating ourselves and each other up because of past mistakes and look more to the Gathering not just the physical Gathering of Israel but the Gathering of our
own soul unto the God who gave us life that's what Jesus's whole mission is about is not to come down here to condemn us but to come down here to save us and he's very good at what he does now chapter 23 opens with Jesus saying some very interesting things about Isaiah so he's quoted Isaiah we've skipped 53 but then he jumps to the outcome 54 in this be these beautiful promises then he finishes that and he says verse one now behold I say unto you that ye ought to search these things yeah a commandment
this isn't a suggestion it's not a recommendation it's a commandment which Commandments are given as part of covenantal agreements and covenantal connections and he is the author and the finisher of that Faith or that Covenant that he's made with us so he's saying I'm giving you a Commandment that ye search these things diligently for Great Are the words of Isaiah don't you love learning from the scriptures by not just what they say but what they don't say you'll notice he didn't say a commandment I give unto you to read Isaiah or a commandment I give
unto you to quote occasionally from Isaiah he said search these things diligently brothers and sisters if you just read isaah you're not going to get much out of him you have to search you have to understand the covenantal language he's using you have to understand some things about the lands that he's referring to and the people and the manner of prophesying among the Jews and once those things become more and more uh native to our our language so to speak the more we recognize that Isaiah truly was a prophet and SAR of Our Lord that
uh his words are so great that Jesus gave us a specific commandment to search them diligently because Jesus is using the words of Isaiah like he did the Book of Mormon as a fulfillment prophecy to say when you see all of the words of Isaiah begin to be fulfilled in the latter days then you'll know God is accelerating the work basically he's he's performing his his venal obligations his duties in that Covenant for the last time in the latter days then he he goes to the scriptures and he asks Nephi to come forth and he
says didn't I command Samuel my prophet Samuel the lonite to prophesy unto this people and the Saints would arise from the dead and appear unto many in verse 9 and it's not written in here and then he gives a commandment to Nephi make sure that's written in there now we're not clear does that mean that Nephi had already written most of the Prophecies of Samuel lonite but had left out that one particular issue about the the graves opening he's not clear in the text or did he completely Leave Out All of Samuel lonite speech entirely
and it needs to be put in including this part I don't know and that's less important than the fact that Jesus wanted that particular part of Samuel's prophecies to be included I think that's important because once again it's wonderful to know about the resurrection of Jesus Christ but the so what part of that is you are going to also be resurrected once again bringing it down to the I level you and me level to say we will be brought forth and so Nephi rectifies that situation and puts that in and gratefully we have Samuel's prophecies
now chapter 24 Jesus open opens this chapter by telling them uh there are scriptures that you didn't have with you when you came over because Malachi is our last prophet in our Old Testament writing approximately 400 BC well Lehi left Jerusalem 200 years before that so he he's not known to these people over in the Americas so Jesus gives them two chapters chapter 3 and chapter 4 which for us in in our KJV King James version of the Bible are the last two chapters of the Old Testament and they're rooted in covenants interesting covenants come
back again now before I jump into to what we're going to talk about here with Malachi 3 let me just say this most people when they think about Malachi 3 they just think about tithing and the Commandment for tithing but look at the context that leads into tithes and offerings there's a reason for those and it's not Financial look at verse 7even even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them return unto me and I will return unto you sayith the Lord of hosts but you
say and wherein shall we return so he's saying you've broken this Covenant you've turned your back on me and you've left me and he says return to the Covenant return to me and he he's asking this question well how can we return and then he gives the answer how do you return to this Covenant look at verse 8 will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me but you say wherein have we robbed Thee the answer in tithes and offerings now that's odd they've broken a covenant and they need to return to the Covenant
how do they return He says through tithes and offerings brothers and sisters let me share a little Parable with you to teach this principle this is my favorite non-scriptural parable of all time I love this it was told by Elder James E telich clear back in the early 1900s and I'm going to modify it slightly I'm going to take some some license and and tell the story just slightly different than how he did in general conference many many years ago it's called the parable of the Grateful cat once upon a time there was a naturalist
lived out in the woods in a cabin one day he's walking home past a little Pond n's home and there are two neighbor boys who walk up to the pond carrying a picnic basket followed by a a mother cat they set the picnic basket down the first boy reaches into the basket and pulls pull out a brand new born baby kitten turns to the pond mother cat is going ballistic on the the shoreline she's not happy as the second boy is reaching in for another kitten the naturalist stops them says hey wait a minute wait
a minute and he comes down and he he knows that they're poor so he says can I buy them from you they agree he gives them some money he takes the basket and goes to his cabin and they go home which direction is mother cat go pretty obvious she's going to follow the kittens so he makes a little corner In His cabin with a blanket and provides some some milk or cream for the mother cat doesn't think much of it the next day the naturalist has a houseful in his front room of of distinguished guests
who have come as as he's sharing some some scientific findings halfway through his presentation through the front door that's open walks mother cat up the center aisle she drops at his feet the biggest the juiciest Mouse you've ever seen fresh caught she hasn't eaten any of it she just freshly killed it and drops it at his feet rubs up against his legs then turns and walks very proudly back out the door there's the parable brothers and sisters what just happened is the naturalist standing there thinking to himself a mouse freshly caught just what I wanted
the mouse means absolutely nothing to the naturalist but the mouse meant a great deal to the cat and he recognized the sacrifice that was made she gave up something that would have meant a great deal to her as an expression in in a cat's way of expressing gratitude for what had been done to save her young she now dropping a a thank you gift at his feet cuz in her mind what could a living organism want more than a freshly caught Mouse when in reality it's just going to cause him more work Brothers and Sisters
Let's be clear when I go to the Servants of the Lord and I drop tithes and offerings at their feet when I put that there and then walk away don't think for a minute that God up in heaven is rubbing his hands together saying look at all this money that's coming in today it's a fast Sunday look at all these all these donations and tithing offerings think of all the things I can do with that brothers and sisters this doesn't mean anything to God he created all the world this is nothing and some would say
oh no brother Griffin God needs this kind of stuff in order to do to to run the the church programs as the creator of Worlds Without number how hard would it be for him to go to our prophet and say um you know that property that you own in such and such location just dig down 20t and they dig down and find the world's biggest diamond mind that could solve any Financial questions that could ever arise for hundreds of years to come God could Finance this church without even thinking about it but he doesn't do
it that way he does it this way it's part of the Covenant brothers and sisters tithes and offerings are not about dollar bills or currency in your own Nation it's about you saying God I love thee more than I love this just like the cat saying naturalist I love you and I'm thankful for what you did so I'm going to sacrifice something that means a lot to me as a as a sign of my gratitude to you now let's follow this for just a second what does God do with this when we drop this at
his feet because unlike a mouse at a naturalist's feet God can actually do things with this he takes our once again mortal offering and he turns it into some things that become Eternal he builds temples he prints scriptures he publishes General Conference he provides means for the general authorities to run the programs of the church worldwide he provides a missionary program all of these things that he doesn't need in order to be saved he's already saved but they help us on our journey to become more like him Elder Talmage finished his Parable and he said
our need to sacrifice for God or give things to God is incalculably greater than his need for our service to him God doesn't need us to serve him but we desperately need to serve him as a sign that we're returning unto him and one means that he has done that is through tithes and offerings brothers and sisters there are some of you who are thinking to yourself I can't afford to pay tithing can I just say we're talking about the God of the universe holding worlds without number in his hand it's a serious test of
faith a leap into the darkness for some of you but if you make it his promises are sure that he the god of the universe combined with your faith and your diligence turning to him in that Act of Faith is going to be able to do more with 9/10 of your income than you without his help are going to be able to do with all of your income reserved for yourself and how that works I don't know but I have proven this over and over and over again uh my wife and I I in our
in our marriage and before that even in my life look at the promise verse 10 bring ye all the tithes into the store house that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of hosts if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it this is one of those principles of the Gospel brothers and sisters that we could preach forever and it won't do nearly as good as you living it putting God to
a test and see what happens twice in one lesson there's two references to Noah this phrase the windows of Heaven it doesn't show up a lot in scriptures but when it does the first time in the book of Mor sorry in the Old Testament is when God opened the windows of heaven and flooded the Earth flooded it and that's the reference he's talking about here is like go ahead and test me pay your tithing pay your offerings and see if I won't basically flood your life like I did in the time of Noah and let
me just share a very brief story once when I was in grad school I was under serious financial distress and I prayed to God like your promises were if I paid my tithe and offerings that you would take care of me and God sent a little flood literally I lived in a small basement uh studio apartment and one night a massive thunderstorm flooded my apartment and the landlord gave me 3 months of free rent because because of that which allowed me to survive and I just think Lord I really wanted the flood of your blessings
but I didn't need a literal flood but he just has a good sense of humor and I think it's important for us to acknowledge the fact that sometimes we as human beings put an un unreasonable expectation on God that if I pay this then somehow I'm going to become rich that's not his promise he'll open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings upon you it may be Financial in nature but it will probably be spiritual for sure along with a variety of other ways that might be related to health or peace of mind or
opportunities for different employment or a move different opportunities will come as we put our trust in him it really is that simple he says I'll be your God just be my people and if you'll treat me like a God I'll treat you like my people and I know how to take care of my people but I also know how to try my people and I know how to prove them by giving them them uh tests so don't don't assume that just because you pay your tithing all of a sudden life is going to get easy
it it'll still be a test now chapter 25 he takes us into Malachi 4 the last chapter and this is one of those other passages that is included in all four standard Works verse 5 and six you'll notice here verse 5 behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and Dreadful day of the Lord the Jewish tradition the rabinal tradition among Jewish people is that before the Lord the Messiah will come that Elijah will come to turn the hearts of the the fathers to the children the children of the
fathers that's why every Passover seder service that they have they a plate at the table that's set with food in a chair that's empty ready for Elisha Elijah and at a certain point they send people to the door to open the door to see if Elijah is there because they believe that Elijah will come on Passover that's that's reinal tradition among them it's been that way for Millennia here's the interesting thing on April 3rd 1836 in the Kirtland Temple Elijah did come and he did bring keys and give them to Joseph Smith and uh Sydney
Rigdon at the dedication of the curtain Temple you had all of these Heavenly administrations and these Keys being passed guess what the calendar would have shown you on April 3rd 1836 if you flipped and looked at a Gregorian calendar guess what event was also taking place on April 3rd that year yep it was the first full Moon after the Spring Equinox that year which is Passover Elijah did come on Passover and he did bring Keys what are the keys look at verse six he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the
Heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse brothers and sisters if you look carefully at this he says I'm going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers here's the question where are you in verse 6 our kneejerk response the younger we are when we read this is to see ourselves here and it's all about genealogy it's all about family history work it's all about looking to the past to our fathers and doing Temple work for
them and providing means whereby they can find Salvation through the atonement of Christ the older you get the more you realize oh wait this goes both directions he's also turning the hearts of the fathers to their posterity to their children throwing this out here sometime sometimes we get so excited about family history work that if we're not careful we can over Overlook family present work those living children of God who are with us right here right now sometimes we can Overlook them because we're so excited about what happened before and I would just throw out
out here that one of the amazing things about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is its ability to give us this eternal perspective that also included in these Keys binding of the generations is this notion of family future work so to speak so here you are as an individual and you find yourself at this pivot point between here we are in the present between the past and the future and where one Link in that chain and we understand that there are people who for a variety of reasons don't get the opportunity to be uh literally biological
parents or to adopt children in this life or to get married God knows all things and he'll provide means whereby nobody will be uh denied Eternal blessings in this family sense eternally if they keep the Covenant now for some of you out there watching that's part of your test of mortality is how to move forward without this kind of a scenario now let's go back to this uh this example a husband and a wife there are family history obligations there are family present obligations but there are also family future blessings and promises that are given
and uh I love the fact that we learn in the New Testament that Jesus did all these things for our sake well brothers and sisters if I stop living my life just for me but I start turning in all directions I turn to my my family history and I try to learn their stories and learn from them as I try to engage more fully with the family that I have right now around me and as I think through wait a minute it things that I do today could actually have an effect on my posterity down
the road there's power in that the spirit of Elijah doesn't just permeate family history work which it does and some of you have experienced that where it gets a hold of you and it won't let go and it's beautiful and it's wonderful but I think it also has the power to help us see ourselves in this perspective of future posterity and things that I do today can actually have a positive benefit on uh on them down the road and so I love that Christ is allowing us to see this final two verses of the Old
Testament in this context with the Nephites and Lites saying if Elijah doesn't come and bring those keys the whole earth is utterly wasted we've totally wasted all of our time but Elijah did come and he did bring those keys and we're not wasting our time and God is gathering the elect out of the four corners of the earth and he is inviting and encouraging all of us to return unto him third Nephi 26 A Beautiful chapter basically closes Jesus's experiences with the people and it's interesting how he concludes He commands and make sure that things
are written down it's really hard to remember things unless there's a record it is possible our memories can remember things uh but it's easier when things are recorded and he also encourages and focuses people on ordinances to put order into the gospel and the most important order for him initially was let's get people baptized and it's interesting how at the end of the chapter this is 20 21 that people did all the things that Jesus commanded and they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called The Church of Christ so if you remember
back way back in 3D Nephi 11 one of the first things Jesus talks about is baptism and here at the end of his time with the people he focuses yet again on baptism and we see this conclusion the people were baptized now at this point many of us have been baptized the sacrament is the renewal of that ceremony and we do that in the Name of Christ and it invites us to remember on a daily or a weekly basis that we are covenanted to God that we are loyal to him and all the promises we've
been talking about they are all live they're all there for us and as we choose to turn to God through baptism and the weekly partaking of the sacrament those promises become real in our lives and this is one of the major reasons why Jesus showed up is to Institute and remind us that God's promises are alive and well for us we love you we appreciate who you are May the Lord's blessings be upon you [Music]
