Ep 73 | The Sermon on the Mount as a Temple Ordinance - Plain & Precious Things, Mike w/Dave Butler

Welcome to talking scripture for those of you who love to geek out learn more about the temple this episode is for you I wanted to re-release episode 73 this week because it fits in nicely with our comef follow me study of The Sermon on the Mount that we read in third Nei 12 through6 and it's in the New Testament also in Matthew 5-7 in this episode I'm talking with my good friend David Butler he's the author of some of my favorite Books plain and precious things the goodness and the Mysteries and his most recent book

in the language of this is a recording that Dave and I did a few years ago and it's actually the very first of many podcasts that Dave and I have done together we're going to be talking in depth about how The Sermon on the Mount can be seen as a parallel to the endowment experience in the temple and ordinance we are also going to examine second Nephi 9 in detail I Hope you like this discussion as much as I enjoyed having it welcome to talking scripture I'm Mike and I'm really excited to be here with

with my friend Dave Butler I met him online after reading a couple of his books and then I just started peppering him with questions and next thing I knew we were eating at a rib place wasn't it yes it was and then an hour later I'm like I've really got to get him on the podcast and so he's been gracious enough To to meet with us today and to talk about languages and the Book of Mormon and for you people that love to geek out this is your day right Dave tell us about yourself like

where did you get your interest in scripture and languages and then where did that kick you off to oh yeah that's interesting so let me take those in reverse order uh I I owe to the state of New Jersey my interest in languages uh we moved out there for the beginning of 8th grade my dad had a Sabatical at Rutter and uh I had I had never thought of myself as a language guy I think I took a summer course in French in when I was in kindergarten or something you know learned how to sing

faka uh and but uh but New Jersey had a standardized test and they said okay you test in the group where you have to take a language and I said that I want to and they said you have to uh do you want to take French or Spanish and my mom said you know Spanish is probably more useful I said okay so uh but I discovered that that I like languages I like them enough that uh when I was a missionary in Italy uh sort of the second half of my mission I went to a

little Evangelical bookstore down at the bottom of the hill in in Genova and uh bought a Hebrew grammar and dictionary and a and a and a Tanakh and I started teaching myself Hebrew as a missionary just you just picked it up and you started going yeah I love languages um relatedly I guess this is Kind of like a conversion story I uh I was uh inactive as a as a teenager because I am a I am as the English would say bloody-minded uh I am stubborn and and this is good because I recognize it in

my son and it gives me the ability to be patient uh less so my daughters but my son for sure and and uh so when I was 14 I was in a youth Sunday school class and I was being a jerk I was completely a fault I don't remember what I was doing but I was teasing one of the girls Or something and the teacher said hey you're on the fast Road to Hell and I decided that was the occasion in which I would stop going to church that that'll show her yeah that'll that exactly

I'm boss uh so uh so basically for 3 years or so didn't go to church and what really started me getting interested in the gospel meaning you know uh the intellectual study of the things of God was uh H ni's book Enoch the prophet and my parents were they knew Hugh I have Met Hugh because he was in our Ward uh my dad was hbl's Bishop and so people would show up to our W when he Tau Sunday school they'd show up to our Ward who had nothing to do with our W because they wanted

to get in a free hbi lecture right so so he was I he was a guy I vaguely was aware of and my parents started collecting those books when they came out and I read Enoch the prophet with basically zero this is how I do everything in my life with basically Zero preparation you know just kind of jumped in off the deep end and I thought oh this is really interesting like there's um you something in here yeah this is a thing that smart people can do there is something in here this is not a

spiritual discipline for fools there is meat yeah he's wrestling with ideas that many of us have never even considered right how did you think okay I'm going to write a book about the Book of Mormon yeah not only about the Book of Mormon But what the Book of Mormon is saying but that it isn't saying overtly I mean first of all who thinks of that and how did you get to that point so I am a lawyer by training that's my academic training I don't practice law in an irre ognize way now but my first

five years out of law school I was working at a big firm in London and writing the train into work I didn't want to live in London after a year so we moved out in the countryside so I was spending about 4 hours a day on a train and so I read a ton and I discovered books of Margaret Barker so to get to her I had been reading a lot about the apocalyptic writings and the dudo canonical literature of the second temple now for our listeners who aren't familiar with that term okay for this

purpose apocalyptic is a trend that Scholars would say sort of shows up near the end of the monarchy of Judah there's a book by by Paul Hansen Paul D Hansen Called dawn of apocalyptic which is really a wonderful book who basically places it in the followers of the original Isaiah who he calls Visionary men which is interesting and then it it's in the Canon it's in the Bible in books like Ezekiel and Daniel and then in the New Testament uh like the Book of Revelation very is an apocalyptic text is what it's named after yeah

they're Revelations they're not necessarily principally Revelations of an end time All of that sometimes is the I think that's how the westerners read it we like to read it as like a predictive text right we think of the Apocalypse the apocalypses being the end of the world and that is one way for that genre to manifest but but also another common aspect or manifestation of that genre is tours of the cosmos okay uh and espe visions and levels of Heaven asending up the levels of Heaven to meet God right exactly and you see some of

that in for Example Daniel the vision of the Ancient of Days on his throne you see some of that in in Revelation you see it more clearly in books that are also apocalyptic that are outside of the Canon outside of the Bible First Enoch is a huge one first Enoch 15 uh is a very clear three-part Ascent of Enoch up to heaven and it's in three parts because it is model upon the three parts of the Temple of Jerusalem so that in some sense what is being communicated is Hey here's this vision of Enoch the

prophet and in another sense uh what is being communicated is the temple structure and furnishings and that's an implicit part of the message uh and then there there's a whole bunch of apocalyptic stuff that's in the apocryphal or dudo canonical Works books that are broadly speaking that are like Bible books but not in the Bible yeah they didn't make the cut I I like to say extra biblical literature stuff that's Not in the Bible it's kind of extra stuff and I like section 91 where Joseph asked the Lord is this okay and should I translate

it and the Lord says it's okay don't translate it but there's good stuff in there yeah and so you sort it out you the member right yeah section 91 is wonderful because it tells us that that everything is our Canon yeah pretty much if it's if it's true dig it up yeah go for it which I think is is amazing so all of this have been kind of fermenting In my head for a while and she's talking about this Jewish apostasy this big shift in the religion of Israel right around the 700 650 BC right

before Nephi right yeah this big shift in Theology and what they do in the Temple and so all of this literature the extra biblical books and the study of them one of the real recurring themes is that we think of their being a religion of ancient Israel and there were clearly religions there were different points of View and the Old Testament very clearly is associated with a point of view and it is a point of view that in some sense one because was in the reign of King Josiah went around and killed everybody else and

smashed up their stuff and burned their things you know William dver I like his term where he says that the Old Testament is a Minority Report yes it's a text written by the people that won they won that the battle of the views as it were right is that a good Description it is this is all implicit in sort of the biblical scholarship of the last 200 years but in the last sort of 30 to 50 years has become really much more common for SCH to say listen to understand what's happening in Israel you can't

just read with the grain what the writer saying you have to realize that the writer is reacting against things so you have to read against the grain too and so if there are lots of condemnations for example and this is Tangentially related to what we'll talk about today if there are lots of condemnations of a goddess named Asher what that means is that some people really must have been attached to her otherwise why would they be talking about otherwise why would it worth anybody's mention right they must have taken her seriously nobody in our pulpus

today is condemning the Flying Spaghetti Monster cuz it's a joke right it's not a real thing correct so the Bible has more Than one point of view but it's got an editorial point of view that tries to wrap up everything and conceal the other points of view within it so it's it's not obvious that we're seeing a library which is of course what the name means as opposed to uh you know one point of view as a footnote one of my favorite titles there's a Israeli scholar named tonit who's written a book called the religions

of ancient Israel a synthesis of parallactic approaches my one of my Favorite title yeah yeah the title will kill you with its weight but the point is that there's lots of points of view right yeah and actually and his his very specific point is that for a long time you've had people reading the text of the Bible and sort of taking it seriously as it is and this was what happened and people doing archaeology and going nope the text is is not right does not match the archaeology and they weren't talking to each other so

you're Reading this stuff on the train 4 hours a day for for how many years are you reading uh for five years well law school too man I checked out law scho so so you spent years like you're in law school you're in London you're buying these books and and probably every day you're making connections right and and by the way to your question about languages man all during this time I'm also sort of running I'm I'm my Italian is pretty good most of the rest of my Languages are pretty bad but I have a

lot of them and this is why it's because I would go in and I would have a middle Egyptian grammar and I would read that on the way in on the way back I would do a little by the way I think you were the one I was in one of your books one day I had my nose in it and to me it was just the most amazing connection that the word for Rod oh yeah and the word for word yeah is the same Egyptian word and I was like Nephi is punting on every

Level like you start going down this road right 100% there are Egyptian puns in there produced by an 1829 Farm Boy which lots of farm boys did at the time This Is How They 20 22 years old they'd make they'd make puns in dead languages yeah uh CU who CU who doesn't because they didn't have television yeah that's right they're in oral culture so I've been doing this for for I mean law school and then the five years there and then I a year in New York and I moved to Idaho so I've been doing

this reading this like this for like8 years and the Elder Corum presidency came to give me a calling and I said okay well I know you just reorganize the presidency so it's it's got to be Elders corm teacher right and they said they said yes would you do it and I said okay listen here's the deal I don't know why I felt entitled to say this but this is what I said I said uh you will never have to remind me and you will not have to get a substitute And I will show up every

time and I'll will do a great job I will be prepared I said and I will not teach out of the manuals and uh they said let us go think about this they went and and and told Steve Jones who was a newly called 's Cor president he talked to his dad and his dad said you know why not Joseph did a school of the prophets and let's see what happens yeah what's the worst that could happen is probably basically his advice so I embarked on trying to teach Them every everything that I thought people

should know about the Book of Mormon that we didn't ever talk about or notice so very quickly it wasn't the first lesson I taught I think the first lesson I taught might have been on the oracular use of the UR and thumb in the Book of Mormon there's a couple p messages in Alma where yam is not mentioned but the textual pattern that is in the Old Testament for in the yth is used is clearly there military or Civil leader goes to consult with a Priestly leader who is known for having a gift of prophecy

about a matter of the fate of the nation including especially military matters the Priestly leader probably withdraws into a Sacred Space there's the technical vocabulary sha Al by Yahweh and to uh ask inquire of the Lord that's what the book of or language is inquire of the Lord and then you come back with specific tactical advice go over there and and get him on the other Side of the Riverside in Lehigh so I think that was my first one but I quickly got into this idea that had been kind of knocking around my head for

a while I was convinced that uh first Nei at was an apocalyptic Vision was a vision not of the end of the world but of the of the uh structure of the cosmos and that like first Enoch 15 that it was a three-part asent ascent and the way that Ascent looks is you start with a great and spacious field and then you Enter into a the sort of meat of the vision where there is a great and spacious building uh or the field is not as great and spacious as wide as the world right as

wide as it was the world then it's the great and spacious building above the Earth with Mists of darkness and then holding onto an iron rod and provocatively there are four appearances of verbs for hold or grasp where you grasp the iron Rod apparently four times in first Nei 8 and then you Pass through the straight and narrow path into the presence of the tree of life and I and I was convinced and as westerners I think we miss all of this yes it's just completely lost to us art tradition that completely leads us the

wrong way we well the the rod becomes a railing yes instead of the scepter of the King instead of the scepter of the king exactly instead of a person yeah I the way I envision is Jesus says grab the rod don't let go I'm going to get You home it's going to happen yeah and the railing is just not the same thing right despite the fact that Nephi tells us that the word of God is is Jesus yeah it is not a railing it is the it's the scepter of of the king and and and

he leads you into the presence of the tree of life and by the way first Nephi 8:30 as people are entering the presence they fall down which suggests pranis suggest they're worshiping the tree it's a multivalent symbol it has to be it has To be yes and so we are in the space there of the world tree the world axis the Goddess of Life Asher we are in the space of man there's like everything I say is like a whole other hourlong conversation we have well like revelation 22 it ends with the tree and the

throne and the river and the tree heals and the Bible begins and ends with the tree so the tree clearly means something and the tree is the tree is Charity because the tree is the love of God and the greatest of his gifts and charity is the greatest of the spiritual gifts so like it's it's all this stuff the early Christians tied it to the cross of Jesus the cross of Jesus is the Tree of Life who he's born under a tree and he dies under a tree and by the way our Christmas tree is

the same thing yeah uh it's like it's like the story for Gentiles you know even if you're secular you've got a Christmas tree it's in your house absolutely yeah so I just I taught this kind of crazy free range Book of Mormon class for like five six years an Eagle Idaho this was the impetus to get these ideas going and so then I'm I'm guess you just started putting stuff to paper so to jump back over to like my Gentile career here um in 2010 my the company where I was a corporate leader was acquired

I lost my job and for about two years I did whatever I wanted we we we got a payout right so I could do whatever I wanted we Were not desperate for two years and I said oh I'm going to write so I started writing novels but I also thought I should reduced to writing some of these things I've been teaching and thinking about oh and and let me give credit here because I I was going to say this and then I got sidetracked it is absolutely the case that while I'm preparing for lessons I

am I mean this word but I'm I'm I'm inspired and also teaching and feeling Inspired but so are people who I'm teaching because I was actually reading through first Nephi 11 and it was Jay Calder who was in that Elders quum who pointed out as we were reading through it speaking of the tree first Nephi 13 I think says uh you know hey the plain and precious things have been taken out of the biblical text the Gentiles are going to receive right and first Nephi 11 says the tree is precious above all so there's something

going on there right So and and he didn't and that wasn't a comment like to me aside we were I was standing up in front of a projector and he said that and I pretended I had noticed it right I oh yes yes correct so so it was a group um it was a group process a group experience and uh so I wrote those two short books to sort of capture what I was thinking at the time I never looked at the vision that Lehi had before reading this I never looked at it as a

pmic or a an attack against The corruptness of the priesthood in his day yeah and then and we're not going to flesh that out in this podcast you The Listener just are going to have to read plain and precious things but in that book it is to me so clear yeah that and by the way all religious texts do this they they point out truth but then they also say but we're not this and they're pointing to whatever the falsity is so whether it's the sacred grove Joseph walks out the sacred grove and he knows

Something yeah but he also knows what isn't true in The Book of Mormons doing this I had never caught that before and that connects with the idea that the Book of Mormon is minority religious literature but what Barker is really good about this is good we're circling back so we don't miss points what Barker is what really distinguishes her from so many the other writers about extra biblical books is to ask the really important so what question right which Is okay fine so there there are mul points of VI yeah exactly why does this matter

who cares who cares and and the really great the really great really fruitful question that she asked which is okay so uh if there are multiple religions of Israel and the one associated with certain of the Kings and some reforming movements won politically and and tried to write the others out and force them underground right which is what the old testament's doing yes Which is that's not what you hear from the pulpit usually but that's a fairly non-controversial comment from the point of view of biblical studies but with that background what then is the mental

Furniture what is happening inside the heads of the people who meet this guy right and he's not some mysterious figure who rode down out of the clouds he's a carpenter's son from Nazareth right and they can pointed his brothers and his sisters and that's his mother And yet they see this guy and and apparently thousands of them are moved to say this guy is Yahweh Jesus is Lord what are they thinking right and so you know her journey then kind of to grossly overs summarize it is an exploration that says hey one of the things

that the reformers at the end of the history of the kingdom of Judah did not like was the religion of the Kings of Judah thems and the things that these reformers in Deuteronomy and in Kings condemn are Things that Abraham Isaac and Jacob did and are things that the kings of Judah did and her her argument is it was The Heirs of that religion who were still waiting for the king who manifested himself as the as Yahweh come in person who saw Jesus and said this is the guy we've been waiting for it's like those

two threads came came together in Jesus the people with the expectation of that early religion what I call First Israelite Temple religion and the old Belief system which had never really died it still existed somewhere whether orally or what have you margot's contention is it was in this scripture that didn't make the Canon essentially right yep uh and probably also uh orally right and in books we don't have even sad that that just makes me sad to think about the stuff we just don't have that is really true so yeah so at some point uh

I of seeing what Margaret's question was uh was moved to write a parallel Question and I think I formulated the question in writing the first book rather than in the context of the classes and that is what must Nephi think what must what's in his head what's in his head what is the mental Furniture in Nephi's head that makes the Book of Mormon make sense it's not that I'm saying what that makes it true I believe in the Book of Mormon I think it's I think the criticisms of the Book of Mormon are ridiculous but

okay Granted that there's this book right what must he believe for this to make the most amount of sense so uh you Mike you sent me some potential prompts and one of them was this uh provocative question about code languages which is great because it reminded me of a quote from Brigham Young or not it's not maybe not it's a it's not a perfect quote it's actually from Wilford woodruff's diary in 1857 so he's writing down a sermon right so Wilford woodruff's account of What briam young said and there's a very short quote where Brigham

says I could preach all about the endowments in public and the world would know nothing about it and that's that's really interesting because that implies that one way the endowments function is as something that enables a secret language where you can communicate on two levels simultaneously you could speak in public and people who uh who don't have the key will Understand you on one level and people who do have the key will understand you on an entirely different level those that have eyes to see this and this is interesting right because commentators on the New

Testament have long observed that the synoptic gospels frequently have this statement from jesuso E auo who the ones who have ears let them hear and that that seems to Mark esoteric secrets that some people should be able to see in the T next aha that Jesus is Saying something that speaks to them because they hold the key because they have ears and in fact that's really good because that's that is actually in Matthew 13 oops and I just opened to heal them we have too many scriptures I'm just kidding we don't have enough we don't

have enough give us more scriptures Lord so Matthew 13 I actually wanted to read verses 10 to6 but actually verse 9 says in fact who has Ears to hear Let Him hear exactly what we're just saying there it is so this idea of a code in the process of writing these books and thinking and and just reading the scriptures all the time I came across this passage you know you know scriptures you read something a hundred times and you're just not ready or have you ever done this I remember being on my mission and I

would read something and I'm like okay they just repeated the Same concept 15 times in the text yeah they're not doing it because they don't know what to say there's something here and I'd been to the temple but you know I'm a missionary so I don't have any experience I just remember just pondering some of these things and going what's going on and I think our listeners too A lot of times have read things and I think that's why they seek they go out to podcast and they go out to study materials because we all

have This hunger to like no more there's a huge group of saints that are like okay but I want more give me more right and I think that's probably what spurned you on to learn the language and spend some time I mean you didn't spend four hours on the train listening into Britney Spears you were like you want to feed your soul right righta and I think that's where our listeners are at yeah the nature of an initiatic secret is that it's public and the secret is not That no one says it the secret is

that you have to be ready to understand it you got to get it it's out there and it's in front of you all the time and when you are ready you will understand and and I think that that many of our scriptures are written on that level so let me read Matthew 1310 to16 here so and the disciples came and said unto him why speakest thou unto them in parables he answered and said unto them because it is given unto you to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven now that's extremely provocative phrase the

mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but to them it is not given for whosoever hath the hymn shall be given he shall have more abundance but whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath therefore I speak therefore speak I to them in Parables because they seeing see not and hearing they hear not neither do they understand And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of of isias of Isaiah this is from Isaiah 6 which saith by hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see and shall not

perceive for this people's heart is waxed gross and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes they have closed lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them but blessed are your Eyes for they see and your ears for they hear now there's a whole other conversation we have about Isaiah and Isaiah 6 but we won't but I think that Paul Hansen has saying something very important and when he's connecting Visionary men and the

roots of apocalyptic literature in the Israelite tradition with Isaiah and his first followers because I think that Isaiah begins to write in a kind of code so Jesus here a he connects what he's Doing with behavior that's that goes back to Isaiah yeah that's a whole other conversation yeah he's making this connection yeah Jesus makes the connection this isn't random right but he also says hey you right there's a you us the disciples and there's the them right you know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and it it was given to you and by

the way it's connected with blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear so the mysteries Of the Kingdom of Heaven are things that you see and that you hear and because you have seen and heard these things you understand The Parables that's the right this is the question we're answering why do you speak in Parables you have seen the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven you understand these uh to but they do they have not seen or heard so they don't they don't have a frame of reference they're not going

to get it and uh now Mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven so let me just say right now the Kingdom of Heaven means the temple and and specifically the Kingdom of Heaven is the holy of holies okay and there's layers to this right so it's the sacral kingship the king and queen anointed In God's Presence to represent God to the people the individual who ascends to sit and become a wise man and sit upon the rock on the throne of God and become a king men and women right yes you are and by the way

there is no king without a Woman right right okay so that's the Kingdom of Heaven what are Mysteries well Mysteries is a word we have largely forgotten how to understand it came to mean theological conundrums stuff we can't like how many angels on ahead of a pen type thing how are three how is it three in one one in three a Triune God not confounding the substance not right whatever that is right mystery a mystery and then it came to mean just a conundrum right the Murderers in the rorg who how well you know there's

a orangutan killing people but originally tameria are Rights aace was a celebrant of a ritual someone who performed an ordinance a where Mystic comes from and the M the Mysteries are ancient rituals and this is the way that classicists Walter burkard or Jane Ellen Harrison or whatever just classicists they talk about Mysteries the mysteries of el usus the mysteries of demer they're talking about rituals that are That are sacred that are private that are dramatic in nature meaning people act out roles uh that are mythological they have a story people performing the story of the

kidnapping of pranie right or the story of areses coming back to you know get revenge for his murdered father so that's what Mysteries means so when Jesus talks about the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and and the the Greek is tameria right this is not an artifact of the King James translation It is the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven we should take seriously the possibility that what he's saying is listen I am saying stuff that is gibberish to the crowd but you will get it you disciples because you have participated in you have

seen and heard the Mysteries of the of the holy of holies of the kingdom of heaven and and I think through the apostasy and through culture we've kind of lost some of these ideas that you're talking about 100% And We don't know all the details of for example the measurements and the Furnishings of the temple as they experienced it so there are things that we have not seen where he's counting out numbers this many seeds that many seeds that you know there are details that we have not seen that the apostles did that I think

that if if we had experienced the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven as Peter had then I think what Matthew tells us is The Parables will be clear To us okay now but you're thinking but Dave what about the Book of Mormon you're like talking about Matthew and Isaiah where where are you going with this well the word Mysteries appears 20 times in the Book of Mormon verse one is where is where it starts and it's not this isn't random this isn't by chance Nephi is right out of the gate doing something isn't he that

is correct and he a couple times later talks about why he's writing and he says things like for Wise purposes that and that's interesting cu the word wise wisdom appears in the sermon on the mouth in the connection with the Kingdom of Heaven he connects it with uh maybe even with temple service with some of the language he uses but he's actually really clear in verse one I Nephi having been born of goodly parents this is the one verse we've all read right we get to second Nephi and some of us drop out but everyone's

read this one yeah having Been born of goodly parents therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father right all the learning of my father having seen many afflictions in the course of my days nevertheless having been highly favored we would say blessed of the Lord in all my days ye having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days why am I making a record this is the point Of this paragraph is explaining himself why am I making

a record because I have had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God and then he starts off with the vision of ascent and the first we get in fact in fact is is we get two visions of ascent before we're even out of the first chapter you know let's let's go there we talked about that so we can do whatever we want whatever we want I come back another day if we need If we need more time and I will not be mad about that awesome so he records his father Lehi

who's out traveling verse six as he Lehi prayed unto the Lord there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him and he saw and heard much caused him to quake and to tremble that's the first vision of the Book of Mormon okay a pillar of fire upon a rock now that's really interesting because there is a rock right we're talking about Temple things There is a rock in the temple and it is actually all over the place in the Book of Mormon and in the Bible but it's it's never named explicitly

when the Bible gives Pros accounts of what's in the temple you know here the here are the tables here's the Candlestick the rock is never mentioned but it shows up in all the poetry and the prophecy and this rock is so important it's so Grand and huge that it has its own Wikipedia page and it's it's called the foundation Stone and there's pictures in there there's pictures go look on Wikipedia the foundation stone the Ean shatia is the is the Hebrew the underneath it reminds me of Indiana Jones and and it's so important that Indiana

Jones ripped it off that's correct because because there's a cave underneath that may once have had water there's a lot of like Poetic prophetic reasons to think maybe it had water in it because this is a Muslim holy site no one's in there doing Archaeological uh examinations right now I asked if I could go look at it but they no you're not coming in and by the way interesting stuff has happened in that part of the world right now so maybe things will change maybe one day so The Well of Souls is the name of

the cave under the Ean shatia such a cool name yeah which is a very cool name and so Raiders of the Lost dark steals it and makes it in the little place where Indie goes with his little you know gets His beam that goes through the Ruby head of the staff and by the way the Throne of God the ark the Ark of Covenant sits on the The Well of Souls and in fact in the Jewish literature the mishna which are the Jewish they're collected like in the early 2nd Century ad so they're being collected

about the same time that the New Testament is kind of being put together and they record sort of uhy how are we doing things we Jews in Palestine how do we do stuff given that we don't Have all of the trappings to be able to do what the book of Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy tell us to do in Leviticus how do we do our religion how do we do our religion and there's a uh it's divided into track dates think of those as like books and one of those track dates is called Yom

tractate Yoma Yoma is is Aramaic for day it means day of atonement so this is a a book in the mishna and you can get a Hebrew an English translation has been available For a long time Danby is the name of the translator you get like a one volume English translation and track Yoma talks about this rock and it says look once we lost the Ark of the Covenant we start treating The Rock uh as if it were the ark and so specifically in the day of atonement if you read in in Leviticus there are

uh there's a sequence of blood that needs to be scattered on the ark to clean to at tone and in Jesus time this was being Done on the boulder cuz the ark was gone so there's a boulder what sits saw it is the ark the ark is a it's a box it holds stuff but it's also a chariot and it's also God's throne and especially in Visions we see things like the Ancient of Days sitting on a throne this is a vision of the holy of holies and the throne throne of God and Daniel sees

the throne and it is fiery and Enoch sees the throne and it is fiery and this is first Enoch not book of Moses first enic Super common available book and rivers of Fire come out of it right so a fire on a rock is not a random image the fire on a rock is the Flaming Throne of God and right out of the gate in the Book of Mormon here it is verse six and in Helman five same stuff right Helman five is the same stuff now you go okay well Dave that's an interesting hypothesis

yeah okay but let me tell you something else one of the recurring patterns literary patterns you See in the apocalyptic literature is paired visions and the Visions explain each other like first Nei 8 and 11 yes like first Nei 8 and first nevi 11-4 um but it actually happens here first because the first vision is a fire on a rock then Lehi goes home and falls upon his bed and has another vision and what is it it is the Throne of God it breaks it down yeah they're the same vision it's the same vision repeated

twice it is a vision that starts in the Kingdom of Heaven at the Throne of God the place where God is king So I think we should take seriously the possibility that Nephi means what he says when he says listen I knew the Mysteries of God I I have great knowledge and although the story starts when he's a young man right he's not writing he's not writing as a young man he is a fully experienced Priestly leader apparently a king although he's shy to say that of himself but doing what he can for his people

and They name his successors Nephi 2 Nephi 3 that's all Kings sounds like he's a king right so he's the he's the king and their high priest and he's having this special record made I great knowledge of the goodness of mysteries of God now a hypothesis I don't feel like this is a hypothesis anymore I it's my belief let me tell you what I think and then we'll maybe talk through kind of a key and and I'll show you an example I think the Book of Mormon is written to Be read by people who know

the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven I think the same way that Brigham Young says oh I could talk about the endowment all day and if you and you wouldn't in the world right you Gentiles wouldn't even know it I think the Book of Mormon is that kind of text I can talk about and do talk about the temple things the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven All Day and most you are going to read it you're not even going to see it because your eyes have Not seen and your ears have not heard so

I like to look at the Book of Mormon that way and also as the invitation so there's the zones of Holiness right Moses is this first priest that brings him out of the world to draw him out of the water and bring him in Back to the rod imagery yeah if my investigator let's say I'm in the middle of Zimbabwe and I'm teaching somebody who's never heard of this and they read the book of Mormon the second they pick it up and Start reading in faith Yep they're touching the scepter so there there's this connection

this conduit between them and heaven and if they just keep going they'll get to the Mysteries right it's it's almost the idea of yes it's to those who have been initiated in the Mysteries but yet the Book of Mormon is so simple yeah a young child could read it and feel the spirit and feel God in it so it's it's like it's covers everything right it's the Alpha and Omega of sacred text and is being instructed in reading the book of Mormon without realizing it about the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven is being given

layer upon layer of instruction so that one day they'll come back and go oh there it is yeah and I love ha I love that you said faith I think that the three part Ascent that we see the the ascents over time the ascents that show up in apocalyptic literature they start simple three Levels or maybe sometimes early ones have seven where you're talking about like the seven visible planets enix's doing some of that stuff yeah yeah the further away you get from the source the more Baroque you get and you get like the the

100 levels and the 99 levels and right but but the beginning it's it's pretty straightforward and it's very very commonly three and and for the Book of Mormon it's basically three uh and for Matthew it's three and I Believe that the three spiritual gifts faith hope and charity correlate with a three-part Ascent they describe part of the change that we undergo and the things we must do to make that Ascent ourselves and so I think it's exactly right that you say grabs the scepter in faith faith is the Moe of power faith is is the

gift that God gives you that says okay we're going to start this journey by making some promises and I will promise you that you can do it I'll get You there I'll get you there and it looks hard it looks like moving mountains it looks like it looks like you'd have to say a word to make a mountain move from here to there you can do it right that's that's the power of faith and then hope is the belief that you can be admitted that it comes as your partway along the journey and then the

love of God is the is the grace that is given to you as you arrive I like to look at charity as I'm seeing people as God sees them yeah so the beams out of my eye I'm judging the right way I'm seeing things the right way that's really interesting seeing things the way he sees them charity I love that so let me talk about a key this is a little bit counterintuitive so let me tell you my hypothesis and my hypothesis was arrived at a little bit science is very muddy you don't like you

don't you don't you like observe some facts you change your idea you think about it you observe some Other facts but here's what I think I think that the Sermon on the Mount records an ordinance I think actually what it records is the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven that Matthew has Jesus talking about we're talking about the temple seven chapters later and it records it in a surprisingly great detail I think this is sort of the counterintuitive part even though we think of the sermon as being something That Jesus said I think it is

clearly something that pre-existed his mortal life something that he was taught as as a man somebody came to him and and did this with him and the reason I think that is because it's all over the place in the Book of Mormon which means the Nephites had it okay and maybe they had it because God gave it to them because I believe in Revelation I think it's likely very likely is part of what Lehi Took part of the inheritance this the knowledge the learning of my father yeah that Nephi is talking about right I think

the the josephite tradition coming down out of Egypt maybe and by the way after reading your books you don't I don't read the second half of Genesis the same yeah it's Ascension Joseph's getting a new name and he's getting married and he's Pro the seed and he gets a ring and a signate and a robe and I'm like yeah Joseph's talking about This stuff it's there brought to meet his family again and recognize them and it ends in an embrace it's like kind of coded but it's there it's all there yeah absolutely so I think

that learning to see The Sermon on the Mount as an ordinance is a it's a switch once I what do you mean by switch like something in you switched yeah I mean it's it's binary like there's a world before you see it and there's a world after you see it and it's not the Same and then you start seeing it all over the place in Genesis uh in Hebrews all over the place so I think this is maybe it's half think of this as like half of a really important key and the other half is

your own experience uh this is this is not my discovery butd by the way Jack Welch is very famous for discovering Kay asmus in the Book of Mormon he should be more famous for publishing the argument that The Sermon on the Mount is an ordinance Because it's I think much farther reaching in most cases Kay asmus is interesting it adds a little information Elma 36 is maybe the great example where it adds a lot of information most of the time you go oh a little parallel cool it's a little interesting I think it's one of

those things like no 22-year-old's going to be able to do that yes Elma 36 is the showcase for that right like no like again the arguments that Joseph just are silly So Jack's book is called the sermon of the temple and the sermon of the mount it was out of print for a while I think might be back in print now see see if you can find this book you haven't got it here's the thing two things about the way Jack talks about it one I think he he wants to be very careful not to

be always clear about what he's saying because I think he's just being very careful not to cast Pearls Before Swine he's he's more Oblique than I will be I'm going to be very non oblique very direct the other thing that I think he tends to do is I think he tends to kind of want to say hey here in The Sermon on the Mount is something that is just like an endowment experience I think you can over I think you can push that too far which is to say I think if you are assuming that

it's just like your endowment experience you're going to miss where it's different so I think You're two halves of a key or your two keys are hey The Sermon on the Mount is the record I have of this Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven as people in the time of Jesus and I'm going to make this argument today here Jacob uh brother of Nephi right knew this ordinance and we don't have a we have a surprisingly detailed but of course not complete record right and then I have my own experience which is just surprisingly parallel

lots and lots of similarities Not always exactly the same so I would want to not force the one to be the other we can have whole other conversations to to say well why are they different you know are they different like why why are Matthew and third Nephi different right are they different because different dispensations because of translation issues because of different cultures have we been given more light are we missing light right that interesting Conversations but I think you'll get further if you just hold those two pieces say hey I've got my experience this

is interesting and uh and The Sermon on the Mount okay now what I want to do is I want to walk through Matthew and I want to show you what I me mean when I say the sermon on the mountain is is an ordinance and that again you should say okay the Lion's Share of the the the credit here all the credit goes to Jack Welch so if you see Jack Welch Say Dave Butler thinks this should be what you're famous for this is amazing that's what you should say to Jack when you see him

I'm going to say some things that did not come from Jack that are my observations so if you think that anything I say is idiotic it's probably my part okay now I've got in front of me the King James and uh I'm going to I've also got my Greek new testament which I may pull open if I want to remind myself of the Words here by the way it's interesting Martin Luther hated The Sermon on the Mount he thought it was fraudulent he thought the devil inserted this there's a Leonard Cohen line actually the The

Staggering account of The Sermon on the Mount which I don't pretend to understand at all and so for a long time uh Scholars have said it's not a sermon it's a collection of wise saying and they've looked for the sources and said oh something like the Gospel of Thomas Which isn't a history it's like just a collection of nomic meaning like uh aphoristic Proverbs type sayings and that just got assembled here but I think you're going to see there's a better explanation all right so Matthew uh 51 because first of all it's got three chapters

right and uh let me just remind you that the the temple as described in the Chronicles and kings and also well sort of also in Exodus the Tabernacle is a three-part space there's a space out Front and then there's the middle space and then there's the holy of holies okay and so the hypothesis is this is a three-part ordinance that happens in space and that these chapters correspond to things you would do and if we read it this way it will make more sense I think is what I'm hearing you say yes and there will

come a day when I would like to take a class and like just walk through a three-part space and read it together so you could see it because I Think cuz I think actually moving and encountering some of the actors who seem implied by the text would really make this Vivid but again also remember your experience because some of it's going to be very relevant so the first verse and seeing the multitudes he we assume Jesus went up into a mountain and when he was set his disciples came unto him now so Jesus is sitting

he's on a mountain this is the ordinance by which people approach the one who sits on the Mountain now what now who sits on the mountain well the temple is the Mountain of God and who sits on it is God upon his throne right but it actually gets better than that because in Hebrew the verb to sit is yav which also means to dwell so this is the ordinance in three parts by which one approaches the person who sits SL dwells upon the mountain which can only be God right this is the ordinance by which

one approaches God this is where we're headed Jesus is I Let me show you how to get to Father's house right which by the way we get to the end and it says and they were astonished he did not teach like the Pharisees that's why okay so he opened his mouth and he taught them saying now these are really interesting I think Jack talks about these Beatitudes as being entrance qualifications I think that's fine that's an excellent way to think about them there's more first of all let me Just point out that there are nine

there are nine blessed statements there are seven blessings let me read them blessed are the poor in he in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven whoa okay Kingdom of Heaven here we go blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled blessed are the Merciful for they shall obtain Mercy blessed are the pure in heart for they shall seek God blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called

the children of God blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake all right so there are there are there are nine uh blessings that's going To come back okay just remember that um there are seven blessings and and those specific blessings will come back now let me just talk about the whole formula so of course we're reading this in English and this is a translation

of Greek but Jesus is probably not using either of those languages right he is speaking in Aramaic or he is speaking in Hebrew this is just this is a tangential note but it touches on things we've already said so I have to say it the So-called beatitude formula blessed are appears in the Old Testament Proverbs 3 is an is a great example okay Proverbs 3 I want to say verses 13 to 17 and what it's translating translations will say blessed is he who or uh Happy is is he who and in Proverbs 3 it's happy

is the man who finds wisdom and it's about following a path and taking hold of wisdom which is a tree of life unto him so this is definitely in the space we're Talking about coming to a tree coming to a tree yeah which should always should all this is like the great secret marker like when you see a journey that ends in a tree just just just look at it so in respect of that passage in particular Proverbs 3 Scholars have said hey there's probably a pun on the name Asher here because Asher is a

tree blessed is the man who finds wisdom he'll take hold of it it become it'll be a tree of life Unto him well what is the formula in Hebrew the formula is ashr the man who whatever ashr actually is it means the happiness of okay it is a so-called construct form if you are keeping grammatical score the happiness of the man who finds wisdom right is literally what it's saying we translate as uh Happy is the one who finds wisdom blessed is the one who find wisdom we call it Beatitudes because in Latin they translated

this as Baati Baati are the ones who do whatever well ashre sounds an awful lot like Asher the difference is between an H on the end or a he and and a yod it's really difference in vowel sounds ashre ashra super close it's super close and because of why on the end of a word a yod on the end can mean someone from a place or something belonging to something ashr looks like it looks like maybe the one who Bel belongs to ashra of ashra and so it reminds me of when Nephi describes the tree

yeah and he said whose fruit was to make one happy oh which is that's the word right happiness appears three times in the Old Testament uh zero in the New Testament and 26 times in the Book of Mormon okay the Book of Mormon is the book of Happiness yeah uh but there's a pun there there's something happen yeah in the words of that famous movie from Spielberg this means something this means something I'm in front of a big Mountain of potatoes and I know it means something so it's an interesting point here in Matthew 5

is it possible that at the beginning of this journey we are saying hey the the poor in spirit those who hunger and thirst after righteousness the meek they belong to Asher ashire the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness ashr of the peacemakers if Jesus is speaking Hebrew that's what he's saying that's what he's saying then They translate to macaros which is just the Blessed state of the Gods but either way in Latin yeah so look I'm jumping ahead but uh we're going to find that Matthew 56 and 7 are a journey to a tree

by the way that's probably new to a lot of people that idea yes so I I just want to repeat that again we're heading in this Vision to a tree yeah we're heading and that is super important so look um I will probably skip some verses here that does not mean I don't think they're Relevant it may mean I don't know what they mean or that I just am trying to highlight verse 13 is really interesting ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt have lost his Savor wherewith shall it be salted

it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trotten under the foot of men now we're at the beginning of this journey and we're said hey you know if you have all these characteristics you can belong to Asher that's the journey and there's this list Of seven blessings and we're approaching God on his throne and then there's this really interesting warning that says if you lose your Savor you shall be cast out and trotten underf foot of men which I think in context can only be a a threatened Covenant penalty which by

the way it then makes Elma Chapter 30 super super interesting because Elma 30 is kahore and I grew up hearing priesthood lessons and and and gospel Doctrine lessons and we were very worried about Intellectuals when I was a young man he's an intellectual it can really go wrong I actually think there's there's a lot of evidence in Elma 30 that kahor is a covenant priest who has failed to keep his covenants including how does Kor die he is cast out and he is trotten underf foot of men literally he's a he's a rogue like an

apostate right he is an apostate and he is killed by the Covenant penalty so you know that's a totally different spin but it's right There it's right there again this is you see this and you can't unsee it I like that connection with Kor I yes 14 and 15 ye are the light of the world a city set on a hill cannot be hid neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but on a Candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house let your light so shine so

we're journeying to to be in a city on top of the hill there's something else interesting here though Matthew and Elma both say I think it's Matthew 10 and and maybe Elma 5 both have the phrase that the righteous sh in the kingdom of God remember this is blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven right these are the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven the righteous shine in the kingdom of God and where that phrase appears in Matthew it's followed by who has ears to hear Let Him hear suggested

that it's an esoteric secret this is About shining now that's a really old and super interesting idea because our word divine which is also the source of like the French du and Italian Doo but also like the name Jupiter is di pitar Dio it's also when we talk about Hollywood Divas that's where this word comes from it's a very old word and it means to shine the uh Indo European right the gods are The Shining ones so this is an ordinance about approaching God on his Throne and becoming one of The Shining ones about becoming

one of the righteous who shine in the kingdom of God do you see a connection in the Book of Mormon anywhere would this be a benadi when he in front of Noah I absolutely think that's right I think hel and five they're shining yeah now ver versus 17 through 19 uh through 20 I'm just going to lump those together and comment on them if you if you read them he's talking about the law of Moses I have Not come to destroy the law but to fulfill the law now if we take seriously the idea that

this is an ordinance there have to be other people than you the individual who's experiencing it right even in something as simple as baptism there's somebody who's baptizing you but if there an ordinance that is so complex that it takes six pages to describe skeletally there's probably more than that and again the idea of mysteries these are they're not just ritual Actions they're stories that are lived they're mythologies the mysteries of of el el usus or the mysteries of demer uh I think there's a suggestion here that in the first room of this ordinance there

is a person who is conducting you and that person is doing so in the guide of Moses kind of representing him kind of representing him and and all the things that you have been taught and understood about Moses you are experiencing them as You are in this first room there is a sequence of priests there are many places there are sequences of three-part sequences of priests but in Matthew 17 the uh amount of uh Transfiguration that sequence appears and it is Moses Elijah then the Lord and and they're on top of a mountain and Peter

says can shall we make three ski three three tents and that's puzzled people for so long yeah and I think I think we're actually seeing in that Chapter a another way to think about this experience and what's going on again people are shining and there are three tents or three rooms in a temple it is on top of a mountain and the three dwellers in these three tent rooms are Moses Elijah the Lord and in Micah chapter was four that same sequence appears right Moses remember Moses before and I will send you Elijah and then

the great terrible day the Lord Moses Elijah the Lord I think we'll see A few reasons to think that that's the sequence of priests that's implied by this ordinance or at least at at at some point in time those were the names the ideas uh and they're doing different things like Moses is pulling us out of Egypt Y and Elias is saying make straight the way prepare to see the Lord and then from my reading the Lord's saying let me introduce you to the father yeah I mean do you see some of those things there

uh yeah I think That's absolutely right well I think Elias or Elijah is the priest of the second room you think about the stories of Elijah and there's a a guy who lives in a tent and comes forward and he's giving the king warning right and I think in if we think about that as sort of Mythology or really broad expression of what what the Elias priest is all about the king there is you and me the king there is is every sinner who is trying to approach God on the mountain And the Eliah the

Elias priest is the one who's saying you're not ready you're not ready you need to do these things here's how you do this that's a great way to read scripture yeah and by the way this changes how we read the book of Mormon uh just a little bit yes just just a lot so Moses shows up now we're going to see other actors in just a moment but before uh we we start having these interesting teachings okay there's uh verses 21- 22 hey you have heard that It was said by them of old time that

thou shalt not kill whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the Judgment uh now this is interesting 23 and 24 leave therefore if thou bring thy gift to The Altar and there rememberest thy brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer like Gift okay so this is an ordinance and there is an altar people are being invited to come forward but you

can only have good feelings towards other people if you want to participate you need to go get reconciled with your brother you can't even call him a fool right you can't be here if you got those issues you're not allowed to be at the altar so we should imagine people you know uh with some kind of action around an altar now verse 25 and 26 are really Interesting so I said I think that some there's a sequence of three priests there's actually a sequence of four here's priest one be okay verse 25 agree with thine

adversary quickly whils Thou Art in the way with him lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast into prison verily I say unto thee Thou shalt by no means come out V until thou Hast paid the uttermost Farthing now adversary Other Christians remember the meaning of this word I think we LDS have sort of Forgotten but the underlying Greek here is is the ATI deos and deos uh is Justice or a lawsuit and aunti is the guy opposite you in the

lawsuit like the prosecutor like the prosecutor or the plaintiff or in Hebrew I think he was like the Satan he was the Satan that is correct this is what Satan means Satan is the guy who comes after he's your Accuser he stands against you in the lawsuit that's who you're being warned against if we are reading a complex liturgy what we have here is presumably a priest in some sort of clothing to indicate to you that he is Satan he's got he's the accuser he's got a different robe he's the accuser maybe if they want

to frighten you he's got like you know a monster head or something I don't know he shows up and you're given a warning about him right and by the way It's not Satan's power it's not actually Satan's power you need to fear what you can't do is be in debt to Satan because being in debt to Satan means you end up uh that the officer and the judge have to go make you pay you're fine right so again if it's a liturgy Satan show shows up your Satan your accuser there's this warning then he appears

to uh drop out we don't see him specifically at least as far as I can tell in the text now uh so we've had all this all This kind some warnings some a little drama now we get our first moral teaching and it starts in verse 7 ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not commit adultery and I will you know jump all the way down to verse 32 and you can you can just read that it's moral teaching on adultery moral teaching on Chastity moral teaching on commitment

okay we might call it the law of Chastity yeah and you know Jesus is actually calling People to a higher standard you you were told actually here's the deal it's it's more than that this is it's interesting this is the first moral teaching that we've really seen but then we get this verse 33 again ye have heard that hath been said by them of old time Thou shalt not forswear thyself but shalt perform unto the Lord thine Oaths but I say unto you swear not at all neither by heaven for it is God's Throne nor

by the Earth for it is his foot stol Neither by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king neither can thou swear by thy head because thou canst not make one hair white or black by the way footnote the oath the jaredites swear in ether 8 is is the oath that is forbidden in Matthew 5 so this is really old stuff those guys are a long time ago yes and the gadian and robbers the secret combinations are not a random enemy they're like the intimate enemy they're the specific enemy of the nephite Prophets

right we know who you are you are the counterfeit of us you are you're the one our fathers warned us against so but don't don't swear these Oaths but let your Communications be yay yay neay neay all right now if we are we are reading a complex piece of liturgy we've just been given a commitment to live a law of Chastity and now we have just been told what this is how you answer it you don't need to be all long-winded about it just yes or no do You do it no elaborate oath you just

say yes or no right you say yay or you say nay now there's more moral teaching and you know you can think of names you might call this but verse 38 through 42 is sort of ey for an eye turn the other cheek how you treat people how you treat people by the way there's a fantastic passage in in helan where in one verse I think it's Mormon writing talks about perverting things sacred things smiting people on the Cheek which I think suggests maybe that when we're talking about taking cloaks turning their cheek that we're

seeing not just a moral teaching but maybe a moral teaching with ritual actions to communicate it and then we have love thy enemy I I would call verses 43 to you know 47 uh maybe that's a separate commandment from the sort of turn nether CH and uh and then we get to verse 48 and again I think we're winding up in the first room here we're winding up With Moses uh and verse 48 says be ye be ye therefore perfect and man that's a that's a that's felt so heavy to so many people be ye

therefore perfect even as your father which is in heaven is perfect now the reminder all true Journeys are circular and we started out saying hey we're approaching this is the ordinance by which we approach God and here's a reminder even in this room we have come around and we're talking about hey Remember what we're doing is approaching Our Father who is in heaven but on this be ye therefore perfect first of all the Greek is a future not an imperative it is not an imperative it does not actually say be perfect it says you will

be perfect and that is a different thing I think as Latter-Day Saints I think that's a message we need to hear we need to hear this message I the way I Envision it is Jesus says grab the rod don't let go I'm gonna get you home it's Gonna happen yeah and it's not because we're great it's because he is it's his righteousness that's absolutely right it's believing in the power of the atonement rather than believing in the power of ourselves to be I can't do it sinless I'm helpless yeah I I just have to grab

that rod and hold on tight yeah absolutely there is a there's a second point in here he says be therefore perfect what is perfect well the Greek is teoi TE is the end the final thing Thology is the study of final things but it can mean other things uh so like te are your taxes you pay your your tea in Greek but a teos is which does does mean perfect but it means perfect in a specific sense it is someone who is ritually perfect someone who has ritually been completed is someone who has been through

sacred uh perfecting ordinances that really kind of changes that be ye therefore perfect even as your father who is in heaven is perfect Because that suggests you could read this as hey you and then you will be complete you will be ritually perfected just like God is right and now now we're in the space of the king fallet Discord the the great secret is that God on his throne is man and as sad that it's a secret because it says it on every page because it's right here it's a total secret it's right here I

mean we're the only ones that believe that yeah it's just almost laughable but it's Sad it I shouldn't laugh because it really is sad to think God in heaven is looking at his children and they even have the text and they don't know that he is human that he is their father like and Jesus always calling him my my father and it's just I'm laughing because there's a thin line between tragedy and comedy it's just so sad that this is a mystery and it's back to that point about initiatic Secrets an initiatic secret is not

hidden from the World it's published to the world and the world is not ready for it and you only become ready for it one individual idual at a time what is the likely word in Hebrew I have a guess I think the likely word here there's a couple different words that mean perfect I think the word here is shalam which is the same root as Shalom which means peace or mean Health right contemporary Hebrew you know Mas what's your what's your Shalom how are you would that be Like wholeness like a whole person or complete

person whole perfect or complete or Peaceable and so it's interesting there are various passages where where words like that show up one of my favorite is Moroni 73 which is the last we hear from Mormon Moroni puts in a uh a speech hey here's something dad said Moroni 73 and Mormon is speaking and he says I speak unto those of you who are the Peaceable followers of Christ which again Suggests 7:3 yeah which again I think suggests that that we got a prophet here who speaking to a mixed audience and so what he goes on

to say is interesting but in that context but he but he says as a key as a signal to those who are in the know and now I speak to those of you a subset of who's here who are the shalm followers of Christ and he talks about I'm going to read this because I think this is really good yeah I would speak unto you that are of the church that are The Peaceable followers of Christ Christ and that have obtained a sufficient Hope by which you can enter into the rest of the Lord from

this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven you shall be perfect yeah this is a great verse because there's this path being described what is this path well it seems to be something that people act out liturgically but it's more than that right it's a road map to how to get to heaven and how do you how do you get the Messengers along the way and how do you grow and I like how he said says who enter into the rest of God now and then later will enter into rest right so

the path the rest of God is the Kingdom of Heaven you enter in and you rest in the holy of holies and what he's saying is that when we talk about entering into the holy of holies yes there's a physical thing we can do in physical space and yes it's also talking about heaven when we're dead and also you who Are the completed who are the Peaceable followers of Christ you can enter into that rest and go go no more out the Kingdom of Heaven can be with you at all times wherever you go I

think it's also invitation regardless of which empire is in charge you can have the kingdom of God within you even if Rome is charging you taxes yes in other words I don't have to wait till I'm dead 100% there man there's like right this is I mean this is section 19:23 you shall Have peace in me that the same stuff yeah there's a whole other like hours of conversation we can have Elma 32 which we commonly say is about faith and it is but it's not just about faith Elma 32 Elma and AMU have been

thrown out by the zoramites and they are approached by the poor and the question that the poor ask them is not Hey how do we have faith oh we plant a seed the question is what shall we do since we have been thrown out of the building we are not allowed To Worship in the building what shall we do and the answer this is my mind exploding you can't see it but my mind just went the the answer starts with faith but ends in the presence of the tree of life that's what Elma 32 through

34 talk about we're talking about the tree and it's not just something you do in a building this is a path that you live it's a path that that that is revelatory it is a thing you can go why do we go do These things in brick and mortar it's to teach us it's to learn but that's not what we're actually doing right that's in our lives is where we need to be having faith and keeping the Covenant and where we will receive Messengers from our father that seems to be the message there in Elma

32 is you guys can do this in your life yes so okay so let me read you another example of this Peaceable I got to put my mind back together while you're looking up your Ver pieces all over the floor uh DNC 42 and the point I'm making here is when we is is I just I think that the word is schm and I think that that word appears as Peaceable and as perfect and as whole in lots of context that should that are really provocative about Temple related things things uh DNC 4261 if Thou

shalt ask Thou shalt receive Revelation upon Revelation knowledge upon knowledge that thou mayest know the Mysteries and Peaceable things that which bringeth joy That which bringeth life eternal so I think this is Matthew 548 this is a transition but it's not another commandment it is the reception if we're if we're doing this in physical space it is a change in status which is marked by receiving a new title you are now one of the Peaceable followers of Christ you are one of the perfect ones you are uh a shalm and you are entering into the

land of the shoms because we're going to see that the king of the shoms shows up in The next room so that's Matthew 5 now if I haven't got you convinced already we're going to go on so Matthew 6 we read them about doing alms two things uh one there's alms is actually translating two different words out of the Greek so it's it's a little funny that the King James just called the both alms and one word is osun which is Mercy and the other word is diun which is justice so what we have here

in these first four verses of chapter 6 seems to Be a teaching about Justice and mercy okay rather than alms a teaching about Justice and mercy now Justice and mercy what do we know about it well verse three let not they left hand know what they right hand doth it seems to be something that you do with your hands in verse four that thine alms may be in secret so I I think we've got a teaching there's there's Justice and mercy going on here but I I think it's very is the Language is very provocative

and it suggests to me that we have ritual gestures that are being used to communicate ideas of justice and mercy ideas about being a judge but also when to Grant forgiveness right when to give clemency and then verse four is interesting that the Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly and we're going to see again in verse 6 thy father which is in secret Now God starts to show up again except that God uh if these are stage directions if this is a story in a liturgy is not yet on the stage

he is in secret and he is watching so we're getting closer and God is if we think of this as three rooms of the temple God is now on the other side of the veil in Greek Orthodoxy I've been to some of their masses they have this they have behind the veil of the Eucharist and the priest who represents God will give his Chant and essentially he's telling the people are you ready to receive the Eucharist are you ready to receive and there's a response and then there's this dialogue behind the veil and then they

eventually bring it out and I can't help but think this stuff's really old and there's pieces of it everywhere right it's kind of what we're seeing here but it's it's it's reflected in other Traditions oh I think what you just described is is very much consistent What we're about to see yeah that's fantastic thank you for that so that's Justice and mercy God is in secret then we get instruction on prayer and it's very interesting because verses five and and six say hey thou when thou prayest go pray in secret let me teach you how

you pray you Mike you Dave this is how you pray thou verse seven but when ye pray we're now talking about a plural you in the underlying Greek as in in the English translation when ye pray don't Use vain repetitions we're being taught how to pray together be not like the heathens and then we're taught what prayer to say again imagining that this is a liturgy we seem to have a group prayer okay Our Father which heart in heaven Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come this is a reminder this is where we're going the

Kingdom of Heaven is what this is all about we've we've made it partway there but the kingdom is not yet arrived thy will be done on Earth as It is in heaven give us this day our daily bread now this is great this verse is great the Greek says give us this epos bread epio now epos is what we call a ha a haox Leomon meaning it is a word that only shows up once in the New Testament usually when you want to figure out what a word means in a library the way to do

it is you go around and see how it's used in all the instances we have it once now Epi is a pond like your epidermis right uh Usos Is something that is existent it is a participle of the verb to be something that is existent epio means something like the one that exists upon or upon the existent one the King James translators not insanely decided that the OS meant the present day give us the day we need for the present day for the existent day but that's a terrible translation partly for reasons we'll we'll see

but partly also because what Does the name Yahweh mean well we don't know it's we're messing with to be though yeah but it's we're messing with to be yeah that that verb is being used I mean whether it's Frank morross or Christine Hayes all the Bible scholars like we are talking about a being who is existing exists he's doing something he is being yep and this is I am that I am Exodus 3 Moses in the burning bush right and even though that's not the verb it's not the word Yahweh does not appear Scholars go

this is he's announcing his name Yahweh so somehow Yahweh means I am the the one who makes I am the one who will be I am the one who always is once again we're back to Joseph Smith Farm Boy yeah he gives us the book of Moses yeah endless is my name yeah I was I am I will be I mean he's he's just a kid when he's putting that out there he the existent one yeah so I think that the epio bread let's just pause this as a hypothesis and see if it makes sense

in The rest of the chapter here so Uso's bread is the Yahweh bread it's the bread that Yahweh is in or the bread that maybe is on Yahweh that doesn't that seems to make less sense it's the Y it's the Yahweh bread give us today give us now it's urgent give us now the Yahweh bread right uh not give us today the bread we need today give us now the water we're not talking about faka at neers right it's a different bread and by the way there's a whole other Discourse here about bread Mana is

bread Jesus identifies himself as bread in John as as the Bread of Heaven John chapter 5 he identifies himself as Mana there is bread in The Book of Leviticus the bread of the presence or the bread of the face or the showbread that is baked and apparently eaten in this second room by Aaron and his sons is what Leviticus says uh which by the way is flavored with frankincense and is said to be a a memorial offering and Then Jesus in the upper room on the night before the crucifixion passes out prad and says do

this in remembrance of me there's there's various Connections in the New Testament and Old where Jesus connects himself with not just bread but bread in the temple Mana which was kept Hebrews 9 says that the pot of Mana was kept inside the ark bread in the temple Jesus says I'm that bread uh when he's instituting the sacrament he seems to be saying I am the bread of the Levites Which they eat in the temple right so now it's interesting because the prayer here is give us now this Yahweh bread it reminds me last night I

was reading Exodus in the Hebrew and I had a student ask me what's going on with the frost why is it compared to frost yeah and the word for frost is a cogni of kafar oh interesting well obviously because the frost covers the ground it covers what isfar it's atonement breath yeah so it's it's the same stuff right yeah that's Really interesting I didn't even I didn't I didn't either but as soon as I looked I'm like oh that's kafar move the vve point over sometimes you need someone to ask you a question yeah wow

awesome at Brad Yahweh Brad EP usus it's pretty awesome white it's white and sweet it tastes like honey so we get this group prayer then verses 16 through 18 there is this these verses on fasting and washing and anointing so maybe if we're talking about people who have Previously been washed and anointed and have approached in a state of fasting maybe now they're it's being explained to them why right or maybe now they're being taught a law of fasting one of the glories and great challenges is how skeletal this is and so is there's inevitably

guessing and inevitably a road of discovering more things over time it's skeletal but yet they drop EP usus on you right I mean that one word is a whole dirt road you can go down Right uh and there are many such roads we get I think what is the last commandment the last straight up you know Covenant here which is you got to be wholehearted okay hey it's either your Earthly Treasures we're verse 19 through 20 uh 4 right it's either the Earthly Treasures or it's Heavenly Treasures it's either God or it's Mammon there's a

reminder of why you're doing this cuz it's the eyon light saying listen you have to to become one of The Shining ones to become one of the Gods living in the city of the Gods in the presence of the tree of life you have to choose that you do not get to choose other things now by the way the treasure is it's God it's it's living the way he lives that is the treasure that we want want yeah ritually speaking it's his presence right yeah and I think it's also provocative that basically they're heading for

a space physically which has a big treasure box in it which is the Ark which is the ark which according to Hebrews contained the Yahweh bread inside it we're back to that yeah so I think that's the end of sort of the straight moral teachings now we get actions therefore I say unto you take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what yet uh sorry what ye shall put on is not life more than meat and the body more uh in the body than

rment Behold the fowls of the air for they sew not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feedeth them are ye not much better than they uh which of you can by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature and why take you thought for rment consider the lies of the field how they grow they toil not neither they spin and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not AR raid like one of these wherefore if God so clothed the grass The field which

today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven shall he not much more clothe you oh ye of little faith therefore take no thought saying what shall you eat or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be clothed for after all these things do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knoweth he have need of these things so now I think these are actions and I think there's some provocative stuff here so the actions are that you eat a drink And you are clothed and who gives you food and drink and rment as God

so back to your Orthodox priest behind the veil who calls out are you ready and when the celebrants are ready he in the role of God represents God comes out and delivers the feast now by the way I think the imagery of the birds of the air is not a coincidence I think that this is one of the reminder that the Elijah priest is the priest of this room who's getting you ready Elijah is the One who's fed by the birds uh of the air uh God explicitly provides food and drink God explicitly provides reignment

now I said that when you leave Room chapter 5 the first room you're given a title and I think it's sham one of the reasons I think that is because what happens now is the shom priest shom king shows up and that is the same person as the Lord he's the person who comes down into this land among the shoms and he has the feast with you with the Peaceable ones now what is what am I talking about what is this the the shom priest well melchisedec is a mysterious figure he's one of these guys

who shows up just a very small amount in the Bible especially the Old Testament Genesis 14 is where I'm looking yeah uh and then he's like a giant outside the Bible and there are whole books that about him uh there's a a milisic scroll in the Dead Sea Scrolls and and and other books of milisic it's almost like he got written Out it's almost like there was something so important about this guy we couldn't have him there that he represented the thing that we the editors disliked so yeah uh Genesis 14 I want to say

verses 18 18 to 20 so this is Abraham he's been battling uh the five Kings right isn't that what happens in the first part of the chapter yeah and then he wins and he comes back and talks to the king of Sodom and then finally that interview is over with and then mzk Shows up and brings him the Bread and Wine mzc brings the Bread and Wine mzc king of Salem brought forth Bread and Wine and he was the priest of the most high God and he blessed him and said Blessed Be Abraham of the

most high God uh Etc now mzc king of Salem you're looking at bible dictionaries and they'll say different things about what Salem is oh it's an old name for Jerusalem there's they guesses they're because they're guessing who melkisedek Is too regardless of the rightness of those guesses because of the way Hebrew is written this is readable in a different way without changing any dots without changing any punctuation as it's punctuated in Hebrew it can straight up read uh and melchisedec the shalam king so melkisedek the Peaceable King melkis and by the way award just ended

so like that makes some sense melkisedek a Peaceable King melkisedek a perfect King brought forth A Feast of bread and wine For Abraham I think that story of melchisedek having a feast with Abraham is a little vignette of this moment in the right I think you also see in Psalm 23 maybe a little vignette of this same moment where the shepherd who has a staff is showing up and and is feeding you he has to go through the valley of the shadow of death or he has to fight the kings of these five Kings of

the North or he has to overcome trials the adversary The Temptations of these four Covenants he made right yeah now let me make one other point on this little Feast I'm going to come back and say something about that in a minute one of the Beatitudes is blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled now the name melkisedek again discussion over exactly what it means but half of the name is King and half of the name is righteousness so it Means something like my king is righteousness or the king

of righteousness or my king is righteous or something like that I believe that this is the Fulfillment in the ordinance of the promise of that beatitude you hunger and thirst after righteousness which is melchisedek and you are now filled because melchisedek comes down and gives you a feast of his own flesh and blood because mkdc my king of righteousness is The Lord Jesus is that is that King that we used to call the priesthood after the order of the Son of God and then we changed it in mkdc because that's not different gods are connecting

now the chapter ends interestingly seek ye the kingdom of God okay again we have the kingdom of God and his righteousness and these things will be added unto you now I think if there are stage directions here and if righteousness is melchisedek so those Who are filled with the righteousness of EG melkisedek then melkisedek is now withdrawn he came and had the feast and he fed you and he gave you water and he or wine probably he clothed you and he is now gone and you're instructed to seek Him and where is he he's in

the kingdom of God which lines up very well with the idea that we started in room one of the temple the porch outside we've been in room two now and we're about to approach room three which is The holy of holies mzc has come down had the feast and he's gone back now Fast and Furious because I'm already going to be like your longest podcast ever and I apologize so look um Matthew chapter 7 we should be entering the kingdom of God here the first five verses are a warning against judgment what sense does that

make well it it makes all the sense in the world that you're about to get your own judgment this is it right you've had your mortal Life now you are about to be judged so this is the last warning get the beam out of your own eye six cast not that which is holy unto the dogs neither cast you your Pearls Before Swine now again if you just try and read this as a sermon it just sounds like random things hey here we here's some paragraphs about a judgment and now oh don't holy things before

swine but in the in the context of a liturgy it makes all the sense in the world because you're about to pass Into the into the most holy of these three spheres the highest and so you're getting a warning hey this is it you're going to see it all do not tell people who are you're not authorized to tell and verses 7 uh oh 7 through geez I don't know 12 probably a couple things you are approaching and you're asking for a gift what man is there of you whom if his son ask for bread

will give him a stone or if he ask for a fish will give him a Serpent now by the way a couple things one you are approaching and asking and saying hey I am one of God's children will you please give me a gift there's a longer word we use for gift usually only in trusts and Estates context in the law and that's endowment you're approaching your father and you're asking for an endowment now the I will tell you these two verses I they remain tantalizingly partly revealed to me okay I don't mean revealed capital

r uh what man if is there of you whom if his son ask bread will give him a stone or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent this is so curious because there is a stone behind the veil God is about to give you a stone and until the days of Hezekiah there was a serpent the nahash behind the veil also so it's very very provocative I I they're definitely Messianic symbols They well and and the the nahash the nushan right the nahash the serpent on a is is explicitly a symbol

of Christ in the book of helon so all right you're you're approaching you're one of God's children you want a gift but of course what it starts out with is ask and it shall be given unto you seek and you shall find knock and it shall be open unto you ask seek and knock is a triple petition you're knocking on a door and it shall Be opened unto you and who do you expect to be on the other side is your father right that's who you're talk that's whose house the kingdom of God whose door

you're knocking at verse 13 enter in at the Straight Gate that's that's another code word right Mor users going to use this absolutely and this is what I was saying about first Nephi 8 earlier is first Nephi 8 implies a three-part space and there is a straight and narrow path that Goes into the third part the presence where the tree is located so here we've got an a triple petition ask seek and knock to enter into a straight IE a narrow gate he says hey there's a the wide gate goes to destruction but straight is

the gate and narrow is the way which leadth unto life there's like a whole bunch to say here about that the Tree of Life Genesis Eve God creates Eve uh I think this is Genesis end of Genesis 4 maybe and says to Adam oh what What will you call her and Adam says in Hebrew I will call her Hava for she is the mother of every high and it's a pun and Biblical Hebrew is larded with puns puns are potent they show us the spiritual truth names matter she is Hava she is the mother of

every high of all the living ones the and so the sepan here says I shall call her Zoey for she is the mother of all The zone of all the living things Eve is life the tree of life is the tree of Eve and this is the path that leads unto life under the tree of life unto the kingdom of Eve back into the garden right so we're going to see some others but there's a suggestion or two here in Matthew 56 and 7 that the story The Myth that is being acted out and by

myth I don't mean a false story no we're talking about the an important story an important story That we participate in by reliving part of it the myth the story that animates this ordinance seems at least in part to be the story of the garden and it seems to be about going to the garden and by the way there's an architectural well let me come back to that in a minute there's an architectural Point here so what happens you go a straight and narrow gate that leadth unto life there's a warning about false prophets you'll

know them by their Fruits do men gather Grapes of thorns or figs of thistles thorns and thistles are contoy and triolo so it turns out those are the same things Greek translation the sepagan that are said to spring up when Adam and Eve leave the garden in the Greeks we're talking about like genesis 5 I think right when Adam and Eve leave the garden a conoy and triolo spring up now as we're going back into life the land of Eve we're leaving the thorns and this we're leaving it almost As if we are meant to

imagine them as a wall it this is reverse this is in temples of the ancient world that picture where the temple is the reversal of the Eden story which is really interesting right because the next thing we passed through this wall that we that we had to we got cast out over the wall we not going back through the wall even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit so the we get through the Wall and what we see is the tree with good fruit and there's a

whole other conversation about where is the manora in the temple and I will say for now this it could be its own podcast literally the pros descriptions in Kings and Chronicles say it's in room two but the Visionary descriptions almost uniformly put it in room three John puts it in the third round John puts it at the very end in fact let's this is really we got to do revelation 22 yes and also we have to do tolken we're going to do both those things right now and the architecture point so in the layout of

the Jerusalem Temple there are two pillars up front and according to all the Visionary accounts including this one a tree in the very back which suggests that we've got a journey from two trees to one tree which is the story of Eden the Tree of Life the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil were cast out and so the story is told Cyclically as a circle okay but your experience getting aign and you go from the two trees to the one tree by the way the Bible as constructed now makes that same Journey because it

starts in Genesis with the two trees the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and the tree of life and it ends revelation 22 with just one tree with just one tree yeah which is a restored vision of the holy of holies and it's one tree and it's by the Throne of God it is in the holy of Holies and there's water flowing out of it so the the flowing Waters of the temple that are that it's interesting we see them it's corrupted in in first Nephi 8 and elsewhere are restored to Purity by the

way this is pure tangent this actually in tolken too because tolken starts with the two trees of Valor and the I think two trees of ARA where the gods are and the spider comes and destroys them and that's in the sil melon in the beginning and the Lord of The Rings ends after you know the Rings are destroyed with the tree and Gondor has to be restored Aragorn Who is the King goes up into the mountain and gets a living sapling descending from the true tree and goes and restores it and he's wearing it on

his breastplate and his shield that's right because tolken was a profound Catholic and the book Lord of the Rings is deeply Catholic and most people have no idea anyway that's a tangent so um but remember we start at The beginning right these nine Beatitudes people with these hunger thirst after righteousness the meek the poored spirit ashre how great their happiness or of ashra they are of ashra they belong to the tree of life now we've made the journey and the journey appears to be back over the wall of thorns and thistles and into the garden

I love that connection yeah it's crazy verse 21 to 23 not everyone who saith Lord Lord shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven okay we are we are now entering the kingdom of heaven but those who do the will of my father this is it this is the moment of your judgment you're passing in you see the tree you get your moment of judgment and therefore who did their works and now you get a new title he is a wise man and he builds his house upon a rock I never looked at that as a title

but that that makes sense because you've sought wisdom yep and now wisdom is Inside of you and you are in the Kingdom of wisdom you are in the in the presence of the tree of life and read Proverbs 313 to17 in this connection Asher the happiness of the man who finds wisdom he'll grasp onto her she'll be a tree of life to him that's another vignette kind of seeing this this same thing so look building on the Rock means you sit upon the throne of God this is it you become one of The Shining ones

you become Divine and the storms cannot move you And so no wonder that verse 28 when Jesus ended these sayings people were astonished at his Doctrine those that knew were astonished some people thought is this just a collection of old Egyptian sayings or something right right that's Martin Luther thought that it was a satanic fraud so look if you stop listening to the podcast now you have a key right this this is it I will tell you that the epistle to Hebrews makes more sense when you realize that The writer assumes that you know this

ordinance and assumes you understand the day of atonement and is using those to explain who Christ was and first Nephi 8 is showing this same Ascent with some interesting details such as for example that you grasp the word of God four times to pass through the straight and narrow path and just numerous other passages so I had to do John this summer in my class and I translated it and over and over again where Jesus says receive The Holy Ghost receive me oh yeah lambano lambano is to grasp and I can't I can't let go

of the iron Rod I'm grasping it but then from a ritual standpoint what does it mean to grasp something and to know someone and anyway so John I think John was in on all this stuff oh 100% % and John 1 right John 1:12 this is the prologue and and John is just kind of giving the overall explanation it's very high level and imagistic as many has received him but It's elone it's held him holding as many grasped him to them he gave power and it's exusia which means Authority in fact they actually have a

little footnote Authority right or privilege he gave the authority to become the sons of God right the authority it's an ordinance now let me show you one more thing about that ordinance okay and maybe give you we'll go through an example of then we're going to end in secondi 9 and then second e59 if you've Held on this long and sad to say there's a lot more than second e59 but at some point we got to eat yeah that's true that well that's true with the book of War always you always have to leave it

at some point you got must eat you must eat so look let me just read the Beatitudes here not the full nine but just the seven that are again there's nine beatitude statements that matters um not so much for for Matthew 5 that I know but for secondi 9 it matters but There are seven blessings right by the way it's also provocative that there are seven branches of the manur another reason to think there's a deliberate reference here to the to the tree of light and life towards which one is journeying blessed are the poor

in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are they which do hunger and Thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled blessed are the merciful they shall obtain Mercy blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven that's the same verse three and verse 9

are the same so we got we got seven seven blessings see God inherit the Earth being filled with Righteousness being comforted being called the children of God obtaining mercy and receiving the Kingdom right those are the blessings so it is striking that those blessings not in this order but these blessings map out against the climax of The ordinance we've been talking about because you see God when the curtain parts for the first time and he enters the hey call and maybe by the way this is when you receive the gift of Hope because you Think

wow if God can come down here and I can see the kingdom of God and where there's also kind of the Nicodemus Jesus dialogue here I can see the kingdom of God maybe I can go into it too you see God you inherit the earth God feeds you but he also clothes you and there is an account of someone whom God clothes in the Book of Genesis and that's Adam God clothes Adam and gives him dominion over the Earth you are inheriting in the earth when God clothe you and again hint Here that the story

that animates this is the garden story or a version of the garden story in which you return you are filled with righteousness when God the Lord melkisedek feeds you a feast of his own flesh and blood uh you are comforted by the receipt of the spirit if you look at the sacrament prayers the bread and the wine prayers that Moroni gives us in the book of Moroni he never says where they come from he never says where we use those prayers he refers to the Church but he refers to the church as people standing or

sitting and the church did this and that not a building uh and the the promise of those prayers is uh is that you'll be comforted and I think that where we we should think those came from is this Temple liturgy that those are a version of those were the prayers that the mzc priest spoke as he fed you as flesh and blood and you were comforted you approach you ask see andoch as a child of God let me have a Gift for my father right you're called uh the children of God you then have your

after you see the tree apparently verses 21 to 24 you have your judgment and this is where you obtain mercy and then having obtained Mercy you enter the kingdom of heaven right so those seven Beatitudes are the climax of The ordinance which I think S Suggest to us if you needed any more convincing that we're not imagining things it's almost like a a list I I know that anciently Poets were really skilled if they had this huge sermon memorized but sometimes if they just knew nine things right then they could go back okay I'm on

number two now we're going to go with this now I don't know how Jesus did this I don't know if you had the whole thing memorized but it's almost if I'm hearing you right like the attitudes is a shortened version of this nibbly writes about this in the Joseph Smith book about the Egyptian endowment where he Says they would have an ordinance but then they had a short list that they would memorize to help them remember the big story that's probably right and it raises you're you're asking a really good question which is let me

paraphrase what kind of document is this why would you write such a document right right and for what purpose is this for what purpose and and you can imagine um I can imagine several purposes right one um if I wanted to train people to be able to Officiate in this ordinance but I wanted to record it in a way that if someone found it they wouldn't they wouldn't make anything of it they just throw it away or it wouldn't matter right or they'd say this is all the devil's work yes this is this is a

this is a counterfeit by Satan good job Martin uh he didn't like the Epistle of James either the uh he was just wrong um so another reason I think that I can see writing this down is if you wanted People to be prepared for this experience right think about this ordinance it's is long this might have been hours you know and in Visionary accounts like first Nei 8 you talk about you know and then there was a space of time and a power thir third Nei the passage of time like there might have been periods

in this ordinance where you were like left alone for an hour to like struggle with your spiritual striving right let me master myself I can't I got To forgive my brother you know H or I can't go to the altar right so I I think you want people prepared but at the same time it's like our Temple prep classes you don't want to say spell out okay here's what's going to happen um I think this is a way to do that I think this is a way so you teach this text you say this was

a sermon of Jesus let's talk about what it means maybe you even subtly show them gestures or ritual actions they'll take without them Realizing if they in the ritual are going to have be smitten upon the cheek and then one reason why I think that might be a ritual gesture is the number of times a sheer number of times that happens in scripture and where your bookor prophets are on trial or Nephi on trial someone smites them on the face you might mime that right you're teaching them and they think what are you doing I

don't know and then and then they get there and they go ah so I think An instruction manual for teachers I think an instruction manual for prospective initiates I think another thing another reason you write this down is it's a different way to bury the plates so Moroni he he has he carries the record he's alone for years and the way he transmits it to us is he goes and he builds a stone box and he he buries the plates I think the way baew transmitted this stuff to us is he wrote it down in

documents and circulated it Publicly and made sure everyone had it and attached to it all the stories about Jesus everybody loved including other sort of interesting cryptic things hey Mount of transfiguration hey Temptation in the wilderness hey uh which relate to that and by hiding it in plain sight and just making sure that it was as dispersed as possible it would survive persecution and it would survive corruption and if it's coded then it doesn't get edited that yes no one's Going to go oh wait this will take out this part no they're just going it's

more of this weird Jewish gibberish from those guys that yeah right we don't care so let's do Book of Mormon okay so Nephi Nephi who told us that he's he's writing because he knows the Mysteries you he inserts it's actually several chapters and he doesn't give us any context he just inserts here's this stuff from Jacob and Jacob quotes some chapters of Isaiah and those are Interesting but I want to go through second Nephi 9 so Jacob speaking and and the question is you know can we can we uh can we infer anything from the

text about who he's speaking to or where he might be speaking and does the text tell us anything that we didn't already know so ostensibly he's starting out talking about the covenants of the Lord that he's covenanted with all the house of Israel but he gets very quickly into a more Universal kind of story so verses Six and seven death has passed upon all men there has to be a power of resurrection and therefore there has to be an atonement at the beginning of this speech here the theme of the fall comes up which starts

to suggest again that the garden and by the way the whole book of Mormon is so provocative one thing that's provocative about it is that the Garden of Eden shows up once in the Old Testament maybe again a little bit hinted in Ezekiel but like it's not Super clear some references in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon can't get enough it's all over the Book of Mormon which it's interestingly consistent with our theory that this is a book for initiates whose initiation was acted out in the garden story right so we get the

fall which sets up the drama here verse eight the wisdom of God is praised that's really interesting where we think okay wisdom is the Tree of Life happy is the man ashr is the man Who grabs hold of her verses 8 to9 the adversary shows up so I'm going this is very very fast vers vers 13 to 14 we're talking about the plan of God and the plan of God is perfection which it doesn't mean that we we're sinless that we've successfully lived a sinless life it's that we we gain a perfect knowledge in fact

we gain the perfect knowledge of our guilt that we're not covered we need to be covered we need to be covered with a robe of righteousness and that's Really interesting because if righteousness is a stand in and I think it is in a lot of these texts for MEC then it's a word then we're then you're saying O being covered with the robe of melkisedek verse 15 hey everyone's got to pass through the first death into life you pass into life we saw that in Matthew 7 passing into life and appear before the Judgment seat

of the Holy One of Israel that's exactly the scene there we're Before the Throne Right uh we're Before the Throne and we're receiving our judgment uh and be judged according to the holy Judgment of God so now verse 18 and those who succeed the righteous the Saints inherit the kingdom of God which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world so again it's inheriting the kingdom that's the that's exactly the story of Matthew 56 and 7 and they're at the Throne of God they're standing at the foundation stone as we Conceptualize this verse

we don't even think about that in the west about the foundation stone but if if you and I lived in 650 BC and we said things like gate and foundation stone and the robe of righteousness I mean we'd just especially if we were in lehi's Tradition I think there was a distinction there there were probably like you said different views but in lehi's Camp he would have said we're Totally talking Temple yeah let me come back and throw out some other yes absolutely so by the way read the psalm of Nephi the end of second

Nephi 4 lehi's Dead and the language Nephi uses to console himself is all this language God encircle me about in The Robe of your righteousness keep me in the right Road I want to go build on the Rock let me get through the gate don't let my enemies assail me it's this this talking about yeah um even I think more striking Uh second Nephi 2 have in front of me when Lehi is exhorting his bad Sons okay Layman and lemel and of course they have their perspective too we get various reminders in the Book of

Mormon that there's a different side of the story that the lonit hand down to their children that we was robbed okay but from Nephi's point of view the sons who did not obey the exhortation to them in second Nephi 2 is is lurgical a wake arise Out of the Dust we're talking About Adam who was created in the dust arise Out of the Dust put on the clothing come forth out of Darkness into light and be men men being Adam again this language when Nephi is exhorting even his bad Sons suggests that they knew this

that one of the reasons why it was it's such a tragedy to have lost Layman and lemel is because they were initiates they were shoms they were perfected and they fell which is a warning for all of us yeah and by the Way you know their hearts were set upon the riches of home is as far as we can tell basically the problem with L or you know they wanted to rule sort of the two problems we have with those guys yeah verse 28 Council I mean just that word count okay so this is like

a whole other conversation and maybe we'll come back and talk about Isaiah 5 and 6 one time but councel the word in Hebrew is ETA which looks very much like the word SS which just means tree or piece of Wood but it has an A on the end which makes it feminine so ETA Council looks like the tree woman which again at this point your ears should be burning when we say this stuff so when in verse 28 he's talking about oh the cunning plan of the evil one the the foolishness of men when they're

learned they think they wise and they hearken not to the counsel of God to be learned is good if if they hearken under the counsels of God verse 30 woe unto the Rich why cuz treasure is their God they violate the Covenant they worship Mammon rather than worshiping God now I completely understand if at this point you're saying Dave this kind of feels circumstantial it's good but okay here's where it gets like on fire so verse 30- 38 Jacob starts a series of woes woe unto the rich woe unto the deaf woe unto the blind

woe to the uncircumcised to the this is my favorite woe unto the liar for he shall be thrust down to Hell Uh woe unto the murderer woe unto them who uh commit whoredoms woe un those that worship idols and inine woe unto all those who die in their sins okay there was an article back in the sort of 90s when Farms was doing a little more kind of like focused on the Book of Mormon in ancient context kind of stuff and less of the sorts of things it's doing now there are two great articles on

this chapter that were both just wrong one of them said oh look at this Jacob is giving a new Ten Commandments and the article said there aren't actually 10 here there's just nine that admittedly is it maybe a a slight Miss but these are like 10 new Commandments well but here's the thing there aren't nine Commandments there are 10 but there are nine Beatitudes and this isn't structured like a commandment it is structured like the opposite of a beatitude woe unto the liar for he shall be thrust down to Hell Woe unto the DEA for

they Shall Perish so so if you are if you are a shom if you are one of the wise and Jacob is saying this to you and you hear a recitation of nine with this Rhythm I think what you're hearing is him weaponizing the Beatitudes and he's saying yes there are blessings but there are also curses you shall be thrust down to Hell and he's naming I think I mean I don't know I think sins that the listening crowd Probably is identifying with to to simplify it with great power comes great responsibility we're not just

blessings there's warnings if you're going to be entering into Sacred Space 100% And the fact that what I think that what we're seeing here it doesn't even look like Commandments it looks like negative Beatitudes which which anyone could hear and be like yes wo to the liar he should be thrust down to hell you shouldn't lie But if someone is used to hearing Beatitudes in a sac place and in a very positive way promising blessings and then here's that same Rhythm turned around as a curse and a warning I think it's infinitely more powerful for

that person than for the person who does not have eyes to see and ears to hear but we're going to get even more detailed verse 41 oh then my beloved Brethren come unto the Lord the way for man is narrow but it lith in a Straight course before him and The Keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel and he employe no servant there so this this is straight out of Matthew 7 the straight and narrow gate and you're meeting with the Holy One of Israel on the way on the way now verse

42 who so knocketh remember ask seek and knock who so knocketh to him who he will open and to the wise and the learned and they that are rich and are puffed up because of their learning and their Wisdom yet he'll despise them and they'll cast them away and there's irony there right because we know that the blessing of entering in is to become truly wise but he's already said back here in verse 28 to be truly wise requires you to hearken to counsels of God these guys don't hearken to the counsels of God and

therefore they are not truly wise whatever you may think of them and they'll be Cast Away verse 43 and it's Not that he dislikes the the idea of wise here the things of the wise and The Prudent shall be hid from there forever he still values wisdom he values true wisdom true wisdom is what is still hidden from them forever it is what remains behind the veil verse 45 oh my beloved Brethren turn away from your sins shake off the chains of him that would bind you fast come unto that God who is the rock

of your salvation verse 50 come everyone and thirsteth come you To the waters come with buy wine and milk without money without price and this is to your point Mike and you're saying something very shrewd is that in some in some of the accounts including this one the feast seems to be in the end and I think that's what we're seeing here where was the rock you just read it it went kind of quick okay yeah so the rock of your salvation we're eating in verse 50 yep it's come unto the rock verse 51 we

are feasting on that which Perisheth not cuz you're not just eating bread you're eating the Yahweh bread you're eating the Flesh and Blood of mkis the ep usus the epos that's so awesome so what is this well 53 we become a righteous Branch unto the house we become a tree this is Isaiah's 11 imagery fantastic we're back to the tree again so I think that seeing that The Sermon on the Mount let me remind you that that's not my Discovery it's Jack Welches really like this should be like When someone goes back and writes the

history they're going to say man he saw this thing and for some reason it didn't like run like wildfire through the church because we aren't ready for it maybe right because people hear you and I say this stuff and they go I I think the new books I think the new books are podcasts as far as this kind of stuff it's amazing to me how many people say oh I just love doing this cuz I can listen to it and I can think about it Right I'm more of a book nerd yeah me too but

when I started this podcast my wife's like you got to do this and I said honey nobody does that and now I've come to realize no people don't read books as much it's the other way around so look second Nephi n one I think it makes a lot more sense if you assume that Jacob's audience at least some of them have had this experience they've come under the rock they've passed the straight and Narrow gate they know what it means to be one of the wise and they're being reminded that it doesn't mean having a

degree that it means hearkening to the councils of God they have received the blessings of the Beatitudes and so it's powerful for them when those are turned into threats against them uh and they're reminded that hey if you want to continue to Feast you need to repent we don't know what the context is I think it's provocatively possible that The context is actually in the temple because Nephi doesn't tell us it's provocatively possible that this is something like a veil sermon I don't know when you know prior to The Descent of milisic maybe milisic delivers

the veil sermon maybe you're sitting there and and and things are laid out for you and maybe in this instance part of the message was hey we're doing this today but you guys really need to straighten up here are Some ways in which we are falling short I think there's also we potentially learn two things about about this ordinance from seeing it here in this speech one is a is a reinforcement we haven't ever seen a real clear statement we've seen several indications that the garden story is the story at in hand and again the

fact that we start with the fall and the need for an atonement suggests that here again the story uh is the garden story it's it's One more sort of it has to be there right yes I mean we've got it and then we end in God's presence becoming a righteous br Branch we're standing on the Rock we're back in his presence I'm not used to using this phrase did you call him the Shams oh yeah the shoms the shoms the Peaceable followers of Jesus those that are whole those are in Greek the Tello the the

ones that are completed and I think that's really what we're all after yep we want to be Complete I want to just thank you for coming out this has been quite a journey if you are still listening you are a champion and the fascinating thing we just really looked at one chapter in the book a Mormon right this is not the only place this happens you know you want to have a sort of provocative experience just look up every one of the 20 instances of the word mysteries in the Book of Mormon and just look

at what those verses say one of my favorites is Elma 12 where Elma says if you're Wicked you forget the Mysteries it's very poignant because these people from amanah are asking they're asking questions of Alma and amuck and what they are puzzled about is the garden story and that tells us that that they once had the Mysteries theyve forgotten and they forgot them and they can't figure out well I don't get it why is there an angel stopping people from going back into the garden the whole Book of Mormon the whole book so may we

be those people that we aren't like the people of am Anda may we repent and stay on the path that's my prayer for for all of us thanks for listening talking scripture is not an official production of the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints the opinions expressed in this podcast are Mike and Bryce opinions only we refer you to official Church sources and the church website to clarify any doctrinal Questions