[Music] hey everybody welcome to Talking Scripture a podcast where we illustrate relevance and application of the scriptures in Come Follow Me We also dive into the history and cultures of the text Thanks for taking the time to share and subscribe to this podcast For show notes head over to our website talkingscripture.org [Music] Welcome to Talking Scripture I'm Mike And I'm Bryce And today we're going to be in sections 37 through 40 37 through 40 That's where we're going to be And a major shift because now the Lord is going to shift the headquarters of the
church He's now going to call them to leave New York and let's head to Ohio So a lot of changes that are coming So we open up in section 37 where very short section but the Lord basically says it's time to go to the Ohio stop your work on the Bible and don't continue it because we're going to go to the Ohio He says it twice in section 37 I'm going to go to the Ohio Now just to see where his the Lord's kind of leading them in verse 32 of section 38 he says I'm
taking you to the Ohio for two main reasons Number one I'm going to give you my law there Now that will be section 42 that Joseph designates as the law of the church So I'm going to go to the Ohio so I can give you my law And then at the end of verse 32 he says I'm going to go take you to the Ohio so I can endow you with power from on high And that may not refer to our own individual endowments which won't happen till Nauvoo but he's referring to the fact that
we will build the first temple and keys will be restored And that is an endowment of power that they will receive in Kirtland So the Lord is now beginning to prepare The whole church to shift to Ohio and that's hard to move But I want to focus primarily in verse 38 as he prepares to give the law in section 42 One aspect of the law that he will give is the law of consecration And let me just say as a precursor kind of the underlying principle of the law of consecration is this If you are
willing to give all that you have and all that you are to God God is willing to give all that he has and all that he is to You If you hold back then God will have to hold back And there's kind of the underlying principle of consecration I think we could say our critics are looking at it as okay you're amassing wealth You're trying to take away people's power And I think what consecration one way to look at it is it's an invitation for us to participate and for us to look at each other
differently For example one time I was teaching a class and we were talking About consecration and one of my students said "There's no way I'm going to do it." He was a young man and he got up every morning worked on a mink farm and he got had scratches all over his arms and he's like "Why am I getting up at 4 in the morning so that I could give my money else?" And I said to him "Okay but let me pose a hypothetical What if your grandmother needed groceries that week?" And he's like "I
do it in a heartbeat." And I said "Okay what's the difference?" And he said "Well it's how I look at her It's how I view her What's in our heart as well i can't get out of my head that vision of Enoch where Enoch's eyes are changed how we see things And that's the invitation with this new law The law of consecration is to partner with God in a way that you become partners with him If you're willing to give your heart to God he is willing to give his heart to you When we get
to section 42 and the Lord Reveals the law we will talk a lot about the outer law of consecration the the way it worked or ideally the way it could work in an outer way the way we live with each other But in preparation for that the Lord lays the groundwork by giving us the inner law of consecration the issues of our heart that we're going to have to deal with the issues that will make or break the outer living of consecration So as you go through section 38 watch For the underpinnings of the spirit
of consecration the heart issues of consecration For example let me give you number one Now I do like lists Item number one verse 16 he says "For your salvation I give unto you a commandment for I've heard your prayers and the poor have complained before me and the rich have I made and all flesh is mine." And then later on in verse 39 he'll say "It must needs be that the riches of the earth are mine to give." And I'm going To combine those into one idea that all flesh is mine I think what he's
trying to say is your abilities your talents what you can do was God-given And the possessions that we possess my money were God-given Attitude number one to live the law of consecration we have to believe that all that I am and all that I have really is God's and I'm happy to give it to him I freely offer it to the Lord because he freely offered it to me And there's the attitude Do you view your possessions do you view what you do as a gift from God or something that you've earned and that will
determine the heart That will determine whether or not you live the outer law of consecration Do you pay your tithing because you recognize that everything you have comes from God anyway and I'm happy to give part of it Back or will your attitude be no I earned this this is mine and be reluctant to give it back to the Lord You see that heart issue and we're going to see both of those played out in the historical narrative of the Ohio Saints We're going to see some that say "Well if the Lord needs it it's
his." And we're going to have others that are just going to try and chase that wealth Yeah And so to me consecration is also not so much a law about what I need to do but It's a law that helps me see what I can become It's kind of revealing character as it were I heard a famous radio personality talk about money and he said when you're really rich it reveals your character And so sometimes wealth can be a challenge And there are going to be some saints in Ohio that are very wealthy and they're
going to give everything We're going to talk more about them in our next podcast but the Partridge family is one and another is The is the Whitney family that there will also be saints in Kirtland when property values skyrocket are looking to make a buck because hey I deserve this I've earned this This is me And that's the issue is what is in your heart is it your wealth is it your ability did you earn this or is this something that God gave you is the ability to do this God-given when the Israelites were about
to come into the promised land Moses was worried about what would happen because He knew what kind of land they were coming into And so he gives kind of his in his farewell address he says in Deuteronomy 8 7 hey the Lord's going to bring you into a good land And then he describes how good the land is And he says now I'm worried I'm worried that you're going to forget the Lord and you're going to say this is verse 17 of chapter 8 Deuteronomy 8:17 I'm worried that you're going to say "My power and
the might of my hand hath gotten me this Wealth." And then he counsels them Moses says "But don't do that You need to remember the Lord for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth." And then I love that he throws in the reason the Lord gives us power to get wealth is quote that he may establish his covenant And there's the attitude There's attitude number one is whose wealth is it whose ability is it whose brilliance brought the money into your Possession in the first place going back to King Benjamin's address is
it the greatness of God or is it the greatness of man so precursor number one to the law of consecration is what is the source what do you view as the source of your wealth and your greatness number two back in section 38 verse1 17 he says "I have made the earth rich." As a parallel in section 104 which is also about consecration and stewardship he says the same thing Section 104:17 he says "For the earth is full and there is enough and to spare." One of the things that threatens consecration is this scarcity mentality
There's not enough Now capitalism is built on that And no I don't want to offer a commentary on capitalism here but consecration has the attitude no there's enough for everyone I think sometimes sales and capitalism right you Got to buy now cuz there's only two tickets left I have to convince you that there's a scarcity My wife actually was looking for plane tickets and they had a sale price and it said only two left So she bought them and the next day there were five for less money And she called the airline She's like "Wait
you said there only two left." And I looked at her and I said "Honey that's that's kind of scarcity mentality That's what they do." And yet on the other side of Capitalism I think capitalism creates wealth If you think about just some of the things that we've seen in our time right the invention of the cell phone or even what the internet has done it has actually created jobs and created wealth So I think you can see both there But I really do think this scarcity idea or this scare tactic I I look at that
as as almost like a compulsion I'm not gonna have any Yeah Because there's only so much And that mentality is going to Threaten consecration Do you remember when the Lord first reigned mana on the children of Israel now they're in a desert and they have starved in the past and now all of a sudden they have plenty of food What does that scarcity mentality cause them to do they gather more than they need and it goes bad Now was mana capable of lasting more than a day yes Because on the day before the Sabbath they
were told to gather enough for the next day But when they gathered More than they needed on a non-sabbath day it went bad And the Lord was trying to say "Trust me there is enough And we can live consecration Everyone can have what we need This earth can produce all that we need it to produce Now just as an interesting commentary James E FA said the following An article in US News and World Report entitled quote 10 billion for dinner please states that the earth is capable of producing food for a population of at Least
80 billion eight times the 10 billion expected to inhabit the Earth by the year 2050 One study estimates that with improved scientific methods the Earth could feed as many as 1,000 billion people The Lord said quote "For the earth is full and there is enough and to spare." Now the reason people go without is this scarcity mentality and people hoarding and I have to gather as much as I can For me And that has to change in our hearts If we're going to live the law of consecration we cannot buy into that I have to
hoard for me Do you remember that parable where the Savior talks about the rich man whose ground brought forth plentifully and so what was his first thought oh I'll just build a bigger barn Instead of I have all that I need Let me give to others who don't have His first thought was I have to hoard it cuz there's not enough Or the Other thought is I have to hold it because what if there's a famine and I think sometimes living in that boom and bust situation where the rains are bad one year it's good
to save And so where's that balance there's a balance there Yeah What do you do with that but in the heart if we're going to live consecration we have to believe that there's enough Yeah And I think it's easier to live when we see people different Like I know you and if you Came to me and you said "Hey I need help." And if I have the means that that's different than if it's a stranger And so I think that's what the bishop's we're going to do this in the next few sections but the bishop's
going to be called And it's almost like a full-time job to kind of figure out okay what are Bryce's needs what are Mike's needs and how do we balance the needs of the many and the needs of the few that's another job that is So and I'm grateful Joseph Says "I'm going to delegate this right it's a big deal." So number three on our list kind of preparing to live the law of consecration in verse 24 through 27 of section 38 he teaches Now again notice how the Lord emphasizes He emphasizes by repetition So he's
going to say it and then he's going to come out and say "Let me say it again." And that's the Lord really emphasizing something So point number three if you're going to live the law of Consecration verse 24 you must esteem your brother as yourself Back to Mike's comment about his student As soon as that stranger meant to you what your grandma means to you you won't have a hard time sharing with the stranger You must esteem your brother as yourself And then notice verse 25 Let me say that again Let every man esteem his
brother as himself That's what God does He doesn't value anyone else any differently And then he concludes it in Verse 27 by saying "You've got to learn to be one If you can't learn to be one you can't be mine." Now later in section 78 he's going to pick up that same idea and put a little bit of weight onto it He's going to say verse 5 of 78 that you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things yay and earthly things also for the obtaining of heavenly things And then this heavy statement if
you are not equal in earthly things you cannot be equal in obtaining Heavenly things So we've got to learn to esteem each other as ourselves I'm no better than anyone else And no one else is better than I am We are all Heavenly Father's children That has to drive what's in my heart when it comes to living the law of consecration We are all of equal value to God Because as soon as you start thinking you're better if you want to go back into the Book of Mormon there's a great verse in Jacob where Jacob
says "Because you have more Than someone else does you assume that you are better." And that's why you're persecuting and lifting yourself up It's because you think you're better And that can't be the case We will never fully live the law of consecration if I think I'm better than you and I'm persecuting you So there's number three on our list Now number four verse 35 I am my brother's keeper We've got to change that mentality I am my brother's keeper The Lord commands in verse 35 that we Shall quote look to the poor and the
needy and administered to their relief that they shall not suffer The Lord does call upon us to take care of his other children One of the reasons he blesses some is so that they can bless others We are our brother's keeper and we do have a moral duty to help those in need And I should be looking for those opportunities And then there's one more in section 38 kind of as a precursor to Living the law of consecration Verse 40 Everyone I give you a commandment that every man elder priest teacher member everyone go to
with his might with the labor of his hands Everyone has to be willing to labor and work There's no way consecration works if a portion of the population is idle and lazy and unwilling to do their share And so my attitude needs to be I'm willing to work I'm willing to do my share so that my burden doesn't fall upon someone else I'm going to do all that I can to take care of me So do you see how the Lord's just kind of laying the groundwork for the law of consecration in section 38 as
he says "I'm going to send you to Ohio so I can give you the bigger law but be prepared to live that law by putting these things in your heart." And there's a warning there Look in verse 39 If you seek riches which it is the will of the father to give you'll be the richest of all people But then at the End of verse 39 he says "But beware of pride." And that's kind of where Bryce was talking about where Jacob says "Hey don't think you're better." One commentator said that wealth in itself is
not evil and the Lord is not automatically displeased with the wealthy for he himself has blessed them with these riches It is however and here's the warning the natural course of things for the rich or perhaps for their children or their grandchildren to Become first proud and then unfaithful If the rich take no measures to keep this from happening or if they just don't give it enough thought it will happen just as surely as an untended garden will become overgrown with weeds Therefore wealthy saints must be aware of the natural effect wealth has on people
and must work actively and creatively to keep those weeds from their gardens The natural progression whether in one generation or the next is To pride and then to unfaithfulness and then to wickedness and destruction And so I think the Lord I I I look at the Lord as he looks at his children and he wants to give them riches but with it there's like this preloaded condition and almost a preloaded curse that if you're not faithful if you're not humble it's just kind of natural And maybe maybe you've seen it in your life as you've
accumulated wealth you kind of come to this point of man I'm I'm Something aren't I and I think the Lord is saying "No we can't be thinking like this." Now I also think about how is Joseph going through this is he's getting this revelation He's not in a wealthy position And he's going to have to ask people that are to give And I just I just try to imagine how would that have been like to ask new K Whitney There's a a number of examples in the early church in Ohio after he joins the church
he and and uh Sydney Gilbert are Running a store and they have this massive inventory And then there comes a time when he's called upon to do things like pay the property taxes that the church has or to completely eliminate debts that people have and he freely does it And yet Joseph's not in that position I'm sure Joseph would have loved to been in a wealthy position so he can say "Look I'm giving financially." And so we're all in these different positions And so to those that Don't have we need to give what we have
And to those that have a lot they need to give And it all like it all to me comes down to how I see people and what's in my heart I want to talk a little bit about this section too on a global scale So big picture I don't think this is just about a few hundred saints in Ohio Look at verse one the great I am alpha and omega the beginning and the end the same which looked upon the wide expanse of Eternity And then verse two he sees everything All things are present And
then he references Enoch in verse four And then he references the residue of the wicked have I kept in chains in verse 5 So the big picture what I want you to think about is and I encourage all of us to do this read Moses 5 6 and 7 Those chapters are what Joseph has been working with in the Joseph Smith translation up to December And if you look at the Revelation it's January 2nd This is fresh on his mind And I can't help but see these ideas through the lens of those chapters in the
Pearl of Great Price And in those chapters because we're not going to do a podcast on them that would be its own podcast But in those chapters essentially Enoch is initiated into the secrets of heaven His eyes are anointed He sees the adversary He sees the forces of righteousness And he sees this over and over again where the heavens are weeping In fact let's just read a couple of these verses to kind of get a feel for what it is we're talking about So go to Moses 7 verse 26 So I'm going to talk about
light and darkness We'll start with the darkness Verse 26 Enoch beheld Satan and he had a chain in his hand and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness And he looked up and he laughed and his angels rejoiced So there's this darkness that he sees Here's Satan laughing Because he got the wrong things into our heart He got us out of this Enoch society He got us to not live the way the Lord has just revealed in section 38 So Moses and section 38 are happening simultaneously in Joseph's head and he's starting
to realize here's Satan laughing If he can change the way we think if he can get us out of Zion Yeah Because we're selfish We're focused on ourselves or whatever I don't esteem myself as a brother I think everything That I have is mine So there's Satan That's how it begins Satan is laughing because I've got this chain around people who will not be in Zion Yeah And now he shifts and sees God I I'm going to say that I think one of their sins and this may be just my reading so I got to
be careful but I think one of the sins that he sees is called the Mayhem principle And the Mayhem principle in a nutshell back in Moses 5 is where he's getting this from If you're interested Moses 5:31 let's go there Cain says "I am Mayhem master of this great secret that I may rob steal plunder take away from you you us I can end your life and steal your money." Yeah That I may get gain Yeah That word gain is going to be money or in this case flocks or herds In verse 33 of Moses
5 Cain gloried in that which he had done saying "I am free Surely my flocks of my brother fallth into my hands and I am not my brother's keeper I don't have to worry about the Consequences on him Do you see this is the exact opposite of what we just talked about in section 38 It's the same stuff It's the same idea of get what you can You're on your own Yeah And there's not enough Yeah And so the reason why I want to just back up with section 38 and kind of look at this
with a a wider lens is because that's what Moses does He sees the whole face of the earth He sees and and now I'm back to Moses 7:28 He sees God weeping He asks the question in 29 how can you weep and then he says in verse 30 by the way you see millions of earths like this and yet you're there Verse 31 your bosom is there And then he asks again in the end of verse 31 how can you weep how can the greatest being in the entire universe cry what are you lacking what
don't you have you have everything And yet why are you crying well this is a great insight into God's character on why God cries Yeah Verse 32 God cries "Behold thy brethren They are The workmanship of mine hands I gave them knowledge I gave them agency in Eden And yet they won't love one another They are without affection and they hate their own blood You see how that relates to what we're talking about in section 38 god cries because we are mean to each other and we hurt each other We hurt his children It's just
a commentary on our day too I mean this is just as relevant Um in the 41st verse the Lord spake to Enoch and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men Wherefore Enoch knew he looked upon their wickedness and their misery and he wept and stretched forth his arms and his heart swelled wide as eternity and his bowels yearned and all eternity shook And I have in my scriptures the word his circled And my question is whose heart swelled maybe it's both Maybe it's Enoch's and the Lord's In other words this is a
sacrament This is Enoch Getting a glimpse as to how the Lord feels about his children but he just keeps asking when is when is the earth going to have rest and when is this going to happen section 38 is inviting all of us to make Zion And I think sometimes in Christianity we have this thought of oh I hope Jesus comes and it's all going to get better And I think section 38 is saying how about this how about we get better and then Jesus will come how about we live Zion and if we Can't
live Zion globally like we all want somebody else to change And I think section 38 is no Mike bro how about you change yeah Going back to that whole idea of the city of Zion Moses 7 the Lord called his people Zion because why they were of one heart and one mind and dwelt in righteousness There was no poor among them You make that happen You focus on that You focus on your heart and your mind and learn how to get along with each other And that will bring God Into our society If not into
our society at least into our homes Yeah So big picture I don't think this is just about a few hundred saints in Ohio If you go to section 87 of the Doctrine of Covenants the Lord says "Oh by the way this country is going to tear itself apart." And I look at the political and military conflicts throughout the world not only in the civil war but after the civil war especially in the 20th century where Millions of people have died A lot of those conflicts have been over this principle the mayhem principle if you want
to look at it through the lens of darkness or through the lens of light if you want to call it fairness or you want to call it consecration I love verse 26 of section 38 where God says,"I am no respector of persons." And if they serve him obediently and he says to them "Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here and to the other be thou clothed in rags And sit thou there and lookth upon his sons and saith I am just Behold this I have given unto you as a parable." And it is
even as I am And I say unto you be one And if you're not one you're not mine And then verse 28 it's very it's interesting how this verse comes across because it's in here a couple of times In verse 28 it says "I say unto you that the enemy is in the secret chambers and he seeks your lives." And then he says it again in verse 13 I'm going to tell You this mystery and it's in secret chambers I think one of the mysteries is this It's the mayhem principle We've got to stop converting
people into property I think another mystery is the Lord's telling Joseph "People want to kill you Like you've got to get out and you've got to go now." In fact verse 37 of section 38 makes it sound like we've got to go today But I think on another level is this macro level and that's verse 29 I think verse 29 is a major illusion to What's happening The Lord is pushing them west because not only is the United States going to collapse upon itself but the world is Think of all the people that have been
killed over these struggles of the inequality of man The oligarchic systems in Europe and Asia where vast amount of wealth was held by a minority of people The revolution in 1917 in Russia How many wars and how much death has come about because of this So you almost can see God looking Across the vast expanse of humanity and he sees what's coming And so much of this is related to how we treat each other And it's so much bigger than a couple of saints in Ohio a few hundred of these Latter-day Saints This is a
principle where God in heaven is shouting from the tops of heaven through this teeny little band of Christians and he's begging us to get this figured out And I think all the systems that we have in place all across these nations we are Always wrestling with this idea of how do we take care of each other and I don't have the answers other than to say in the Doctrine of Covenants the Lord shows us the ideal And the ideal is where's my heart how do I see things and I also think this is just an
inevitable consequence When a few people have all the power and they have all the money we have that massive revolution in Russia or Abraham Lincoln talked about this in America where he said slavery is going To ruin this country He talked about it as a snake or a cobra in a baby's crib And he says "You can't just grab the snake and rip it out But if you let that snake stay in the crib it's going to kill the baby We've got to separate the baby which is the union from the snake of slavery." He
saw it for what it was and he knew that it was going to be a problem And the Lord I think is saying "Yeah that that's kind of what I'm talking about." And so this is a really Big thing and yet it's packaged in this little section to this little band of of Christians in my estimation how I see this And so if I've been blessed with a lot of wealth or not just wealth but talent ability um influence if I have if I am then my job is to help and share those who need
It's because this is God's wealth And there's that attitude It's this came to me from God Therefore it's his to do with he as he sees fit And there's enough for all of us I can Share and I won't deprive myself There's enough for all of us because I know better than anyone else All of these principles that are just so powerfully laid out in section 38 are the solution to so many ills in society today It also leads to missionary work right yeah God has the answer So go give to those who need I
remember when I was 19 my bishop said "Mike you're in such a wealthy nation Do you think God in heaven would just sit and say "No don't go on a Mission No you've been blessed You've got to go You've got to take it out there." So that now leads us to section 39 which really does flow out of 38 because section 39 is to an individual named Jo James Kovville And the Lord is going to say "Here are the blessings that are yours if you embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ." Now James is not going
to do it And if you go to section 40 he's going to walk away And the Lord's going to say "His heart Was right and all of these blessings were to be his and he could have had these blessings but he walked away Therefore he broke the covenant and he he he's not going to have them." So the sad story of James Kovo is our invitation to receive them Now I think the whole section 39 can be encapsulated in verses 16 through 18 He says "Verily verily I say unto you the people of Ohio call
upon me in much faith thinking I will stay my hand in judgment upon the Nations but I cannot deny my word." In other words the people in Ohio saw wickedness in the land and knew that that would bring desolation that would bring problems that the Lord would cause negative things to come into the land if wickedness was in the land Therefore they're praying that the destruction not come Do you see what's ironic about that prayer they're praying that the destruction not come And the Lord turns that right around in verse 17 and says "If you
want that the destruction not to come then you preach the gospel to them Call for faithful laborers to prune my vineyard And in as much as they do repent and receive the fullness of my gospel then will I stay my hand in judgment." I think we all want something that can never be People want to make God in their own image and they're like "Let me do what I want get what I want but I don't want the punishment I don't want the consequence I don't want the Negative consequence They're praying that the negative consequences
don't come What they should be praying for is the change that we need to do in order to avoid the negative consequence By the way it's so American I want to eat cake and donuts and I want to eat them now And can I take a pill that can make me skinny for my vacation pictures or that can make me skinny when my son gets married so I look good and the Lord's like well it doesn't work that way right But don't we all kind of want the quick fix or the easy thing i think
I really do think in 1830 they see the writing on the wall You know it's not in your face but yet I think there's enough of this in here where the Lord says this isn't fair This inequality is not right He is not coming out and talking about slavery here but I think that's got to be in the back of some people's mind Sure is a suggestion here especially since the previous section was all about you've Got to esteem your brother like yourself If you don't then there's going to be consequences And and I'll throw
this out here too Bryce from the last few revelations we read Think about we're just beginning the government's really starting to push another group of people around and that's the Native Americans There's a lot of things happening behind the scenes in the context of this revelation And I also see the Lord saying "No I want to build Zion with the Native Americans I want people to be equal." And yet the Saints are just in this massive soup of history where all this stuff is flying around this hurricane as it were and they're just trying to
make their way And they're a teeny little band aren't they yeah And the Lord is saying to James Kovville and he's saying to all of us wonderful blessings will come into your life if you will join the gospel If you will embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ For Example notice what he says You know verse 9 you have seen great sorrow Why because you rejected me many times and because of the pride and the cares of the world So the Lord is saying rejecting God and the pride and the cares of the world have brought
great sorrow into your life And then he turns around and says "The days of your deliverance are come if you will hearken to my voice And if you will hearken to my voice end of verse 10 you shall Receive my spirit and a blessing so great as you never have known A greater work a greater blessing Now the reality is Heavenly Father isn't saying "You have to do it my way and I'll bless you If you don't do it my way I'm going to curse you." Heavenly Father is saying,"I know what makes my children happy
and I have commanded you to do the things that make you happy." When we don't listen to God it's the natural unhappiness that he Foresaw that comes into our lives It's not Heavenly Father saying "How dare you break my commandments?" And he curses us He has been commanding us these things because he knew they would hurt us And when we don't listen to him we open the door to the very destruction he foresaw coming And so he says to James "I've been offering you a great happiness but you have rejected me many times You've cared
about the world You've had pride and that was the source of quite a bit Of your sorrow If you will instead embrace the gospel and have the spirit you will know a blessing like you've never known." And that's the invitation to the whole world And I love verse 11 Notice what the Lord says about the reason he restored the gospel the covenant What's the purpose of the covenant that he restored in our day verse 11 he says I have prepared thee for a greater work Thou shalt preach the fullness of my gospel which I have
sent Forth in these last days Now listen to this phrase the covenant which I have sent forth to recover my people That's the message that we that the gospel presents to the world There is a message that will recover us And if we hear it we will I love verse 12 It shall come to pass that power shall rest upon thee Thou shalt have great faith and I will be with thee and go before thy face That's what he's offering A peace a power his presence if we will embrace the covenant that was sent to
recover us But rejecting God's covenant will bring sorrow Now James Kovville is going to turn away from the gospel and he will lose the blessings And so in section 40 his heart was right But notice verse two of section 40 Because of the cares of the world but Straightway Satan tempted him and the fear of persecution and the cares of the world caused him to reject the word Therefore he broke the covenant and he will lose those blessings And it's the Lord's way of saying sorrow great sorrow is coming back into his life because he
had the opportunity to receive that great blessing and he chose not to do it that way We can avoid sorrow Now I think we all need to understand not all sorrow in our life is because of sin and Transgression But sin and transgression bring sorrow into our life Mortality requires a a sense of sorrow Mortality requires pain It's written into the whole program But not all pain is because of sin What we're talking about is the pain that comes because of sin Because we've rejected God And the Lord is saying if you're praying that the
consequences be stayed then what you really need to do is repent And that's how you avoid the consequences James Kovville kind of comes in the church and goes out of the church And so if you go to the Joe Smith papers and you can kind of read about him One of the things about him is when this revelation was given he's about 60 years old And for twothirds of his life he'd been a Methodist minister or he'd been really high up in some of the the Methodist associations and societies And I don't know what James
Kovville was Like but we know that he rejected the council but the invitation was there I think he's a really good foil We see guys like Edward Partridge and Lydia or New K Whitney We see others um John Tanner Yeah we see the story of John Tanner We see so many people in the Ohio period that are just solid And so I'm kind of grateful that section 40 is in here because it shows how the Lord sees him And I also wonder about verse nine Like you're James Kovville and you've Been this Methodist minister and
he was an itinerate preacher for a long time where he just went from house to house and went to these camp meetings and taught And how does verse 9 shake out there's just a lot we don't know But it's really interesting to read and to see that as a foil Um in the Book of Mormon right we have layman and lemu and sometimes they become caricatures of you know super super righteous or super super wicked And I kind of look at History as we're kind of complex One day we'll talk to James My hope in
my heart is that he's joined And that's the beauty of the Lord is if he were to turn right around and make his heart right he would receive all the blessings the Lord offered him Yeah The Lord is a God of doovers He's a god of second chances If we change and then he brings those blessings Just a thought on section 38 as well We we're talking a lot about Zion and and the idea of Inequality I have this chart in my head and on one side on the left side I have this idea of
social order and on the other side is this idea of everyone being equal this egalitarian society in Europe especially in the 1700s and the 1600s There was this social order and everybody knew their place Odds are Bryce and I would probably not be high up on the chain We would probably be workers in someone's vineyard or I would might I might be a surf or maybe I would Be a guy that chewed your horse There was this structure and everybody knew who was in charge in 1700 It was the king It was the prince But
everybody also had a purpose and it was pretty much unequal like most of us struggled Today after all these years and we've gone through the enlightenment we have this at least in the west right this notion of egalitarianism where everybody matters Everybody gets a voice Thank goodness women have a right to Vote They can own property Everybody's voice matters And then you have the internet Everyone can have a megaphone They can get on social media and get 50,000 followers and show you how they do their hair and all of a sudden they're they're a phenon
But what have we lost one commentator says "Well maybe we've lost purpose Is there a sense of hopelessness it seems like people are more distrustful of social institutions Of banks of financial institutions of governments of churches And so with this egalitarianism where everyone matters and everyone has a right to speak and to vote and to own property and these opportunities more and more opened up we've lost some purpose and hope And what I see Zion is and this is kind of my religion it's the best of everything Imagine a society where everyone's equal but everyone
has a purpose Everyone has hope And I think to Me that's what Zion is where God says "Okay let's take the best of everything and let's make it work." See losing purpose because we lose God and as we get more hopeless that breeds a whole other set of problems The solution is recognize who you are in God's plan and recognize his greatness and then find out what his purpose is for you You see James Kovville was told his purpose and Edward Partridge is going to get his Emma got hers in section 25 And all of
Us can kneel down and talk to Heavenly Father and say 'Lord what would you have me do and I think that's another thing this section is doing is it's inviting us to participate with God to see what we are to do Yeah And one of the great blessings that's hinted at over and over and over again is get to Ohio so you can build a temple so I can pour out blessings you don't even understand He's going to hint at that so many times here He did so in 38 where he says "Go to the
Ohio I'll give you my law and there you shall be endowed with power from on high." And then again in section 39:1 15 he says "In as much as my people shall assemble themselves at the Ohio I have kept in store a blessing such as is not known among the children of men and it shall be poured forth upon their heads." Clearly one of those things he was referring to has to be the temple And one of the reasons we came out west is to find a place where we can safely Build a temple And
the Lord can pour out those blessings upon us So one more example of if you will be with him if you'll follow the saints if you'll come and gather where they gather I will pour out a blessing that you have not known that the world has not known Joseph Smith backs that up where he says "It was the design of the councils of heaven before the world was that the principles and laws of the priesthood should be predicated upon the gathering of the People in every age of the world Ordinances instituted in the heavens before
the foundation of the world in the priesthood for the salvation of men are not altered or changed All must be saved on the same principles." Joseph Smith is sharing with the saints this idea that gathering is associated with temples Joseph Smith will later say quote "What was the object of gathering the Jews or the people of God in any age of the World?" The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby he could reveal unto his people the ordinances of his house and the glories of his kingdom and teach the people the
way of salvation For there are certain ordinances and principles that when they are taught and practiced must be done in a place or a house built for that purpose It is for the same purpose that God gathers together his people in the last days to build unto the Lord a house To prepare them for the ordinances and endowments washings and anointings So go to the Ohio and we're going to start that Then we're going to go to Missouri and we're going to do it We're going to go to Illinois and we're going to build a
house And then we're going to go to Salt Lake and we're going to build a house And now everywhere the church is sent our goal is to build a temple so that we can endow our people with power from on high So good You know Bryce Speaking of temples and gathering I just want to geek out for a minute about section 38 verse1 we get this word that doesn't pop up a ton in scripture and the word is saraphic So I'm going to read verse one Thus sayith the Lord your God even Jesus Christ the
great I am alpha and omega the beginning and the end The same which looked upon the wide expanse of eternity and all the seraraphic hosts of heaven before the world was made The same which knoweth All things for all things are present before mine eyes that word serapic the seraraphic host There's a lot of ways to unwrap that as it were on the first level And this is the level that we'll teach in if you're teaching Sunday school or if you're if you're talking with your kids and they say "Mom dad what is the saraphic
host of heaven?" You could just say "You know what those are the angels in heaven that God is the God of the Lord of hosts and there's this big wide expanse of eternal beings and they're the seraraphic hosts of heaven And I think that's a really good way to read it and to talk about it that they're beings and that they're divine This is not for everybody but I just want to geek out about this a little bit so you can kind of unwrap some of these ideas And if something I say doesn't make a
ton of sense go to the show notes and you can pull on these threads because we Give you a ton of links and things that you can look at So the saraphim that's the plural of saraph that's coming to you from Isaiah in his call narrative in Isaiah 6 verse one In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple and above it stood the saraphim And in English it says the saraphims but that's kind of redundant because saraphim is plural
but we put an s on it in English So the Saraphims each one had six wings Twain he covered his face and twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly And one cried to another and they said "Holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts The whole earth is full of his glory." And the post of the door moved and the voice of him that crith and the house was filled with smoke The context is Isaiah is at the veil There's smoke in the hal There's smoke in this house as he stands
before the veil because the altar of Incense is right by him and he sees these saraphim There's plural at least two and they are high and above the Lord who's on his throne In my estimation he's in the holy of holies So these are divine beings and they're associated with the temple and they're associated with ascent So on that main level they're angels But on another level so now we're on like a second level of what's a saraph a serif is actually a serpent Like that's what the word means It means a serpent And so
sometimes in the Bible it's translated as a fiery serpent or a serpent It actually occurs three times in the Bible outside of Isaiah So it's a couple times in Numbers 21 6 and 8 And then it's in Deuteronomy 8:15 That's it outside of Isaiah And then if you get into Isaiah it's four times in Isaiah And Isaiah is using it very purposefully in Isaiah It's going to represent a ruler It's also going to represent these Divine beings like we talked about in Isaiah 6 But Isaiah is using it I think on another level in the
sense that it's this raised serpent Now the question that a lot of scholars get into is is this somebody in human form is this word serpent used as kind of a euphemism not necessarily a serpent I like that but that's what the word means And this is going to be the symbol that the king of Egypt is going to wear on his head as a sign of Authority This symbol and there's a couple different ways to pronounce it but it's going to be called a uras and it's the serpent on the forehead of the king
And in a lot of their holy places the Egyptians would have two of them on either side of a symbol for the eye of God or the sun And these symbols have a lot of meaning But just on the second level they represent a serpent Now before we go any further I just want to throw this out there We have this Narrative in Genesis where there's a serpent And when Adam and Eve are cast out there's cherubam and a flaming sword that guards the way of the tree of life And the word cherubim are is
typically referred to as angels or guardians And I think that that word is actually a pun It's very close to the word for sword And keruv these are very close And the idea that there are these angels or these keru that have these kerv that they have these swords I don't think That's just by chance And so the image I want to paint in your head is this idea of serpents and swords in Eden And Eden is a prototypical temple So we have this idea of ascent coming into heaven and serpents That's like the second
level Now the third level is going to have to do with what's called the Enoch literature We know that Enoch was a prophet We have his stuff in the book of Moses And outside of the Bible there's this whole corpus of literature of these Visions of Enoch And in these visions he ascends into these levels of heaven Usually heaven is plural in the scriptures not always but usually And in second Enoch chapters 20- 22 he goes on this ascent where he comes into God's presence And I'm just going to read a portion of it but
you can go and read more Like I said go to the show notes But as he ascends he hears these voices He says "But the face of the Lord is not to be talked about It is so marvelous And so supremely awesome and supremely frightening And who am I to give an account of the incomprehensible being of the Lord?" So this is Enoch talking about his vision and of his face so extremely strange and indescribable and how many are his commands and his multiple voice and the Lord's throne supremely great and not made by hands
and the choir all around him and the cherubam and the seraraphim and their armies and their never silent singing So He talks about approaching God seeing God and seeing these various angelic beings the cherubim and the saraphim And then he says "Who can give an account of his beautiful appearance never changing and indescribable and his great glory i fell down flat and did obesience to the Lord and the Lord with his mouth said to me "Be brave Enoch Don't be frightened Stand up and stand in front of my face forever." And then skipping down a
little bit the Lord calls upon Michael The mighty angel And the Lord says to him "Go and extract Enoch from his earthly clothing and anoint him with my beautiful oil and put him into the clothes of my glory." And so Michael did just as the Lord said to him He anointed me and he clothed me and the appearance of that oil is greater than the greatest light and its ointment is sweet like dew and its fragrance like myrr and it is like the rays of the sun and I looked at myself and I had become
one of his Glorious ones and there was no observable difference So on this third level the saraphim are related to this ascent to God and they're tied into this idea of Enoch being anointed with oil And that's really important if you get into some of the earliest stuff that we have in the history of man associated with this symbol And so just kind of hold on that thought for a minute A fourth level and this is Joseph Smith he says this "God Almighty himself dwells in eternal fire Flesh and blood cannot go there for all
corruption is devoured by the fire but a resurrected being of flesh and bones quickened by the spirit of God can." So he says "Heaven is the realm of everlasting burnings a kind of burning that is holy and unlike anything mortals now experience or understand." So God dwells in everlasting burnings That's actually what the word saraf can mean It can mean to burn or to shoot Fire or to incinerate And so on that fourth level it's this idea of divine light or divine fire The verb saraf can mean burn or incinerate or destroy The verb is
transitive meaning that it denotes an entity that annihilates by burning So that could be the brightness of the angels of God which really helps us to see what Joseph says when he's 17 where he describes Moroni about the whiteness of his countenance and then he said that it was like Lightning Okay So on the fifth level another way to look at this and it's this idea that there was a god in heaven And so it depends on what time period you are in the history of Egypt But there was this notion that the god had
a goddess who defended him and she was like unto this saraph The goddess was like a ureas That is a word that comes from the Greeks And so the the nominative masculine singular of this word is oros is how the word is Pronounced in classic Greek And that word literally means to stand up or to rise up There is this serpent or a cobra that's standing up And to the Egyptians it can also mean the white crown or the great one And it's to symbolize the power or authority of the person in charge So in
Egypt the king would have it in his all of his cool kingly clothing He would have that on his head And the goddess would anoint Osiris with oil And so we have Isis doing this Isis She's this spouse of Osiris and she's going to anoint him And in the Egyptian context there were two of these serpents on either side of the eye of Raw and then wings coming out And really for for this to make sense you kind of have to see it And so go to the show notes and we'll link some pictures that
you can kind of get an idea of what this looked like And it was all over in Egypt You've probably seen this image and didn't even recognize it because in the 1800s after Napoleon goes into Egypt and and all these discoveries start popping up Egyptian architecture really took off And we see this symbol in our cemeteries If you were wealthy and you built a moselum for your family they would construct them after these Egyptian temples like little miniature Egyptian temples And so you would typically see a structure that had like two pillars in front of
it similar to the pillars in the Israelite temple And then there'd be A door in between these pillars And above the door would be this symbol the of these two snakes with these wings and this eye This is associated with God and coming into his presence And it's super old because the Egyptians are doing this stuff before the Old Testament authors And Isaiah is packaging this Like I said most of the references to the saraphim are going to be in Isaiah And so what they represent are these goddesses that anoint the god with oil and
they give Him power or they give him a kingdom And these two serpents as they were on either side of the ara in Egypt they're to spit fire that like they defend him These are beings who kind of stand as guardians Now here's kind of a sixth level Go to the book of Revelation chapter 11 and it talks about these two prophets and they're defending God for 1,23 score days They're defending their testimony They're defending Jesus And Then in verse four John says "These are the two olive trees." And he also calls them candlesticks And
then in verse six it says that they have power to shut heaven And then notice verse five If any man will hurt them fire proceedth out of their mouth and devouth their enemies I would suggest that in this chapter John is also packaging this idea of these two divine beings that have the power to shoot out fire like these saraphim that they defend God And I Think it also ties into the divine uh wedding between husband and wife in the sense that she gives him his kingdom She anoints him just like the goddess would anoint
the king and she would be right by his side And this image of the eye and the snakes and the wing is in a lot of the iconography of the ancient near east And it's used in Judah a lot of times And it's even so common as to be in a sense on our money You've got that allseeing eye right there on the dollar Bill and it's in the pyramid And I think these ideas are related and they're associated with ideas of ascent coming unto God being anointed being a king or a queen heavenly visions
approaching God and the power of God So there's all these layers just with that one word in section 38 of the Doctrine of Covenants On one level these are angels On another level the word actually means serpent And it's on the third level associated With divine beings that are associated with vision and ascent and putting oil on Enoch and changing his his clothes and changing his person He becomes glorious It's associated with everlasting burnings Joseph Smith And then on the fifth level it's associated with the relationship between a god and the goddess and becoming divine
and entering into his presence And we see this symbol in our cemeteries And we see part of it in our money you know at Least on the dollar bill And that is associated with all of these ideas Yep So thank you for being with us This has been a great look into Zion and the condition of the saints on earth Come with us next week as we gather into Ohio and the Lord pours out his law a modern-day law Kind of like Joseph Smith goes up to Sinai and comes down with 10 tablets That is
section 42 the law of the church And we will talk about that next time We'll see you next Week Talking Scripture is not an official production of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The opinions expressed in this podcast are Mike and Bryce's opinions only We refer you to official church sources and the church website to clarify any doctrinal questions
