2 Kings 17-25 (Some visual notes for the lesson tomorrow in Sunday School that I'll be teaching)
1 Samuel 8-10, 13, 15-18
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CHRIST IS MY KING -
God wants an increased relationship with him - Through years of studying the blessings promised to Israel, I came to the understanding that the first and foremost aspect of the covenant, the concept on which everything hinged and from which everything flowed, was that GOD WANTED AN INCREASED RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS CHILDREN. This was both the purpose behind the covenant, the primary obligation of the covenant, and the most powerful blessing that flowed from it.
GOD CALLS PEOPLE BY PROPHECY TO SERVE IN HIS KINGDOM
TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE
Saul offering sacrifice - no authority, not obeying commandments, blames others for his sin
Didn't obey in battle with Amalekites, "people" spared the best
1 Samuel 15:17 "When thou wast little in thine own sight"
Student Manual "Circumstances may be critical, but one of the purposes of mortality is to demonstrate that one will remain faithful and obedient UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES
D&C 98:14-15 -
14) Therefore, be not afraid of your enemies, for I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy. 15) For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me.
THE LORD LOOKETH ON THE HEART
WITH THE HELP OF THE LORD, I CAN OVERCOME ANY CHALLENGE -
Principle - 1 Samuel 17:25 - There are great rewards from our Heavenly King for defeating our Goliaths
Malcolm Gladwell - Underdogs vs. Giant competitors
First, David's sling is a devastating weapon. It's one of the most feared weapons in the ancient world. The stone that comes from his sling has the stopping power equivalent to a bullet from a .45 caliber pistol. It's a serious weapon. And second, there are many medical experts who believe that Goliath was suffering from acromegaly, which causes you to grow. Many giants have acromegaly, but it has a side effect which is, it causes restrictive sight. Goliath in the biblical story does, if you look closely, sound like a guy who can't see.
So here we have a big, lumbering guy weighed down with armor, who can't see much more than a few feet in front of his face, up against a kid running at him with a devastating weapon and a rock traveling with the stopping power of a .45 caliber handgun. That's not a story of an underdog and a favorite. David has a ton of advantages in that battle, they're just not obvious. We need to do a better job of looking at what an advantage is.
I loved this testimony shared by Brandon Flowers on Instagram via Bro Brad Wilcox -
Brandon Flowers, front man of the rock band The Killers, has long been open about his faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In January 2021, he spoke about the spiritual meaning behind some of his lyrics and shared how he gained his testimony of the Book of Mormon. In 2012, he defended his faith publicly when a well-known atheist began denouncing Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. And in 2011, he was part of the “I’m a Mormon” campaign.
Recently, Flowers shared his testimony once again—this time with Church leadership. In a post on Instagram, Brother Brad Wilcox, second counselor in the Young Men General Presidency, posted a photo of Flowers and the Young Men General Presidency. In the post, Brother Wilcox explained that he asked Flowers why he believes in the gospel. Flowers responded with the following:
“I choose to believe because I have felt the Holy Ghost more times than I can remember, certainly more times than I deserve. I believe not because l’ve seen pillars of fire or pillars of light but because my bosom has burned as if by fire, and my path has been illuminated as if by light. I believe because every commandment I keep improves my life. And I believe because I remember.”
Brother Wilcox said Flowers went on to explain that all can gain their own testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“One of my favorite things about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is its open invitation for all to come and gain a testimony for yourself. You don’t have to believe just because your parents did. There is confidence enough in the gospel to encourage anyone and everyone to put it to the test. That’s what I did, and that’s why I choose to believe,” he said.
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The song "Fire in Bone" on the Killers' Imploding the Mirage album is talking about testimony!
I just listened to the special fireside for the young Adults of the church. Sister Nelson's message focused around an experiment that some youth did a few weeks ago, where they asked themselves this ONE QUESTION one time each day for 3 days -
What would a holy young adult do?
I guess I'm not young anymore though, am I? Well, I am according to Elder Holland's recent definition: "Anyone President Nelson's age or younger" (first paragraph) - ha! Still, I thought I might modify the question to "What would a holy citizen of Zion do?" I want to be a Zionist (Zionian?) so I should imagine my life in Zion is like - what do I do? Make a list, and start to do those things myself. The ME that lives in Zion can tell me how to get there.
I can go back and read my notes from "The Enoch Letters" by Elder Maxwell to get the juices flowing. Thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people in Enoch's Zion have successfully applied the commandments of God and thereby had great and unparalleled happiness. We have the same gospel with us that will allow us to achieve Zion now. Let's do it - believe it's possible!
I'll share thoughts from President Nelson's talk later. They shared wonderful messages tonight
I really liked this last 10 minutes of part 1 of the FollowHim podcast for this week. My take away: I want and need to visualize and imagine the life I want, the best person I can be. Don't hold myself back by my own unbelief in myself. Imagine the experiences I want to have in my life, and imagine all the details of it now. Visualize it, write it down for myself. Also imagine the life I will have in the hereafter, IMAGINE IT and BELIEVE IT is possible. What is God inviting me to do? What talents has he given me? What promises are extended to me in the scriptures? Work to have faith that it is possible, imagine it and start to believe it and make it real in my imagination.
(I don't have a lot of experience trying to visualize, so here are 3 Visualization Techniques to help me learn.)
Starting at the one hour mark, (1:00:40) commenting on Exodus 19 and 20.
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Dr. Daniel Belnap: You can actually see this best by restoration scripture. Meaning, if you turn to Doctrine and Covenants 84 beginning, yeah, 19 through 24. It's going to set this up. He's talking about the priesthood and about the keys of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. And points out again, that in the ordinances, both the laws and in the ritual that we associate the priesthood. And without the ordinances thereof and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh. For without this, no man can see the face of God, even the Father and live. So Joseph is explaining, or at least the Lord is explaining to Joseph ways in which the priesthood is necessary for this incredible experience to see the face of God. Now, verse 23, this Moses plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness and sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God. This seems to be a direct illusion back to Exodus 19. That he did everything he could to sanctify his people to behold the face of God, but they hardened their hearts and could not endure His presence. That's exactly what Exodus 20 describes. That they hardened their hearts and could not endure. They did not enter into His presence. And therefore the Lord in His wrath for His anger was kindled against them swore that they should not enter into His rest while in the wilderness. Which rest is the fullness of His glory. I.E, they could have been in the presence of God and they did not. And therefore he swore, while you're in the wilderness, it's not going to happen. This event where Israel enters into a covenant relationship with God of which the culminating element of that should have been an experience where they enter into the presence of God and they did not. And this seems to be the ultimate provocation.
Hank Smith: And why do you feel like this is in the origin story? Is it because later on they're going to do this so many times that it's going to be a pattern of God wants this, you agree, and then you fail to live up to your obligation? That's a pattern in my life.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: I think ultimately it's because this is an experience that should be happening. This is, if you are Israel, this is what's going to make you separate and distinct: you have the opportunity to enter into the presence of the Lord. Hebrews chapter four and verse six, but as Christ as son over His own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm into the end, wherefore as the Holy Ghost sayeth today, if you will hear His voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness. That's Psalm 95, and then he says, "When your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my works 40 years, wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said, they do always harden their heart and have not known my ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest." Now, if you go to chapter four, here's how it begins. Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest any of you should seem to come short of it. The writer here is saying is that there was an early Christian understanding within the church in early Christianity that this promise applied to them as well. There's a promise that if you do these things, you can enter into His rest, the fullness of His glory. This is a promise that defines, I think Israel, regardless of what dispensation you're in, regardless of the differences of experience, this is a promise that is given to Israel, that I expect you to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. And by virtue of that, we're going to have to meet.
Hank Smith: Yeah. And yet, so many of us fall short of it, it's so human. It's God wants this I want this. And when it comes to the moment of choosing I fall short.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: Part of it could have been that they look at that and went, "There's no way (disbelief) I can be ready in three days." So it's back to this concept of faith. I always wonder about that. If I were told that the Lord is coming in three days and that I needed to meet him in three days, and here's what I need to do to be ready. Do I think washing my clothes would make me ready in three days? Do I think I could do it? And yet my response to that is, if the Lord tells you that three days is enough, then it must be enough.
Hank Smith: So they don't believe Him?
Dr. Daniel Belnap: Yeah. At some level they don't trust in that aspect of it. Chapter four of Hebrews continues this at the end of it talks about Christ and what He's made possible. And then it describes, an experience, verse 16, "Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace." Now that requires us to understand a little bit about the temple rather than the tabernacle. But if the throne of grace is God's throne, then it's within the holy of holies. And the same idea is repeated by the way, in Hebrews 10, which describes it this way. "This is a new covenant I will put in them." This is chapter 10, verse 16. "I will put my laws into their hearts and into their minds will I write them and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Now where remission of these is there was no more offering for sin, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus. These two chapters, talk about the ability to enter into holiest of places or approach the throne of God. What strikes me about it is not only does it suggest that the atonement of Christ makes it possible for us to enter into the presence of God, literally enter the presence of God, but in both verses, it talks about being able to do so boldly. There's an understanding here that the atonement too of Christ makes it possible for us to be bold in the presence of God. And I don't think that means disrespectful, and it doesn't mean irreverent, but it does mean... Well, it means whatever you're going to define boldness with. Confidence, surety? These are the things that Israel could have had entering into the presence of God and yet did not.
John Bytheway: Alma gives such an awesome contrast in Alma five, "When you're brought to stand before God, can you look up?" He doesn't say, are you clean? Or are you prepared? He just says, I love this, "Can you look up?" And Alma 12:14, I think that first one's Alma 5:14 or something, but Alma 12:14, you will not dare to look up. You will fame be glad to command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon you to hide you from His presence if you're not prepared. But the idea of can you look up? Reminds me too, of Enos who says, then I will see His face with pleasure. And maybe that's what that boldness means too. Because I've wondered, what does that mean boldly? It just, it means that you're confident in the Atonement? You're confident that you're prepared because of what the Savior's done for you?
Dr. Daniel Belnap: Joseph F. Smith tells the story of a dream he had. And for those of you who studied the life of Joseph F. Smith, that mission in Hawaii was tricky. That was difficult, very difficult.
John Bytheway: He was 15 years old. Wasn't he?
Dr. Daniel Belnap: 15 years old.
John Bytheway: Yeah.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: You read it, he felt very isolated, very alone, very forgotten. He was sick. He has this dream in which he's going to go to the temple. And it's a very famous one, we all know it. But to me, it's a great example of this boldness. And can't find his temple clothing, finally finds it, runs to the temple. There's his what Uncle? Joseph Smith looking down on him, frowning disapprovingly. "Oh, you're late Joseph." And his response is, "Yes, but I'm clean." And just walks right by him.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: That is that boldness. He knows he belongs there. He knows he deserves to be there and so he is. And so this boldness idea, I think John, you brought up Alma 5. One of the intriguing things about that is, that's of course the wicked, right? But Alma actually described earlier in the verses that, do you look forward with an eye of faith? Do you see your mortality putting on immortality? Do you see your corruption putting on incorruption? Can you imagine unto yourselves, the God saying, "Enter in ye blessed." And I know that he's talking about it to the wicked going, "Or do you think that you're going to be able to lie to God?" But I think those other questions are intriguing, because I think they tie into this boldness, which is, do we think about that often? Do we think about what it's like to be in the presence of God? Do we imagine what eternal life is like? If those verses hold true Alma has just suggested that as weird as it sounds, imagination plays a fundamental role in the expression of faith. Looking forward with an eye of faith and seeing something that hasn't been yet, but will be. Do you imagine it? Do you imagine what it's like to be in the presence of God? Do you imagine it? Do we explore the contours of what it means to have eternal life? And it seems to me that that longterm, that ability to not just look up but as Peter's going to call it, see afar off. Becomes absolutely essential to survival. And in a day and age, particularly now, and this is me getting on my soapbox a bit, but in a day and age where so much information is flying around so fast, so often, that to some degree, there's an element of where we're constantly reacting to the barrage of inspiration that's coming in. It's a constant reaction. We have no choice, but to deal with what keeps flashing before our eyes all the time. And yet to see afar off means, you've got to lift yourself from that, lift your gaze from that and see a long perspective.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: In my Pearl of Great Price class, I talk about the importance of the vision of scale and recognizing that one of the things that when prophets have visions is more often not they're shown the scale and the immensity of this work. It's cosmic in scope. Moses sees the earth and all the inhabitants of the earth and every particle of the earth. And Enoch sees millions of earths like this. And Abraham has the work of God expanded before his eyes, and John and all of these individuals have this expansion of vision, not just the vision itself, but an expansion of an understanding of the cosmos and the work of God within that huge cosmic scale. And I think there's an importance to seeing afar off.
Hank Smith: They say, man is nothing, which I think I'd never suppose this idea of I'm seeing life in its proper perspective. Instead of like in it with information flying around me, I'm seeing, oh, I'm seeing it from God's point of view a little bit.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: Right. Right. And that experience that the Israelites were meant to have, I think is tied into that. Why weren't they ready in three days? I don't know, but it makes me think they were concentrating on three days more than the horizon. They didn't see afar off.
Hank Smith: What if my clothes aren't clean enough? Yeah.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: And maybe part of it is we don't actually believe that that's an event that can really happen. I don't think we think enough about entering into the presence of God and what that's like. And yet the Doctrine and Covenants is full of that. And the Book of Mormon has narrative after narrative of people who do, and the New Testament talks about it. There's a promise. There's a promise that's given that this can happen so that you can bless all mankind. You're expected to be a kingdom of priests to bless everybody. And so yeah, the story isn't ultimately negative for Israel at that time for those 40 years, but it lays out an experience that any Israelite is expected to have in any dispensation. In fact, I've quoted enough of Hebrews, but there's one more, you get to Hebrews chapter 12 and you get verse 18. And this is what it says, "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words," that's our illusion back to Exodus 19, isn't it? Exodus 19:20. And it's saying, "You are not supposed to have that experience," verse 20, "For they could not endure that which was commanded. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, "I extremely fear and quake." He says, that is not the experience that we're meant to have. Verse 22, "But ye are coming to Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
Dr. Daniel Belnap: See that you refuse not him that speaketh. See that you refuse not him that speaketh." This is the experience that Israel could have had and did not have. This is the experience that the writer of Hebrews is saying the Christians should have, whether or not they did is another story.
FollowHIM Podcast with Dr. Daniel Belnap Exodus 18-20 - Part 1 1:00 through 1:13
I loved the end of this talk, where Brother Jared Halverson shares how faith is like a black and white photograph. We may have questions (dark parts of our photograph) but there are things that we know (white parts). We may try to throw it out when we start to focus on the dark parts and cause we can't find answers, but we can't really throw it away. All we're doing is flipping the photograph. Start at 1:26:58
"It's like you have this black and white photograph of your faith and the light parts of the photograph are what drew you to it. The dark part you don't even tend to look at. ...until you start seeing them and someone brings them up and pushes them in your face and you start really worrying about and wrestling with these things and pretty soon you get so fixated on the negative, or the dark parts of the photograph, and again since we're all human, and there's going to be both light and dark parts of it, that we start to forget about the light parts. And so what do we do? "I can't do this!" and we throw away the photograph. The thing is, we can't. If you're truly intellectually honest, you can't destroy the photograph. You can only replace it with it's negative. Now all of a sudden you're looking at the same picture, it's just reversed.
"The old question marks, you don't have to worry about now. Now they're exclamation points. Or atleast non-punctuation marks. 'I don't have to worry about plural marriage, or race and the priesthood, I don't have to worry about any of that stuff, I'm out of the church! It doesn't matter to me.' Fine. So your old question marks have become exclamation points, but did you notice that your old exclamation points, if you're still honest, have now become your new question marks? You used to not be able to explain those tricky parts of church history. Now how do you explain the things you once knew to be true? How do you explain, or explain away, your old spiritual experiences?
From the FollowHim podcast episode #33 discussing D&C Section 88 with guest Anthony Sweat - Part 1 and Part 2 - a one sentence summary of what the temple endowment is by Bro Sweat:
It's the power and capacity to come into the presence of God and receive a fullness of his blessings,
"I wrote [the book "The Holy Invitation"] because I sensed a large number of young people were not grasping the endowment as you could take the average Latter-day Saint and say, "In one sentence, give me the purpose of baptism," and they could do it pretty well. In one sentence, give me the purpose of the sacrament, they could summarize it well. In one sentence, even give me the purpose of an eternal marriage and they could summarize it well, but if you say, "In one sentence, give me the purpose of the endowment," the answers start to become nebulous and they shift, and they're not very clean and they hem and they haw. They come with general answers like, "Oh, it's a gift," and you say, "A gift of what?" They'll say, "A gift of knowledge." "Well, a gift of knowledge of what?" "A gift of knowledge of God." "For what?" They just don't know. One of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this is because I actually think Section 88 unlocks the endowment for us.
"Do not confuse the presentation of the endowment with the power of endowment. The presentation of the endowment is a ceremony. It's a dress rehearsal. It's a ritual trying to teach concepts, so that we can achieve endowment in our lives. Don't confuse the two. There's a difference between the presentation and the power.
"Here's my one sentence summary. It's the power and capacity to come into the presence of God and receive a fullness of his blessings, period. That's what the endowment is trying to do. It's the power and capacity to come into the presence of God and receive a fullness of his blessings." - Anthony Sweat
