Jason and Nate journey into the meaning of the center place. Along the way, they talk about the sacred center in Near Eastern and Greek religion. They explore paradise restored through the temple. Jason builds on the idea pointing out that any point is essentially the center of a sphere and how the universe does center around us. Jason then explores how do we make sure our sacred center is placed on the right point of emphasis. Nate makes some powerful connections to creation and us as God’s children.
Transcript:
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we explore the weekly Come Follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with Yuck Norris, quantifiably the greatest Mario Kart player this side of the Mississippi.
What’s up, Nate? How are you doing?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: It’s true, by the way. Yuck Norris, your boy there he is.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: All right. With this episode, I’m actually going to start things a little bit backwards from how I normally do it. For whatever reason, as I was getting ready for this week and looking at the scriptures, I kind of felt like I wanted to start with section 57 and work my way backwards, rather than start with 51 and work my way forwards.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I like it.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: We often run out of time at the end anyway, so sometimes it’s good to hit some of those things at the end that maybe have a little bit more value, I think, from my perspective.
So starting off, Joseph Smith is instructed to head to the land of Missouri and to go check it out, at which point he will receive more information regarding the building of Zion, this city, this new city, new Jerusalem.
And when he gets there, this is where we receive Doctrine and covenants. Section 57. The idea that independence is going to be the center of this new city that is going to be built, the city of God.
Before I dive too much into independence, it really stands out to me, this concept of go and do this first, and then I will tell you more about it.
And for me, sometimes that’s how revelation works for me. This sense, this idea that I get a thought or an inspiration or an idea and I have to first act on it, I stop what I’m doing, go look for a notebook or journal or something and write it down. And as I start writing it down, that’s when I start receiving a little bit more context or a little bit more detail or information. And all of a sudden, as I’m thinking about it and I’m acting on it, more things start coming to my mind, more things start kind of filling in. It’s like the Lord is always trying to prime the pump. This here, I’m going to start with this and then see what they do. Act on this. And as we act on it, that’s when the heavens kind of open and we receive even more inspiration or revelation guiding us to take the next step or what the next step even is.
All right, Verse three, it says, behold, the place which is now called independence is the center place. And the spot for the temple is lying westward upon a lot, which is not far from the courthouse. And so as I read that, to me it really stands out, this idea that independence is the center place.
What does it mean by center place? And what’s the significance of the center place?
So I’ve got this quote from Heber J. Grant.
He says the Garden of Eden was located in the area of present day Missouri. It is difficult for me, as we travel from Adam on Di Ammon down to Independence and back and forth to Liberty and up to Kingston and to Far west, to think of this as the Garden of Eden.
It is, in truth, today, a beautiful and verdant place.
It may not be known to you people, but to us it is the center place. So there he is using that term again. But to us, it is the center place because it is where the commencement of the inhabitation of human beings upon the Earth began.
So this idea of it being the center place, according to President Grant, was because here is where the commencement of the inhabitation of human beings began upon the Earth.
And this resonates with me back in school as I was studying ancient Near Eastern studies.
This idea that the center place, the sacred spot, was the moment or place where creation took place was very prevalent throughout most of the religions.
So according to the Near Eastern religions, and when I say Near East, I do not know if that makes sense to everybody.
It really comes from European study as they were studying the world. To them, the Far east was what was really Far China, Asia, going back to the Far East, near east, which was closer to Europe, so it was east of them, but it was more near. So this, we call this Middle east is more modern terms. Near east is more ancient terms, but both refer to the same region of the world.
So when we say Near Eastern studies, Babylon, Egypt, the Mitanni, the Midianites, the Canaanites, the Israelites, all of these different groups, the Hittites.
So in these religions, they thought that the waters that covered the Earth first receded on a raised hill.
And this hill where the waters first started to recede, that covered the face of the Earth in the beginning, when God created, God stood on that first dry spot of land, and that’s where he created the rest of the Earth in these different religions. So if we go to the Babylonian tradition, the Eninu temple built by Gudea represented this primordial hillock that first arose out of the chaotic waters. So they’d look around and he had chaos surrounding him, but the hill was where God stood And he was going to impose order on the chaos.
And this spot where God stood and did this was where the temple in Ninu was built to commemorate that action, to commemorate creation.
According to the Egyptian view, every temple was seen as representing this primeval hillock, this primordial mound that rose first out of the waters. So you go look at the Temple of Karnak. I don’t know if any of you have seen pictures or depictions of this temple of Karnak.
They have all these pillars that represent this foresty, swampy area. And these temples are built to represent the very beginning, this act of creation at the start of the world where life begins. And each one of these viewed this as the center point.
Hebrew tradition, the primordial mound was the first land that emerged from the waters of chaos during the creative period. And it represents order and definition amidst the unruly, chaotic waters.
And then Greek tradition, it’s a little bit after the near east, but, you know, it’s close.
The site for the Temple of Delphi was chosen because Zeus let two eagles out, and the eagles flew around the world. And the point at which they met was to represent the sacred center of the Earth, where creation began.
And the sacred center that was the Temple of Delphi. That’s where they erected the temple. And all of these traditions, they never chose the site. It was always God that revealed to them where the center of the earth was. And they would call it the navel of the Earth. And it’s interesting that they call it navel, because the idea that the navel in the point of creation is where the baby receives nourishment, if you will, from God, the word of God, the strengthening, whatever the case may be. This is where the earth received its instructions from God, received its order from God, received its life force from God, so that it could grow up and progress and be what it is today.
Hopefully, that makes some sort of sense.
But all of these traditions celebrate and commemorate the center of the earth being at that spot, and not just the center of the earth being at that spot, but the idea that creation takes place in that center.
And so as we are talking about independence being the center place, the place, it’s interesting to me that it’s not just the center of where the city is going to be, but God is also revealing to Joseph Smith that this is the point at which creation took place in the world. It matches all of these other religious footprints that we see from all over the place, that this sacred space in the temple embodies creation.
And it Embodies our beginning, our genesis, our origin.
Now, not only is it the center, but because it’s the center, we can orient ourselves from this point and taking us to a different temple, not just the one in Independence where the cornerstones were laid, not just the center of the earth there.
But I find this concept of the center unique. And you look at the Salt Lake Temple on the, let’s see, what would it be? The west side of the Salt Lake Temple is engraving the Big Dipper.
And the cool thing is it’s not engraven into the granite. It’s not like they chiseled out stars into the block. What they did is they chiseled all the block away from the stars so that the stars are raised out above the granite. So they engraved everything but the stars, I guess, if you will. Right.
And they set up an observatory outside of the temple and did this so that the Dipper would point to the North Star, this fixed central location that never changed in the sky every night, so that the temple itself was aligned to the heavens.
And not only is it fixed and aligned to the heavens, but all of the coordinates, the city and everything and how it is laid out was built across this center. So I grew up 1486 West, 10, 400 south, which really meant it is 1486 blocks west of the Temple and 104, let’s see, 10,400 blocks south of the temple. So you always knew where you were in respect to the temple because that was the center place. And then the temple was fixed and oriented to heaven, being that God is the center upon which the temple is built, upon which all of these foundations arise. So regardless of which temple it is or which sacred center it is, it’s almost this idea that the temple itself embodies a sacred center.
And maybe that’s what’s unique about the earth, is the earth is shaped like a globe. Right?
Any point you choose on it is going to be the center, because any point is going to be equal distant from every other point. You go all the way around it and you’re going to end up right back to the same. I mean, that’s the cool thing. If it’s a rectangle or a square, you can find a center. And this is obviously this point is equidistant from everything. But on a globe, any point is equidistant from anything. Now, all of a sudden, every temple could claim to be the center.
Every temple could claim to have that idea that God is revealing to them. And to take it even one Step further. Every person, as a temple that embodies the spirit of God is that sacred center.
We can be the center place that God chooses to visit, that that Holy Ghost. Like you’ve pointed out, Nate, as you talked about, the importance of the role of the Holy Ghost, that it is a divinity, a God that can be with us. And the fact that he can be with us makes our temple, our body, a temple, because now it can house a God. And that was the whole purpose of a temple through all of history, was just to house a God, whether it was the Greek gods that had statues built inside of it, that you go and you feed and wash and clothe and do whatever they do, or us. Today, in a modern context, we say the spirit can reside with us. We can feel that spirit. Our body is templing or housing an actual deity.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: It’s fantastic insight.
I am going to pipe in there. It is so good.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you want to pipe in something else?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: No, I just wanted to say, bravo, dog.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: And I want to say if that is the case, then this idea that the temple embodies the center and the creation. Now think about the temple in our ordinances today, in our temples today.
It celebrates the creation. It goes through the whole creation story. It goes back to that origin. It goes back to that genesis.
And how do we apply this?
First of all, how do we do this in our own lives? What are we centering ourselves on?
What is it that is most important to us?
Is our sacred center based on sports? Is our sacred center based on finances? On wealth?
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Mario Kart is our sacred center based.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: On Mario Kart or any other form of entertainment?
And this is what I find unique about the Ten Commandments.
God does not say, don’t have any other gods.
He says, don’t have any other gods before me.
Almost like he is saying, it is okay to have other gods, just don’t put them above me in priority.
And not to go down a polytheistic road or make this kind of weird, but when we’re talking about our center and what we found ourselves on, what guiding principles, what becomes most important? And you look at God when he calls youth on a mission, you think about that time in their life. Wouldn’t it be more convenient if you said, why don’t we just wait to call him on a mission until after they finished their degree, until after they finished schooling? Or why don’t we wait to call them on a mission until after they found a wife and kind of settled in and started a family and started creating those things or why don’t we wait to call them on a mission until after the kids are out of the home? Now they’ve got some experience and now they’ve got some stuff done. Why don’t we put any of these things first? And maybe it’s God saying no other gods before me, in a sense of put me first. I know you’ve got a lot going on, I know you have a lot you need to get to.
But for once at this point in your life you have this opportunity to demonstrate that there is no other God before God. He is the first priority for us. And we center our lives around him and his will, trying to put that above our own desires, finding a way to self control, right?
If we are finding time to make sure we are studying our scriptures, we are understanding, we are praying that we’re feeling the spirit, that we’re learning as opposed to maybe some other activities that we get carried away with.
If we, I mean to put it in more modern terms, if we get caught staring at our phone all day and looking at social media or whatever the case may be, and all of a sudden we get tired and it’s time to go to bed and we haven’t gotten our priorities done to our family or to our work or to studying and trying to put God first in our lives, then all of a sudden our center is off.
And maybe we have put other gods before us.
So I don’t know. Going back to this idea that independence was going to be the center place, I do find it unique or interesting that all of these temples do have this idea of centering around this sacred space. And if we center around this idea, center around the temple, how that fills out and pushes to every other part of our life.
And going to the idea why is it that the temple would embody the Garden of Eden, this point of creation? And if you go back to the story of creation, this is the place that God actually walked on the face of the earth in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve.
So if we talk about what man lost, at one point in time we were in the presence of God and just walked and talked with him.
And what lost that was this idea that we partook of the fruit. And Adam partaking of the fruit, not so much. Maybe the fact that he took of the fruit as much as he did something that he knew he shouldn’t have done, right?
He has rebelled or done something that will cause him to separate from the presence of God, he loses that presence.
And God puts Cherubim And a flaming sword to guard the way to keep him from going back.
And this sacred space, the center, when we start building these temples and recreating it is giving us a chance to return to paradise, to return to that sacred space that was lost.
And what are we finding when we return to that place?
Well, originally, God was in that sacred place. So our return to this sacred space is a return to the presence of God.
And think of the first tabernacle you had, the Holy of Holies, which was inside of it, had a throne, an ark, Ark of the Covenant.
And what was separating the ark of the Covenant from the holy place was a curtain that had cherubim sewn into it.
Now, in the holy place, you had the menorah, the seven branch candlestick that was shaped and designed to look specifically like a tree.
And this represented the Tree of Life. This represented Christ.
When John in the Book of Revelation is given a tour of the temple, he hears the voice of Christ saying, I am Alpha and Omega. And he turns and looks, and he sees the menorah as a symbol of Christ.
Nephi, when he prays to ask what the meaning of the tree was that his father saw in a vision.
Instead of seeing a tree, he shows him a virgin Mary in the land. And he shows him this virgin giving birth to Christ. And then he says, now do you understand what the tree was? What was the tree? The tree was Christ. What was the fruit of the tree? That’s the atonement, Christ’s fruit. What he did was, was the atonement to be able to save mankind. For God so loved the world that he sent his Son, the love of God was this idea that he would bring us back into his presence. So this menorah would symbolize not just the Tree of life in the Garden of Eden, but also the presence of Christ. So you have God in the Holy of Holies. You have this Christ, this tree, and this holy place. And then what separated the holy place from the outside world was another curtain that had cherubim sewn into the pattern of the curtain and the temple, they said as they were cast out, the temple would face in an eastern direction and you would have to travel from east to west to go back into the garden, because they were cast out to the east of the garden. And this idea that they would be passing through cherubim that stood as sentinels to guard the way to the Tree of Life that was in the holy place. And to God, who was in the holy of Holies, this idea that a trip back into the temple was a trip back to our very beginning to restore everything that was lost.
So when I see this description of independence and this part of Missouri as this is the center place, I don’t know. To me, it reminds me of this whole idea of restoration and creation. And because of the Fall, this idea that Christ has brought us away to come back to the Promised Land.
And I guess that’s the next point. They call this the Promised Land. And what actually is the Promised Land?
Because the Promised Land has meant so much to so many different people at so many different times. Right.
When you go to Abraham, God promises him this land in the Canaanites, but his family relocates to Egypt for several hundred years, even though the Promised Land was hundreds of miles away.
And when they go back into the land of Israel and claim it, that becomes their Promised Land. But did God not also promise Lehi and America now all of a sudden became this Promised land.
So the idea or the concept of a promised land is that God has promised a paradise, a restoration, an opportunity for us to return into his presence. And we get hung up because in here, Independence, Missouri, or Kirtland, Ohio, or Salt Lake City, Utah, or whatever the case may be, this moving target, this idea that God is promising this land that sometimes may be redeemed or we may have to wait to redeem, but. But the point is sometimes, as the scriptures say, we have to be strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land. And even though the Lord has promised us a land, we search for a different kind of promised land, maybe something that we find more in the Temple. This idea that there is a paradise waiting for us, even greater than what we see here in this land. This idea that we can return and. And live with God.
But. Sorry, I don’t know.
I’m talking a lot.
Okay. Something else interesting about this being the center place. If you look up the very center place of the United States of America, it’s actually not that far away from Independence, Missouri. It’s just a little bit west in Kansas.
It is about right in the middle of the country from north to south. And it is about right in the middle of the country from east to west.
So when he is talking about it being the center place, it could be that he is talking about this idea that the new Jerusalem, the city, is more than just a small city as what we would think of it today.
Maybe it is not just independence, maybe that is the center place, but the entire United States was meant to be this light on a hill for the rest of the world or this New Jerusalem from which God was going to be revealing his law and bringing a way for the gospel to go the entire world over.
I like that interpretation because it is interesting when you go to the dimensions given for the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation, remember that dream, the vision where the angel shows up with a measuring stick and says, hey, hey. Measure this and measure the gates and measure this. Well, the angel measures the city of New Jerusalem and it is about 1500 miles wide by 1500 miles tall, if you will.
And 1500 miles, the United States is about 1500 miles from Canada to Mexico, north to south. So I mean, that fits that direction, but it’s a little bit longer than 1500 miles if you’re going from coast to coast. But if you’re talking about a single city, really, he’s lining out a city the size of the entire nation of the United States and calling that the city.
But where this gets.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I just thought of this. You could cut out both the east coast and the west coast and it probably would be like 1500 miles and would be the dopest city ever.
Just get rid of the east coast, get rid of the west coast. Sorry, all you Californians.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Ouch.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Sorry, Sorry. Wife and family in law.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: They’ll always be a coast, right?
[00:24:45] Speaker B: J.K. j.K. J. Well, I don’t know. Yeah, I guess technically. But I’m saying the city in theory could just chop off both the east coast and the west coast and just be all of us cool guys in the middle.
Just kidding. Everybody kind of in the middle.
Just doing some quick maths, man. I’m just doing some quick maths.
Makes sense to me mathematically, it is interesting to me.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: And not trying to slam anybody on the coast, I like the coast. When the Jaredites went on their journey and they jumped in their little vessels and they had all their animals in the boat and they float across the ocean, whatever the case may be, and they finally reached a land, you would think the journey is done. Like, hooray, we have made it. But that is not where the journey ends. The Lord says, okay, now that you are here, I want you to travel even further, several days into the wilderness and travel more towards the middle of the country.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Just saying, man.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: But what would we be without the coast? I mean, that’s. There’s a lot of culture, a lot of beauty, there’s a lot of cool things out there.
But it is interesting. 1500 miles. 1500 miles. And, and you’re right, I mean, if you, if you trimmed off the coast, I mean, if you took the crust off the bread, it would about fit into that. But they’re also talking about a square. And the United States is certainly not square. But where this gets even more interesting is it’s not just length by width, but it’s also by height.
And I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but 1500 miles is extremely high.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Isn’t that into outer space?
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. To give you a point of reference, the International Space station is only 154 miles away from us.
Okay, Excuse me, I said that wrong. It’s 254 miles above us.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Okay. Okay.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: And the mantle, so the crust is only 10 to 12 miles thick.
So 1500 miles jets way out there into space, like, really far out there.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: Unless we start digging down, dog.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: But even if you start digging down, you only have, like, 10 miles before you hit the mantle.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: All right, well, haven’t you ever heard of the hollow core Earth theory? Haven’t you seen the new King Kong movie?
[00:27:05] Speaker A: No, I haven’t.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Okay, well, it’s not that great. And I know everybody’s gonna get all mad at me for saying that, but come on, it was corny. But don’t. Don’t you know that along with, like, the flat Earth, that there’s, like, a Hollow Earth theory, too?
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Yep, yep, I have heard the Hollow.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Earth and that inside the Earth is, like, these ancient, like, worlds and things.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Have you.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: That’s part of that thing.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: I have. I have heard of it.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: So maybe saying. Just maybe.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: But I’m saying I don’t think it would be 1500 miles down.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: All right, I know that we’re still going into outer space. I’m just trying to make sense of all of this. Okay, Jason, I don’t know that any.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Of this makes sense.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: None of it does.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: But here’s some interesting little bits.
If you were to put the entire world population shoulder to shoulder, just standing up one huge rock concert.
Nate.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: All right, now we’re speaking my language.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: If you were to have everybody in the entire world to attend a single concert, if you will, standing shoulder to shoulder, the entire world population would fit inside of Los Angeles.
So as large as it seems like we are, as many people as there are, we’re not that many.
And granted, you’re not going to be living shoulder to shoulder with somebody that’s pretty tight and pretty constraining.
But if you look at how densely packed the city of New York is, or living conditions in some of these areas, the key is vertical.
And if we were to put people to the same density of New York, we could fit the entire world population into something like the size of the state of Texas living.
Right.
So if you’ve got this 1500 mile by 1500 mile and then it’s up 1500 miles in the sky, not only could you fit the entire world population in that space, you could fit the entire world population of everyone that has ever lived on the face of the earth throughout all of history.
Which is interesting if you think, you know, the city of Enoch and all the people that have passed away, and the idea is at the end of the world, they will come down, that the city of heaven is going to come from heaven and join us here on earth, that maybe there is some vertical building involved in a future city design.
Honestly, I have no idea. For me, it is a lot easier to look at some of these things in the past and see how they could be fulfilled or how they have worked or what we have come through. Hindsight is always 2020, and I look forward, and I have a hard time imagining how all of these things work. Work, how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit. So for me, I don’t usually like to spend a ton of time talking about what’s going to happen, what it’s going to look like, how is it going to be?
But I’m prepared to be amazed. I’m prepared to be impressed.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: I’m afraid of heights.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: I’m with you.
I’m with you. I was afraid of roller coasters as a kid because every time I went on the downhill part, the wind would blow on my face and I couldn’t breathe, and so I just didn’t want to go on them.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: I liked roller coasters until I got old. And then it started just making me, like, dizzy.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: So hopefully I get to be down close to the actual ground if we’re starting to build up.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Who knows what the future holds and how close we are or what’s going to happen? And I’m sure it will all make sense and it’ll flow actually quite natural. And it’s not to say that we shouldn’t spend time talking about the future. It’s not to say we shouldn’t be discussing these prophecies and these revelations, because absolutely, they are given to us for a reason. And the Lord tells us, study the signs, understand it. And I think a lot of people out there, as they read these things, as they think about these things, open their minds to inspiration, to help bring some of these things about.
And it is cool. The Lord talks about prophecies dealing with the millennium. And he says there should be no more death, that people will live to the age of a tree and then they’ll be twinkled.
And you look at science today as we are understanding how the body works and unlocking what the breakdown with the passing of age and how that affects us and what it does to us, we are getting closer to making discoveries that I wonder if it is not going to be a lot more natural, a lot more smooth and a lot more subtle than what we would think it would be. And in looking back, in hindsight, having gone through the other side, we say, wow, it did happen. I just didn’t see it happening like that.
But keep your eyes open, keep seeking inspiration, because who knows, you might be the source to bring some of these things about.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Jason, I’m going to throw something to you. As I’ve been listening through, you’ve been blowing my mind, by the way. It’s great stuff.
Something that keeps coming to me and I think that it just became super clear kind of while you were talking about this stuff, is that all things lead back to creation. Right? Like that’s, that’s truly the.
This is what we’re trying to achieve, that God one allows us to do as humans, but that the goal after this life is to.
Is to achieve some sort of exaltation. To do what?
To create. Right. And the beauty of creation, which again is interesting because you contrast that with what Satan does and he can’t create anything new. All he can do is fake, I guess, or cheapen creation or get us to. Get us to.
To cheapen it or to degrade it, or to use truly the power of God in cheap ways. Right? Does that make sense? And so I kind of want to throw this back to you for a minute because as you’ve been talking about that, it’s like, what do we learn in the temple? Creation.
Right. All of the things that we talked about today are the idea of going back into the presence of God.
You know what I mean? And all of the things that center around the idea of creation.
I just want to throw that back to you.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah, super glad you brought that up. You’re right. It does come back to this idea of creation. And when Christ says, come, follow me, it’s more than just doing what he does. It’s this idea that we get to participate with him, do his work. Right. He’s giving us callings, he’s giving us opportunities to represent him. But even more, the gods are giving us power to, to create as smart as science is, as much as we’ve done, we’ve never figured out how to create life. It’s always done through this natural process. Even cloning involves taking an egg and putting genetic material in it and then putting it back in the womb of a mother and using life to create life. Because that’s one of the laws of science, is life only comes from life, this idea of creation.
So going back to maybe last week’s episode with the letter that they or the revelation they received for the Shakers, it says in verse 15 of Doctrine and Covenants, section 49. And again, verily I say unto you that whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God. For marriage is ordained of God unto man, wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. And all this, this is the part I want to really hit all this, that the earth might answer the end of its creation.
So what was the whole purpose of the creation of the earth was so that man and wife might be able to come, follow me, be like God to continue to create, to be creators themselves.
And it’s fascinating to me as you bring this up and talk about this Satan, when he did not follow God’s plan or when he was rejected, when he was cast out, he did not take his one third followers and go create another world to do things their way. There is no creation, there is no world, there is no power. They kept not their first estate, they lost it. And they could not create on their own. So what do they do?
Everything they do is to try to pervert or destroy the creation of God.
And when you talk about this, I mean, even with this, this idea with the Shakers, let’s take the very one thing that is most key and central to us being humans. And from one side of the angle, let’s make it look wrong. Sinful marriage is wrong. Sex is wrong. Having kids is wrong. This is a sin, because this is something that men enjoy.
It’s not, let’s not do it. And then from the other far end of the spectru, let’s cheapen it.
Let’s put it out there in front of everybody. It’s no big deal. Everyone should be doing it. But in either case, you’re trying to pervert or destroy that which already exists.
And just like viruses, according to science, viruses are not alive.
They cannot recreate on their own.
So you say, well, how do you kill the virus? Oh, virus is already dead. It’s not alive. There is no life but viruses are almost kind of like Satan because it’s this weird. Maybe it’s alive, maybe it’s not. It acts like it’s alive, but it doesn’t have any way of creating on its own. The only role of a virus is to destroy everything else, and that’s how it lives. So a virus, when it gets into your cells, when it gets into your body, what it has to do is get the genetic code that lies at the center of the virus into the nucleus of a cell. And we have all this immune system, all these defenses that stop it. But if it can get that little strand of DNA into the nucleus of a cell and that strand of DNA gets read, then all of a sudden that code hacks the cell and shuts down all of its normal features so that the cell can’t function as a normal cell anymore. The only thing it can do is create more viruses, because a cell, a virus, can’t create more viruses. It’s not alive. It’s not ability. It has no ability to create, has no ability to reproduce.
But a cell does. And if it can pervert that cell, if it can destroy that cell, then it’ll make that cell, create more viruses for it. It enslaves that cell, and then a whole virus army is unleashed. And then all these other little viruses attack all the neighboring cells and so on until your body can kind of shut it down and stop it. But this idea that Satan is like a virus, he’s not alive, he’s not living, he’s not creating anything. The only thing he can do is try to get God’s creation to shut down, to stop, to destroy. And it kind of comes back to that central point of creation, which is.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Why, like you said, I guess, like godliness is in creating and wickedness is, you know, destroying. I mean, as simple as that might sound. It is interesting, though. It’s like.
And then you look at just our approaches to everyday life and all those types of things. But it is interesting because, again, as we’ve been talking about this, you’ve brought up a lot of times God became man so that man could become God.
And the idea that Christ was the perfect figure that fit both his role as deity and also as human. Right.
But it’s very much all of those, the symbolisms, even in childbirth, like we’ve talked about, too, you know what I mean? The blood and the water and Christ with his getting pierced inside and all of the other various things like that too. But just like in personal experience, truly the closest I’ve ever Felt to God was watching my children being born, like actually being there and experiencing creation. And if, you know, if God created. Created man, what was their purpose? You know, Adam is.
What is it that man might have joy or whatever. I guess I’m just saying it’s like there is so much joy in creating something. It’s why I love music. It’s like why I love the idea of seeing something that starts as an idea that ends up becoming a thing. Right. I love architecture. I love those things because there’s joy in the idea of creation. And so if Adam felt that men might be. Men are. That they might have joy, like, what is the ultimate joy?
For me, it is creation. It’s creating.
I don’t know.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: You don’t see foxes or monkeys getting together and putting together a work of art or putting together a concert. I mean, there’s something different about humans that. Than everything else in the animal kingdom.
Even in our sense of conservation and our sense of trying to maintain or trying to preserve or tame the elements or make sure things last or creating. It’s that divine spark. It’s that God nature in us. And God has got to be the most selfless person in the universe. And why is he so selfless is because he cares so much about his children. That idea of. Of loving us, of sending his son to save us, of caring for us, I think is a big part of why God is God.
And so if you take that one thing that will make us like him, and all of a sudden we are trying to care for another life, we’re creating life, trying to preserve it and do everything we can to give that child its best shot at life. I mean, it’s the most godlike thing we can do. And yet Satan tries to convince the world that that’s not right.
That’s sin, that’s pleasurable.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Well, like we talked about a couple episodes again, why God holds life so precious and that the ultimate sin is taking an innocent life or basically using.
Portraying God or playing God incorrectly. Right. And without somebody’s.
Or taking away somebody’s free will without their, you know, without their. Not permission. Obviously, if you kill somebody, they wouldn’t have given you permission, but you know what I mean? Like, taking somebody’s free will away from them is playing God in the most bastardized way. You know it is.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: And I’m so glad that you brought up not just the creation of life, but as you talk about creating music or creating art, you look at the very first thing in our history. You go back to Genesis, And God said, and it was done. God created, and he created the beautiful world. Not everybody in this life is going to be able to have an opportunity to have kids. But everybody here is still able to create something out of their own life and to create something in the space around them and contribute, whether it be in the sciences or the arts or whatever the case may be, we still have ability to create. And you’re right, it does bring us a sense of joy or a sense of accomplishment. And it’s something that I think binds us to our Father in heaven. It makes us different from the animals around us.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: It’s awesome. I love it.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got for you this week.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: That was dope, Jason. You did good, buddy.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: I hope so. There was a. There’s a lot of rambling on there.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: No way.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Made sense.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: That was good stuff, man. That’s what. That’s what. That’s. That’s why they pay you the big bucks to do this.
What are we talking about next week?
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Next week we’re talking about doctrine covenants, sections 58 and 59, being anxiously engaged.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: In a good work anxiety, baby. I love it. Love it.
All right, all right. Oh, that’s my line. All right. Until next week.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: See ya.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: Peace.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Sa.
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