“Hearken O Ye My People”
This episode dives into the first Come Follow Me Lesson for Doctrine and Covenants and explores how the Lord signed the book using a rare form of Hebrew Poetry discovered in 1978 called the Janus Parallel.
Trnascript:
[00:00:10] 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 and add a little insight and unique perspective. I’m your host, Jason Lloyd, here with my friend and this show’s producer, Nate Pyfer.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: What’s up?
[00:00:26] Speaker A: This year we’re going to be focusing on the Doctrine and Covenants and just give a little bit context to the Doctrine and Covenants. In the early days of the Church, Joseph Smith had been receiving all sorts of revelations, and he had a collection of the Revelations, and there was discussion on whether or not these revelations should be revealed to the members of the church.
They wanted to publish them so the church members could have them, so they could review them, so they could see what was going on and see that the Lord really is speaking to a prophet in modern times. But they were also worried that their enemies would use it for bad, that they would be using it kind of digging in and accusing them or seeing what the Lord is doing here. A little bit of discussion and debate as to what they should do. And ultimately they decided to publish it. And originally they decided to publish it as the Book of Commandments. And as this thing evolves and the revelations get built up into it, they turn it into what we see today as our Doctrine and Covenants. And at the start, when they’re writing this book and they’re compiling all these Revelations, they wanted a preface for it. So they got this committee of elders together to write a preface for the Book of Commandments, which would become, as we know it today, the Doctrine and Covenants. They got together, they hammered this thing out, and they had a special conference. So here you have this conference of elders in the Church. They present their preface to the Doctrine and Covenants.
Everybody hated it. They thought it was terrible.
No love, no joy. They didn’t like it. They said, throw it out. And as they were discussing this and trying to figure out what to do, they said, well, we’ve got a prophet right here. Maybe he could ask God and have God write the preface, give him a revelation to introduce the Book of Commandments. And really that’s what section one turns into, is the revelation that the Lord gave Joseph Smith and the special counsel as an answer to what should we preface this book with that we’re going to be publishing out to the saints.
So this episode, we get to dive right into that. Just see how the Lord is introducing Doctrine and Covenants to the world. It does a pretty neat and unique way in how he signs this Book of Commandments. And puts his voice right into it. And what I’m talking about is, in verse one, the Lord starts using a form of poetry that we don’t really use in English today. And the first one to notice this poetry was Cyrus Gordon. He published a paper in 1978. And trying to explain it, identify it, name it, he called it a Janus parallel. Janus. The reason why he used Janus for the name of the parallel is because Janus was the Roman God who had two faces, right? One face looked to the future, one face looked to the past. And in a Janus parallel, you have three lines, and the first line states something. The second line agrees with the first line, and then you have the third line, but the second line also matches and goes with the third line to where it just ties the three lines together in a real unique way. And I think the best way to illustrate this is to just probably show you an example of this in the scriptures.
So Song of Solomon’s my favorite book. I was going to say this. This is right up your alley right now.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Anybody. Don’t tell anybody.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: So Song of Solomon, chapter two.
We’ve got.
We’ve got. We’ve got this example. Just a second. I gotta open it up on my. Here we go.
So if you’re. If you’re there. If you’re not there, that’s great, because I. I almost want you to listen to this and not follow along just so you can kind of fill in the blanks for me. So I’m looking at verse 12.
They’re describing spring coming here.
Springtime here in the earth. He says the flowers appear on the earth. So that’s line one. Got it. Flowers on the earth. I’m going to skip line two for a second. And then line three says, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
And I know that sounds a little bit weird, like. Right. Turtles singing.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Come on, what was the name of that tune by the Turtles?
Yeah, wasn’t it?
No, no, that’s Crosby still snatching. Right. I’m looking it up real quick. Continue.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: All right, well, you’re looking that up, the Hebrew here. It’s not. It’s not turtle. Really?
[00:04:52] Speaker B: It’s so happy together.
Continue.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: This is supposed to be turtle doves, right? Okay, a little different.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: This not the turtles or the ninjas.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: No, no, none of the above. And not in the twelve days of Christmas spirit either. Right. Well, I guess it is the more twelve days of Christmas. Right. Two turtle doves. Okay. So the voice of the turtle doves. So Here we are describing spring. First line, flowers appear on the earth. Third line, the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. So the middle line says the time of. And then right here, I’m just going to leave a blank. The time of blank is come. Because in Hebrew, the verb that they use right here, and in ancient Hebrew, they wrote with consonants, but they didn’t supply any of the vowels. And so if you’re a translator, you’re looking at this word. If you supply one vowel, the word means blooming. And if you supply a different vowel, then the word means singing. So you’ve got to choose. How are you going to translate this? Is it blooming or singing? So now if I just read the first and the second line together, the flowers appear on the earth. The time of blank is come. I mean, what’s your choice?
[00:06:06] Speaker B: I’m going to say blooming, right?
[00:06:07] Speaker A: It fits. It’s blooming. The time of blooming has come. But if you were to take this line in isolation and just put it into the third, then the time of singing makes sense because you can hear the voice of the turtle dove. And that’s the genius of the Janus parallel is this single word. Untranslated actually meant both at the same time. It meant singing, and it meant blooming, and it linked the two lines together beautifully.
And Joseph Smith, right here, he is getting this Revelation and the Janus parallel. This is 1831. Nobody notices or discovers the Janus parallel until 1978, when Gordon Cyrus writes and publishes this first article of this discovery and shows us all these examples in the Old Testament. So how is this a Janus parallel? If you go to Doctrine and Covenants, Section 1, and you read what the Lord says, he says, hearken, O ye people of my church. Okay, that’s line one. Hearken, O ye people of my church. Who’s he talking to in line one?
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Are you asking me, Nate?
[00:07:10] Speaker A: I’m asking you, man.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Whatever, man.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Don’t leave me hanging.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Okay, I’m leaving you hanging.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Members of the church. Okay, so he’s talking about members of the church. And then he. In the second line, he says, yea, verily. So he’s. He’s confirming. He’s adding to it. Yea, verily of truth, I say, hearken, ye people from afar, and ye that are upon the islands of the sea. Listen together. Now, that might seem strange. Here he is, he’s saying, hearken, O ye people of my church. Yea, verily, you that are far off and upon the islands of the sea. Listen together. This is 1831. We have a conference of elders in this room. And the church is not that spread out. It’s only been around for one year.
You don’t have more than a couple hundred members of the church. And so when he’s talking about it, he’s looking down the road. This is not just the book of Commandments anymore. He can see this is going to be a book that’s going to last hundreds of years. And I need to address not just this small group of people are here, but all of my church that are afar off on all the islands of the sea. This is the role of the gospel. It’s going to go forth, it’s going to fill the world. It’s very prophetic.
And you can think, who has that kind of confidence at the beginning, if they’re establishing a church to say, yeah, this church right here is just going to take off and fill the whole world.
This is the Lord speaking.
But it doesn’t just match that line, because you look at the next line. So line three. Verily the voice of the Lord is unto all men, and there is none to escape. There is no eye that shall not see, neither ear that shall not hear, neither heart that shall not be penetrated. So if you look at that line, the third line, you look at it again and say, oh, he’s not talking about you people of the church. Church. He’s talking about you people everywhere.
So maybe he was just addressing a small group of people, right? Where does this line fit? But if you look at this line, it’s phrased in a way that it fits the first line and it fits the third line. It’s this Janus parallel. It looks back and it looks forward, and it has two different meanings, but unifies the whole thing into one beautiful passage. And it’s the way of the Lord saying, look, this isn’t Joseph Smith speaking anymore, but this is me. This is something I’ve used in the past. This is how I speak. And this is my voice to everyone.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: And what I like about that and what you’re describing is that to anybody else, like to a simpleton like myself, that just looks like it’s redundant, right? Like, the first line is to the small people of the church, to the islands of the seas, which the church hadn’t been to at that point, and then pretty much to everybody, it’s like, if you or and I were to write that, or really kind of anybody that doesn’t know of the Janice parallel, we would just write, well, this is for Everybody, if we were making it up, there would be no need to kind of go through all of the different redundancies in that line.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.
And if you want to see something real cool right before we skip out of this, have you ever seen that round seal picture in the Pearl of Great Price?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I used to look at that during sacrament meeting all the time instead of listening to lessons like last week, I mean, when I was a kid.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Okay. Facts.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: I mean, like every week still. I just look at it.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I don’t look at it as much as I used to, but.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: But you know, you did as a kid.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Absolutely. I don’t know who didn’t. If you didn’t, you’re not being honest with us. All right, so if you go, you go to the cell. This was something I always thought was weird. Like right in the center is this picture of this weird beetle looking dude. Right? It’s got antenna coming out of either, either part of his head.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: And these two little eyes is like this, this weird triangular face and it looks like a beetle to me. And I could never understand what that was. And. And if you look at the top of the seal, it has a guy that’s got that same kind of face.
I didn’t realize this actually until a few years ago. If you put your finger on half the face, all of a sudden it doesn’t look like a beagle anymore. It’s a face that’s facing one direction and then you block it off with your finger on the other side. So now this will give you a reason to pull your Pearl of Great Price out in sacrament meeting again.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Again. Yeah, like I do every week.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: You’ll see the face facing two different directions. This whole Janus God, I mean, it’s made its way not even just into the Doctrine and Covenants, but you see it in the Pearl of Great price, which is kind of cool.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Very cool. Very cool.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: All right, moving on to the next part. And there’s a lot to unpack here in this section, but this next part I, I find kind of interesting that catches my attention is when it says that.
No, I. Right. Everybody’s going to be. Everyone’s going to hear this. But also it says in verse three, the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow, for their iniquity shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed. You’re talking about a time, 1830, when you didn’t even have the pony expressed yet. Like, communication was terrible and it takes a long time to be able to hear what’s going on by the time. Like, if you’re waiting a couple weeks to find out how someone’s doing, you’re hoping to get the highlights. It’s not worth it to wait a few weeks just to find out, like, hey, I bumped my head on the corner of the door or something, right?
But as communication sped up, the cost of information got cheaper and cheaper until more information started to spill out. And just to kind of give you an illustration of how this played out in America, think about this. Congress from 1830 to 1860 had 80 acts of violence.
These guys were brutal. And when I say acts of violence, we’re not talking like slapping him with a glove. One guy nearly got caned to death. And they would bring guns to Congress for it. They would shoot guns. They would get in duels. People died.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: This sounds awesome.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: It was brutal.
And these are like your representatives, right, that are supposed to be all dressed up nice, and you’re put on a nice outward show. And they would whitewash the media like, you didn’t know what happened behind closed doors. The reason why we know all of this happened was because of the journals of the congressmen that were in there, and they would write about some of these incidents, and it would come to light years later down the road.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Because you’re saying that the media had the audacity to not correctly report what was going on in Congress. Is that what you’re trying to suggest?
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think it was easy. Hold on, though.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Are you trying to suggest that the media would dare incorrectly cover and report on what’s going on in the world as if they might have an agenda? Are you suggesting that that could possibly.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Be real and, you know, say what you want about the media today. Oh, I will.
But I think in a long ways it’s gone. The scrutiny, the exposure, the transparency has in some ways tamed not just Congress, but a lot of things. Not to say that bad things don’t happen anymore, but when you’re talking about a process of taking the press that’s involved, you’ve got plenty of opportunities to shut that down or to censor it or to do whatever. And what really reformed everything and changed the world, or at least changed Congress, but it really did change the whole world. Was communication spreading a lot faster than what people could even control or put a lid on things that the Pony Express was was invented during this time and it only lasted 18 months before it was antiquated by the Telegraph and Samuel Morse when he sends the very first Telegraph. He writes, what hath God wrought? Right.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: He’s oh God, what have we done?
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Yeah, well, he doesn’t say what we have done. He says, what has God done? Like he gives credit to God on this and says God is doing something that is going to revolutionize the world. And it did. All of a sudden. I mean, it didn’t take long from 1860 when the first telegraph is sent. 1866. Six years later, you already have a transatlantic cable dropped in the ocean and people in Europe are hearing instantaneously what’s going on in the United States.
It’s crazy.
And this communication, this speed to communication, it makes it to where like I think you even see this. When you were a kid, you remember like stories in the news were significant and today you read about articles in the news and you’re like, who cares? Like even the mundane things are being reported, like what somebody had for breakfast or what some celebrity did over the holiday. Like all of a sudden that’s worldwide news, right?
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Unfortunately, yes.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Because all of this information now, all of a sudden it travels a lot faster. It’s a lot more out there. I mean even we’ve got our own podcast that’s hitting the world.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Everything’s awesome though. That’s awesome.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: It is pretty awesome.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: You had kind of mentioned earlier when we were talking about this, how even like where like you said, like all these acts of violence were happening in Congress and people didn’t know about it for weeks where now if somebody commits a crime, you, you can, you know, you’re reading about it basically as it’s, as we’re, get, as anybody’s getting information on it. You’re reading the text messages that they sent earlier that day. You’re getting all of their search history from their computers. I mean, it’s like it’s no longer, you know, taking weeks to get this information, but you’re basically, you’re basically getting all of the information about every single corner of their life as it’s happening.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yes. And as you know, the things that make the news the most are the ones that are scandalous. Right. When we talk about the iniquities being spoken on the housetops, it’s when somebody screws up that everybody hears about it. It’s when somebody, you know, it’s, it’s scandalous, it’s wrong, it’s, you know, I was just reading about a babysitter who had killed a two year old kid. They were babysitting. And not only do you hear about this all over the world, but you hear about what they were thinking. When you find out that her Internet search was, if I want to hurt a child, does that make me a bad person? You’re like, wait a second, you’re seeing not just the wrong that’s happening, but some of the thought process and looking behind some of the hidden things that are now being published along the housetops the world over.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: So let me ask you this question because again, I’m kind of just taking a look at this again, and I guess my question is, is the iniquities being spoken from the housetops, considering we all blow it all the time and we all basically now on a daily basis just give away our personal information and our current thoughts and whatnot, Is this, I mean, is this, other than being embarrassing for everybody, is it like in the big picture, is this a bad thing? I don’t know, like morally, like at some point, like, is this. Is the iniquities being spoken of? I mean, I don’t know, is it better that they stay in the shadows or is it kind of evening the playing field that everybody has their. You know what I mean? Everybody has their dirty laundry, basically, that they’re putting out into the world, you know?
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Well, I think the transparency is really pushed to. To tame the world. I think you look at, you look at the world we live in today, in our society, as much disruption as much is going on, we live in a much more peaceful place than what people have lived in historically in the past. And you look at the wars that people have fought in the past, and all of a sudden the wars that we fight today, you’ve got these small bands of terrorists. You’re not fighting nation against nation, because anything a nation does is going to be published the world over and the rest of the world is going to condemn that nation. Now all of a sudden it’s one person versus the whole world. You don’t want to find yourself on that.
All of a sudden you have countries that are playing more nice with each other, at least pretending to get along and trying to keep things on the up and up so that they can claim the high ground if things do escalate.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think about this. I had a conversation with one of my buddies, Spencer, and he said that he had this idea for a movie one time where at one moment every single person on earth had everything they’ve ever searched for, every text conversation they’ve ever had about anybody, good or bad, behind their backs or whatever, any movie they’ve ever watched, anything they’ve ever looked at, basically any Digital. Any digital track record was immediately available, and you could just search that person and you could find every single person in the world’s, like, track record. And it’s funny because, like, as you talk about it, what’s your. What’s your, like, initial. You know what I mean? Physical reaction to that? It’s just like, you know, like, oh, no. You know, it’s like the thought of that seizes your stomach, but then there’s something that’s. That’s very. In a weird sort of way, like, equalizing.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: It’s true. It’s true.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: In a weird sort of a way.
I don’t know. It’s. It’s an interesting moral question because, again, I don’t. You know, I bet you if you ask any single human being that has any sort of digital, you know, footprint, they probably wouldn’t want every single thing that’s ever been, you know, said or done digitally put out in the world because of, you know, how embarrassing it would be. But I don’t know. I mean, there is. That is an interesting kind of, like, idea of everybody’s iniquity shall be spoken upon the housetops. It’s like. But what if. What if it was, like, the great equalizer?
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Well, it’s all the stuff that you’re keeping on the inside, right? You’re. You’re. Your thoughts, the things that you’re trying to hide.
It’s almost like wearing clothes to cover yourself up. And then all of a sudden you find that you’re naked, like, the whole world can stare at you. That’s extremely awkward or embarrassing or at least I would think that would be for most people. I don’t know, some people might be a little bit more comfortable than others.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Weird.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: But. Yeah, but if all of a sudden, like, you’re saying, if all of a sudden you’re not the only naked person in the room anymore. If all of a sudden everybody’s naked, like in the locker room after gym when you’re showering, but everyone else is showering, all of a sudden, it’s not quite so shameful and not quite as embarrassing as if you were showering in public and everyone was staring at you, right? I mean, like you say, there’s. There’s almost something comforting knowing that you’re not the only one out there.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: You’re not the only terrible person, I guess. Right? The thing is, it’s funny, too, because then what it basically does come back to is the. In my opinion, maybe the. The root principle of it, which is. Oh, so basically everybody would see you as God sees you. You know, I mean, like, that’s. That’s kind of what it comes down to is that God does see. God does see all of the things that we might be able to be hiding from, you know, because of embarrassment, you know, kind of the Adam and Eve situation, that it’s just like, yeah, we can hide those for a time, but, you know, what. What would the world. How would we treat each other if. If everybody’s like, ugliness was kind of on full display? I don’t know. I think that there’s. Whatever. And that might. That’s probably not for this, for this podcast, but that there’s. I don’t know, it gives me something to think about. Like, what if truly we did see everybody as God sees them and everybody saw us as God sees us? I think it’d be a very humbling. I think. I think we would be a lot nicer to each other. In a weird sort of way. It’s like, I think we would be a lot more compassionate and patient and, you know, forgiving if we, you know, truly did see each other as Gaza.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Well, absolutely. I think that takes us actually to our next part of this podcast when we start talking about measuring. Yeah. Because you might not be so willing to dig into somebody’s intimate details if you don’t want anyone else seeing yours.
And that’s where measuring comes in. Because if you look at doctrine covenants and you’ve got here section one in verse nine and ten, so two verses. We’re talking about, you know, a couple lines here. Yea, verily to seal them up to the day when the wrath of God shall be poured out upon the wicked, without measure unto the day when the Lord shall recompense unto every man according to his work, and measure to every man according to the measure which he has measured to his fellow man. That’s a lot of measuring.
Mentioning it four times in two verses. And this is kind of a point that God has driven throughout his scriptures, this idea or concept of measuring and the first kind of exposure. Well, unless you count the creation, right in the creation, there’s a lot of measuring that’s going on in creating the planet and dividing the water from the darkness and how it’s organized. But really the first kind of exposure where you get to this measuring, in my mind anyways, is if you’re reading the Old Testament. I don’t know how many of you guys have done this. You go through Genesis, and it’s actually pretty exciting. You’re talking about giants in the land and all sorts of weird things.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Floods and, you know, whatever else. But then you get to Exodus, and it’s still kind of interesting because you’ve got this face off between Pharaoh and Moses. Like, here we go. The whole Exodus is happening. Pretty exciting. They get into the wilderness, they start complaining about all sorts of things. You got birds and meat and manna and whatever else. But then you get to the point where they’re building this tabernacle. And that, to me, is where all of a sudden reading turns from this asphalt path where you can just kind of run along and be interested into, like, this sand, like quicksand. Like, all of a sudden you get stuck and you’re trying to make it through it because God.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Wait a minute. You telling me that I’m the only one that loves reading about cubits?
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Well, that’s it.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Like, I can’t possibly be the only one that loves reading about cubits.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: It’s. It’s four chapters long of all the details of how this temple is going to look, this tabernacle. And maybe if you’re into building models, this is great, because you want to have that idea of the curtain being how many cubits by how many cubits or the ark of the covenant and what materials you’re using and the tatchets and how many and all the little details just four chapters long, right?
[00:25:30] Speaker B: My favorite. Dude, my second favorite song, Solomon, is first cubits and whoever begat. Whoever begat. Whoever begat. That’s.
It’s all up there. It’s my top three.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Yeah, those lists, the. The. The generations, the beginning of who and the cubits, man, it just. It just slows the reading down for me. And it gets kind of exciting in between. You get this old golden calf and, you know, some of the stories in there, but. But then you get back to cubits again, because first four chapters was God giving Moses the instructions. And then the next four chapters is Moses following the instructions. And it’s right down to the detail again, four chapters worth of this stuff. And it happens again in Ezekiel. And I can’t help but think of this poor prophet. Like, I look at Nephi in his vision and the cool things that he sees. And he sees Columbus sailing across the ocean. And I think of Isaiah and his cool vision, and he sees all sorts of things. He sees Christ coming. He sees his atonement. He sees the end of the world. He sees everything, right? And John the Revelator and all his cool visions. So here’s Ezekiel, an angel of the Lord’s coming to appear to him. He’s going to have a vision. I could just imagine him rubbing his hands together. Yeah, here it goes. What does. The Lord got prepared for me. It’s almost like, you know, patriarchal blessing. Exciting. Let’s hear this man.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: No, not this time. The Lord’s like, hey, Ezekiel, check this out.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: I’m giving you.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Here’s some cubits.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Here’s a yardstick. Here’s a yardstick. I want you to measure this temple yard by yard, like. Like cubits here.
Just like Exodus. It’s four chapters long of him measuring this temple.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: I’m sorry, Ezekiel, how deep is the water?
[00:27:10] Speaker A: How big is the gate? How tall is the wall?
The whole thing, Right? And so it’s not just that the Lord, this is here in the Scriptures.
It’s that it was transmitted to the point where we have it today because we don’t have the original Bible written by Moses, all preserved for thousands of years, that we look at and we reference in order to get our scriptures today. Instead, what we had was scribes that would rewrite this thing word for word over and over again. And I don’t know about you, but if I was a scribe and I got to these four chapters about all of the qubits and the details, I’d.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Make somebody else do it.
Don’t they have an intern?
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s the new monks. They jump in there.
But if it was me, it would be kind of tempting to, like, maybe write it down once, the first four chapters, and then next I’ll say, and then Moses built it exactly how God.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Commanded him, and then he did it exactly like we just got done.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: And I might even be shorter than that, and just say, you know what? God gave Moses instructions. Moses filled them out, temple done.
But they didn’t. And they wrote it all out by hand. And I think there’s a message here.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: What is it? Because we need to know, I think.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: That God has given us very specific measurements, and we are comparable to the temple. Not only just building a temple here, but this book of commandments that he wrote. These scriptures that we have are giving us the measurements that we need to use to build our lives. And ultimately, it’s come, follow Christ, follow his example. He is the ultimate measurement that we need to measure up to, which we.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Can’T do in this life perfectly at least.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: But as we seek to build ourselves and pattern our life after him, we are finding measurement in what we do, and we’re applying that measurement to us. And just like, if you’re building a house and, you know, you take a board and you measure out, you know, 45 inches or whatever the case may be. You cut the board at the inches, you keep the part you measured. That’s what you. That’s what has. Use the part that’s not measured. You can either use it to measure something else with or you throw it away. You’re done with it.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: I think. I think it’s something that, again, like, that stands out to me in this section that I feel like it’s kind of important to highlight is that you just said it is that we naturally, I feel like, find ourselves measuring up to other people or we try to measure up to other people, you know, and not only that, but we try to measure up to what we perceive of other people. And it’s a flawed system to begin with, right? Because again, one, we’re measuring up, you know, to an imperfect person.
And not only that, but we usually don’t know to the extent of, like, the imperfections of other people because again, we do such a good job of curating our brand, you know, whether it’s on social media or whatever it is. And the idea is, is that we don’t. We need to be. If we are trying to measure up, like you just said, like, again, I just. I kind of just want to throw that in there because again, like, I. I know that that’s a. It’s an easy thing to do as another human being is to, you know, we’re trying to measure up to something that’s not real, which is the expectations of. Of what we, you know, of. Of our neighbor or of. Or of somebody that we see on TV that. That has used 17 filters to make themselves look as good as they do, you know.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
And, you know, not only are we trying to measure up to the right thing, right? We’re. If. If you’ve, like, kind of an example of what you’re saying, right? If. If God’s building a mansion and, say, his walls, the stud height needs to be 96 inches, but somebody else’s little Hubble that they’re building down the street, they’re using something that the height needs to be 86 inches. If we cut all our boards to 86 inches, that’s of no use to God, right. If we’re measuring ourselves up to somebody else, if we’re chasing this ideal, that’s not the measurements that God has given us. We’re building the wrong house. We’re not the right sized instruments for what the Lord needs.
The book of Revelation, I think it’s master in kind of building this all together, because when he’s talking about the promised blessings, he says, you’ll be a pillar in the house of the Lord. You will meet that measurement. You will be in here, established in his house forever. And John had received one of these visions, too. He’s talked about Ezekiel, where he’s got.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: To see a good one, though, right? John got to see beasts and, like, dudes with swords in the Apocalypse.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: He got to see all sorts of fun things.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Ezekiel got a measuring tape. He got to walk around looking, trying to use his thumb to kind of eye the height of cubits.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: But John also had to do some measuring.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Okay, all right.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: And when he measured the temple, God said, leave this part out because it’s going to be trampled. And that’s the thing. If you don’t measure up, he says, don’t measure. It’s not worth measuring if it’s not going to be saved. And maybe the last thing that really we should highlight from this is every man according to the measure which he has measured his fellow man. So not only are we trying to. I mean, verse nine, God poured out his wrath upon the wicked without measure. We have this whole idea it wasn’t measured. And so his wrath is also poured out without measure. This whole God’s measurement, right? And if it meets up, you’re blessed with every blessing is tied to a commandment that you. But if you’re not measuring without measure, this wickedness is poured out on you. But not only do we have God’s measurement, but right here at the end, every man according to the measure which he has measured to his fellow man.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Because if we’re. If we’re critical, going back to what you were saying earlier with. With all of our stuff being on display, if we’re super critical about everybody.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Else’S not meeting a, Like, a righteousness, like, standard. Right?
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If we’re. If we’re super critical and saying, hey, that. That doesn’t measure up right there, that’s not right. And we’re going to hold them again, hold that against them and say, your measurement isn’t good enough. Well, that same measurement that we’re applying to them, we sure be better ready to fit that bill. Or we don’t measure up as well. We. We become our own judge on how we judge others.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: I like that.
All right, let’s keep moving.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: All right, next little section here. Next little point.
The wrath of the Lord is being poured out, and he talks specifically about Calamities. And I think it’s kind of.
I think it’s kind of neat that here you have a prophet being called the lord in Amos 3. 7, says, Surely the Lord God will do nothing save it. He revealeth his secret to his servants, the prophets, right? So he’s called a prophet, and he’s going to preface this address here to the world, saying, there are things coming. I need to get the ball rolling. The world needs to be prepared for Christ to come in order for that to happen. There’s a lot of things that are going to happen here, and that’s where we pick up in verse 13. Well, verse 12. Prepare ye, prepare you for that which is to come. For the Lord is nigh in order for that to happen. Verse 14. The arm of the Lord, or, excuse me, 13. And the anger of the Lord is kindled. His sword is bathed in heaven, it shall fall upon the inhabitants of the earth, and the arm of the Lord shall be revealed. And the day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people. And here we’ve got this idea. Verse 17. Wherefore I, the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith Jr. And spake unto him from heaven and gave him commandments. If the Lord is going to be pouring out destructions like go back to Noah, before he could put a flood on the earth, he had to have Noah go out and give people commandments so that they knew what they needed to measure up to before all of his judgments poured down without measure on them.
What calamities? I mean, as we talk about this, has there been any calamities since Joseph Smith has been called? No, none whatsoever.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Of course not. Wait, are you asking me?
[00:35:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: The answer is no.
Not that I can think of.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: It’s fascinating. You know, we’ll dive into this a little bit more detail in some later sections. But the Lord, you know, he talks about these calamities and he says it’s going to start in his house. And we look at how these saints suffered, and they had to really go through the fire to find out, you know, how committed they were and build that faith and that foundation that was going to last. These poor guys were walking through the snow with bloody feet and they had their property stolen. People were raped, murdered. Just a horrible thing. But as soon as the saints were pulled up out of the country. Then all of a sudden, the wrath for the country that didn’t protect them was turned on. Then we see the civil war being spilled out, and then that war spilled out to the nations. You look at Europe and World War I, World War II, you have never seen destruction like this in the whole history of the earth.
And things changed because you talk about Joseph Smith’s time and you talk about the United States. This was the very first country in the world that had a constitution where the people gave their government the authorization and limits to what they could do. This was a government for the people, by the people. Something that has never happened. We’ve never seen a written constitution as far as I know. As far as scholars have said, we’ve never seen a written constitution in the history of the world.
And now all of a sudden, in order for the Lord to bring agency to man, this is the whole design and plan from the beginning. To get that agency. You’ve got to free them from the yoke of bondage. You’ve got to break the oppressors the world over. And this is the calamity the Lord’s talking about is you’ve got pharaohs all over the world, and the Lord is trying to gather Israel, let my people go. So you’ve got this comparison between Moses and Joseph Smith. Now you have a new prophet that’s being brought up to try to bring the people out of bondage and spread this agency across the world in 1986. So in this time, we’ve got one country with a constitution. 1986, all but six countries in the world now had a constitution patterned after the United States. It was the United States single greatest export to the world.
And all of this violence and this war and these calamities had a part to play in reforming the world to be able to accept the gospel and gather Israel to prepare for the coming of Christ.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: It is incredible.
Like, as you were saying that it’s interesting because again, I think that sometimes we think, oh, yeah, Joseph Smith came to help usher in the new dispensation to free people from spiritual ignorance or for. You know what I mean, for a lack of, like, not. Not having the fullness of truth and more of like a. A spiritual freedom. But in. In all reality, I mean, this was also ushering in the greatest push for like, actual physical freedom of the world. You know what I mean? And again, it’s like, it’s obviously, it’s still. There are still things that linger even now today, where, you know, you still have Oppressive governments and stuff like that. But, I mean, all things considered, you know what I mean? You had a ruling class up till this point in every nation, and the ruling class ruled, and then the lower classes played their role, and that was it. But it’s an incredible even to look at that not just as a spiritual freedom, but as a physical emancipation, too.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And Joseph Smith said it. We’ll see this in Doctrine and Covenants throughout this year as we start talking the question of this New Jerusalem to Zion, where is it? And Joseph Smith said, this is Zion, the American continent. This is the New Jerusalem. And it’s cool because Isaiah said, out of Jerusalem shall go the word of the Lord. And we see that Christianity, Judaism, the Bible, all of this is a product of the Old Jerusalem. But he says, out of Zion shall proceed my law. And here you have this constitution, this divinely given gift here in the American continent. And all of this setting the stage for this reformation, the Gospel, and this changing of the world and all of these calamities, everything. We needed a prophet to kind of start this off, kick this off, warn the world and get that ball moving so that we could change the world and bring the Lord’s law from Zion out of Zion to the world to prepare it.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: I love it. Let’s keep going.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Okay. And this really fits into the next part, because the Lord is talking about the weak things. You know, you’ve got Joseph Smith, this uneducated farm boy who’s going to be changing the world. But not just that. Remember, this message is God’s message to all the people from across the time, not just Joseph Smith going out and changing the world. But the Lord is going to be using weakness to push his message. Even today in verse 19, the weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones. That man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh. And when I read that last part, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh. I think about our missionaries today. Like, if I had a chance to be a missionary right now, I think I would be a much better missionary. But when I go out there, I’d be talking about things as we’re sitting here talking in our podcast, and my experiences, my educational background, and the counseling of men as we sit down and discuss these things and try to convince people logically of this, you think, why can’t we make better missionaries that have cooked a little bit longer, have that experience or that background? But I Had a missionary report his mission last week and he was called to serve a Spanish speaking mission and he did not know Spanish at all. You have your MTC Spanish, of course, but he is lost. People are having conversations. His companion is Hispanic, he’s down in Mexico, he’s got a Mexican companion and he can’t speak and communicate with his companion, his roommate, the only person he’s round aside from the city that he’s in. And nobody can understand him. He has no one to lean to. He can’t trust in the arm of flesh. He can’t counsel with his fellow man. He’s lost. And where does he turn? He’s about ready to go home and he turns to God in his desperation, in his hour of need, this humble young man turns to God and is strengthened and is edified. And the Lord uses the weak, not the strong, not the, the ones that trust in themselves or have confidence or arrogance if you will, but the ones that are humble enough to turn to God. There’s something pure about that that reaches and touches people’s hearts.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: And I think too, especially when it comes to kind of like the idea of, you know, would we be better missionaries now than we would have been? And I agree with you where I’m just like, well, I feel like I maybe just know a lot more just like information. But it’s interesting because those things I feel like literally get in the way and become, become too much importance is leaned on those things or put on those things instead of the most important thing, which again like, you know, you would hope that it, that an 8 year old could have, which is like. Yeah, well, when, when I pray I feel the spirit and I feel like I’m, you know what I mean, I’m actually communicating with God, which is the message that 100% of the people that we’re teaching, you know, and that are, that are, you know, potentially becoming converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s the message that they need. You know what I mean? Like, that’s the simplicity of what we actually should even now be trying to better communicate. You know, obviously as we’re sitting here on a podcast talking about all the, you know what I mean, like the periphery information. But I guess I’m just saying is like, it makes so much sense to me and it’s funny that you use the word weak when it, when we’re talking about this because like, I mean if we’re going to be completely honest with it, it’s like there’s strength in not letting so many of so many of the, the surrounding details kind of get in the way of the message, which is, Jesus Christ lived and died on a cross and because of the, and was resurrected. And because of that, we can be forgiven for our sins and we will be resurrected. Right, right. And, and, and, and when you look at, when you look specifically when you look at this verse about the idea of the weak things, I think, I think it’s the weak things in the eyes of the world or in the eyes of man. And, and, and the ruling, you know, it talks about kings and, and you know, the, the rulers being broken down by the weak things. It’s like, well, the rulers see this as, as, you know, as weakness. That I only know this limited, you know, amount of, of maybe information.
But, you know, I think that we can look at it objectively and go, man, like, if, if a young man at 17, 18, whatever, 19 years old can go to somebody else who’s just trying to, to believe in God and can say, hey, I don’t know a lot about all this other stuff, but the one thing that I can tell you is that when I pray, I feel like somebody’s listening. I mean, it’s like that’s what else. You know what I mean? Especially at least early on, what else needs to be said.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Right? And you see that even in the New Testament play out a little bit when they say, well, I’m a convert of John’s or I’m a convert of Moses or I’m a convert of Paul. Right? We’re not supposed to be converts of people as converts of Christ. Right. I’m not after people trying to be converted to my gospel or my teachings. It’s about people turning to God, not trusting in fellow man, not trusting in your ideas or what you say. But because you trusted God and you showed me how to trust God, I’ve learned to follow him.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: And there’s something that’s just, I feel like truly powerful about vulnerability. And again, like, we, I feel like, you know, maybe as kids, whether we perceived it that way or not, it’s like there’s this idea that it’s like you go to church to, to not pretend, but to definitely play the role of like, oh, I’ve. We are like the perfect Mormon family. And we don’t, you know, play with friends on Sunday and we always use our right hand to take the sacrament or whatever it is. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s like, it’s like you go, you. There’s a, there’s a, there’s an idea that you go to church to. To be righteous and not go to church to uplift each other that are also. Lift the other people there that are also struggling with things. Right?
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: And. And it’s again, it’s funny because again, we use the word our weaknesses. But the times that I’ve been the most edified going to any sort of a church meeting is for the person to go, actually, I don’t know. And I actually have a lot of doubt. And I’m trying to figure this out because I’m like, whoa, wait, me too. I’m just saying, it’s like the. The idea is like, there’s. There’s again, it’s. It’s funny that we use the word weakness, but there’s strength in vulnerability. I hate using the word weaknesses. You know what I mean? It’s like, yeah, maybe I do have a weak testimony of, you know, tithing or whatever it is. And there’s such strength in being able to be like, hey, I actually don’t know about this. And to have a few other people go, hey, actually, I don’t know about this either, but we’re kind of all in it together to figure it out, right? There’s strength in that.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: One of the most empowering things is when you realize that you’re the weak one. Right? Christ didn’t come.
He says he’s the healer. He didn’t come to the healthy, he came to the sick.
He ditches the 99 that don’t need any help and goes for the one that does.
It’s when you realize that you’re not as smart as you thought you were.
You don’t have all the answers. Like you say, there’s strength and weakness. And when we realize that we ourselves are weak, that’s where we become our.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: Strongest and we lean on God. I mean, that’s kind of the underlying message, right? Is when we’re humble and when we can accept our weakness, we stop leaning on the arm of flesh and start leaning on the arm of God.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: And then it becomes our strength.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: Yep. I love it. All right, what else we got?
[00:47:48] Speaker A: And there’s a lot to unpack here, but, you know, it’s the voice of God speaking. It’s hard not to see all sorts of things that we just want to highlight. But to really end this, I think we’re just going to talk on one more talking point.
And that’s where it says that every man shall speak in the name of the Lord. And this is a revolutionary idea. When you talk about Joseph Smith’s time, not too long before him, they wouldn’t even let the Bible be published in English.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: The clergy, not long before that I was going to say, yeah, like only the clergy could even read it, right.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: And even now in this period, I mean Joseph Smith, he’s growing up in a period called the Second Great Awakening. And you’ve got all these pastors and all these religious people, but even here it’s the pastors that control the conversation, it’s the ministers, it’s the clergy that’s driving that conversation. And Harvard University, one of the first universities established here in America, was a university established for the ecclesiastia, for the church, for the pastors to, to be educated, to be able to guide the sheep, to be able to, to teach the people. That’s what education was for when they first got here. And it was the educated people that would be speaking. And now the Lord is saying that it’s not just the pastors, it’s not the blind leaving the blind, but he’s going to say sorry, just second. Let me track that verse down, it’s in verse 20.
But that every man might speak in the name of God, the Lord, even the Savior of the world, not just the pastors. Here you’ve got a 14 year old boy who’s educating the world on the nature of who he is and the Godhead and all of these revelations. But it doesn’t just stop there. It doesn’t say every member of the church, it says every man might speak in the name of God. All sorts of people all over the world. We don’t have a monopoly on truth. We’re not the only ones that receive inspiration. But inspiration has been coming through your scientists, your doctors, your physicians, poor people that you didn’t think would amount to much in historically speaking being suppressed. But now all of a sudden you have these new opportunities and these people rising up from anywhere that God is pouring his revelation that all man might speak in the name of God.
And the reason for this, that faith might also increase in the earth.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: And a quick little bump in there too is like the atonement quite literally made it so that we can communicate and speak in the name of Jesus Christ to God.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Yes, that intercessory, that, that’s a great thought because we’re not. Because now we have, with the atonement and with the restoration of that idea, now we know how to pray. Now we can pray to God in the name of His Son. And the purpose of it is that faith might increase in the Earth, that his everlasting covenant might be established, that the fullness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple ends of the simple unto the ends of the world before kings and rulers.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: See, it’s funny that they use the word weak there before simple, which I feel like is a better way to describe it because of the power of in simplicity. You know what I mean? It’s interesting. It’s interesting that again, the word weak is used, but then simple is after that. And again, like, it’s just funny that we’ve taken the word weak to mean such a negative thing when again, it’s just. I just wanted to point that out.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: Oh, I’m glad you did. It’s kind of like Isaiah when they’re talking about Christ in Isaiah 53. He has no beauty or form that we should desire him.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: And what they’re actually referring to is this majesty. He’s not coming with the crown. This title, this position, this power in a sense of political power or political clout.
You don’t have the Pope over the largest denomination of the world going through and convincing everybody that this is now the path. It’s this almost grassroots, these people without political power, without, you know, weak in a sense that you don’t have that power, that status, that claim that position to be able to doing it.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: But clearly not weak as in feeble.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: Right, right. Different kind of week. But you see that in social media as people the world over flooding social media with thoughts or giving thanks or things that they think about or ponder, or even us having this discussion here today. I mean, really, as the world increases in faith and we start to share our thoughts and share this communication and have this dialogue and we’re spreading this word that faith might increase in the earth.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: I love it. I love it.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks for joining in today. It’s been a pleasure talking with you guys about Doctrine and Covenants, Section One. I’m looking forward to next week’s dive. We’re going to be diving into the context of Joseph Smith’s first vision, looking a little bit about what was going on in the world to prepare for that moment, what was happening in the Smith family, and some of the cool things with the sacred Grove. So tune in until next time. Thanks, Sa.
This may take more time… but if you had the ability to make transcripts for your old lessons as you post them that would be a great resource.
Love what you guys do!
Will do!