This episode focuses on the experience of Enos. Our defining moments and relationship with God is unique.
Transcript:
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the add on Education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, and as you can tell by the intro music, we are back in the studio.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: The intro music. We’re back, baby.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: We’re back with our friend in this show’s producer, Nate Pfeiffer.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: I’m back, baby.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: How was California?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Great. Got a lot of work done.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Good.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: It’s a fun, you know, it’s a fun thing for the most part.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Well, it’s good. It’s good to get work done. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be recording another session, another episode of the weekly Deep Dive.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: You know it.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: These are the infamous, famous. I don’t know infamous.
The small books that kind of get squished in there that probably cover more history than the rest of the book of Mormon combined.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Oh, interesting, right?
[00:01:11] Speaker A: We’re covering about 400 years of history in just a few.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: In a few pages.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: A few pages.
I kind of like it because I think.
I think from a literary standpoint, it shows the fall of the people.
You have Jacob, which is a hard hitter, and this is our first time out of the book of Jacob. If I could just say this, if there is one prophet I wish we had more writings from, it was Jacob.
The way that Guy understood Isaiah, the way he took the writings, the scriptures, and made them come to life and understood different aspects of his life and understood the death and resurrection. I feel like that guy had a really good grasp on understanding the scriptures and could explain them really well. And I feel like he is the one that we just don’t get enough from me personally.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: But then we go to his son, Enos, which I also feel is kind of a heavy hitter. I love the words of Enos, and I feel like Enos is kind of the king of this group, I guess, as you just start going through here. But it almost feels like a descent because you go from Enos, who writes a lot, to Jerim. Well, a lot, relatively speaking, compared to whoever’s following. Right. And then Jerim and then Omni, and then just writing less and less. Like I’ve got nothing useful to say until outright they’re like, well, I was kind of a wicked man.
And you just get to like these little one liners done, and that’s it. Right. It just feels like, as these writers go, so goes the people. It’s kind of an interesting literary technique. If you will, like you see how they’re writing less and they’re less involved, and yet the people seem to be dwindling as well, just as the words of these leaders are dwindling, for what it’s worth.
But before we dive in too much, I mean, we’re coming off general conference and we’re finishing off. Jacob, did you have anything you wanted to add? I know last week I spent my whole time swimming in the allegory of the olive tree. Yeah.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Great. I actually haven’t been able to go back and listen to it yet, but I’m sure it’s awesome. I’m excited to go check it out.
I did want to just maybe briefly shout out Sister Dennis with a fantastic talk in general conference.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: I loved her talk, and I loved what she said about clothing and atonement, Adam and Eve, but go on.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I also love what she said about the sacrament where we again put on Christ as we make a new covenant each week. Appreciate that. Appreciate that.
Reinforcing something that we’ve now been saying for a year. So anyways, I appreciate her shouting out. Do you think she listens to the podcast?
[00:04:09] Speaker A: I have no idea who listens to the podcast.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: The answer is probably no.
I won’t say it for sure, but I will say in the mouth of two or three witnesses. Okay, so, but that was awesome. But what I really, everybody listening knew I was gonna have to say something about that, but. So there you go. But I did want to talk just briefly about the argument tactics of people that are going to do what they can to tear down your faith or to poke holes in your faith or question your faith. And that was one of the things that we read about last week. You pronounce it Sherrim, right?
[00:04:51] Speaker A: I did, yeah.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: I never know how to pronounce some of these words.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: For better, for worse. I don’t know.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: I’m just swing shrem shrem sounds better than shrem shrem. Nobody would have listened to a dude named Shrem.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Good point.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: But without going into too much detail, it is worth, I’m sure you probably already have. I know this isn’t any sort of deep, nuanced, I don’t know, perspective, but it is worth looking at it again from the perspective of this is the type of really well spoken, smooth talking, you know, pleasant tactics that can very much be used to take good people and get them to question their faith, get them to have their beliefs chipped away at.
It’s worth at least just reading that whole section again with the idea of like, oh, yeah, you’re gonna see this person on Facebook. You’re gonna see this person on Twitter. You’re going to see this person at work. You’re going to see this maybe one of your friends or family members.
It’s the more effective way that people can tear down other people’s faith because it’s not abrasive and it’s not belligerent, and it’s not, you know, it’s not so off putting that most sane people can just go like, oh, no, I don’t really even really want to listen to that guy. It’s done in a very much more terrifyingly effective way.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: What strikes me is interesting with this Sherrim guy is when he’s like, I was seeking an opportunity to talk with you, Jacob, right? He’s been looking for him almost like you’re talking about this very crowded civilization, and here you have this prophet that’s far removed from the people that it’s hard to try to get in front of him. But I’m remembering Jacob is Lehis son. We’re not that far out generation wise. How many people are there that he’s having a hard time getting an audience with the prophet who’s making himself so available to the people and speaking to them in the temple and speaking to them regularly? And so that little detail, for whatever reason, always just seemed kind of interesting to me. And I think, in our minds, we almost get carried away in thinking that this is a very large civilization at this point in time. And maybe they’ve mingled with native inhabitants, or maybe they’ve come across. I don’t know. I don’t know what the situation is or how many people they actually brought out of Jerusalem with them. We talk about Abraham’s family, and it doesn’t sound like it’s large until you realize that he takes his family and his servants, and everyone goes to war to go free, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. And you’re like, well, wait, how many people really consisted of the household of Lehi? How many. How many servants did he have? How many friends? How many people along the way did they bring out? And how many people are actually following Nephi? It was interesting to me to think about not being that far removed from Lehigh, and yet already it feels like they’ve got kind of a more robust society going on, for what it’s worth.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Interesting.
Worth a read. I’m sure we’ve already read it at this point, but I read it before, and then I read it again even before I was teaching. I thought I was teaching Sunday school this week for the teenagers, and I was wrong. I was not teaching this week. But it was a good chance to reread that stuff again, because that was going to be a large focus of my lesson, is start learning and recognizing the signs now of how sneaky the adversary can just sneak in.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: A lot of those tactics that we see in the book of Mormon are very familiar tactics with what we’re even seeing today. A lot of that doesn’t change. You know, maybe this is a good bridge, and I’ll start at the end of Enos rather than the beginning. In verse 25, it says, and it came to pass that I began to be old.
And so I wonder what it means to be beginning to get old, right, and how old old means. But he says 179 years had passed away from the time that our father Lehi left Jerusalem. And to me, that sounds problematic.
If Enos is Lehi’s grandson.
179 years to pass away in just two generations, that seems hard to believe.
But as you start thinking about it, I don’t know. To me, this actually almost adds a little bit more credibility to the Book of Mormon, because if you’re writing this story and you want people to believe it, who in their right mind is going to say 179 years had passed away in just two generations from Jacob to Enos?
That doesn’t make sense. Let’s make this believable. Let’s try to trim this out. But as far fetched and unbelievable as this is, it’s still possible. And I’ve heard this described a couple different ways.
Some people look at it and think, well, maybe it says at the very end of Jacob that Jacob hands the records to his son Enos.
And now in here, in first Enos or first Enos, there’s only one Enos. In the Book of Enos, he talks about his dad being righteous, but he never mentions his dad by name. And so some people have speculated that Enos had a father named Enos, and he was named after his father, and therefore, there is an extra generation in there that could account for that much time passing away. I don’t think so, because Enos describes his dad as being a righteous man, and he’s pondering the words of his father. And it’s interesting, because as he’s out here hunting in the forest, remembering what his father had taught him, it very much sounds past tense, not like his dad continuing to teach him, but that his dad has maybe passed away, and he’s remembering what his dad used to be. Teaching him.
And if his dad was this strong, righteous influence, then why wouldn’t his dad have written at least one verse, like all of these wicked men that are going to be coming afterwards, write at least one verse? It was that important to them. Surely a righteous man would have, I think we would have the records of an Enos in there if there was an Enos between Jacob and Enos. So I don’t buy that.
But I look at Lehi leaving Jerusalem, and his family is pretty much grown up, and yet he has two kids in the wilderness. And you think about Abraham having kids in his old age, you know, when he’s over, what, 100 years old, and you think, well, what happens if they’re having kids late in life? Well, then Jacob, very young.
What if Enos is another kind of instance where you’re going to see that, where another 70 years later, he’s going to have another son towards the tail end of his life, be there early on, and have, I think, almost more of an impact on his son’s life because he dies when his son is relatively young, and his son only remembers him for his wisdom, for the things that he taught him. And so you have kind of this rare, exceptional case where you can span 179 years in a few short generations. I think that’s more what’s going on. It’s, I think, a little bit harder to believe. But to me, that almost adds more validity to a book, because if I’m trying to write a book to make sure everyone follows me, I’m not going to throw in some random weird things like this that are hard to believe.
But even in our own time, Mick Jagger had a kid at 73.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: That’s too bad.
What are you doing, Mick?
[00:12:50] Speaker A: It’s not out of the realm of impossible, and especially back in the day with no birth control, didn’t Robert De.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Niro just had a kid or something, too? And he’s old, too. What are these dudes doing?
[00:13:03] Speaker A: It happens, all right. And Abraham did it. I mean, it happens. And I think it happened more often back then than it happens even today.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think back then, so much of it was you’re trying to make sure that you have your name surviving, particularly in a very new.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Land where you don’t know what the survival rate of your family is going to be, and trying to figure this out, and we’re going to do our best to try to make this thing go.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: All right.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s awesome.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Even Abraham in his old age, when you think about Isaac, he still picks up another wife and has another series of kids, even after that.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Jeez.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: It’s not impossible. No, it’s just interesting.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: It is. It is interesting.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: All right, let’s get into this. Let’s get into this story. Let’s get into old enos.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: All right.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: I love his words. I love what he talks about here.
A knowing my father, that he was a just man, for he taught me in his language. Now, this, to me, sounds like Nephi one. One. I think it’s a very familiar start. And I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore, I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father. And he talks about the language of his father. I think Enos is kind of echoing some of these verbiage. I think.
I think Enos gets a bad rap. Okay.
I don’t. I don’t know that I hear it a lot anymore, but I remember growing up thinking that Enos was taught as maybe this wicked guy that has a change of heart when he’s out hunting and he repents.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: That is how the story is told.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: And I don’t see him as being a wicked person.
I see here a familiarity with the scripture, a familiarity with his ancestry, and he’s deeply pondering the words that his dad taught that had an impression on him. I don’t think we need to paint this guy as a sinner, no more than all of us are sinners.
I don’t see that. In fact, what I see from him being familiar with the scriptures, being familiar with the stories, and pondering deeply these things, and then he talks about this wrestle that he has with God.
I don’t know. This wrestle, to me, sounds more like Jacob’s wrestle.
And you look at Jacob’s wrestle, he wrestles all the night until the sun comes up.
And it’s interesting because Enos wrestle starts, I believe, early in the day, and he talks about how it goes all the way through the day until the sun comes down, and he’s still wrestling with God. And I like that he calls it a wrestle. And it reminds me of Jacob. And I don’t think we would classify Jacob as a wicked man because he wrestled with God.
And so I see.
I don’t know. I think there are, intentionally, some similarities between Jacob and Enos and Jacob and Nephi.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Just to be clear, we’re talking about Jacob Israel Jacob.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Right, right. Sorry. Not his father. Although I’m sure there’s a lot of similarities with Jacob his father.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: But, yeah, we just want to make sure that we’re talking.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: I’m glad you clarified. Jacob, before he sees remission of his sins. Let’s see. Verse three. Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forest, and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life and the joy of the saints sunk deep into my heart.
If he was a wicked man, maybe it’s his own standing or his own soul that’s sinking deep into his heart, not the preaching of a prophet that’s really hitting him hard, but it sinks deep, and my soul hungered.
And I think we move for two reasons. I had a young men’s leader teach me this a long time ago. He said, people are like sheep. We only move when we’re scared or hungry and scared, right? He says, like, there’s no atheist in a foxhole, right? Or if you’re about to get in a car accident, everybody prays but Jacob. Or, excuse me, not Jacob. Enos is not talking about his motivation being a motivation of fear. His soul is hungering. He’s pondering, right? And so he cries to the Lord, my soul hungered, and I kneeled down before my maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for my own soul. And all the day long did I cry unto him, yea, and when the night came, I did still lift up my voice, that it reached into the heavens, and there came a voice unto me saying, enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie. Wherefore my guilt was swept away.
And I said, lord, how was it done? And he says, because of the faith in Christ. And he talks about Christ and having received that redemption, that liberating freedom, he turns his attention to his family, now, his brothers, his tribe, his people, the Nephites, and he prays on their behalf. And then when he gets an answer on there, then he even turns to his enemies, and you kind of see this progression. And I think there’s a lesson to be learned even in this. When you’re flying in an airplane, right, and the cabin loses pressure and they drop the oxygen masks, the first person you need to take care of is yourself.
And you can’t take care of somebody else if you’re not in a position to be able to help them.
And you learn that in life saving, when it comes to swimming, the best place to save somebody is from the shore. If you can avoid getting in the water altogether, you’re a lot better off. If you have to get in the water, get in the water. But the first thing is make sure that you save yourself, because you’re not going to save anyone if you can’t save yourself. Enos is taking care of himself. And even you look at the words of Christ when it talks about the mote and the beam. He is focusing on the beam in on his own eye before turning the attention to potentially any motes being in that of his family, of his kinsmen, or even going so far as to say, his enemies. Right? And so you have this progression going from the innist, the innermost circle outwards, to where he’s praying for everybody.
And when he prays for the Lamanites, it’s interesting. He is. He is praying and turning his whole soul into, if my people are destroyed, and if the Lamanites are there, can they be spared afterwards? And you’re thinking, isn’t that what the Lord had planned in the beginning anyways? Isn’t that what the Lord showed Nephi in a vision all the way to the end? Isn’t what he showed Lehi?
And I think what you see here is Enos is praying for what he is already familiar with, in a sense, right? He is praying for. He knows the words of Nephi. He knows Nephi’s visions. He knows Lehi’s visions, and he’s praying for a fulfillment, or really what we see him doing, I think, is aligning his will to God’s will.
He’s not praying that the Nephites miraculously repent of all their sins and be saved and spared. And it’s them at the last days that they’re staying standing. He already understands what’s going to happen. And he’s praying that what the Lord wants to have happen is going to come. And I see in Enos prayer similarities to the Lord’s prayer. When the Lord says, not my will, but thy will be done, thy kingdom come. And it’s according to. And I think that’s where prayers garner the most power, is when our will all of a sudden becomes in line with God’s will. And we’re praying for what the Lord wants, to try to manifest his will and to try to bring about what the Lord was hoping to provide us with. Anyways.
All right, let’s see if there’s anything else from Enos that we want to pull.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Do you ever, when you were being told, like, the Enos story, was it ever put on you, like, hey, this is how you should be praying more often?
If only we had the fortitude of Enos. We should be on our knees like this every night. It’s funny because it was always almost like from the teachers, like, I don’t take that long to pray ever. But I remember as a kid thinking, like, okay, maybe I need to try doing it. But it’s interesting. Cause I couldn’t for the life of me, you know what I mean, think of anything to do in that amount of time.
And in a weird sort of way, it’s like I almost felt guilty that I couldn’t go for, you know what I mean? Hours and hours at a time praying. But as an adult, it is. It changed a little bit. When you have kids, I think for the first time you kind of start noticing that maybe it’s not that you’re sitting down actually on your knees praying for 3 hours at a time. But I have pictures of my kids at the studio. I have on the background of my phone, whatever the newest picture of my youngest baby, whatever she’s into making a mess of at my house is the backdrop of my phone. What I did start to notice is I kind of find myself just constantly praying for them throughout the day.
Just even, just kind of in the moments, even if it’s not necessarily kind of official, I guess. I don’t know. Do you see what I’m saying? Like, it’s not as, yeah, it’s not as official as, like, I’m on my knees, I’m totally whatever. But instead I’m just constantly thinking about them. And therefore I feel like as part of that, there is constantly me just going, hey, help me, heavenly father, know what to do to make sure that I’m not screwing them up as much as possible or please protect them. They’re always on my mind, which kind of got me back thinking to what we’ve been talking about, how when Jesus says if we remember him, we’ll always have his spirit to be with us. It’s like, oh, there’s a very powerful thing I think about just constantly keeping in our mind the things that we care about and want to be remembering and want to be focusing our energy in hopefully positive ways towards.
But as a kid, I always felt guilty that I could never, like, sit down and do the whole, you know, full day knowing everybody to remember. But it was always kind of a challenge that we were given as kids. Like, how long can you go for? And I’m just like, I don’t know, man. Like, that’s, I don’t, I don’t see, maybe I didn’t understand the point and just like, hey, pray for as long as you possibly can and look at if you don’t think you can do it, look at enos. I was just like, oh, man, I’m not anywhere close to that. But I don’t know, that was kind of my only. My only thought is that the way that I now am able to kind of understand that has changed a bit.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Well, he even says in 1616, actually, I think it’s 15. Wherefore I, knowing that the Lord God was able to preserve our records, I cried unto him continually, for he had said unto me that anything you ask in faith, and I wonder continually, what does he mean by that?
And is he saying that he just kept praying forever? I don’t think so.
I think continually. That was something that was always on his mind that he continued to ask God for. And I think you get almost two examples in Enos. You get the all day and the all night when he’s seeking his own forgiveness. But once he obtained that, then maybe some of the other Prayers that he’s following up with, particularly here, that the plates might be preserved. Maybe he’s thinking of that every time he sees the plates, every time he studies the plates, or every day, he’s thinking about that, where maybe with Enos, you’re actually getting a Combination of these stories, of where something is always on his mind and he continues to pray for it. But this one story was something that was obviously a turning point for him, a big moment that he felt was important enough to record mixed with his continually seeking the Lord.
Yeah.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: And I just don’t. I don’t think we have to feel bad if we don’t have the same processes of.
Of necessarily being on our knees for an all day and an all nighter, but at the same time, like, that’s awesome if you do find yourself, you know, in a situation like that. And I’m sure that that’s probably also a pretty powerful thing, too, you know?
[00:25:57] Speaker A: And it’s, I think, worth mentioning the setting and who you’re praying with and what you’re doing.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Right?
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Can you imagine somebody doing that at church?
[00:26:06] Speaker A: That’s the thing.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Occasionally, people try to do this at the end of conference, and I’m always just like, bro, you weren’t assigned to talk.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: This was not a certain. And it almost feels like they’re trying to make up for not giving up.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Calm down, bro.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: I think there’s a balance on that. I totally think there is. And in this case, this is Enos on his own, connecting with God in nature. Sure. Which is going to lend to a long prayer where people aren’t looking at you and saying, what is going on with this guy? Right, where maybe when you’re in your home and you’ve got a lot going on, if you’re sitting there praying all day and your kids are starving because you’re not taking care of them, that might be a very different situation. And like you say at conference or a church meeting, what’s the purpose of the prayer that you’re offering, and what are the words that are most significant for that prayer? And maybe sometimes we focus too much on the length and not the quality or the purpose, the context of the prayer.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: That is a great question.
I mean, luckily, I came from a family that always like, hey, the more people that you’re praying for, the more generalized and shorter you should probably keep it just because, you know, this isn’t a chance for you to go up there and air out your wish list because it might not be the same for everybody. And I’m like, that’s a good point. But at the same time, I also come from a family that we are also like, hey, but don’t just burn through a prayer just to get it over with, too. It’s like there is a balance there, right? But I was luckily, the direction I’ve always kind of understood it is like, hey, the more people you’re praying for, the more concise and probably just hyper focused it should be on very general.
You’re the mouthpiece for a large group of people, and so try to accurately represent everybody as well as possible for that.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: And there’s something to digging deep.
I’ve never prayed all day and all night, and like I say, this to me, sounds almost like the Jacob story, the wrestle with God. And when you’re talking about Jacob’s ladder and ascending into heaven and what I mean, there’s a lot of significant things that are happening. And I think Enos here, I mean, he gets to where all day and all night brings him, essentially, to the presence of God. He’s having a conversation with God.
And I don’t know that my. I don’t know. There are prayers I remember, though, and here’s the thing. If Enos was praying like this every day of his life, this prayer wouldn’t have been as transformational as it was.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s a great point.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: He wouldn’t have remembered it. He wouldn’t have written it down. He wouldn’t have looked at it and said, this is a moment that changed me because it’s just like any other, right. The reason why this is, is because it was a one time deal. It was a significant event that changed the course of his life.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: I think that the point that you’re making that I appreciate, and the only reason I even brought it up was, I don’t think that it’s a, I don’t think that it should ever be a thing where it’s just like, well, if we can’t find ourselves in a situation where we were able to pray all day and all night and then basically talk conversationally to God face to face, like, that’s, that’s not the point of what the story of Enos, it’s not there to be like, check out what I did. But you know how sometimes, like, strangely enough, we get hung up on the details of that story that aren’t the most or kind of any of the stories in the scriptures? Sometimes we just get hung up on weird details. And then in primary, you just teach the kids enough. Like, this is the important part of that. But it’s similar to even speaking of prayers. When Joseph Smith, when we were teaching the discussions early on, very much it was, you would teach the discussion on Joseph Smith. This is when we still had the discussions. Right. It’s right before we were kind of transitioning into the come follow me or what eventually became come follow me. But I remember, like, at the end of the lesson on Joseph Smith, seeing God, like, there was a weird focus on, see, this is like the miracles that can happen if you pray and talk to God. And I’m going like, wait, what? Like, that’s what we want them getting out of this. For me, I always thought we should be getting out of this.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Jesus is back.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: The whole point of this is Jesus.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Is called a prophet.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Not, not that you. Not that, hey, if you pray well enough, miracles can happen. I’m like, yeah, that’s a good, that’s also a good point. But, like, we’re hung up on the wrong detail of this type of thing. So I think it’s the only reason I wanted to bring it up is just, I think that as I kind of try to, as it’s fun, as, as it’s been going through the Book of Mormon, it’s fun reading through some of even the scripture mastery stuff in seminary, they would teach you this stuff. And I’m like, oh, that’s a funny, that’s a great verse, but it’s funny that that’s the verse we got hung up on, on this chapter, which has so many more insanely, incredibly, like, whatever. And so I think that that was my only. I kind of laughed a little bit reading the story again, going, man, as a kid, I always felt like, kind of like, oh, man, I must not be doing this right if I don’t have something to pray about all day and all night. And then as an adult, I’m going, oh, no, that was never, that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t. We shouldn’t have ever been hung up about that side of it. It’s weird that, you know, and sometimes when you were, you know, and sometimes when a primary teacher is trying to teach little kids, it’s like, hey, this is something they may be able to grasp onto. And sometimes you don’t know how much a kid in that class might be just going like, wait. Oh, that’s. I didn’t know that was supposed to be the important part of the story. Anyways, you see what I’m saying?
[00:31:58] Speaker A: That’s a fantastic, I’m so glad you said that because as you’re saying that, I’m thinking, you know, so many stories are so unique to the individual and why are we trying to repeat that experience?
What am I going to do with an ark in my backyard?
[00:32:15] Speaker B: What are you going to do with a broken hip? Because, you know what I mean? Because you’ve been fighting with God all night. You see what I mean?
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyways, you brought up the Joseph Smith’s first vision and how many people have been praying and how many first visions have you had from that event? Right? Like, that was a singular.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: But you remember that because you had the discussions briefly, too, right? For me, it was about, I was 2002 to 2004. And so there was definitely kind of right at the beginning of my mission was very much the tail end of, at least in Oakland. Like, you memorize them, you check them off with your district leader, with your zone leader, and you can’t be a senior companion until you have all of your stuff checked off or whatever it was, right. You had to have these memorized and then you would do the practice ones where you would practice teaching in zone or district meetings or whatever. I don’t remember. It’s been a minute. But I remembered that there was so many times where at the end of the things, when you were supposed to be testifying at the end of this thing, like, bear your testimony on whatever so many times it was. And this is why it’s so miraculous. Like, the things that can happen just from the power of prey. And I just remember thinking, like, man, like, you just gave them, you just dropped the most, like, bonkers life, world changing information on them and you’re now just throwing marshmallows at them. Like, come on, bro. I’m sure they already know that praying is a good thing. What are we doing?
[00:33:48] Speaker A: You set an impossibly high expectation.
That’s like teaching. Like, just jump into the sea, man. A whale is going to swallow you.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: But don’t worry, dude, you’ll die. But three days later it’s going to.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Spit you up and you’ll be resurrected on the shore.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Or it’s just like, you can’t be bummed out that you’re not walking on water. It’s like there’s, go ahead and sacrifice your son.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: It’s going to work out.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: That’s what I’m saying. The whole thing even with, but okay, but you bring up another point. It’s funny we’re going down this tangent, but I remember also as a kid being bummed out going, man, if I had just had faith the size of a muster seed, I would be able to move mountains. And then I would just think all the time like, man, my faith must suck.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: Tell me you didn’t force try to move mountains. Of course I did.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Cause I was just like, who didn’t? And as kids, by the way, too, I feel like as a child, my faith was probably stronger as a child than it was now because you just, you’re open, you believe, right?
You haven’t had the world add in all of the confusion and kind of the deconstructive elements into your faith, right? And so as a child, there was a lot of times where I just felt bummed that I was like, man, my faith must suck. Like, all it has to be is the size of this mustard seed not to be able to move mountains and like, I can’t even like, get my parents to not get me in trouble when I’m sneaking candy from the kitchen. You know, it’s just, I think that it’s, again, whatever, I’m only bringing this up just to go, whatever you listening would or wouldn’t take out of this. What I have taken out of this is, as I’ve been reading through these things again, it’s been nice to go like, oh, I had kind of either been taught in a primary class or somewhere, maybe even just overheard kind of a offhand conversation somewhere where I always thought certain stories kind of like, set the expectations of like, what I needed to be doing to prove myself that I was like, all in. And as an adult, luckily, I’ve been able to go, oh, that was, there’s so many more important things to be learning from these stories than that one little detail.
I don’t think it’s. I don’t think that that’s the most important part of the story, is that Enos prayed for as long as he did. I think the most important part of that story is what you said, which is, as he began to really sincerely communicate and explore the things that he needed to repent of, he was able to, through the spirit, be shown a lot of the other things in which he cared about and deeply, was moved enough to just really sincerely pray for and yearn for. And I actually understand that you have children, and you see even just the briefest moments of sadness, or of them dealing with self esteem, or them dealing with the other just terrible knuckleheads that they’re going to school with or whatever it is. Right. And you just. You hurt for them, and you do desperately want to ask God for as much help as you can give him. And I don’t think it’s nearly about how long you’re praying for him, but the fact that you can kind of relate to enos when you go, yeah, I totally get what that feels like. When you just hurt for somebody or you care for somebody enough that they really do dominate your attention and your thoughts.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: And maybe it says something about enos when you’re looking at the Lord saying, I will grant anything that you ask in faith because of the faith that you have in Christ. Whatever you ask, whatever you ask. And that he’s not asking that the Nephites be preserved forever.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: That’s interesting, because I think, I mean, maybe he knew. Maybe he saw it.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, here I am reading my dad’s notes, reading my grandpa, reading my uncle, uncle Nephi, talking about the destruction of my people.
Maybe I have the awesome power to be able to change history. Maybe I can prevent this from happening. God’s saying that anything. Is it not righteous that these people remain righteous? And yet he’s still respecting their agency.
And that’s critical to the plan.
And I think it’s a hard thing for us to do as parents, is I love my kids. I’m going to teach my kids, and it’s righteous to try to help them, to gain testimonies, to gain faith, but I’m also going to respect their agency and allow them to choose for themselves what’s going to happen. I can’t take that agency away and pray that they make a different choice or that they’re going to be saved. It’s an interesting.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: I know, but I also don’t think that there’s anything wrong with asking God for as much help as he can in helping save them, too, whether that be physically or spiritually.
I know my parents probably spent a lot of time praying for me as a teenager.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: 100% I needed it.
When you get to third Nephi and he gets the sealing powers, and God, I think, describes that a little bit better and says, I will grant whatever you pray for, because I know you won’t ask amiss.
Here you have God saying, I mean, what’s the difference between this and finding a magic lantern lamp, right? And you rub it three times, and the genie pops out, and you’re like, hey, I’ll give you anything you want. Right here. He’s got God saying, I will give you anything that you want, the creator of the world.
And you’re not asking for superpowers. You’re not asking for the gift of flight.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: I would for sure ask for the gift of flight or x ray vision, but you bring up a great point, which is, I think that usually when you get to that point, your perspective is so much more probably eternal than it is temporal. And the biggest difference, usually when you’re rubbing the lamp and a genie pops out and you’re asking, all of your wishes probably have to do with very temporal or finite conveniences or comforts.
I would have to imagine that if you’ve been down the road with God enough, that God’s basically saying, I’m going to give you whatever you want.
I bet you that it’s probably very similar to what Lehi wanted when he was having his vision.
I think that you’re probably way beyond the idea of, hey, can I have all of the money, the whatever. Because whatever. If you’re speaking to God at this point, you’re probably seeing things much further than the limited amount of time that people are even here on earth.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Well, let’s. I love that you bring up Lehi in this, because let’s look at Enos vision in comparison to Lehi’s vision, because I think there’s a lot of very similar things going on. If Lehi, excuse me. Go back to Enos. If Enos is receiving a forgiveness for his sins, I look at that in parallel to partaking of the fruit, because the fruit of the tree of life is the atonement. It’s the blood of Christ.
It’s going to save us. Right? Go back to Lehi before he’s praying for his sons, before he’s trying to invite his sariah over to come and partake of the fruit he is lost.
He is wandering, and he is trying to save himself, and he can’t save anybody until he first saves himself. And when he cries out to the Lord, which is exactly what Enos is doing, this experience that Enos has, I think, is the exact same experience as what Lehi’s having at the very beginning, he’s lost. He cries out to the Lord for deliverance. He saves himself. He partakes of the fruit, and then he desires first that his family partakes of it. Then he invites Nephi, and he invites Uriah, and then he sees that Laman and Lemuel don’t come, and he starts to feel bad for them, and why are they not coming? And that’s the same progression you see with Enos, first himself, then the Nephites, and then he’s reaching out to even the Lamanites on a different degree. And it’s while he’s out hunting in the wilderness, just as his dad is out in the wilderness or his grandpa is out in the wilderness. Right. So I think there’s a lot of parallels that go along with that. And maybe. I mean, just last thought, that kind of goes with what you were saying.
Maybe the point of this story isn’t go home and pray for a whole day and night and see what happens.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Hopefully not, because I’ve already blown it.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Lehi didn’t have to do that to receive his vision.
Lehi had to leave everything behind and take his family into the wilderness to experience what he did.
Enos doesn’t. He’s not leaving his family behind. He’s not going through the same steps that his father did to get that vision.
Nephi didn’t have to do what Lehi did. He didn’t have to do what Enos does. Right? Abraham didn’t have to do what they did. Jonah didn’t have to do what they did. Start looking at it and realize that God’s plan of salvation is not a one size fits all that we just walk through. It’s a personal, individual plan. What do I need to do to partake of that tree and to have that desire to help others partake of that tree with me? And what does that solution look like for me? And it’s not necessarily going to be building an ark or being swallowed by a well or praying all day and all night or leaving your family in the wilderness. You can’t just look at what they did and say, that’s what I need to do to find salvation.
You need to find. You need to do you and find out what that is between you and God to get that solution to work.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: I love that. That’s great.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: All right.
They all kind of talk about the Nephites being a stiff necked people. Enos, he says, there was a lot of prophesying among us, and the people were stiff necked, save it was exceedingly harshness, preaching and prophesying of wars and contentions and destructions and continually reminding them of death in the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the powers of God that would stir them up, that would try to help them. And he talks about this process of how the Lord’s trying to help save his people for what it’s worth. That’s kind of the atmosphere and the nature. And even as I was reading that, I just had to say one last thing.
When you talked about God trusting you enough to say, whatever you ask, I will do, because you will not ask amiss that to me. With that being granted to Enos just tells me that Enos is not a wicked person out here trying to repent for all he’s worth. He has gained God’s trust over time to be in the position that he is.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: That’s a great point.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: All right. And I think that’s it for. For Enos. We should jump into Jeremy.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: Let’s do it.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: All right, here. Here we go. Down the descent. Right. So, Jacob, I wish we had more words from Enos. I would have loved to hear a lot more than. Than just this transfation, transformational story. But it is what it is, Jerem. I mean, it just starts to kind of wane a little bit. And Jerem, for me, is a little bit hard to follow because he talks about how terrible the people are.
Verse three. Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people because of the hardness of their hearts and the deafness of their ears and the blindness of their minds and the stiffness of their necks. Nevertheless, God is exceedingly merciful unto them. That he has not swept them off the face of the land. You’re like, ouch.
That’s kind of a hard way to end that. Look how merciful God is that he hasn’t just wiped them off the face of the earth, and then he follows that up with, and there are many revelations among us.
And then he talks about the people. Verse five. They observe to keep the law of Moses and the Sabbath day holy unto the Lord, and they profane not, neither they blasphemy, and the laws of the land were exceedingly strict. And you’re like, wait a second. Are we talking about the same people here?
And so, I don’t know. Maybe even with Jerim, you see it a little bit with enos. You see it a lot with these guys. They keep talking about how wicked the people are and yet how righteous the people are. And as much as that’s a.
What’s the. What’s the word that we. We like to use to describe this?
[00:46:30] Speaker B: Not dichotomy. It’s a. It’s a. There’s a conflict there. What is that?
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Disc. Um, discord.
I wasn’t even gonna. There was. There was something else. We use this. Oh, I don’t know, with music. Dissonance. Dissonance.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: That’s the word I was diving for. Thank you.
As much as that’s a dissonance that you hear about the wickedness of the people who get the revelations and the softness of their hearts, I still think we can see it today.
Right. I think we know a lot of people that are maybe hard to change their set in their ways, and they want what they want, and God’s kind of this afterthought. And I think it all comes down to, who are we putting first?
I’ll serve you, God, as soon as I have time. I’m going to take care of my needs first, and it’s going to be my will, not thine. It’s my will. And when I’m done, then it’s thy will versus thy will, not mine. And you’re always going to have. I don’t know. When you see these guys talking about how there’s a mixture of both. That’s what I see. Yeah. He talks about the hardness of their hearts, but he’s also remembering people where they don’t have that issue. And I think you even get down to, like, mormon and Moroni, and they talk about how everybody, at the very end of the book of Mormon, everyone’s gone astray. There’s not a single righteous person on the planet. They’re all terrible, and we’re all gonna die. And then you’re reading the sermon, and he’s talking to a group of people that are members like that. He’s talking about how wonderful. They’re like, wait a second. If they were all wicked, then who are you delivering that sermon to? Who are these righteous followers that you’re still. I don’t know. Sometimes they overgeneralize, maybe, or. I don’t know, for what it’s worth.
[00:48:21] Speaker B: Okay, so what’s up with Jeram, then?
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Jeremy? He kind of rambles a little bit, yeah. As am I.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: It happens.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: There’s one thing that I kind of take out of Jerrom that I like, and this has always kind of stood with me. It’s verse eight. We multiplied exceedingly and spread upon the face of the land and became exceedingly rich in gold and silver and precious things and in fine workmanship of wood. And I’m like, that’s interesting. I wonder what kind of fine workmanship of wood they had. I wonder what kind of technology they had, what kind of craftsmanship they had. And then it gets even better, right? In building and in machinery and also of iron and of copper and of brass and of steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and the weapons of war and the sharp pointed arrow and the quiver and the dart and the javelin, the preparations for war, and thus being prepared to meet the Lamanites, they did not prosper against us.
And you get, I think, with Jerim, this idea that they had a technological advantage over the Lamanites.
And he talks about how the Lamanites outnumbered them, which is something that has always baffled me, because in the beginning, when Lehi separates from his brothers, you’ve got Nephi, Zoram, Sam, Jacob, Joseph, and then on the other side, you’ve got Laman and Lemuel. How in the world did the Lamanites outnumber the Nephites with the amount of people that follows Nephi versus the people that stay behind?
And then to make matters worse, Jacob’s saying, look, all of you guys practicing polygamy, well, meanwhile, the Lamanites only take one wife.
How, again, do we get this lamanite crowd that is significantly outnumbering the Nephites? And I think we get it later on when we talk about all these dissenters that are coming down and joining the Lamanites? But I don’t know. I wonder. I wonder who was here in the land. I wonder who the Lamanites may have joined with or didn’t join with. What we have in the Book of Mormon is the story of the Nephites, and it is largely ignoring other groups of people. And we don’t see what’s happening on the other side of the fence. And I want to remind people of what the Book of Mormon contains and what it doesn’t contain. And it’s not explicitly naming every single people that were in this land, every alliance and every allegiance and every nation and everything that played out. So it’s kind of interesting how the Lamanites were able to balance the technological advances that we see with the Nephites with sheer number and power. And you’re like, where is that number coming from? And history’s written by the winners, right? And in this case, history is written by the Nephites, even though they’re not the winners and they’re always trying to make themselves.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: They are now. They are, briefly. They are from time to time.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Okay, here’s. Here’s something.
Here’s something interesting to point out, right? We call the Nephites the winners for the most part. But let me ask you this question.
Neve fights.
[00:51:21] Speaker B: Go ahead.
[00:51:22] Speaker A: When they first land here, and they’re established in the very first land, who gets to keep that land?
[00:51:30] Speaker B: The Lamanites.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: The Lamanites. The Nephites are kicked out. They go running for their lives, right? And they go and they establish themselves in the land of Nephi. What happens to the land of Nephi?
They get kicked out of that, too, right? So when we talk about winners and losers, how much land did the Nephites ever claim from the Lamanites and go in and take their territory in advance?
[00:51:53] Speaker B: You’re talking about land. I’m talking about Captain Moroni, baby.
Game, set, match. Dude.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: Captain Moroni lost that war.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: No, he’s fine.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: He didn’t.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Dude, the title of liberty, man. Come on, dude. We got the poster hanging up church.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: So we’re talking real nice, then.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: We’re talking stripling warriors, dude, who has the stripling warriors?
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it just. It just seems like. It just seems like the Lamanites always seem to have. I mean, we’re getting the perspective from the Nephites. Like, we were better. We were better. We were better. You say that, but history keeps showing you in your own records that you keep shrinking and losing land to these people, and you never gain that advantage. You never.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: Yeah, and we all know how the story ends. They lose.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: They lose.
Yeah.
[00:52:47] Speaker B: Maybe they weren’t the winners.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: History typically is written by the winners, but that’s what makes it so interesting.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Okay, but no, they still win in the end, though.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: The Bible was written not by the winners. Israel gets destroyed by the Egyptians, by the Babylonians, by the Assyrians.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: This is where you got it wrong. Both.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: It’s the underdog story. It’s the underdog story.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Blew this, dude. You blew this one.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: All right, let’s hear it.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Here’s where you got it wrong. In both, the Jews are still here, man.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: That’s true.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: And there’s a lot of those other nations that supposedly won, quote, unquote.
[00:53:20] Speaker A: And they’re not here.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: And they’re not here anymore, man. And there’s the jew or the jewish, like history, resiliency, it’s like they survived, man. And that’s a lot to say.
Here’s where the Nephites in the records, at least of the people they were written by, is it was still God’s word and God still won in the end because we still have their records right now. And I don’t know of any lamanite records that we have. And so, like, at the end of the day, this is, you have to look at, to me, you have to look at the long, long game. And by the way, I am admitting you have to look at the long, long game because you make some fantastic points as far as the.
Yeah, they lose all their land. They basically get completely extinct. It is as a people. So, yes, like in that sense, I have to admit you’re right. But we’re here having a podcast 2000 years later plus, and we’re going through their records and we’re still like learning about them and receiving spiritual enlightenment from their words and from their genealogy. So as far as I know, we don’t really have a lot of necessarily lamanite records. Right. And I don’t. Maybe I do, but there is something about like the perseverance and still being able to at least have your words live on with the Bible.
I still actually chalk that up to the Jews winning, man. Like, the fact that they still just keep hanging on, I think shows how much God in the end still loves and considers them his people.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: But, well, that’s where it gets fascinating, because when we get history written by the winners, it’s always skewed, it’s always tainted. It’s always, are the Romans the winners in their time? Sure. So it’s like, yeah, cool.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Well, we have a lot of history through Greece and Rome and a lot of these things, but at the end.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: Of the day, it’s like, I think.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: We just have to be careful to limit what winning and losing is on the timelines that we want to view it.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Well, the pharaoh that prevails scratches out the names of the ones that he didn’t like. Right. And he erases it. They edit history, they try to make it out to. We were, we were, we were. Yeah.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: So the way you get rewrite history.
[00:55:53] Speaker A: Yeah. You get a very, very skewed view. And what I appreciate about the Bible in the book of Mormon is it’s not written by the most powerful necessarily nation that we are the best. And this, this, I mean, you do get a little bit of that flavor, I think. But. But they rely a lot on God because they are the underdogs. They are the ones that are. That’s fair.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: I’m with you on that part. And it goes to show you that God’s people can survive. They can persevere. There you go.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: But there is something to be said about invention, technology, advances. I look at the restoration of the gospel, 1820, and I look at how the world has shaped and changed from that point to today. And I can’t help but feel that when God pours out revelation on the earth and the restoration, that his knowledge is being poured out all over the place. Yep. And I look at the lamanites being contrasted with the Nephites. And so when he talks about the machinery and the fancy and the ornate wood and the whatnot, I wonder what technology they had back then. And one verse in particular stands out later on when they talk about the day’s journey. And it says, for a lamanite, it’s a three days journey to cross that border, whereas the nephite, it’s a one day journey. And I have to wonder, is the geography that much different on that side of the line versus the other side of the line? Or do the knee fights have some sort of mechanical means to be able to transport them in? A lot better, faster time than otherwise? Also, could just be aliens.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: All right, alien technology, dude.
Killer.
I always appreciate the prep that you put into this stuff, Jason. Thank you. Good stuff tonight.
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