VIDEO: Come Follow Me Insights with Taylor and Tyler | Doctrine and Covenants 93, Aug 23-29 | Book of Mormon Central

Come Follow Me Insights (Doctrine and Covenants 93, Aug 23-29) – powered by Happy Scribe

I’m Taylor.

And I’m Tyler.

This is Book of Mormon Central’s Come Follow Me insights.

Today, Doctrine and Covenants Section 93.

When you open up the Scriptures to Section 93, we’re telling you this is one of the biggest mountain peak revelations in the history of the world. I would put Section 93 up against the most famous philosophical writings or speeches of all time. This is a game changer section, and it’s deep. It’s profound. It’s broad, it’s expansive in every way, shape and form. To begin before we dive into this section, let me start with one of my favorite quotes from President Boyd K Hacker. He said, True doctrine understood, changes, attitudes and behavior.

A study of the doctrines of the gospel will change attitudes and behavior quicker than a study of behavior will change behavior. So we live in a world that is constantly telling us how to live and what is true or making these truth claims. It’s fascinating to look at Section 93, this deep, profound filled with doctrine section. And if we take President Packers comments literally, he’s saying, if we understood this true doctrine deeply, this will have a more powerful effect on our beliefs, our attitudes and our behaviors.

Then anytime we could spend talking about how to fix the world’s problems or the ills by talking about behaviors that need to be done because it empowers agency. Section 93 is all about helping us understand who God is, who we are and who the opposition is as it comes out here. Now, just for the setting, you have the entire first presidency in Mary May of 1833, so that’s Joseph Smith, Sydney Regan, Frederick G Williams, and then you also have the Bishop in Kurtland. New K Whitney, Those are the four men who are here, and they’re all mentioned in this section, not in exactly favorable ways.

In fact, it’s new, okay, Whitney, Bishop Whitney, who commenting after the fact, giving his overview of what they had received in Section 93. Here’s what he said, quote, this was a revelation to Joseph, Sydney, Frederick and Newell by Chastisement and also relative to the father and son. It’s interesting to me that he mentions it was given to us by Chastisement. It also talks about the father and the son in there. The Chastisement section is really, really small and kind of isolated there towards the end. But the rest of the section is huge when it comes to the doctrine of the father and the son.

And yet I believe that New K Whitney here is revealing one aspect of human nature that a lot of us can relate to. And that is if you get lots of positive feedback and then a little bit of corrective feedback or something that could be perceived as negative human tendencies to focus traditionally on that little negative element that came or that correction that came. And that’s exactly what happens here. The correction is very small in comparison to the bigger section and yet if we study Section 93 with open hearts and with our minds turned upward, chances are you and I are going to individually since some places where we could improve some maybe corrective feedback from the Spirit as we then take this section and apply it into our own lives.

But our hope is that we don’t walk away saying this is a heavy corrective section, but rather wow. This section opened my mind heaven word. And I see things that I never saw before in ways that I’ve never seen them before, such that it motivates me to become more of who I have. The power to become. Section 93 should be a major inducer of power to act this empowerment of agency that we don’t need to be a victim of our circumstances as much as perhaps we feel we have in the past.

And our friend Steve Harper added to this by seeing Section 93 could also be seen as God’s theology of parenting. So we have God described in these glorious terms, like who character is and what he is as a parent. We have Jesus as the firstborn Son. And then it gets into the members of the first presency of New Key Whitney all being chastised. Or we could say differently, encouraged to be better parents, better family people. So it’s almost like God is saying, here’s who I M and here’s who you can be.

You can be like me. You could be this great parent. So there’s lots of very interesting ways to see this. And I find Steve idea Steve Harper’s idea fascinating, one that we can look at this to understand Goddess parent and his invitation for us to be like Him and families.

It’s beautiful. Now let’s begin. This particular section is so good. We’re going to try to take Mary of the verses here, since we only have the one section to cover for this week. Thank Heaven. I don’t know of any verse in the doctrine Covenant that is more powerful as far as what you and I where God gives us on a silver platter. Look, you want the formula, you want me to boil it down into just simple steps that I want you to take in order to become more like me.

Verse one, look at the order here. Verily thus saith the Lord, it shall come to pass. Notice the emphasis. There’s not a lot of condition here. It shall come to pass. Now, when the Lord says that I think we can trust that it really will happen, it’s as firm as the pillars of heaven is. What’s about to come here. So what is going to come to pass? That every soul once again, I love looking at these words like every that’s of people who. Now, here comes the conditions.

Number one, for sake his sins. Number two, and cometh unto me. Number three, and call us on my name. Number four, and obey my voice. And keep with my Commandments. Now, here’s the promise. Those five things are the conditions. Here’s the promise shall see my face and know that I am. You’ll notice here that it’s a two way communication. This idea of come unto me, call on my name and obey my voice. Obey my voice implies that Jesus is speaking to us. So we speak. We call upon His name.

He calls to us as the Good Shepherd. He gives us direction and we obey it. We don’t listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd and say, I’m just curious what your thought is. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I’m not interested. It’s when you come to him, you call upon His name. It’s the way Moroni chapter ten describes our petition regarding the Book of Mormon. It’s having faith in Christ with real intent. We come actually intending to listen to the Good Shepherd and follow what he says. Now think about that for a minute.

This glorious promise that we can and remember it’s. Every soul who does this, it shall come to pass. This is the promise to see His face and know that he is. This is one of the grandest promises in all of Scripture, and it shows up in a variety of places either. Twelve that whole chapter is about seeking this Jesus, which means you go through the process of discipleship through the course of time growing as you experience life. That’s what this entire section is about is helping us to grow, to become more like Jesus until that perfect day when we’ll see His face.

And no, that he is. That is the most powerful verse to start one of the most powerful sections of any place I know in all of Scripture, which now brings us to verse two and this discussion of light and truth and intelligence and agency and ultimately identity. If we do our job right today, when we finish, you are going to feel a greater sense of not just who God the Father and who God the Son are, but of who you are and who you have the capacity to become like and not just capacity, but hopefully the drive and the desire and the hope to move forward in greater faith than you’ve ever had previously.

That’s what our Scripture studies should do is not just fill our mind with answers to curiosity questions, but fill our mind and our heart with light and truth and perspective that empower us to actually rise up and to get up off of the dust and the ground of sin and the stain and soil of the world and walk that Covenant path and become who we were intended to become and who Jesus Christ, through His infinite atonement, enables us to become. It’s beautiful now fascinating that section 93 is taking it’s as if we’re reading the fruits in 93 from very deep roots.

Tap roots that come from John, the Gospel of John in the Bible, specifically John chapter one. There are. So Mary, connecting points between Section 93 and John chapter one, in my opinion, to really, if you want to understand Section 93 better, it would be worth your time to read John Chapter one side by side with it. As you go through this particular lesson.

John one is actually one of the powerful chapters in scripture. And you’ve got these beautiful phrases from John. We should just read some of them and talk about what is John trying to teach people about the character and nature of God, which is also what’s going on in the NC 93? And why is God revealing his character in nature? He wants us to have faith in Him and to give us a standard that we can look to and say, I can become like that. I, through the Grace and power of God, can also develop a similar character in nature.

Isn’t that a simple yet extremely profound concept? The parents have children and they empower those children. They teach those children. They give to those children things, not just DNA, not just a body of some sort, but they empower those children to nurture them to the point where those children have the capacity to grow up, to become like their parents if they respond appropriately to those nurturing and nourishing elements that are given. The essence of Section 93 combined with John one is exactly what Taylor saying here. Is God revealing to us his identity so that you and I have a vision of our future potential identity, that our heavenly parents are doing everything they can to help us become all that we can be, which is to grow up, to become like them over the course of time.

And Jesus does that. Now you’ll notice in John, John’s gospel is quite different than Matthew, Mark and Luke. We call Matthew, Mark and Luke the synoptic Gospels because they see the same things. They focus on similar events and teachings of Jesus. John. He’s very unique. So while Matthew and Luke, for instance, focus on the physical birth of Jesus, different elements surrounding the birth experience of Jesus, John doesn’t go there. John goes to the eternal nature and identity of Christ. He’s teaching us about who Jesus was before the foundation of the world, how he is this incredible God.

Before we even come to this Earth. Look at John chapter one. Verse one in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. We know Jesus is the Word. Here this logos in Greek, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Did you notice that that Jesus in the Spirit form up in the premortal realm? He was a God. He hadn’t come down to the Earth. He hadn’t lived his mortal life and been resurrected yet, but he’s considered a God under the direction of the Father.

He is the one who creates all things. Notice verse two and three, the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without him was not anything made that was made. The way that the Book of Mormon refers to this is King Benjamin, in his speech, calls Jesus the Father of heaven and of Earth through the creation. He engenders new life in all of these things that we see in the heavens and the Earth. So the Son of God takes on this new role as the Father of all creation that our Heavenly Father delegates to him this responsibility or this right and privilege to do this creation.

And then you’ll notice in verse four in Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. And then John shifts into the experience with John the Baptist and this experience of Jesus being baptized. And so those same things and those same ideas of light and life and darkness, and Jesus doing all things that the Father has commanded Him to do, whether it be creation or whether it be being baptized, that he’s doing exactly what God wanted Him to do and asked Him to do.

And because of that, Jesus is growing. Now we get these really lofty doctrines coming to us in section 93 in in more clear ways than anywhere else in Scripture, in my opinion.

So we see in John that he describes Jesus as the Word, and this is a powerful way to describe God. There’s many ways to describe God. In Greek, the word is logos, and this shows up all sorts of interesting words in our language and anciently. The word logos meant word. It also meant reason or intellect or understanding, even science and learning. For example, you might find words like this today, biology, where at the end of the word, BIOS means life. Biology literally means the study of life, and all of that is based on the words that we gain the truth and light knowledge.

And since God is the Word, he is the totality of all things. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the author and finisher of our faith. And so he invites all of us to delve into His Word so that we can know the word. I find it significant that DNC 93 it wasn’t revealed. Painting, even though I love art, what God revealed here to define more fully who he is for us was done through words. And I think we can glory and find joy in the fact that God delivers His Word to us, both in written form and in the enfleshed reality of His Son Jesus Christ.

It’s beautiful. If you look at the English form of this concept of a word, how do we use words? What format or what function do they fulfill for us? Understanding that the Greek word logos has? If you look this up in a Greek lexicon, it has dozens and dozens of possible meanings. And word is just one of of Mary interpretations and meanings of the word logos. Look at the way it sits in John chapter one, verse one in the King James Version, and understand that Joseph Smith, there’s a JST footnote there that takes you back to the appendix that gives you a slightly different view.

Verse one through 34 the entire chapter. He’s changed some significant things throughout here, but the way it sits in the King James Version. Notice, let’s look at the way people communicate here. You have Person A and you have Person B. Person A wants to communicate something to Person B they have either a thought or some sort of emotion or feeling that they want to communicate. What do they do? Step one, they encode that thought or that feeling into some code, some way to be able to transmit it.

Then they speak it or write it or draw it or portray it in some way. And often they use words to communicate what’s in their head or in their heart with the other person. Those words or those pictures or those ideas come to this other person who then sees or hears and then decode what they’ve seen or heard. And if communication has been effective, then what was here ends up over here. What is the go between? What is the main form of communication? It’s words. What if this is Heavenly Father and this is you?

How does God communicate His lofty ideals and His feelings for us? How does he communicate with us? Traditionally, it’s through His Son, the Logos, the Word of God who was with the Father in the beginning. He sent his Son to be this. You want to know what God wants? Just look at Jesus. Follow Jesus Christ. And you’ll know what God the Father was trying to communicate to us all along at any phase, the way I am, the way he tells us the truth and the life no man come with under the Father.

But by me, there’s not a back door through this process. So with this foundation of saying, okay, Jesus is the pattern. The Lord Jesus Christ is my is my exemplar. He marked the path, and he is the only source of life and light for me. Moving forward with that foundation from John chapter one. Now let’s jump into Doctor and Covenants. 93 look at verse two. This should sound familiar. So to finish off first one, they shall see my face and know that I am. And there’s something else they’re gonna know.

They’ll know that I am the true light that light us. Every man that cometh into the world. The light of Christ permeates all space. We learned from section 88. And now you get the clarification even further that it light us. Every man that cometh into the world. Everybody gets a portion of the light of Christ. And you also know that I am in the Father and the Father in me and the Father and I are one. You get this beautiful, beautiful unity of the Godhead that is described in John, the Gospel and throughout the New Testament and the Book of Mormon.

And now you get him describing it here as well. He says that I am in the Father and the Father in me and I and the Father are one to make a better sense of this. If you go to John’s Gospel, chapter 14, look at verse 20. At that day you shall know that I am in the Father and Ye in me and I in you. Did you notice what just happened? Jesus isn’t just declaring to us in section 93 the unity of the Godhead. This oneness was never intended to be exclusive to Father and Son and Holy Ghost alone in isolation.

He has been taught by the Father what exactly it means to be perfectly one. And he doesn’t stop there. He then turns to us and says, I want to be one with you, and you can become one with me. And he takes it one step further. If you keep going through the Gospel of John, which, by the way, we need to take a little time out here. John, he’s kind of unique. You’ll notice there’s no other New Testament Apostle that is mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon other than John.

John is known to Nephi way back in the beginning, when Nephi has his panoptic vision, the vision of all things he’s told, you can write up to this certain point and then stop writing, because now John, my Apostle, is appointed to write the rest of this in the revelation. Those Book of Mormon prophets, Mary of them, seem to know John Joseph Smith is very tuned in to the Gospel of John. He just keeps coming up over and over and over again. So when we spend time going through the Gospel of John doing this cross referencing, it’s not because there’s a random connection.

It seems that John has a pretty significant place in the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in helping the Lord do his work in these the latter days. And so he just keeps coming up off of our tangent. Back to look at John 17, the Intercessory prayer. Let’s take this oneness, this in and unity one step further in Jesus intercessory prayer. Keep in mind he’s standing in the Kidron Valley here’s the Kidron Brook right there. And on the other side is the garden that we call Gethsemane.

Jesus is about to step over that Brook and begin his infinite atoning suffering. And he’s offering this intercessory prayer. And right there, at the very end of the prayer, or just a few verses from his Amen. Notice what he says in verse 20 and 21. Neither prey I for these alone. That would be the eleven Apostles that are with him that night. But for them also, I shall believe on me through their word. I think he’s praying for you. He’s praying for me right there, because I believe on him through the words of these prophets and Apostles, look over 21.

Now that they all may be one, as Thou Father art in me and I in the that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. Are you noticing the beautiful inclusiveness that Jesus is offering to us? He’s opening his arms wide to say, Come, I want you to be one with me. I want you and me, and I want to be in you, just like I’m in the Father and the Father in me. And then I will help you to become one with us.

That is the best description of heaven. It’s unity. It’s oneness. It’s Zion. And that is everything Satan is fighting against. Satan wants divisiveness. He wants division. He wants he wants class distinction. He wants warfare and contention. He does not like unity. And yet in other places, in the Scripture, Jesus makes it very clear, if you’re not one, you’re not mine. Okay, now look at verse four. The Father because he gave me of his fullness and the Son, because I was in the world and made flesh my Tabernacle rolled among the sons of men.

Here Jesus seems to be shifting into this discussion of how he is both Father and Son. We’ve talked before in the Book of Mormon year about how Jesus, the Son of God, becomes the everlasting Father. As Isaiah uses that phrase to describe him, he becomes the Father of our spiritual rebirth, the Father of our resurrected body. He engenders life in our eternal life, the Father of our eternal life. It all comes through his infinite atonement that pays the price to redeem us from death and hell.

So he’s giving us this description of how he’s both the Father because he gave me of his fullness. He Jesus represents the Father, but he’s also the Son because he made flesh his Tabernacle. Look at verse five. I was in the world, and I received of my Father, and the works of him were plainly manifest. And John saw and bore record of the fullness of my glory. And the fullness of John’s record is hereafter to be revealed. It’s interesting, back in section 27, Joseph Smith, through the German thumb, was shown a parchment with some writings of the Apostle John that we don’t have in the Bible.

And there in section 27, he translated that. And here we’re told, we’re going to get a fullness of John’s record. Interestingly, earlier prophets and Apostles in Church history read section 93, and they believed that we were talking about the record of John the Baptist because many of the things that are now going to unfold here in section 93 are things that are included in John chapter one. But it makes it look an awful lot like John the Apostle John, the beloved John the Revelator is giving us the story of initially in John, chapter one of John the Baptist.

Now, whichever John and John’s record he’s talking about here is far less important to me then knowing what that record contains and the truths that are there to help you and me move forward in greater faith following Jesus. Look at what we get here. Verse seven, he bore records saying, I saw his glory, that he was in the beginning, before the world was in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Fascinating. If you look in the Greek text for John one, verse one, there’s a definite article that’s added it would read in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God.

The Word that we’re talking about. This Logos was with thee God, which implies this exclusive nature. There is one ultimate God, and the Word happened to be with Him, and the Word was God. And there’s no definite article with that one in the Greek texts. So Jesus was a God who stood next to thee God in the beginning. Notice verse eight. Therefore, in the beginning the Word was for he was the Word, even the messenger of Salvation. Are you seeing the connection between words and messenger?

What is the message God is sending? Far better than any words he could have ever used was, let me communicate with you here’s, my son. Just behold him. Look at him. Listen to him. Watch him do the things you’ve seen him do. That’s my message to the whole world, that is our message as missionaries, as parents, as leaders in the Church, is to point people to Christ. It’s not to bring them to us. It’s not to listen to our fancy words for drawings. All of those are a means to an end of trying to get people to recognize Christ the Word, where the real power lies.

He is the light. He’s the light source. It’s not us. It’s nobody on this planet is the light source, not even the profit. Everybody is a reflector of the light. And he gives Enos us to be the light. But the light comes from him. Look at verse nine. The light and the Redeemer of the world, the spirit of truth, who came into the world because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men. It all comes back to him.

Verse ten. The world. Notice there’s an s on the end of the Word world. The worlds were made by him. Men were made by him. All things were made by him and through him and of him. That’s a pretty good description of a Father, a father of creation. How the Son now becomes more like the Father in this powerful creation. In these powerful creation acts, look at verse eleven. I John bear record that I beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth, even the spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh and dwelt among us.

Now are you noticing the power of the state of being Jesus Christ? In the beginning, before he was born was a God. John one, one and two makes that very clear, but he came down and dwelt among us. He became a man. He was born into a physical body like you and I were born into. Notice, verse twelve, I, John saw that he received not of the fullness at first, but received Grace for Grace. There’s this interesting notion that some of the early Christian believers had, that Jesus was fully divine, that he didn’t really experience mortality, the way you and I experience mortality, human flesh and weakness, the way you and I have to deal with it.

And so it’s this idea of Nope, he was Godly from the beginning. We even see signs of that in little ways. Like one of my favorite Christ as him away in a manger even kind of hints that idea, the little Lord Jesus. No crying. He makes almost as if to say, and I get it. I understand the Him isn’t trying to say, oh, he never, ever cried. It just implies this idea of Jesus was different as a baby. He didn’t cry. He was perfect. As if a little baby crying is a bad thing.

But I hope you’re comfortable with the fact that when Jesus was born into that little Tabernacle of clay being held in Mary? S arms as she coos him softly to sleep, as she feeds him, as she has to take care of changing diaper and protecting him. That that little baby doesn’t know he’s the Son of God, that that little baby doesn’t know. That he created this world and worlds without number out there. That that little baby doesn’t know. That he’s going to grow up to where the ultimate Crown of exaltation.

Because first he would wear a Crown of thorns and carry across and suffer for us. That little baby didn’t know any more than you knew when you were that age. This is unique. Section 93 is unique in teaching the dual nature of Christ, his identity, that from God the Father, he inherits all of these Godly attributes, and from Mary his mother, he inherits all of the humanity that you and I know oh so well that he has to grow. Notice verse 15, because were 14 told us he received not of the fullness at the first.

This is what we call the condescension where he sheds all of that power, all of that knowledge, all of that ability comes through a veil of the same veil. You and I come through, and he begins the same way. You and I begin as a little innocent, helpless baby. This infant look at verse 15. I John bear record and low the heavens were opened and the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a Dove, and sat upon him. And there came a voice out of heaven saying, this is my beloved Son.

So now we go from his birth to age 30 at that baptism, when the Holy Ghost descends upon him, and we hear this glorious manifestation from heaven. This is my beloved Son. By the way, there is nobody, and I mean nobody who can bear a more powerful testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, then God himself. So it’s the the baptism at round age 30 with John that we are are told, this is my beloved Son. Make no mistake about it. Look over 16.

I John bear record that he received a fullness of the glory of the Father, and he received all power both in heaven and on Earth. And the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him. So from birth to age 30, Jesus had to do some growing and progressing over time, and section 93 describes that. Look at verse 19. This is in my mind, the thesis statement for the entire doctrine and covenants. I believe, and this is just little old Tyler’s opinion here.

But I believe that verse 19 is the nutshell. The statement for everything that we’re reading this whole year in the doctrine and covenants I give unto you these sayings, now I get it. We’re talking about section 93 here. But for me, I’m extending it to the entire Doctor in Covenant I given to you. These sayings, Why, so that you may understand and know how to worship and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name and in due time receive of his fullness.

Did you see it here’s? Jesus saying, I did it. I went from that Babe in my mother’s arms to that baptism with John receiving of a fullness at that time, according to John’s record, I grew, and I’m now revealing all of these things to you so that you can walk the path that I walked. So you can know how to receive of the fullness of God that I’m promising you. Verse 24, if you keep my Commandments, you shall receive of his fullness and be glorified in me.

Did you notice that qualifier or never glorified outside of Christ were never glorified on our own merits alone? That’s impossible. It’s glorification in Christ as I am in the Father. Therefore I send to you, you shall receive Grace for Grace. Now let’s talk about those words, Grace for Grace for a moment. If you go back, that’s not the first time you’ve seen that. Look across the page again, back over to verse twelve. I John saw that he received not of the fullness first, but received Grace for Grace.

The word for is interesting here, because Jesus were told received Grace for Grace. It’s almost as if Jesus is giving Grace outward, and as he does that? What does he receive in return? He receives Grace for any Grace that he extends or gives. Look at verse 13 now. And he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from Grace to Grace until he received a fullness. Are you noticing? Remember this growth and progression he grows from level of Grace to level of Grace. And how does he do it?

It’s by extending Grace. It’s by giving Grace. It’s a very active, faith filled progression here. It’s not a passive wait for Grace to be given to me. Kind of a progression. Brothers and sisters, I know there are a lot of people out there who want to argue and fight and debate over Grace and works and Salvation. I love it when you come to a section like 93 where it takes all of that argument and fighting and divisiveness and just set that aside and doesn’t even pay any attention to it and just says, look, let me just tell you how it is how Jesus grow and progress, because it’s the same way that you’re going to grow on progress in life.

It’s Grace to Grace that you grow. And how do you do it? It’s by extending Grace. It’s in how you live your life and how you treat others and how you treat yourself and how you treat God. It’s these extensions of Grace that cause this progression to accelerate. Notice what happens when you and I follow this example of Jesus growing from Grace to Grace as we to use his words, we receive Grace for Grace. The principle to me is if you feel like you’re lacking and Grace, try pleading with God to give you greater knowledge, greater intelligence, to then turn outward and extend more Grace.

And watch what happens to the amount of Grace that comes into your life as it flows through us from Christ. Some of it’s going to stick. Some of it’s going to become a permanent part of you as we also walk the same path. We can’t help but become more like him in the process. Well, Converse 23. Let’s bring you into this story. You were also in the beginning with the Father, that which is spirit, even the Spirit of truth. Did you catch that you were also in the beginning with the Father?

Back to John one one, back to Genesis one one in the beginning. And he’s telling you here you were also in the beginning. You were with the Father as well over 24 and truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were and as they are to come. Oh, my heavens. That verse right there is as clear, it’s powerful. Truth is this knowledge of things as they are, as they were and as they are to come. I don’t know of any better definition of truth anywhere.

The Book of Mormon, Jacob chapter four, verse 13. He’ll give a little addition to that where truth is the knowledge of things as they really are is another beautiful definition of truth. But I would say that this one here is probably the most all encompassing description of this word truth. And Jesus in the New Testament informs us that if we know the truth, that truth will set us free. That makes us free. Free freedom, Liberty, agency. Wait a minute. The more truth I know, the more I study things as they were, as they are and as they are to come.

The more freedom I have, the more agency I have, the more Liberty I have to grow and develop and to extend more Grace than I could before. It sounds like our heavenly parents really do want us to become more like them, filled with power and knowledge and ability. And it all keeps coming back to this truth thing. So as you spend time either as an individual or as a couple or a family, or as a class or as a Ward or as a stake, any effort you spend to study, whether it be through a Come follow me curriculum, whether it be through a simple scripture study that lasts for a minute or for an hour.

It doesn’t matter anything you and I do to learn more truths, things as they really are, things as they were, as they are and as they are to come. Then we are empowered to now act based on that truth. What’s the opposite of truth? Deception, miss, direction or downright lies that will not lead me to a Grace filled and Grace flowing life. It will lead me to a turned inward dark life. Now watch. Verse 25 whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.

That means that Satan told some lies in the beginning. What was his? What was his message? The first message that we have from Satan and Scripture is, I will save them all. I will lose none of them. You and I were with him in the beginning when we heard that statement. And I have to believe that there was something in our spirit when we heard that they said, no, that is a lie. It is not possible for him to save everyone and lose nobody. Because for that to happen, we would have to destroy our agency.

And the Pearl of Great Price makes it very clear that Satan sought to destroy the agency of man. The freedom or Liberty. There is no Salvation in me being forced or not having a choice or me being kept ignorant. I need all of those things. I need eternal law. I need freedom to choose in order for that agency to really have full effect for me to grow Grace to Grace on this process of eternal progression. Look at verse 26, the opposite of verse 25. The Spirit of truth is of God.

I am the Spirit of truth. Keep in mind Jesus speaking here and John Vor record of me saying he received a fullness of truth, even of all truth. What about you and me? No man receives a fullness unless he keeps his Commandments. Oh, brothers and sisters, if you look at this idea of Grace for Greece and Greece to Greece, instead of seeing God’s Commandments as this big, long list of to dos in order to earn or merit or deserve heaven, instead of looking at it that way, what if we looked at His Commandments as an extension of God’s Grace that he loves us so much?

He gives us the handbook of how to walk that Covenant path? This Covenant connection that he gives you has these terms of the agreement the Taylor has talked about multiple times in previous episodes. It all comes full circle here that the Commandments are simply an extension of God’s Grace. They’re a sign of his love, because if he didn’t love you, if he didn’t care about you, I can guarantee he wouldn’t give you any Commandments. He would say, do whatever you want. But unfortunately, our agency would be greatly limited and we wouldn’t have the capacity to grow to become like him.

I love the way CS Lewis puts the concept that he teaches on one occasion is every time God gives us a commandment or reveals a new commandment to us, he’s not simply trying to fill our time. What He’s doing? Is he’s revealing yet another aspect of his own character to us? That’s what the Commandments are. It’s an extension of God’s Grace. Now what do we do? What is our part? Verse 27, no man receives fullness unless he keeps his Commandments. He that keepeth his Commandments receive with truth and light until he is glorified in truth and not all things.

The Grace we receive Grace. And the way that we extend Grace is by listening to the voice of the good shepherd hearkening to those Commandments and saying, That’s what I’m expected to do. I’m going to need some help with that. Please help me. I’m please forgive me when I have a hard time getting it right, because I’m not perfect at this. And I need thy Grace not just to receive and try to keep it, but to be forgiven when I don’t keep the Commandments. And that is our glorious message to the world is that there is hope in Christ.

If we have faith in Him and listen to Him, hearken to his voice and keep his Commandments, we are not trying to save ourselves through those works. Were simply trying to love the Lord and come unto Christ because we recognizet he is the only one who has the power and the capacity to actually save us. There is no Salvation anywhere else. The Salvation is in him will converse. 29 Man was also in the beginning with God intelligence, or the light of truth was not created or made.

Neither, indeed, can be. Did you notice that there’s this notion about the creation of the world, that it was created ex nihilo, that God kind of like a magician, pulled out a magic wand and said, Let there be an Earth and boom out of nothing there all of a sudden appeared on Earth. This section talks about matter, the same as it talks about you and me as spirit children of God. That intelligence and life is not created out of nothing. It’s organized. Look at verse 30.

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it to act for itself as all intelligence. Also, otherwise, there is no existence. Can you see how the Lord is teaching us these lofty doctrines that take some of our age old philosophical questions and at least give us a foundation starting point to be able to talk about them in very, very high ways. Things like, If God is all powerful and all knowing, why is there so much abuse? Why is there so much evil in the world?

Why do so many people do so many bad things? Why doesn’t he stop it? I think your simplest answer is in verse 30, all truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it to act for itself as all intelligence. Also. Otherwise, there is no existence. God doesn’t want you to be a robot or a puppet on the end of strings. He doesn’t want to force everybody to love him and keep His Commandments and accept His Grace and respond appropriately to all of the light and truth that he tries to give us.

There is no existence in that. The true power of this life is the fact that Jesus performed an infinite atonement to make up for all of the wrongs and all of the missteps and all of the poor choices people would make using their agency. But now giving you and me freedom to exist to live. Verse 31, Here is the agency of man. Oh, and by the way, with that agency comes accountability. And here is the condemnation of men, because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light.

Have you noticed how uncomfortable it can be at times to open your eyes to the light when you’ve been in a dark place? It can hurt. And sometimes human beings prefer to walk in the dark rather than to walk in the light, and they use their agency to keep that cloak of darkness rather than walking in the light. Verse 32, Every man whose spirit receives not the light is under condemnation. There are people who say, I don’t believe in God. But it’s the same argument in this context of somebody saying, oh, I don’t believe in the sun.

I don’t believe in the Son. Whether you believe in the sun or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the sun is in the heavens and that the sun is shining light onto the world. I don’t have to live my life according to the truth that that light reveals for me. That’s my choice. But if I want more power, if I want more freedom, if I want more agency. The grand irony is I need to simply live more according to the light that has been given to me from heaven called the Commandments.

Look at verse 35. The elements are the Tabernacle of God. A man is the Tabernacle of God, even temples. And whatsoever temple is the file, God shall destroy that temple. It’s a pretty powerful concept tied back into something that Paul taught in the New Testament. When he asks the question, what? No, he’s not the are the temple of our God. If you look at all the stories involving Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, and you look at that temple as a physical symbol for what God is trying to do with me and with you, those stories take on a little more meaning, the cleansing of the temple.

Think about that as the beautiful repentance process where we have to let Jesus in for him to then be able to get rid of things out of our life that are defiling us that are preventing us from growing from Grace to Grace and progressing along the way and then letting things into our temple or bringing things into our life that need to be a part of it. It’s beautiful symbolism. Tide here. Look over 36. The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.

My dear wife will often say to the children, Making bad decisions makes you lose intelligence. It’s going to make you less capable of understanding things the way you need to understand them. It’s tied in here. The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. If you want more truth, if you want more life and light and intelligence, then you cleave unto that which you’ve already received from Him, the light that you already have. And my favorite use of this particular analogy of growing from Grace to Grace through the process of time is the fact that you and I don’t need to be discouraged if we’re there because we’re not here.

All God wants you to do is grow from Grace to Greece. That’s the next step. That’s all. That’s it. We don’t need to be overwhelmed. We don’t need to be a person here looking down on others or looking up, thinking, I’m not that it doesn’t matter where you are on this scale. All God wants you to do is to cleave unto that light and intelligence and truth that God has given you. And as you do so, your capacity grows. As your capacity grows, your ability to understand higher concepts and repent at deeper levels becomes a possibility.

You become more and more and more like Jesus. And as you become more like Jesus, you become more like God the Father, and you become more one with them and you get more of their glory. Verse 37, Lighten, truth forsake that evil one. Now let’s go back to the very beginning of your life birth. Verse 38, Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning. And God, having redeemed all our men from the fall, men became again in their infant state, innocent before God. You’ll notice we’re born into heaven as spirit children of our heavenly parents and were innocent.

And then we grow and some say we wait. So does that mean we could stand up in heaven? Well, apparently so, because a third of the host of heaven sinned so terribly that they lost their first estate and were cast out of heaven. And it’s probably not the case that only a third of them send ultimately, and the rest were perfect with zero problems, because it seems that up in heaven we had agency in that sphere. We were born innocent. And then we experience some things and we look forward to Christ atonement for our redemption.

And then we come to this Earth. We’re born into mortality, into this physical body. And notice, he says, in their infinite state, we became again innocent before God. These little babies, they’re innocent before God. Sister Joy Jones, in the April 2021 General conference, she gave this amazing talk about primary children and about how children were never of secondary importance to God. They’re always of primary importance. That’s why we love the name primary. But then she talked about this beautiful notion that God grants these children this little phase of life where Satan has no power to influence them for those years, where they’re not accountable, where they can be taught and trained and given the seeds of true discipleship, and they’re safe from him and from his temptations.

Then look at verse 39, and that wicked one cometh and take us away. Light and truth through disobedience from the children of men. And because of the tradition of their fathers, did you catch that once we become accountable state Enos the picture, and he is encouraging us at every level, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, physically, spiritually, on every level Satan is trying to get us to disobey. Why could any of you go to the local store and and go and buy a little device that you put batteries in?

And when you click the button and then you point it at somebody, it shines darkness. Can I use the word shine with darkness in the same sense? You understand what I’m saying? How many of you would go and buy such a prank gag to a flash dark? Something where you could shine darkness where people all of a sudden couldn’t see whatever it is you’re pointing at it, it takes it away. There is no such thing as a flash dark. It’s impossible because darkness doesn’t exist independent of anything else.

Darkness is simply the absence of light. Do you understand that Satan doesn’t have such a tool to shine darkness on your soul. He can’t take away your testimony. He can’t take away your love. He can’t take away Grace. He can’t take away light and truth from you. All he can do is entice you and tempt you and lie to you in ways to try to get you to disobey God, to embrace disobedience, and to turn away from the light that emanates from God and permits all space.

He tries to get us to turn to disobedience because that will decrease the amount of light that we have. And when we have less light, we perceive that which is true, or a knowledge of things as they are, as they were as they are to come. Our vision gets dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. Just because we’re on a path of progression doesn’t mean that there’s only one way you can go. You have agency, and at no time is that agency taken away from you.

So Satan is appealing to you to use that agency, to distrust God, not have faith in him, and to disobey His word. Everything that we read back in verse one, Satan has a counterfeit, an opposite of every single thing in that list that God wants us to do. So here he tells you in verse 40, I’ve commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. And now the rebuke. It comes first to Frederick G Williams, then to Sydney Rigdon, then to Joseph Smith, then to New OK.

Whitney and Taylor talks about this at the beginning. It’s all about a God, a father who knows how to raise children perfectly. And he’s saying you four leaders of the Church, our first presidency, and our Bishop in Kurtland, who are here listening to this revelation. Let me teach you how to be a better father. Let me teach you how to bring up your children in light and in truth. And if you wonder how to do that, if you want to be a better parent, I think it would be worth all of our time to spend significant effort trying to understand what’s written here in ways that we’ve never seen before by reading section 93 over and over again, both individually and collectively.

There are principles here that bring us back to President Boy K Packer statement, True doctrine understood changes attitudes and behavior. If you’re struggling with a child or with a family member or with award member because they’re making poor decisions, perhaps rather than spending a lot of time focusing on behaviors that would fix those poor decisions, we would recommend that you spend more time focusing on what are the doctrines that, if they understood them really well, would have the greatest impact, to motivate them, to turn towards the light, to seek more truth for themselves, to activate more of their agency, and to move forward in greater faith.

Now, by the way, look back at verse 39. There was a second thing that can cause us to take away light and truth that can cause us to be engulfed in more darkness. It’s not just the devil tempting us to be disobedient. There was a second thing in there. It can also be because of the tradition of their fathers. I can’t tell you how many people I met on my mission or in my life who would say things like, you know what my father was? This my grandfather was this, and I’m going to be this, whatever this was, and it’s just the tradition of the fathers or of the ancestors that make it so that I’m not going to see I don’t want to rock the boat.

I don’t want to change anything. It’s fascinating to me how Mary people will claim that they won’t progress on the Covenant path because they don’t want to offend their father or their mother. There’s a grand irony here. They’re so worried about what their father might think that they’re totally closing their mind off and disregarding what their everlasting father, the father who originally gave them life, as well as Jesus Christ, who becomes their adoptive father through making these covenants with him through baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost to move forward in faith on that Covenant path.

Ironically, if people will focus more on honoring this father and mother in the end, they will bring great honor to mom and dad to this other level of Father, the lowercase father, not the uppercase Father. So to finish, look at the words in verse 51. Now I send to you, my friends, we’ve talked about this before, and we’ll talk about it again. But it never ceases to amaze me that the God of the universe, the God who created worlds without number and hold them in his hand, who has all knowledge, all power, all capacities.

That he didn’t just condescend by coming down to become a mortal baby like the rest of us came down in these Tabernacle clay. But he even Conde sends in little phrases like this, I send to you, my friends, he the God of the universe, is calling Joseph in Sydney and Frederick anew his friends. And by extension, we like all scriptures onto us. He’s calling you his friends. He’s begging us to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the gospel of Salvation, as I shall give Him utterance and buy your prayer of faith with one consent.

I will uphold Him. So in closing, as you look at your own life, your own situation, wherever you may be, the message today from section 93 is simple. The more you will seek truth, study it out in your mind. Study it out in your heart. The more you seek knowledge things as they really are, as they were and as they are to come, the more power you will have to act. You’ll be able to use your agency. And if you use that agency, pleading with God to help you to be more obedient to the Commandments that he’s already given to extend more Grace outward.

If you can try a little harder to be a little Kinder, be a little more gentle with your loved ones and with your enemies. Be a little more forgiving a little less prone to be offended at a word or an annoyance. If you can just keep striving to be turned outward in more Grace, more of that Grace will flow through you. And we finish where we begin in the very first verse. It would make sense to come full circle with this particular section. Mary, Thus safe Lord, it shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me and calleth on my name and obeys my voice.

And keep with my Commandments shall see my face and know that I am. I know that God lives. He’s our Father. I know that Jesus is the Christ has only begotten Son, who becomes our adoptive Father, who will become the Father of our rebirth and our resurrection and the Father of our eternal life. And I love Him with all my heart. And I want to do everything I can to be more like Him and to reflect his light and his truth, his love, and ultimately his Grace.

And I leave that with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen know that you’re loved.

Come Follow Me with Casey Paul Griffiths (Doctrine and Covenants 99-101, August 23-29) – powered by Happy Scribe

One of the great things about the doctrine and covenants is how Christ centered it is. In revelation after revelation, the savior explains about himself, about his mortal life here on Earth and about the things he’s doing to help us right now. But sometimes it can be a little overwhelming to study about Jesus Christ in revelations like Section eight. We learned that through the light of Christ, Jesus is present and in all things, that Jesus has all power that Jesus can do and be anything that he needs to be in order to assist us on the Road to Salvation.

Section ninety three is a little bit different in that it doesn’t talk about how majestic the savior is as much as it talks about how much the savior is like us and more importantly, how we can be like him. In a series of theological lectures prepared by the early leaders of the church called the Lectures on Faith, they talk about the requirements to have faith in Jesus Christ. For instance, one of the lectures reads, Let us here observe that three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God and a life and salvation.

First, the idea that he actually exists. Second, a correct idea of his character, perfections and attributes. And third, an actual knowledge that the course of life you’re pursuing is according to his will. So in order to have faith and to life and salvation, you have to, one, know that God exists. Number two, you have to have a correct idea of his character, perfections and attributes. And number three, you have to do what God tells you to do.

If you don’t do what God tells you to do, you don’t have any promise. Basically. Now, each one of these things is necessary. But let’s focus on requirement two, that we have to have a correct idea of God’s character, perfections and attributes. Part of the reason why Section ninety three is so important is because it’s here that the savior really tries to tell us about who he is and what he does. Specifically in section ninety three, The Savior over in verse 19 says I give in to you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship and know what you worship, that you may come to the father, my name, and in due time receive of his fullness.

Now, one of the interesting things about this is that section ninety three and very much reads like the opening to the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John talks about how the savior was the word and the word became flesh and that the savior was the light and life of the world, all these majestic, wonderful things about how powerful he is. But John also provides us with a close look and what the savior was like. John says specifically in verse 11, I John Bear record and I beheld this glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth, even the spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh and wealth among us.

So John was there. John’s an eyewitness. And because the texture so closely parallels the gospel of John, a lot of people have just assumed that this is John the wrote the gospel. That’s possible. Another hypothesis that’s interesting is that the John that wrote these words was John the Baptist. You’ll note if you look at verse 15, it says, I, John Bear record that the heavens were opened and the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove and set upon him.

And there came a voice out of heaven saying, This is my beloved son. These are all things that John the Baptist would have witnessed when he baptized Jesus Christ. So it’s possible that what we’re reading is the original record of John the Baptist that was then incorporated into the gospel of John by the writer of that work. Now, when the savior says he wants us to worship him or know how to worship, we need to think a little bit about what worship actually means.

Elder Bruce McConkey said. Perfect worship is emulation. We honor those whom we imitate. The most perfect way of worship is to be holy as Jehovah’s Holy. It’s to be pure as Christ is pure, and it’s to do the things that enable us to become like the father. The course is one of obedience. Now, how do we know what the father is like? Well, now, the McConkey also said the four gospels contain the most comprehensive revelation of God, the father of any scriptures, because they show forth what kind of being the son is and men knowing the son, thereby by the father.

So if you know what Jesus Christ is like, then you know what Heavenly Father was like. And if you act like Jesus Christ, hopefully that’ll change your heart and you’ll become like him when the savior says to worship. Think about a worship service that we attend when we go to a worship service on Sunday. Typically, the central event is the sacrament, where we ask a group of young men to literally imitate Jesus Christ for a few minutes. They break bread and they bless water, just like the Savior did, and then they pass the bread on the water out to their loved ones, just like the savior did.

It’s almost like acting like the savior for just a few minutes sometimes gets inside of us and helps us be like the savior throughout the rest of the week. Now, here, the savior, once he introduces himself, makes a direct parallel. One of the things that’s taught in the record of John is that the savior received grace for grace. In other words, the kind of perfection that we ascribe to Jesus Christ is moral perfection. Jesus kept the commandments perfectly.

He wasn’t perfect in every single way. He still got tired and hungry and discouraged. These aren’t sins and they’re things that the savior had to experience to know us and what we’re like. John is clear that the savior received grace for Grace until he received the fullness. And that’s part of the reason why he’s called the son of God. Now, once the savior has allowed John to teach us that he received grace for Grace. It’s interesting that he starts to flip these attributes that he has back on to us.

For instance, in verse 20, the savior says I sang to you, you shall receive Grace for Grace. In other words, what I’ve done is what you have to do. I haven’t asked you to do anything that I’m not willing to do myself. Then the savior starts to talk about his background and verse twenty one. He says, I was in the beginning with the father and him, the firstborn, and then says, you were also in the beginning with the father.

That was the spirit, even the spirit of truth. Now, does that make sense? We’re as old as Jesus and Jesus is as old as the father. How does that work if Heavenly Fathers are father and if Heavenly Father created us? Well, a few verses later, in verse twenty nine, the Savior explains Man was also on the beginning with God. Intelligence or the light of truth was not created or made. Neither indeed can be so.

It is true that God created you. He created your spirit, and he allowed the conditions to exist where your body could be created, where you could come and progress on the path of God. But section ninety three is saying there’s something deeper than that, that there’s an intelligence that the core of every man and woman that has always existed and can’t be created or made, that is eternal. Now, we don’t know a lot about intelligence and we need to be careful not to speculate.

But Section ninety three does teach us two things about intelligence. No. One, but it’s eternal that it’s always existed and can’t be created or made, and then down versus thirty and thirty one. It teaches us another thing about intelligence. It says all truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it to act for itself as all intelligence also. Otherwise, there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man. In other words, intelligence has always existed and intelligence also had some form of agency taking those two things about ourselves.

There’s a whole world of possibilities expanded about us philosophically. In fact, some of you might be familiar with Truman G Mansome. He’s best known for talking about Joseph Smith, but he was really a philosophy professor and he loved Section ninety three because of how intense it was, he noted. The Section ninety three was received when Joseph Smith was twenty seven years old. Then Truman Madsen said it defines beginning beginnings. The interrelationships of truth, of light, of intelligence, of agency, of element, of embodiment, of joy.

Truman Madsen said every sentence and every word is freighted with meaning. In one fell swoop, it cuts many Gordian knot. If you’re not familiar, the Gordian knot was a knot in ancient Greece that they thought could not be untied by anybody. Alexander the Great walked up to the knot and just slice through it. With this sword, therefore unraveling the knot. Truman Madsen was saying that what Section three does philosophically is just cut through these philosophical arguments that have troubled people thousands and thousands of years.

So let’s deal with some of these questions. For instance, how can something come from nothing? Section ninety three would say the universe was not created from nothing. The elements are eternal. Everything around us has an element of eternity to it, and it’s always existed. God came along and organized the universe, but he didn’t create it from nothing because the elements are eternal. A second question people might ask is how can Christ have been both absolutely human and absolutely divine at the same time, section ninety three teachers.

He was not both. At the same time, Christ received not of the fullness at first, but continued until you received the fullness. He came to Earth as an ordinary person and then came back all the light and knowledge that he had until he became Jesus Christ Jehova of the Old Testament. Again, another question that can be asked is if man is totally the creation of God, how can he be or do anything that he was not divinely precast to do?

In other words, are you just a robot that God programed to do certain things, or do you have the power to make your own choice? Section ninety three says man is not totally the creation of God. Intelligence was not created or made. Neither indeed can be. And behold, here is the agency of man. In other words, there’s a part of you that’s always existed and always had some power to make your own decisions. Now, Heavenly Father gave you agency by giving you a spirit and then arranging for you to receive a physical body which increased your agency greatly.

But that power to make your own decisions was always there and you’re responsible for your own acts. You can’t blame everything that you do on God and say that’s just the way God may be because you have the power to make your own decisions. Heavenly Father is always given that to us. Another question is sometimes brought up is how can man be a. Divine creation and yet be totally depraved, section ninety three says man is not totally depraved. Every spirit of men was innocent from the beginning and God, having redeemed, ran from the fall man became again and their infant stayed innocent before God.

And that might explain why the savior revealed these truths. You see, we don’t know a lot about the context of Section ninety three. It doesn’t look like it was received in conjunction with Joseph Smith translation of the Bible because he wasn’t translating this part of the Bible at the time, but it was received at a time when it appears that one of Joseph’s friends, Frederick T. Williams, was having trouble with this family and the Lord Chasen’s all the recipients of this revelation by saying you have not touched your children light and truth according to the commandments, and that the wicked one hath power as yet over you.

And this is the cause of your affliction. In other words, one of the reasons why we have to understand God is not just so we can understand ourselves, but so that we can understand to those people that we love, those people that we’ve been given stewardship over. Being a parent is in some ways acting in the same way as God. God watches over us and protects us. He gives us gifts that allow us to have greater agency. And he wants the very best for us, but he allows us to make our own decisions likewise with our own children.

We love and watch over them. We give them gifts that give them greater agency, and we want them to make the best decision. And when they don’t, it causes sorrow for us. Understanding how precious and wonderful the people that we love are in our lives, especially those children that have been brought to us, helps us understand why God feels strongly about us, why Heavenly Father was willing to give up his only begotten son and my Jesus Christ was willing to give up his life.

It’s because every single person that you see every day is a son or daughter of God and eternal being that’s always existed and will always exist. And that Heavenly Father desperately wants to help reach their full potential. If we do that, if we really know how and what we worship, we can reach their full potential and even achieve the same glory the Jesus Christ has.