0:00:00 - 0:00:21 The Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is part one of a multipart series and to accommodate the fact that most people will only watch the first video at putting the most important stuff first. So I'm going to try to cover the basics of the gospel in 15 minutes. This content is based loosely on uh two books 0:00:21 - 0:00:43 I've written Seek You this Jesus and The Glory of God is Intelligence. Both of these are available for print cost on amazon.com. You can get a free PDF version at upward dot dot blogspot.com. And there's also a free audio book. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the means by which an individual can become 0:00:42 - 0:01:06 like Jesus. And that is the means of receiving all that he has. That's the whole point in order to become more like Jesus, we have to know more of what he knows. And the limiting factor in acquiring that knowledge is our ability to interact with reality. Reality is things as they really are. And it differs 0:01:05 - 0:01:28 from our perception of reality and that our perception is necessary necessarily limited. It is either incorrect or incomplete in every way the gospel is a means of exposing us to a greater portion of reality than we would otherwise be aware of in correcting our perceptions. And it does it in a way that 0:01:28 - 0:01:54 we are not overcome when we die, we will be exposed to a greater measure of reality than we have automatically in this life. The gospel is a means of preparing us for that day by teaching us how to interact successfully with more reality. The benefit of doing this now is that we will encounter greater 0:01:54 - 0:02:20 happiness, joy, and purpose here and all of those benefits carry to hereafter the way that the Gospel makes us more like he is, is primarily through his sacrifice, through which we're all resurrected through the knowledge that he gives you and through the trust that you're able to grow in Him because 0:02:19 - 0:02:47 of who he is and what he does, his sacrifice is independent of you. He did it on his own, but you benefit from it. Uh unconditionally two parts of His gospel are conditional on what you do. And that is how much knowledge you acquire from him and how much trust you gain in Him. These things are completely 0:02:46 - 0:03:10 dependent on your choices. The scriptures teach us to trust in God. Proverbs 35 says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. They teach us to be baptized. Acts 238 says repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of 0:03:09 - 0:03:32 sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And they teach us to learn from God, obey Him and increase our trust in Him. Matthew 548 the Lord says, be therefore perfect, even as your father, which is in heaven is perfect. If we are to become like Him, we have to get to the point where we have 0:03:32 - 0:03:54 complete trust and confidence in God. This requires knowledge about and from God. Sometimes people call this faith. But also people use the word faith to describe many other situations in the scriptures. We read faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's from Romans 1017. If you want 0:03:53 - 0:04:19 to trust God more, one step in that process is learning more about God through His word and through other people who know more about God. In John 1426 we read the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things. Ultimately, everything we learn about God will come through uh the Holy Ghost and what the Holy Ghost 0:04:19 - 0:04:45 will teach us about is more about reality and more about who God is and how He is about His character. So it will teach us the things he knows and it will teach us how He is and that will empower us to behave more like Him. Baptism is a symbolic ordinance and in it, you're immersed in water. Water is 0:04:45 - 0:05:07 symbolic of chaos, which is the unknown. When you're submerged in the water, you're symbolizing that you are exposing yourself to what God knows, which is everything and what you do not know. That's why it's unknown to you. And part of the symbolism is that you're lowered into the water by someone else 0:05:06 - 0:05:28 who represents God in this ordinance. And so you're trusting in Him and saying, I'm exposing myself to everything, you know, and you're immediately pulled out of it. And uh what it represents is the death of your uh the will of your flesh or your carnal will or your desire to do the things that feel 0:05:28 - 0:05:51 good in your limited understanding in the birth of your spiritual will, which is the desire to do what is good. And uh by being baptized, you demonstrate your intent to the Lord that you will obey everything he will teach you. So um you're currently obeying everything you understand as far as you understand 0:05:51 - 0:06:16 it and that you're willing to obey. And you recognize that there will be much more that He teaches you to help us along this path. The Lord gives to all people, something called the light of Christ in John 14. Uh We're told that in him, Jesus was life and the life was the light of men. And this light 0:06:16 - 0:06:39 is uh sometimes called our conscience. And it is what helps us learn the difference between good and bad. If you follow this light or obey your conscience, you will become a good person. If you do not by default, automatically, you will be a bad person. If you follow the light sufficiently, eventually 0:06:38 - 0:06:59 , you will come to baptism and you will come to the knowledge of an explicit God. You do not have to believe in God to be a good person, but you do have to believe in God to be like God and God is much better than a good person. He is as good as you can get. So in the scriptures in John 1426 which we 0:06:59 - 0:07:19 read before we, we read that the Holy Ghost will teach you all things. The difference between the Holy Ghost and the light of Christ is that the Holy Ghost is uh what's called the mind of God. It is the the channel through which we learn everything that God knows and how He is and why He is that way 0:07:19 - 0:07:40 , that's much better than just being a good person. And so if a little light makes us a little good, it makes us a little happy, gives us a little joy, then a lot of light will give us a lot of happiness and joy. And all of this comes again through exposure to reality and the information we need to navigate 0:07:40 - 0:08:03 that successfully. So the way that you unlock this resource is that you fully submit to God, a piece of that is baptism, which we discussed. Um But once you fully submit to God. This is called the gift of the Holy Ghost because it's the moment when this resource becomes available to you after baptism 0:08:02 - 0:08:21 of water, there's a second baptism event, which is baptism by the Holy Ghost and by fire. That's how it's referred to in the, in the scriptures. Sometimes they're referred to separately. But when you qualify for the Holy Ghost by submitting fully to God and saying, I'm willing to obey you no matter what 0:08:21 - 0:08:43 you teach me, you also qualify for this event called baptism by fire. Now, the fire part of this comes from the sense of awareness that you receive in this moment. So it's the instantaneous receipt of more awareness of reality than you had before and jumping ahead as you do in a moment, what it does 0:08:43 - 0:09:06 is it takes the desires you had before to do things that aren't in your best interest. And through more information reveals to you how those things are not in your best interest. And so uh things that were enticing before that weren't good now become undesirable. Now, that doesn't mean that you will 0:09:05 - 0:09:28 never ever feel tempted again in any way. It just means that the level at which you were tempted before is now no longer a challenge. Your battleground is is now in a greater level of awareness. This point in your journey is sometimes referred to as the gate because it is how you um enter into the straight 0:09:28 - 0:09:50 and narrow path or the process of getting to know God more and more until you come to know Him completely and trust him completely. So there's a passage that I really like from the book of Mormon in second Nephi 31 that I think encapsulates this process. Well, he says, I heard a voice from the father 0:09:49 - 0:10:07 saying, yeah, the words of my beloved are true and faithful. He that endure to the end, the same shall be saved. And now my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved. And what does it mean to endure 0:10:07 - 0:10:25 to the end? It means acquiring more and more knowledge of how God is and reflecting that in your life through your own actions and thoughts and desires wherefore do the things which I have told you. I've seen the that your Lord and your redeemer should do for, for this cause. Have they been shown unto 0:10:24 - 0:10:42 me that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter for the gate, by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the holy ghost. And then are ye in this straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life? Yeah. Ye have entered 0:10:41 - 0:00:00 in by the gate ye have done according to the commandments. Of the father and the son. And ye have received the Holy Ghost which witnesses of the father and the son unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made that if ye entered in, by the way, ye should receive. And now my beloved brethren, 0:00:00 - 0:11:17 after ye have gotten into this straight and narrow path, I would ask if all is done, behold, I send to you nay for ye have not come thus far, save it were by the word of Christ and unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of Him who is mighty to save wherefore, ye must press forward with 0:11:16 - 0:11:35 the steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and the love of God and of all men, wherefore if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and endure to the end. Behold, thus, saith the Father. Ye shall have eternal life and now behold my beloved brethren. This is the 0:11:35 - 0:11:55 way and there is none other way nor name given under heaven, whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now behold, this is the doctrine of Christ and the only and true doctrine of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God without end, amen. This is the gospel of Jesus 0:00:00 - 0:00:21 The Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is part one of a multipart series and to accommodate the fact that most people will only watch the first video at putting the most important stuff first. So I'm going to try to cover the basics of the gospel in 15 minutes. This content is based loosely on uh two books 0:00:21 - 0:00:43 I've written Seek You this Jesus and The Glory of God is Intelligence. Both of these are available for print cost on amazon.com. You can get a free PDF version at upward dot dot blogspot.com. And there's also a free audio book. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the means by which an individual can become 0:00:42 - 0:01:06 like Jesus. And that is the means of receiving all that he has. That's the whole point in order to become more like Jesus, we have to know more of what he knows. And the limiting factor in acquiring that knowledge is our ability to interact with reality. Reality is things as they really are. And it differs 0:01:05 - 0:01:28 from our perception of reality and that our perception is necessarily limited. It is either incorrect or incomplete in every way the gospel is a means of exposing us to a greater portion of reality than we would otherwise be aware of in correcting our perceptions. And it does it in a way that we are 0:01:28 - 0:01:55 not overcome when we die, we will be exposed to a greater measure of reality than we have automatically in this life. The gospel is a means of preparing us for that day by teaching us how to interact successfully with more reality. The benefit of doing this now is that we will encounter greater happiness 0:01:54 - 0:02:20 , joy and purpose here and all of those benefits carry to hereafter the way that the gospel makes us more like he is, is primarily through his sacrifice, through which we're all resurrected through the knowledge that he gives you and through the trust that you're able to grow in Him because of who he 0:02:20 - 0:02:47 is and what he does, his sacrifice is independent of you. He did it on his own, but you benefit from it. Uh unconditionally, two parts of his gospel are conditional on what you do. And that is how much knowledge you acquire from him and how much trust you gain in Him. These things are completely dependent 0:02:47 - 0:03:11 on your choices. The scriptures teach us to trust in God. Proverbs 35 says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. They teach us to be baptized. Acts 238 says repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye 0:03:11 - 0:03:33 shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And they teach us to learn from God, obey Him and increase our trust in Him. Matthew 548. The Lord says be therefore perfect, even as your father, which is in heaven is perfect. If we are to become like Him, we have to get to the point where we have complete 0:03:32 - 0:03:54 trust and confidence in God. This requires knowledge about and from God. Sometimes people call this faith, but also people use the word faith to describe many other situations in the scriptures. We read faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's from Romans 1017. If you want to trust 0:03:54 - 0:04:19 God more, one step in that process is learning more about God through His word and through other people who know more about God. In John 1426 we read the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things. Ultimately, everything we learn about God will come through uh the Holy ghost. And what the Holy Ghost will 0:04:19 - 0:04:45 teach us about is more about reality and more about who God is and how He is about His character. So it will teach us the things he knows and it will teach us how He is and that will empower us to behave more like Him. Baptism is a symbolic ordinance and in it, you're immersed in water. Water is symbolic 0:04:45 - 0:05:07 of chaos, which is the unknown. When you're submerged in the water, you're symbolizing that you are exposing yourself to what God knows, which is everything and what you do not know. That's why it's unknown to you. And part of the symbolism is that you're lowered into the water by someone else who represents 0:05:07 - 0:05:29 God in this ordinance. And so you're trusting in Him and saying, I'm exposing myself to everything, you know, and you're immediately pulled out of it. And uh what it represents is the death of your uh the will of your flesh or your carnal will, or your desire to do the things that feel good in your limited 0:05:29 - 0:05:52 understanding in the birth of your spiritual will, which is the desire to do what is good. And uh by being baptized, you demonstrate your intent to the Lord that you will obey everything he will teach you. So um you're currently obeying everything you understand as far as you understand it and that you're 0:05:52 - 0:06:18 willing to obey. And you recognize that there will be much more that He teaches you to help us along this path. The Lord gives to all people, something called the light of Christ in John 14. Uh We're told that in Him, Jesus was life and the life was the light of men. And this light is uh sometimes called 0:06:18 - 0:06:41 our conscience. And it is what helps us learn the difference between good and bad. If you follow this light or obey your conscience, you will become a good person. If you do not by default, automatically, you will be a bad person. If you follow the light sufficiently, eventually, you will come to baptism 0:06:40 - 0:07:01 and you will come to the knowledge of an explicit God. You do not have to believe in God to be a good person, but you do have to believe in God to be like God. And God is much better than a good person. He is as good as you can get. So in the scriptures in John 1426 which we read before we, we read that 0:07:01 - 0:07:21 the Holy Ghost will teach you all things. The difference between the Holy Ghost and the light of Christ is that the Holy Ghost is uh what's called the mind of God. It is the the channel through which we learn everything that God knows and how He is and why He is that way, that's much better than just 0:07:21 - 0:07:43 being a good person. And so if a little light makes us a little good, it makes us a little happy, gives us a little joy, then a lot of light will give us a lot of happiness and joy. And all of this comes again through exposure to reality and the information we need to navigate that successfully. So the 0:07:43 - 0:08:04 way that you unlock this resource is that you fully submit to God, a piece of that is baptism, which we discussed. Um But once you fully submit to God. This is called the gift of the Holy Ghost because it's the moment when this resource becomes available to you after baptism of water, there's a second 0:08:04 - 0:08:23 baptism event, which is baptism by the Holy Ghost and by fire. That's how it's referred to in the, in the scriptures. Sometimes they're referred to separately. But when you qualify for the Holy Ghost by submitting fully to God and saying, I'm willing to obey you no matter what you teach me, you also 0:08:23 - 0:08:45 qualify for this event called baptism by fire. And the fire part of this comes from the sense of awareness that you receive in this moment. So it's the instantaneous receipt of more awareness of reality than you had before and jumping ahead as you do in a moment, what it does is it takes the desires 0:08:44 - 0:09:07 you had before to do things that aren't in your best interest. And through more information reveals to you how those things are not in your best interest. And so uh things that were enticing before that weren't good now become undesirable. Now, that doesn't mean that you will never ever feel tempted 0:09:07 - 0:09:30 again in any way. It just means that the level at which you were tempted before is now no longer a challenge. Your battleground is is now in a greater level of awareness. This point in your journey is sometimes referred to as the gate because it is how you um enter into the straight and narrow path or 0:09:30 - 0:09:51 the process of getting to know God more and more until you come to know Him completely and trust him completely. So there's a passage that I really like from the book of Mormon in second Nephi 31 that I think encapsulates this process. Well, he says, I heard a voice from the father saying, yeah, the 0:09:51 - 0:10:08 words of my beloved are true and faithful. He that endure to the end, the same shall be saved. And now my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved. And what does it mean to endure to the end? It 0:10:08 - 0:10:26 means acquiring more and more knowledge of how God is and reflecting that in your life through your own actions and thoughts and desires, wherefore do the things which I have told you, I've seen the that your Lord and your redeemer should do for, for this cause. Have they been shown unto me that ye might 0:10:25 - 0:10:43 know the gate by which ye should enter for the gate, by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the holy ghost. And then are ye in this straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life? Yeah, ye have entered in by the gate ye 0:10:42 - 0:10:59 have done according to the commandments of the father and the son and ye have received the Holy Ghost which witnesses of the father and the son unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made that if ye entered in by the way, ye should receive. And now my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten 0:10:59 - 0:11:18 into this straight and narrow path, I would ask if all is done, behold, I say to you nay for ye have not come thus far, save it were by the word of Christ and unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of Him who is mighty to save wherefore, ye must press forward with the steadfastness in 0:11:18 - 0:11:36 Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and the love of God and of all men, wherefore if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and endure to the end. Behold, thus, saith the Father. Ye shall have eternal life and now behold my beloved brethren. This is the way and there is none 0:11:36 - 0:11:56 other way nor name given under heaven, whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now behold, this is the doctrine of Christ and the only and true doctrine of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God without end, amen. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no 0:11:54 - 0:12:07 Christ. There is no other way. So I hope you have found this beneficial and I'd invite you to watch the other parts of this because we will dive deeper into every part of what we've explained here.