All right. Um This morning, I guess sometime last night, I got a message from a friend asking if I would share some thoughts on um the Pentecost today is the Pentecost. He knows that I have some thoughts on that that I haven't shared. He asked. And so according to his faith, let it be so unto him. Um
I was in quite a stream of things which will be relevant here. Um In a moment, I was in a stream of things today. It's, it's uh nine minutes to two right now. And uh I started at five and without a break, I went until one and I had some lunch and uh I just have a few more minutes before I'm officially
on my kids time. But, but that whole stream, that whole time is spent frantically writing and trying to capture everything that, that God was teaching me on a wide span of topics. And so, um I was intermittently able to jump into this to try to gather up and polish a few ideas that I've treasured up
over the years as God's revealed it to me. And uh with the time constraint it, it might do well uh to try to pare down this or to give me uh an avenue of paing this down um before it eventually ends up in long form in books that haven't been published yet. So I have notes in front of me to help me stay
focused and, and help um minimize what I could say about this. Um And so let's, let's without further ado, let's start. So, um in acts chapter two, we read what happened on the day of Pentecost, they were all with one accord in one place and there came uh and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as
of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. Now, a whole volume
could be said about that. But um I want to make my focal point something different. Um And so I will just say that I know that there are many of you who wish that something like this could happen to you or at least you think you do. And I can confidently imagine that at least for most of you uh it would
not go as you think it would. So I want to make a case for that and help you shape out an application of it. So the first point that I would like to address is the fact that the Holy Ghost was absolutely available before the life of Christ. There's abundant evidence for this. Um For example, Mary was
, was uh full of the spirit. She uh conceived Jesus by the power of the spirit. Her cousin Elizabeth was full of the spirit. Um And that happened obviously before Jesus was born and there were many others as well. So the fact is that God's power, it always comes through his spirit. And if you have the
one, you have the other, any miracle that is written about in the scriptures is also an evidence that his spirit. The Lord's spirit was available in John. We read that uh he's the light that lights every man. And so some people would um begin to parse through this and try to make a distinction between
um variations of intensity of God's light and, and a sign different categories and names to these things and claim that the Holy ghost is just a piece of that. Well, I totally agree. I think there's abundant evidence to prove that that it is a gradation. Of course, anyone who's experienced the spirit
of God will tell you that from their experience. But um we have some very clear scriptures in Mormon scripture, which is going to alienate a lot of people if I choose to use it to make my case. But uh perhaps if you're not open minded to things you haven't heard about before, um Maybe that explains why
you don't know more about the Pentecost. So if you care more about truth than its source, then uh feel free to continue along with me and you can just interpret these as someone's opinion if you would like and uh evaluate them accordingly and see if they give you any traction. Uh With more time, I can
make a full, a more full case just um from the Bible. But uh I don't have that time right now. So in Moses 626 we're told that Enoch uh journeyed in the land among the people. And as he journeyed, the spirit of God descended out of heaven and abode upon him. So there you go. And then in first Nephi 1017
, Nephi says that the power of the Holy Ghost, I'm scanning through here. So to give you a partial quote, the power of the Holy Ghost is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him as well in times of old, as in the time that he should manifest Him himself unto the Children of men because
this was uh written long before this particular verse was written long before the life of Jesus. And so it shouldn't be too hard for people to realize that if God is the same and unchanging and the same in, in, in all times that um his spirit would always be received in the same way under the same conditions
. Now, what are those conditions? Um Again, there are many more verses we could go through here, but I'm just trying to uh constrain ourselves with time. What are those conditions? They're the same conditions that Jesus himself demonstrated during his mortal life? Culminating in this case with his receipt
of the holy ghost at his baptism, or at least the sign of the Holy Ghost. And um if you had to break that down in simplest terms, well, what he did was submitted fully to the will of the father as far as he knew it at the time and he, he continued in that relation. So as he learned new things, he also
aligned uh whatever part of his life they pertain to, to what he had learned immediately. And so in this way, he remained sinless his whole life. So uh through Jesus, we have access to forgiveness of our past sins. And then um we can enter into that path to follow his example of fully aligning with all
we know about God and of learning more and fully aligning with that as we learn it. So um was the Holy Ghost available during the life of Jesus? Of course, it was, it always has been and it always will be how uh how do you prove it? So, uh what about when Jesus asked Peter this in Matthew 16? He says
, uh who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou Simon Bar Jonah for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my father, which is in heaven. So um how did he know that except
by the spirit of God? Because the Father did not come down from heaven and speak to Peter. He spoke through the Holy ghost, right? So um there are other examples, John, the Baptist was filled with the holy ghost from his mother's womb according to DNC 8427. So how's that the case? Because John lived
at the same time as Jesus and Jesus himself called John a light. How did John know that Jesus was the Christ? So um obviously, the Holy Ghost was operating during the life of Christ and not just on Jesus and through Jesus, which is obviously the case because of all the miracles he did by the power of
the spirit. So what exactly was the circumstance? And how exactly did it change through the Pentecost? And why? What were these things this way? Well, to understand this, you have to understand um how we limit the manifestation of the Holy Ghost individually, we do this by turning away from the fullness
of God's will as far as it's available to us. In other words, I've made other videos about this the voice of God to you through your conscience and you can align with that or not, right? And you're either 100% or not, but there's a different level of this, which is how much effort do you uh undertake
to perceive and obtain more understanding about God. Your conscious conscience is active, whether you're actively seeking it or not, you will feel guilty about things, whether you like it or not, you will feel impelled to do certain things through your conscience, whether you like it or not. But your
choice can either amplify or degrade that influence, not just your reaction to what your conscience says to do or not to do your choice to actively seek for whatever you can learn about God or what's right and wrong or what's better and worse. It doesn't matter what level of explicitly referring to God
, you use your degree of seeking and paying attention to and obtaining more will expand or contract the things that your conscience can point you towards or away from the degree to which you're aware of what God would do in your place again, whether you believe in God or not. So um when we do not make
the greatest use of the resources God provides in our lives to teach us more about Him, we will decline in our measure of the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost is what actuates our conscience. So the conscience is a vehicle, the Holy ghost is the source, while the father is the source and it comes through
the son and the Holy Ghost to us and it manifests in our conscience and at the most basic levels. So you can be a person who thinks they're doing all the right things in life, which would be a fantastic goal in a rare enough thing to achieve and yet not actually be making the greatest use of the light
and truth that God has made available to you. So what do I mean by this? Let me give you just a temporal example. Let's say that you have amazing, amazing parents. That's a wonderful gift, right? But let's say that the only use you make of that gift is responding to them when they harass you. So let's
say that they're wise and successful and generous and charitable people. But the only time you receive anything from them is when they harass you, you will not approach in any measure, the goodness you could receive from them. If you proactively made it your goal to learn everything you can about who
and how they are. Do you see the connection? So now if you lived at the time of Jesus and you happen to be one of his disciples, does that mean that you're extracting everything you possibly could from Jesus? It turns out now this is another conjecture that I could prove with sufficient time turns out
that the apostles did not they did not, not one of them extracted the full value of whom, what Jesus was. And I don't say this to demean them in any way. I say this because they would want me to say this so that we can learn from them and begin where they left off. And that's what they would want more
than anything for us to stand on their shoulders. So you can't stand on something if you don't know where it actually is, it's a little tricky. So the apostles, in many cases, we read about things like um they had questions, but they wouldn't ask Jesus or Jesus said or did things they didn't understand
and they didn't fully apply themselves to figuring it out where they were reluctant or begrudging at obeying things that he said they had not aligned their desire fully with Jesus. They thought there were other things that, that were more important and they're not alone in this, but not one person during
jesus' life made full use of what he came to give. Now that being said, he commended them on several occasions for what they did do. So for example, in praying to the father in John 17, I believe he said something like I um they believe that I came from you and I have kept them in your word. And he said
some, he, he acknowledged some of the positive ways that they had responded to him, but this is not the same as making full use whenever God offers you a blessing and you do not use it and appreciate it fully for what its intended purpose is. And its value in God's eyes is you are making it very difficult
for yourself to retain that blessing. Typically, what happens is He will take those things away. And there are reasons for that. There are a lot of reasons for that. I can't fully explore that right now. I'm already over time. But my point with all of this is that when Jesus died, what he was able to
provide for them had to diminish because he was leaving and they had not risen up to the full measure of what he had offered by perceiving, receiving valuing and becoming everything one person could through his example. And this leads me to what is one of my major points with this bouncing around here
in my notes. Um Man, there's some good scriptures related to this. I'm sorry, we just don't have time to go through them when he came back. Um After the resurrection, he continued to minister to a subset of his disciples. And um that was over a 40 day period and he um his purpose in doing that was to
help them become worthy to receive the Holy Ghost because they were not worthy of that during his life. The thing is you can't, you can't underappreciate a blessing from God without withdrawing from it. It's full value, it's full, everything that it could, that he could flow to you through it. And because
the disciples had, had, had set up limits with Jesus. They weren't all in, they could not receive a fullness of the Holy Ghost while he was there. And this is a very important idea that explains a lot of confusion. Um Where is it? And John can I find it? Um uh it's an important one. Here you go. And
John seven. Um So this was it. Well, I guess that doesn't matter. But at one time, he said, um if any man thirst, let him come on to me and drink, he that believeth on me as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And then parenthetically verse 39 says, but this big
he of the spirit which they that believe on him should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. People read this and they misunderstand what the word glorified means. And they think, well, that means that um he had to die and be resurrected before they could
receive the holy ghost. Well, technically that is true. But, but why the reason why is because they were living in a way that diminished their access to the holy ghost, Jesus in his ascent could forgive them and give them another opportunity to live worthy up to the level of their present understanding
. But he could not go back in time and have them relive the three years that he was with them where they had a much greater blessing. The misconception is that the Pentecost was an upgrade while it's true in some ways, which I'm gonna detail a second. It misses what's probably the bigger point, which
is that if it was an upgrade, which it was, it was only an upgrade because they had basically denied the Holy Ghost for three years while Jesus was there by not fully receiving everything that he had to give in his presence. And because of that, they did not receive a fullness of what he could give during
his mortal life and through his mortal life. And they had to uh downgrade in the channel of receipt first to the resurrected Christ for 40 days. And then after another 10 day period, through the Holy Ghost, which arrived at the Pentecost, why 10 days? 10 is very important. This could be a whole lecture
on its own 10 is always related to turning away from something greater and then receiving something lesser that ends up being a greater blessing, but only because you never receive this. And so when this comes along, this is much more than this and this is where you are. So where you are, this comes
along condescends down to your level, you get to rub shoulders for a while, you totally blow it. This goes away, then this comes along and this is the 10 and then you interact with that and hopefully you get more out of that than you did with whatever it was that you rejected. You can go after pattern
, after pattern, after pattern, the 10 commandments, they were invited up on Sinai. They turned away, they got the 10 commandments. It was way less than what they originally offered, which is to come up to the presence of God. But it was way more than what they had ever received before. You got it. We
could go on and on about this. What's the parallel to the Pentecost? Which incidentally those two events were on the same date? Um So what's the parallel? It's, it's everything because it's the same thing. I'm trying to get to my notes here. So I don't miss points. Um So the Hebrew holiday that coincides
with the Pentecost is Shabbat. I don't know if I'm saying that right, which means weeks and it's the time it's the 50 days between the Passover was when they left Egypt and when they arrived at Mount Sinai. So um the equivalent of this at the Pentecost was the 50 days between um the, the end of the mortal
life of Christ and the Pentecost. When they received the Holy Ghost. In both cases, you could just draw all these parallels. But uh one of the parallels is that coming out of this, uh each party ended up with far less than they could have had if they had accurately viewed and received the value that
they were first offered. And the sad part is that in both cases, it really wasn't. Uh it shouldn't have been a surprise that they were uh exposed to something much greater. Jesus constantly tried to help them see the value of what they had before them. The Israelites were de were shown all these mining
miracles that Moses did And then they walked with Moses for those 50 days to get to Mount Sinai. And it, it just, they never understood um what was before them in terms of Moses and the essence of God that he embodied in the connection to God that he had and through him that they could have too. And
the whole time they were going, they were talking about going to the mountain of the Lord and coming up to his presence and they were all on board with that till they got there. And the disciples talked a tough talk until the trial of the Lord. And then they all scattered to the four winds, some of them
more thoroughly than others. Um And these parallels are really important. Why? Ok, this is the real take home to this man. We're skipping over a lot. This is so much bigger than would have been able to stuff into this. Um So takeaways, hm I was gonna share an experience I had. I don't know if I want
to now. But um, ok, I'll abbreviate one of the two experiences I was thinking about sharing. So when I was in the army, I was jumping out of airplanes at one point and when I was at airborne school and they're teaching us to do this. Um I, I had um I had an experience, I really, really just boiling this
down where uh I knew through this experience in this trial, I was going through in its conclusion. I knew that that's where I was supposed to be with 100% certainty. It's where God wanted me to be. And I was doing what God wanted me to do. And, um, in part of the, how this all works and you jump out
of airplanes, there's a sergeant in charge of the plane. I believe there's one on either side, I can't remember. But anyway, it's real cramped in there and, and, um, there's a procedure to get ready to go out the door. It's very loud. And, um, that sergeant, his, his number one job is to make sure the
first guy in line is gonna jump without hesitation and jump according to the proper procedure so that no one gets hurt. And so everyone gets out of the plane as fast as they can. So, uh, if the first person goes, then everyone else will flow out like lemmings and do the right thing. Uh It's more likely
anyway, so this guy's giving me the death stare trying to size me up and then he shouts at me. Are you scared? And I just, I just, I was so confident. Um, that, that's where I was meant to be. I just didn't have a care in the world. And, uh, I shook my head slowly. No. And it was crazy because he, he
almost like his whole countenance changed and it was like he was calm before and he was scared after, uh, after realizing just how calm I was and how confident I was. And it reminds me of when the, the guards came for Jesus and, and they were, they were like, oh, which one of you is Jesus? And he said
I am and they fell down. And, um, so when I jumped out of the plane, you get hit by this multi 100 mile an hour wind. It, you know, you're jumping, you're totally disconnected from any sort of sense of control or anything else. And then the rip cord comes out, the canopy opens. And when it did, I just
had to that point in my life, maybe the most peaceful experience I've ever had. And here I am 1000 ft in the, in the sky falling at 25 miles an hour. And, uh, it, it was just so quiet and totally serene and peaceful. And that experience was very strange because the other people jumping didn't feel that
way. It was a completely different experience for them. In fact, for at least one guy whose harness was in a slightly inconvenient place, he was screaming the whole time as soon as the shoot opened. So that was pretty much as diametrically opposite to my experience as could be. And then I hit the ground
and it was over and I was back in normal life. Right. And the sounds come in, it's so quiet in the air. Something you can't understand until you're there. What does this have to do with the Pentecost? You might read about this wind and the tongues and the fiery and all the power and you might think,
oh, I want a piece of that. Here's the problem with that things from heaven. They come together, it ebbs and it flows together and the shiny stuff. What seems sweet to you comes with a giant pile of what I guarantee you is more bitter than anything you've imagined. Now, the sweet is actually the bitter
and the bitter is actually the sweet. But that transformation is one of the key reasons we're here and that's a big pile of wax. And so you might think that boy, I wish that I could have that experience, but I'm telling you it wouldn't go the same way that you imagined it would. So how do you get to
the point where it would? Well, uh that too is a process. But because these things flow together, we have to go back to the beginning of, why didn't they have the spirit in the first place? It's because they had not fully submitted to God. And if they had while Jesus was there, they wouldn't have gone
through a Pentecostal experience because they would have already had more than that. So, um because they didn't part of the, what's shining to you, the wind and the power and the tongues part of getting there or the gateway to get there wasn't just the 10 days of silence from heaven that preceded it
. It wasn't just the 40 days of ministry with Jesus that preceded that because you might say like 10 days quiet, I could do that. You might say there's much more to that. By the way, you might say 40 days of Jesus, why wouldn't you wanna sign up to that? Well, because people were trying to kill them
. That's they were wanted men. And they had been basically, they had been co-conspirators to a capital crime and they were on the run. Essentially, they were wanted men. Basically, they were the enemies of the people. And by the way, you know, before the resurrected Christ first appeared to them, basically
, everything they thought was valuable had been suddenly ripped right out of them right out of their hands. They had, they had tremendous reasons to believe that they had been deceived. I should say opportunities to believe that they had been deceived and that everything that they thought about Jesus
was false. And a lot of them succumb to that because there was only what 100 and 20 people to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection over those 40 days, not thousands of people, the relative difference between the set of folks throwing ferns in the street or whatever in their clothing. When they
rode into Jerusalem, the triumph at entry and the number that continued to believe in him after his death, there's a huge difference and that's the first place to question. Would you have been among them? So how would you know, because you actually don't have to guess about this. One of the wonderful
things that Jesus taught was that these things always cour they come together. And so if you're wondering how you would react to the bitter on your way to the suite, how do you do it now? Because it's the same, you're, you're not gonna do any better when it's a bigger deal. And as far as those big deal
, little deal, your scope of, that's probably your idea of that's probably reverse because the biggest deal for the disciples was not the Pentecost. It was what they turned away from, that made the Pentecost necessary in the first place. Do you understand that? Because you're in one of those situations
right now, God is revealing to this world, things that have never been revealed since the foundation of the world. And this is the icing on top of the cake of our possession of records of all the things that the apostles experienced with Jesus during his mortal life. We have that in the scriptures. So
, are you doing better with that than the apostles did when they experienced it firsthand? If you're not really treasuring that? And the question is, what price would you pay to keep access to it? You know, would you do it if it cost you your life, would you do it? If you made you a criminal? And times
are coming where that's not gonna be hypothetical anymore? You won't have to imagine it. But again, it fully connects to what's before you write. The second, I will tell you how this is going to go for most of you. You don't understand that you're massively undervaluing what God has already put in your
hands. Um So what, what's going to happen? Well, lots and lots of suffering, essentially. What's gonna happen is God is gonna withdraw the blessings that He's given you in mercy. It's a measure of them. You'll be exposed to what you could describe as hell to a far greater extent than you can possibly
imagine could exist in a life. And as that happens, what's going to happen is that the minimal value that you associated with these things, even if like the apostles, you would strongly fight that description. You'd claim that you do value them tremendously. You don't. And you will realize this when
the goodies are taken away and the value that you place in those things you heard before will skyrocket. And for some of you, you'll be given a path to come back to what you took lightly before, at least in a measure. So again, you might view the Pentecost as this huge outpouring, but the Holy Ghost
is less than Jesus. Nothing the holy ghost can do is as good as what living with the mortal Jesus would have been with a better understanding of who he is in a higher value of what he is. Ok. Again, there's lots of scriptures that I was gonna share on this. I'm just paing this down because I'm cheating
my kids right now out of their time. Um mm Some good scriptures on this. Here's one that I really like. This is Isaiah 30 2021 and 22 from the niv. Um As these things happen, you could read the rest of the chapter. Um When you turn to the right or the left says whether you turn, but I'll say when you
turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way, walk in it. Why is it behind you? No one knows this. I'll tell you because it's coming from your past, the God is going to, to draw into your remembrance. This is one of the functions of the Holy Ghost. The
things that you were taught before. You either didn't believe them or you ignored them. But most likely if you're watching this, you undervalued them tremendously and you're just gonna get that up, a chunk of it. Uh a portion of it on repeat and when it comes, it will teach you all things that you should
do, could have taught you that before everything fell apart. But you weren't willing to receive it, then not for what it was worth. So then you will in verse 22 now, then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold and you will throw them away like a menstrual
cloth and say to them away with you. The end times will radically revalue your appraisals of what's valuable and things that you think are gold and silver. Now you will finally accept and realize that they're just idols covered with gold and covered with silver and you will see them as a menstrual cloth
and that's not where you are right now. Right now, you're trying to hold 1 ft in Babylon while you stretch your other leg. Like it's a game of twister towards the kingdom of God. But God does not allow partiality. It's not good enough. It's, it's, it can't, you can't receive what he has to give while
you're still under any other master. And your master is the things of the world, what other people think of you or your own comfort, not just your comfort in terms of your job, your friends and your notoriety, but your comfort in terms of how fast you're running the price you're willing to pay for things
that are good and not just good, but better than anything else you have. And he will help you adjust all of that through marching you straight into hell on earth, which is what's coming. And if you survive that far, you will experience what it says in Isaiah 30 verses 21 and verses 22 D and C 1018. In
the day of their peace, they esteem lightly my counsel. But in the day of their trouble of necessity, they feel after me, the Lord will continue to increase in the value, volume and velocity of what he gives you. And most of you will commensurately increase in ignoring, taking lightly and rejecting what
he reveals to you until you've left him with no recourse except to expose you to more and more of the consequences of life without his mercies. The hope is that through this, you'll increase in how much you value who and what he is and what he already tried to give you DNC 4325 says, how oft have I called
upon you by the mouth of my servants and by the ministering of angels and by mine own voice and by the voice of thundering and by the voice of lightnings, by the voice of tempests and by the voice of earthquakes. And great hailstorms and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind and by the
great sound of a Trump and by the voice of judgment and by the voice of Mercy all the day long and by the voice of glory and honor and the riches of eternal life and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation. But ye would not note the cascading changes in the source and character of the voice
as you study or celebrate the Pentecost, realize what side of it you're on and make whatever changes you need to, to vastly increase your perception of evaluation of the light and truth and goodness and beauty that God has overflowed into your life.