0:00:00 - 0:00:23 I was going through about 500 pages of notes here trying to organize some thoughts on justice and mercy and covenants. And um in the process of that, I came across a bullet here in my notes, it says the point of being mixed together in mortality to give as much as you can to those below and to receive 0:00:22 - 0:00:42 as much as you can from those above. So it was just one bullet and two sentences. And as I read that my head filled with the ideas I'm gonna present right now. Um And it was about 20 minutes from start to finish and I cranked out these slides and I'll share them with you. Now. Um As I was doing this 0:00:42 - 0:01:04 , a bunch of recent interactions with people came into my mind and I feel like this is a uh this is a useful way of presenting this information, at least at this level, just sort of getting it out there. So the point of being mixed up in mortality lately, we've been talking more and more about this idea 0:01:03 - 0:00:00 of um different categories of people being on the earth right now and we're all mixed together we're all mixed together. We have free association with each other and that is a unique property of mortality. It is not that way in the eternities. We do not have free association with one another. There, 0:00:00 - 0:01:55 we are grouped and like groups. So the people that you will have the greatest access to will be most like you are. And uh for some of us that will be a situation that can only be described as heavenly. And for most people, it will be quite hellish. And um anyway, speaking of hellish, let's talk about 0:01:55 - 0:02:19 marriage. Sorry. So I have quite a sense of humor when it comes to this. I, I'm just gonna put preamble on this. I love my wife very much. We've had extraordinarily rich uh years together. We've been married 14 years now, uh next month. And I think, um hopefully, I'm counting that right. And it's been 0:02:19 - 0:02:45 a very, very rich 14 years. And um but, you know, having been through that and also more importantly, having a lens on the experience of so many others, I find the topic hilarious because there's such a deviation from the public face of what marriage is and what it, it it actually is. Um And of course 0:02:45 - 0:00:00 , my perspective on this is skewed, I'm a male. And um when I look at the composite of the experience of my brothers in this, most of whom are ahead of me uh in years, I just think it's hilarious how far the public image of marriage is from how they would describe it. Um, so I think that it's, it's, 0:00:00 - 0:03:34 uh, it's a very good thing to air the laundry in terms of sharing how things really are instead of how things are perpetuated in this myth. Um, I don't think we do a good enough job of distinguishing between how things could be and how things are. And I think that's very unfortunate. Um, and, and, you 0:03:34 - 0:03:54 know, it plays out in the fact that most marriages are not living in the sense that they're not getting better, they're getting worse and quickly. So, anyway, but this isn't gonna be a depressing presentation. I don't think, I think it's gonna be realistic and very practical. So, um, it's not too long 0:03:53 - 0:04:14 . Well, the slide, I don't have too many slides. I'm not sure how quickly we'll get through it, but one question that no one has asked me, but I think a lot of people are thinking or else you're brain dead is why do you talk so much about dating and spouse selection and marriage? Um, it's actually kind 0:04:14 - 0:04:36 of surprising. No one's asked me that, but maybe you were wondering, maybe you were afraid to ask. I don't blame you. So, um, here's the reason this is the reason it turns out that if you were to organize everything that can be said or done in life, what you'll find is that things are hierarchical in 0:04:35 - 0:04:58 terms of, well everything, but specifically what I mean is in terms of value and in terms of purpose. So you really need to prioritize things in order to get the most out of life. They're the most valuable things in life. Um And it doesn't matter if what we're talking about, the most valuable things 0:04:58 - 0:05:25 are um least tolerant of competition, it really takes everything. And so God takes everything and he's hopefully sits at the top of the priority hierarchy here in our lives. And um it turns out that his creation is designed to draw us towards him and to draw us into a more full understanding of this 0:05:25 - 0:05:49 hierarchy. And the reason for that is because there's so much to him that it requires all of this other stuff for us to even start to have a clue that we have even a clue about what he really is, who he really is and what he's like, and it's all intentionally designed for that purpose. But as you draw 0:05:48 - 0:06:15 nearer to him, what you're going to find is that as the value of things increases, as uh the meaning of things increases, as the joy of things increase, you're going to find that the material in that structuring of reality, the the the things you're stacking in your priority pyramid, they are going to 0:06:15 - 0:06:51 tend towards things that are human, whether that's actual people or aspects of humanity or facets of human life. It turns out that we're created in God's image. And as you draw nearer to Him, you will find that the richness of value in life is tremendously high in the human aspects compared to otherwise 0:06:50 - 0:07:17 . And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an ascent, it's a curve. So the more human your what you're focusing on, the greater the value, the potential value in that will become the greater, the, the joy in that will become, I should say potential joy, the greater the the the richness of information will become 0:07:17 - 0:07:46 everything gets better as you draw nearer to God. And as you draw nearer to God, everything gets more human. It turns out we are the only creation that is near to Him in, in our potential. And that is extraordinarily important. And likewise, uh you will find that marriage out of all potential human relationships 0:07:45 - 0:08:13 , there's also a hierarchy, you know, from stranger on the bus to your spouse, there's a hierarchy of human relationships or you should think of it maybe as a potential human relationships because they're, they're templates their um patterns, their opportunities. Um Different marriages are very different 0:08:13 - 0:08:38 , very, very different. But, but in terms of the ideal, you'll find that the ideal marriage is incomparably better than any other ideal human relationship. So um obviously glossing over the particulars of the metric of comparison there, but you'll find more joy, more meaning, more value. Everything that's 0:08:37 - 0:09:11 good is concentrated in that ideal. OK. So why does marriage matter so much? There? There are basically two reasons. One is, um I'm, I'm doing this out of order. But, but one of these is that the greatest blessings available in mortality are uniquely housed in the relationship of marriage. There is nothing 0:09:10 - 0:09:39 better than that in the ideal, in the ideal, nothing else can compare. Ok. But that being said, we're just gonna start right off the bat kicking these cows. That being said, this is not to say that that's the case for the average marriage or that even that it's common in any way that that's the case 0:09:38 - 0:10:09 . Furthermore, that's not to say by any means that that is something that you can get to in your marriage if you're already down that road, meaning if you're already married, there may not be a road from where you are to what I'm talking about. So I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you and say any marriage 0:10:08 - 0:10:33 is capable of being ideal. That's absolutely not true. It, it takes massive, massive input from both spouses to achieve that. And frankly, I find it very hard to believe that there are many out there who um are willing to do it in the first place. But, but having not done it for at least a little while 0:10:32 - 0:10:52 there is this sense in marriage that there are things that are nonrecoverable and that it's always, it's also that way in life. Neither of these two things are appealing for people to hear. We like to pretend, especially in the Christian community that God can blank slate people. And you can just be 0:10:52 - 0:11:11 right back to the beginning of where you were. It's a very appealing message to all people that, that nothing you ever do really matters because you can always hit the reset button. But life isn't classic Nintendo, right? If it was my, one of my sons would be a whiz and he'd have, he'd be a supreme governor 0:11:10 - 0:11:34 of the universe at this point. But, um, you can't just hit the reset button and start off where you, where you were before with the advantage of all the things you've learned in the meantime and speed run life, you can't do that. It doesn't work that way. So if we had time, I could give you a bunch of 0:11:34 - 0:11:56 specific examples. But if, if you're an honest person with your eyes even halfway open, you know what I'm saying is true that, that there's just things that you can't do over again in life. Ok. So what we're talking about is mostly what is available for other people who are younger than you. Probably 0:11:55 - 0:12:16 your kids, hopefully your grandkids, if not your kids, but this is for future generations because you've already rolled your dice, you've made your bed already. And, and that's not to say that there's not a tremendous amount of benefit that can be done. And most of this presentation is about that. But 0:12:15 - 0:12:48 just up front, I will tell you more people in the end times will encounter marriages closer to the ideal than any other time in history. The ingredients are all there in abundance. It still is not going to be a majority case of people. However, when the dust settles, it will be a greater percentage of 0:12:48 - 0:13:14 married people, more people will be closer to the ideal than at any other time in history once the dust settles. So that's a sobering thought because uh if you just put two and two together, from what I've said, which you may not have. What I'm saying is if you go through that fire and you are on the 0:13:14 - 0:13:35 other side, when the dust settles, um, it, it, I, well, I guess I suggest the possibility that you will not be married at that point and the, the reason is going to be that your spouse will probably be dead just, just to be very frank about it. The odds of both of you rising to the level required to 0:13:35 - 0:13:58 survive what's coming and make it to the other side are very low. So it's not doom and gloom. It's just being realistic about the bar because the bar is coming, whether you like it or not, and those who make it to the other side will do so because they've risen to that level. God is just, and his justice 0:13:58 - 0:14:20 is coming, it will be fulfilled. So, um anyway, in spite of the fact that if you're watching this, the odds are next to zero that what I'm talking about with the ideal marriage applies to you, the odds are very high that it could apply to your Children or grandchildren. Although that would necessitate 0:14:19 - 0:14:42 a radical change in who and how you are from, how you've oriented your life so far to how you would need to orient it, to serve your Children and grandchildren in the way that I'm describing here. So just I hope that makes it all very clear as we move forward, but I'm not holding back any punches. What 0:14:41 - 0:15:03 I'm laying out are ideas that are essential to believe and live in the time to come. But you can't wait until then to do it or you won't make it to that point. And so if you are listening to the things that I'm saying, if you're aware of them, you have the opportunity to share these things with younger 0:15:03 - 0:15:30 people who have the opportunity to live the fulfillment of the ideal that they describe even if you do not have a path to that ideal yourself, remaining in your life. So that's one reason and that only applies to specific people, obviously. But this reason, uh actually, I started on this mm ideal marriage 0:15:30 - 0:15:52 . It provides a template for almost everything that matters in the gospel. And so no matter what your situation is, if you're married, single divorced. It doesn't matter. The ideas within ideal marriage are essential for you to understand in order to obtain the greatest possible happiness in life. And 0:15:52 - 0:16:22 thereafter, for example, you have to understand the ideal husband and father. If you are going to understand in any meaningful way, our father in heaven and his relationship to us in his covenant, it's not optional. You have to understand that ideal because that is what he uh is and has and gives, you 0:16:21 - 0:16:43 have to understand the ideal wife and mother to understand our relationship to God in his covenant. It's not optional. If you don't understand those things, you can't live that life. And that is the role to which we are called with God. You have to understand both of these in order to understand our 0:16:43 - 0:17:10 relationship with other people in God's covenant. And if you don't, then you can't live that life. And so these things are super important. And besides all this, the fact is that even in far less than ideal marriages, we are, we are drowning on opportunities to live the purposes of the Gospel. And I'm 0:17:10 - 0:17:29 gonna get to that is that, that we lay out this case for the ideal marriage. It doesn't mean that there's not value in everything less than that. In fact, everything less than that points to that and might be the fastest, most direct path to it. In fact, to getting them the greatest out of it that, that 0:17:29 - 0:17:50 can be gotten. That'll make more sense in a minute. Hopefully. So then what is the point of getting married? So most folks that uh I run with would probably say to build an internal family. That's an answer. I've heard a lot. It's a very Mormon answer, but also in churches you say like what's the point 0:17:50 - 0:18:12 of getting married is to build a family? Right? And hopefully it's a family that's going to endure beyond this life. Cause what would he be without a wife and kids? Right. That's what people say. I'm not saying, I agree with that, but that's what I've heard. Other people say, well, I am gonna push back 0:18:12 - 0:18:42 against this because if that's the point, then we've got some problems, we've got some problems and let me demonstrate why the short answer is because hardly any marriage will endure eternally, hardly any marriage will endure eternally. The percentage is tiny, tiny, tiny. And why is that? Well, what 0:18:42 - 0:19:01 does it take for a marriage to be eternal again? It's not my answer. But I think a lot of people I know would say the right ordinance, the right religious right? You have to be married by the right person is a lot of people would say that um probably other people would just say, well, getting married 0:19:01 - 0:19:22 , that does it. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. I guess you could disprove that second view. Although it's probably the majority view by pointing to jesus' conversation with the woman at the, well, she had been married a couple of times and the question was, um uh which, sorry, I'm mixing two 0:19:22 - 0:19:42 stories here. She had been married a couple of times and the guy she was with currently was not her husband legally. There's another story where the, the, the Pharisees, they present the situation to Jesus of a woman who had been married a couple of times and they said, whose, whose husband is she going 0:19:42 - 0:20:03 to be in heaven? And Jesus said none of the above because the angels are not married or given in marriage. He wasn't saying that there aren't married people in heaven. He's saying that the caliber of person that this woman was, those kinds of people are not married in heaven. It's not something that 0:20:02 - 0:20:35 uh applies to the lower thresholds of um the human race. There's a standard. Um So it's not something that is common and it's not something that's easy. Uh But what is the criteria? Um Instead of launching into some like scripture battle argument of this, I'm going to share with you something that God 0:20:35 - 0:20:58 shared with me. I want you to imagine um for a second that you're dead and whether this is immediately after death or in the resurrection, it really doesn't matter. But suppose there's some time in the future where God changes your understanding of things and all of a sudden instead of seeing things 0:20:58 - 0:21:26 as you see them now, you see them, uh, more like they really are and the same goes for everyone around you. So I want you to think for a second about a situation where everyone sees everything about you to the extent that you see it. In other words, you are known to the extent that, you know, and I want 0:21:25 - 0:21:50 you to imagine how that's gonna change the perceptions of your spouse, uh, regarding you. And I want you to imagine how that might change your view of your spouse. Now, I know that it's nice to think that you actually know the married person you're married to. But I think that you will agree with me 0:21:50 - 0:22:06 that they probably don't know you as well as you know yourself. This is not always the case. There are people out there who know their spouses better than their spouses know themselves. But the point is that there's a difference one way or the other. It doesn't really matter the direction of it to my 0:22:06 - 0:22:31 point. So that's one issue is that there's a difference in how much people know themselves versus other people. The other issue is this, you don't even have to imagine the afterlife to get into this. How many stories have you heard of? Some s some person, you know, some, this, this couple that's been 0:22:31 - 0:22:55 married for a long time and then out of nowhere, one of the people does something that just seems like a shock. It's so different and out of character for them. You know, the, the, the mom that kills her kids out of nowhere or the dad that ends up, uh, on some coke banger, um, coked up affair thing for 0:22:54 - 0:23:14 like two weeks and comes home and like, his whole life's ruined or whatever, whatever happens. But these things happen all the time, they happen all the time. You probably have six people, you know, personally who this has happened to or who might be the person that went off the rails. So what changed 0:23:14 - 0:00:00 , what changed was just the situation that person character wise, you know, we're on a continuum, a line and has ups and downs over time. But there's a trend, there is a trend and if someone shocks you like that, it means you never knew them, you never actually knew them the way you thought you did. 0:00:00 - 0:23:58 And sure enough when these things happen in life, the spouse who's surprised, it's a real ego, death for them. It's like they're everything that they leaned on in life is turned upside down because they put so much confidence in the fact that this part of the mystery was figured out. And now to see it 0:23:58 - 0:24:24 crumble, it calls into question everything that they leaned on. Not to mention a very significant chunk of their uh very deep desires and emotions and, and sacrifice and suffering was tied up with that person. And now it's, it's, it's like um it's a retrospective revision of value and it hurts. So if 0:24:24 - 0:24:47 that can happen in life, how much more do you think that's gonna happen in death and resurrection? And how confident are you that if you're given an increment of understanding to see all people as they are, to some extent, at least how confident are you that what your spouse would say about you today 0:24:47 - 0:25:11 and feel about you today is what they would feel about you then and vice versa. Because I believe that you would be hard pressed to point me to a single example of a married couple who would not radically change if that happened radically. And I'm not saying both of them would end up with the same perspective 0:25:11 - 0:25:33 , but where at least one would not have very different views about their marriage than they had before. And again, I don't think you have to stretch that much on this because again, some of, you know, yourself to be very different than the spouse, your spouse thinks you are, you know, the deep dark secrets 0:25:33 - 0:26:04 that you haven't fixed and some of, you know, your spouses have no clue who you are. But on, on a much better side of things like they don't see just how good you are. And um everything in between. Now, the shift in paradigm is not limited to the couple. So again, we don't just have to rely on the afterlife 0:26:04 - 0:26:27 for this in this hypothetical situation. It's not hypothetical, but you don't have to believe me that. It's not because in life, how often do we see? It's mostly women, but we see people approaching middle age and, and they've been married for a while. They have kids and all of a sudden they get hit 0:26:27 - 0:26:54 with what people call the fear of missing out and they're starting to see themselves age and in their minds explicitly or not, comes the thought if I don't get out there now and party, I'll never know what I missed because the window is closing. My currency on the marketplace is evaporating. It's now 0:26:53 - 0:27:14 or never. And they go out and they party it up. They, they separate from their spouses or maybe they don't say anything and they just do this privately. Um or they just straight up, get divorced and usually they'll lose a bunch of weight before they do it. It's like some perverted moth turning into a 0:27:14 - 0:27:37 even more disastrous butterfly or something or, or you know what I mean? Like little uh caterpillar turning into some kind of a moth and they cocoon it up and then they go out and they party, this happens all the time in life for this fear of missing out. So, you know, we, we don't have much respect 0:27:36 - 0:27:59 for those people. It's, it's a really trashy thing to do, but in the eternities, it's not this desire to party it up. It's the fact that reality is starkly different than you thought. And when the blinders come off because we receive this increment of awareness in the resurrection and we see other people 0:27:59 - 0:28:20 more correctly, we see ourselves more correctly and we see our spouse more correctly. I'm telling you right now that the people who ended up putting way more into it than they received in return, they're going to look around and say, you know, I'd rather be with this other person, not my spouse cause 0:28:19 - 0:28:44 they really just didn't love me. And uh I'd rather have a better situation with someone who actually cares about me at least a little and you can't really blame them for that. Do, do you get what I'm going for here? These are probably thoughts that you've never considered. I think what happens is you 0:28:44 - 0:00:00 get these and it's mostly men who go around bragging about how their life is so much better than what they deserve. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to them, you know, whatever they don't understand how dangerous that is. And I'm not saying because secretly their wife is like, yeah, idiot, 0:00:00 - 0:29:28 you're right. And I wish you would just step it up and I'm gonna divorce you as soon as I lose some weight. That is the case far too often. But maybe she's like, yeah, well I'm glad to be there for you and I love you and everything is great. Ok? But God's justice is not going to tolerate that situation 0:29:28 - 0:29:54 . You can't be in a situation that you do not merit eternally, it doesn't work that way. Mercy has to be replaced with justice. Mercy is always time limited, it always is. And so you better improve yourself while you have time. So you can get to the point where you can stop saying, oh I don't deserve 0:29:54 - 0:30:13 my wife. She's so much better than me. Get off your butt and become the kind of man that she deserves. Or else you're going to lose her in the eternities, I promise you. Ok? And it's not always that direction. Sometimes it's the other way around, but it's, that's mostly a male thing. I, I don't think 0:30:13 - 0:30:38 I've ever heard a woman say I don't deserve my husband. He's so much better than me. And it's not because it's, it's true, less, less often. It's just female nature is less likely to acknowledge that as getting something beyond what she deserves. All women tend to um not just feel entitled to more than 0:30:38 - 0:31:01 they deserve, but they actively seek it. That's their nature and, and great good for them. So, um it would be better if they were more overt about that and didn't try to play both sides of that card at once by then getting all upset when people say overtly women ought to seek the best man that will have 0:31:01 - 0:31:25 them. That's what they do anyway. But for some reason, if you tell the truth about that you get castigated. Um ok. So anyway, you might think you're happy now in your marriage. But one question is whether your spouse is and if they aren't, that's not an eternal marriage, it's not gonna hold up there 0:31:25 - 0:31:47 . And then the other thing is ok. So you're happy. Now, what did he do? How happy are you going to be when, you know, way more than you do because one thing you can't do in the eternities is lie. And it's funny to talk about lying because that's the one sin that no one's proud of everything else. You 0:31:47 - 0:32:09 could get someone who confesses to murder rape, whatever. It's very hard to find someone who says. Yeah. Yeah, I did lie and I shouldn't have or whatever they will, they will fight it tooth and nail. No one likes being a liar. Everyone likes lying but no one likes being called a liar. Um It turns out 0:32:09 - 0:32:29 that these people who are like, oh, you know, my husband or my wife, we're just, everything's so great and whatever, they tend to be the folks who know their spouse the least. So guys who say that tend to be guys who work like 100 and 20 hours a week. They're never home. They've never been home for 20 0:32:29 - 0:32:50 years and they're just like, oh, I love my wife so much. You don't even know your wife, bro and she doesn't know you, you have no idea. Who this woman is. You may have never known who she was and the women who say this, it's kind of the opposite direction. It's the same situation, but the guy is never 0:32:50 - 0:33:12 there. Who, who are you even talking about a hypothetical guy? Because obviously you're never around the guy. You see him at church on Sundays. That's the only time he's ever around, he's off doing his own thing. 24 7. So great that he pays the bills. But to say something about him at a personal level 0:33:11 - 0:33:33 , you'd actually have to know him and spend time with him and also outside of the confines of very limited life. Like if, if your life together is extremely narrow where you just, you both have jobs and you're home frantically helping the kids with homework for two hours a night and scarfing something 0:33:33 - 0:33:59 down and then your weekends are just as full as your weekdays. You don't even know each other. So how can you say you like each other? How much time do you actually spend together doing things that aren't entertainment, growing together? Learning building, working? All right. So if you, if you want to 0:33:59 - 0:34:23 claim that you have an eternal marriage, I'd like to see you make a case that what you have is what is best for each spouse. And that's something that I think is very hard to do. No, when I say what is best, I'm not just talking about the ultra rare, universal optimum of saying like across the entire 0:34:23 - 0:34:47 human race, limited only by who is alive right now and some kind of very wide geographic bounds because of the uh convenience of the internet and cheap travel that these two people are best for each other. We don't even have to limit it to all that if you set that aside. Although I do think that that 0:34:47 - 0:35:13 is what it approaches, that is the standard it approaches in heaven, but set all that aside and just make a case that you've got a husband who has become and continues to be everything he could possibly be and he does everything he does for the benefit of his wife. Truly. Do you know any men like that 0:35:13 - 0:35:35 ? So you might know one or two. If you're a really lucky person, then flip that around and ask the same question question for the wife. Is that wife, everything she could possibly be and does she do everything she could for the benefit of her husband? And if you have found me, someone for whom that is 0:35:34 - 0:35:59 true for the guy and the gal, then we have a very rare and beautiful thing on our hands and let's all get together and pray that the Lord will seal them eternally. And if it's less than that good luck, if it's less than that, then that's not something I would participate in as far as some kind of like 0:35:59 - 0:36:21 whatever kind of ceiling thing that might be going on that those aren't two people I would want to marry. I wouldn't want the Lord holding me accountable for the success of that relationship in any way. All right. So let's come back to the question then. What's the point of getting married? It's like 0:36:21 - 0:36:42 , uh the disciples said to Jesus. Uh when he said that you shouldn't divorce each other, they're like, what's the point of getting married then? Like, who would do this then? Like, why would you tie yourself to, to this situation if you don't have an escape valve, right? Or, or, you know, and he says 0:36:41 - 0:37:00 , in another place uh with men, it's impossible because he says, rich people hardly enter into the, into heaven. And they say, well, who the heck could get there? And he says, well with men, it's impossible with God. All things are possible. So, what's the point of getting married? Um I'm not going to 0:37:00 - 0:37:24 dispute that the purpose is to build an eternal family, but I will tell you, uh I don't know anyone who's following that recipe and by the way, it starts before you get married. And that's part of the problem is that um guys and gals alike don't have a clue as to what's actually important in life until 0:37:23 - 0:37:51 they get closer to 40. The problem is they've both already made all the decisions that are gonna determine the quality of their lives for the 2nd 40 years. And this is one reason among many why it's very important for women to marry guys who are older than them. And for men to not mess with this until 0:37:51 - 0:38:17 you have more of a clue. But for both men and women to lean very heavily on wise older people to help guide them in this, in this choice. Because it's astronomically important, it's astronomically important. And the odds of you doing the right thing on your own are basically zero because by nature, nature 0:38:17 - 0:38:39 is pretty much all you're gonna have to lean on when you're, when you're 1819, 20 years old and by nature, you are not going to go for anything close to the most important choices. Your valuation is just gonna be totally jacked up. All right. So if, if the, if the vast majority of the experience of marriage 0:38:39 - 0:39:00 is not for building an eternal family, what's it for? Here is the answer to give as much as you can to those below and to receive as much as you can from those above and above and below. What are we talking about? Light and truth? That's the above and below is their position in the hierarchy of heaven 0:39:00 - 0:39:20 . But do they have more light and truth than you? Then your job is to receive as much as you can from them? Do they have less light and truth in you? Then your job is to give as much of your light and truth to them as you can. What does that look like? It spans everything from, but it's just about service 0:39:20 - 0:39:46 . You're doing everything in your power to help them improve as much as they're willing and beyond that, to receive good things, even if they're not willing to become, um, to become like them. So, here's the good news. This idea is not specific to marriage in any way. Marriage is its full fulfillment 0:39:46 - 0:40:07 , but it's not the only application. It's the whole point of mortality. It doesn't matter what you're doing or what situation you find yourself in right this moment, that is what you're meant to be doing, to give as much as you can to those below and to receive as much as you can from those above. It 0:40:07 - 0:40:30 just so happens, a framework of marriage is the most efficient way of doing this, but also the greatest potential way of doing it more can be received through this than when given through this than in any other way. And so even if you have a marriage, that is way far from the ideal, you can still maximize 0:40:28 - 0:40:56 how much you give and how much you receive in that marriage because it still has a bunch of the properties of marriage that that um are shared with. The ideal is a wonderful vehicle for transmitting light and truth. So here's the irony of this, if you follow this recipe of maximizing the, the good you 0:40:56 - 0:41:19 can do and give and maximizing the good that you recognize and value and receive. That is actually the best way you can move towards an eternal marriage. Even if you're in a situation that will never be an eternal marriage. It's still the best way to approach that. And if you're not there yet, you haven't 0:41:19 - 0:41:44 married someone yet. What I just described that is the way to maximize the, the, the, to choose the partner with whom you'll have the maximal chance of obtaining that, that ideal. And so we're gonna go through some practical examples of that. But you want to look for someone who, well, we'll get to them 0:41:44 - 0:42:11 because it's gender specific. Du du du. OK. So let's just explicitly pop this bubble, this, this idea of equally yoked spouses. Let's just dismantle that where there are any two people, one person is going to have more light than the other. That's just the way it is. It's always true. You cannot escape 0:42:11 - 0:42:34 it. Although who that person is can change over time. It can invert if one person could outgrow the other, one person could decay faster than the other. But at any time between any two people, one will have more light than the other. It's very important to understand and believe that. So when we talk 0:42:34 - 0:42:58 about the distinction between an eternal marriage and a marriage that's not gonna endure in, in the eternities, it, that's not actually the point. The point is whether the light differential between any two people in a marriage is recognized or not and how accurately the degree of it is recognized. And 0:42:58 - 0:43:18 I should say valued because most people resent that difference. Most people resent that difference uh from, from either direction. If someone finds out they have greater light and truth than their spouse, they get upset. If someone finds out that their spouse has greater light and truth than them, they 0:43:18 - 0:43:40 get upset. And in both cases, um, those are both things worth celebrating because you're fulfilling the purpose of creation or at least you have the opportunity to, if there were no difference, you would not have any opportunity to do that. All you're doing you'd be doing is weakly emulating what already 0:43:39 - 0:44:04 exists in heaven. And what the heck is the purpose of that? That's like optionally leaving your house and then getting your hands on some, uh, plastic playset, kitchen playset out of the trash, setting it up in the woods and just pretending like you're living in a kitchen, real kitchen again. Why would 0:44:04 - 0:44:23 you do that? What benefit is in that? And that's about how silly it is to look for a spouse that's quote unquote, equally yoked to you. They won't benefit from that and you won't either. That's if you can find it, which I'm telling you right now, you can't, if you think you're in that situation, you 0:44:22 - 0:44:42 just don't know which spouse has more light. And if you're in that situation, I can almost guarantee it's your spouse and you might think you're equally yoked. But they don't, they know that they have more light than you do and there's abundant evidence for this and they're just not doing their job of 0:44:41 - 0:45:01 helping you to grow. They're just avoiding you. Ok. So here's a depiction of this equally yoked business. When we asked the question, who's the ideal partner? You might say like, well, I'm really high in this pyramid. I want to find someone just like me, someone who loves the Lord as much as I do. Well 0:45:01 - 0:45:24 , that's a really bad idea why. First off, it's not how male and female nature works and in general, it's a bad idea to try to fight nature. Um Well, I say that obviously natural man is an enemy of God yada yada yada. But what I'm saying is, it's, it's a bad idea to go into a battle without recognizing 0:45:23 - 0:45:46 there's a battle. So when you like, if you want to walk through the ghetto late at night and just whistle and pretend that you're in um I don't know some safe place you can, it's not gonna go well for you, right? So you better, you better know what you're up against and not be traveling alone and hopefully 0:45:46 - 0:46:08 have a gun. So, because you know what happens there. So that's the first point. Let me get into more about how male and female nature works with this differential. But the second point is this and, and hopefully it's a little bit more obvious because people are a process and there's no such thing as 0:46:08 - 0:46:28 equally yoked. There's only a such thing as equally yoked. Right. This second, even that I, like I've said, I think is an illusion. You, you look at enough circumstances, you're gonna find, you're not equally yoked, but any time you have sufficient capability of indulging in this idea, what you'll find 0:46:28 - 0:46:49 is, it's one of these two situations. So one of these lines is you, the other is your equally yoked partner, quote unquote partner. I hate that phrase that word. Um Because again, it just presupposes this, this interchangeability and it's never true, it's never true. So let's say that you're the arrow 0:46:49 - 0:47:08 that's going up and your spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend is the arrow that's going the same way. They are not changing. They're the same person. They were a while back and they will continue to be the same person you are growing even though you're equally yoked right now. If you step forward a week 0:47:08 - 0:47:27 or a month or a year or 10 years, you are gonna be in a completely different universe than them because you're continuing to grow at the same rate that you were before. Now, in both these examples, the lines are straight and in life, the lines are not straight, you can increase or decrease the, your 0:47:26 - 0:47:50 slope over time. You can, you can grow faster or slower or decay faster or slower. So that's the first example. The second example is, uh, one person is actually decaying and one person is growing and then that one's even worse because the distance over time increases much faster than this one. So even 0:47:49 - 0:48:08 if you can make a case that you're equally yoked, now, I would say it's highly likely you're gonna be miserable forever because if you don't understand the situation, um And you, you just believe this business of, I'm looking for someone that matches how I am right now. Well, that's, that's not a good 0:48:08 - 0:48:36 strategy. What is a good strategy? And I didn't draw this is uh I should try to do this on the fly. Is that over time, what you want is it's the sun and planets model. So we think of the sun as stationary, but it's not. And um it's actually, it's, it's barreling through space and the planets orbited 0:48:35 - 0:49:00 and the sun is doing its thing and the planets are doing its thing, but the planet's thing is defined completely by the thing of the sun. So in a way, what you could say is that the planets are being led along by the light and the direction and the speed of the sun and they're being fed by that. And 0:49:00 - 0:49:30 that's the ideal. And so if this line here is the trajectory of a man, the ideal is that the woman is following in that path. Oh, gosh. How do you even draw this? Let's see on a staggered thing through time. So maybe like maybe like this, this is not great. Ok, there's a stagger through time and he is 0:49:30 - 0:49:59 leading the family and she's adjusting to that pace and she's taking what he has to give and then she's doing her thing with that and making it much more than it would otherwise be. So that's, that's the ideal. Um But it's not this and it's not that. So here's a, a more basic depiction of this. So if 0:49:59 - 0:50:26 your woman, the ideal partner is the man with the most light and truth that you can find who will receive you. OK? And you're choosing someone based on what he has to give you and you're maximizing that. And that's why it says the man there is one man for you and that is the best man who will receive 0:50:25 - 0:50:57 you and the language will receive you is very important. It's very important. Some people describe marriage and they say this awful phrase. I hate it. Take a wife, I hate that phrase. I hate it beyond description. A man does not take a wife, he receives her, he accepts her. Now she receives him really 0:50:57 - 0:51:22 . But she is interested. She says you are up to my standards and then he decides whether she's up to his. And I'm not saying directionally or time wise, it needs to happen in that order or whatever. But my point is that she's coming into his game. It's not the other way around. She's coming into his 0:51:21 - 0:51:52 kingdom. That's the way it works. What makes a king a kingdom, what makes a queen a king? It's very important to understand that in an ideal situation, a woman is choosing a man based on who he already is. She's not uh trading this birthright for a mess of porridge, which is her right and her, her ability 0:51:52 - 0:52:20 to stand at the finish line and wait for the winner, the best winner who's interested in her. If she trades that for a roll of the dice with terrible odds to say, well, I'm just gonna pick somebody my same age who seems like whatever. He's, he's a, he's good enough for now. That's a very stupid trade 0:52:19 - 0:52:40 cause now you're running the risk. You have no idea who this guy is going to become right. I'm not, I'm not saying an 18 year old woman should be looking for a 50 year old man. I'm saying give it a couple of years at least because you need to see how he's choosing to live his life on his own before you 0:52:40 - 0:53:01 can calculate if he's the best guy that you can find. And you don't want to leave that to risk. It's like an elevator has a safety mechanism where if the cable breaks, it'll catch wherever it is and it won't fall further than it is, it can't keep going up, but it's not gonna go down when the cable breaks 0:53:01 - 0:53:23 . That's how it's meant to be with women, choosing husbands you're supposed to have, you're supposed to be able to rely on the man that he has already become. Hopefully he's gonna continue to grow. And the best evidence for that is his past trajectory. Right. If he's already on a path of growth, it's 0:53:23 - 0:53:44 rational to assume he will continue on a path of growth. Although that's not always the case, it's a fair assumption. But if he's a total loser, now, why are you going to believe that he's not going to be a total loser in the future? Do you think you're gonna change him? Does that ever work? All right 0:53:44 - 0:54:11 . So what's, what about the ideal partner for a man? So the woman is trying to get the guy who's the highest on the triangle, who will receive her for whom she is good enough. OK? For a man, it's has nothing to do with where she is on this triangle. This is very important to understand because first 0:54:10 - 0:54:39 off, she's not gonna be up here because part of a woman's growth trajectory is having a husband and kids. You see, you can't wait at the finish line. It's, it's inherently extraordinarily risky for men to choose women. You can't avoid it. It's part of the game. What you're looking for is growth, potential 0:54:38 - 0:55:02 , not actuated, growth, not growth that has actually happened. But potential you, there are many reasons where you can't look at her track record and say, well, I'm gonna project where this line is gonna be. You can't do that with a woman. First off, they change their whole lives, they change, they're 0:55:02 - 0:55:23 not consistent. Ok. That's just the way it is. So even if there is some kind of pattern, you, you should not be surprised if that changes 100%. The second you marry her, OK? You should expect that. But the second thing is in order to have a trajectory, you need time. That's the same reason a woman should 0:55:22 - 0:55:50 be looking at a guy that's a couple years older than her. You have to have time to see how it's gone with a woman. If you wait, what she can receive from you declines big time quickly. And so you cannot wait to see how things are going. You can't wait at the finish line and pick a winner because that 0:55:50 - 0:56:13 can't cour with her receiving from you. She will already have received from other people. Whether we're talking about relationships explicitly or not just in life, she will develop and become who she's going to become independent of you. That's the role of a man, not a woman, it's, he's gonna become 0:56:12 - 0:56:34 who he's gonna become. And then she gets to pick the one she likes a guy is looking for a woman for whom this arrow is the longest. It doesn't matter if it's here or here or anywhere else, it doesn't matter. He's looking for the longest arrow because that is her delta of who she started as, and who she 0:56:34 - 0:00:00 can become with him. He's looking for a woman who can maximize the value of what he gives her because that's all he has to give by what she adds to it. Right. So, if she's got a really short arrow, that is a waste of a man's life. If there is no arrow, that's the normal situation, that's even worse. 0:00:00 - 0:57:28 That's the worst it could be. Right. You pick someone up here who's got a career and, you know, a house and lots of student loans and, you know, I don't need a man until I'm 30 or 35 or whatever. Well, guess what? That's where she's going to end right there. She starts there. She's gonna end there. She 0:57:28 - 0:57:52 will not benefit in any way from anything that you have to give. She'll take what you have to give, but she won't appreciate it and she won't grow from it. It will not give her joy or value. Right. You have to find a younger person who's still got their life ahead of them and can receive what you have 0:57:51 - 0:58:12 to give. All right, dwelt on that long enough. These aren't necessarily new ideas, but this is putting it in a different way and that's why coming back to this whole thing about if you've already shot your shot, none of this applies to you directly in the sense of marriage. Uh, a, at least in the sense 0:58:12 - 0:58:38 of who you're gonna choose, you've already chosen, it's too late, but you can teach your kids these things and you can help them. Because if a woman is 18, for 19 years old, she can still get this guy. And if a guy is 26 and still single, he can still look for this woman. Outside of those age ranges 0:58:38 - 0:59:03 , it gets a lot harder, it gets a lot harder because if you're a man and you're, you're 35 and your knees are starting to go, you know, these, these ladies are gonna think you're a creep. Uh You're creeper, right? You're perv or whatever names they call you. But if you're 26 24 25 as a guy and you're 0:59:03 - 0:59:23 single, you are still fully in the band of being able to find one of these women. And if you're 1819, 20 years old and a woman and you haven't slept with the whole football team, you're still in the band of being able to find this man. So as parents, as grandparents, it's your job to help orchestrate 0:59:23 - 0:59:46 these young people into these ideal settings or at least something that approaches it. But even if you've already shot your shot, this is still your purpose as a man and a woman. And so if you're down the road a bit. It takes an enormous adjustment to learn as a woman to adopt the purpose of your husband 0:59:45 - 1:00:09 and actually value what he brings to the table because the tendency is to take that for granted and just assume you're entitled to the universe. And then for a man to start actually living like a man and become a person who has something to give and become the kind of person who lives to give it. And 1:00:09 - 1:00:32 those are rough adjustments and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. But if you're still alive, there's still work to be done. All right. Now, finally, I wanna end here. These are big ideas. I'm gonna try to keep it brief. These are a marriage is a wonderful case study to help start to understand 1:00:31 - 1:00:56 just how messed up our ideas of value are. What do I mean by that specifically? What I mean is that it's a, it's a great case of all these fallacies that exist when we talk about what something is worth. Because first off how we understand that thing to be is really far from reality. And we've touched 1:00:56 - 1:01:22 on a bunch of those things with marriage today. Um So let's dive into some specifics, things that are regarded as highly valuable, but that aren't. So what you will find is that typically religious people, especially religious people, they hold marriage on this high pedestal, but they don't make a distinction 1:01:21 - 1:01:46 between normal marriage, which is basically worthless and actual ideal marriage, which is worth the world. There's a huge gap between those two things. It's enormous but they promote what doesn't have value to what does and they pretend that they're the same, they're not the same, they're not the same 1:01:45 - 1:02:17 . So, second, with, there are things that, that, um, we pretend a present that actually aren't. So, um, again, with the ideal marriage, I guess this, this, I'm not sure how to explain this in a way separate from what I just did in the ideal marriage. There are things that are very valuable and those 1:02:17 - 1:02:42 are not present in a common marriage, but people pretend they are and it's not the same. What would it be like to actually know someone fully being your spouse and for them to know you fully and for you both to believe that this is the person you want to be with more than anyone else in the world. You 1:02:41 - 1:03:12 think about that? There's a quote I have, I have a list of quotes from other people. Um, I don't know if I can find it on the fly and I'm gonna butcher it. If I, uh it's something like it's something like if you make it to the point where you're a reliable person, then you've already, you've already 1:03:12 - 1:03:38 become a great person like you've achieved something that's rare and valuable. That's, that's not at all doing justice to the quote. Maybe I can find this later. Um, but just to be a reliable person who through thick and thin. So when we talked about knowing your spouse, really, really? What you mean 1:03:38 - 1:03:58 when you say that is, I've been here while we've gone through some slice of life. That's what you mean. That's not knowing someone. Reality consists. This world consists of a big old bucket of all possible things that could happen. And for some reason, we don't look into that bucket. Although it's really 1:03:58 - 1:04:20 obvious, like everyone, you know, everyone knows somebody who has died from cancer or has had cancer. Everyone knows someone who has had cancer. So do we respond to that by saying, therefore, I should live my life in a way that if I got cancer, I'd be prepared for that. No, we don't. We'd just say, well 1:04:20 - 1:04:37 , that's a shame. Glad it's never gonna happen to me. Everyone knows someone who's lost their job. But does that mean you set aside some money and you, you live in a way so that if you lost your job, it'd be a little less hard. No, you say like, well, that really stinks, but I'm glad that'll never happen 1:04:37 - 1:04:57 to me. You might know someone who's lost a child, do you say? Like, therefore I need to live my life? So if that ever happened to me, I'd be prepared for it as much as one can be. No, you say, thank goodness that's never gonna happen. To me. Do you see my point with this? So you don't actually know your 1:04:56 - 1:05:09 spouse until you've been with them through either the actual procession of everything that could happen in life or you've applied that to them and you're really confident you can predict what they would do.