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Right now about how reality, complexity and God are all intertwined. This is a massively important set of ideas. You may have heard a little of this before. I'm not really sure. Um But I hope that this is going to make some things a little clear. So we're going to use the analogy of a bunch of icebergs in the ocean if you are sitting here somewhere. Um And you're observing these icebergs, maybe you're on a ship. Um All you'll be able to comment on is what you can see. And if you're just using your eyes, all you'll be able to see is the portion of the icebergs that is above the sea line. So, is this a problem? Uh not necessarily, it, it depends on what you need to know. It depends on what you're doing. If you're, if you're on one of these icebergs, maybe what's underneath of them doesn't matter too much to you. If you're on a ship, it becomes very important. And so it is in life, if, um if you only understand what's going on above the surface or in, in terms of what's, uh you only see what's very obvious to see then uh you might do just fine. But there are situations and I would argue that they are multiplying in modern life where a deeper understanding and uh a deeper ability to see is absolutely vital. So even here, if we just asked the simple question, which of these icebergs is bigger, you, you couldn't answer it just by looking at the surface. And that's a really simple question. All of a sudden you get into uh the need, not only for deeper knowledge, but also more complex knowledge, you see the that these two icebergs are actually connected. And so if you're just looking at the surface, not only are, are you going to give the completely incorrect answer of which is bigger because it's the answer is always relative to your perspective, but you'll also be incorrect in the, in the fact that there aren't three things here, there are only two because these are connected, you see. So even with this extremely simple contrived example, we can see that that very quickly uh the need to see more arises. So it's just a simple question, how could you see more? Well, you'd need more perceptive ability you'd need uh in this case, maybe some sonar. And uh let's say that you are on a submarine and it has sonar and you're beneath the surface. Well, now all of a sudden you can see the shape of these icebergs. But um if you're not on a submarine. How would you know? Well, you, you'd need some sort of communication with the sub. So the sub has sonar. You do not, you're on the surface, the sub is not. And uh this analogy, it, it has extensive applications to our real world. So sonar it, you could, you could uh compare this to the scriptural concept of the mind of God. And in this presentation, we're gonna touch on a collection of topics that, that I'm just not gonna spend very much time on. It's not the point of the presentation and we could spend lots of time talking about these things, but we're just going to keep those uh limited so that we can focus on, on the main points. But here's, here's a really nice scripture to sum it all up. This is from First Corinthians 216. Uh Paul frequently talked about mysteries, how they exist, how they, how you can come to know them. And uh obviously, he spoke a lot about the spirit of God. And so, uh in one of these conversations, he, he concludes a point by saying by asking who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him. In other words, uh He's stating obviously, no one knows more than God and therefore no one can counsel God, no one can tell God what's right and wrong. Instead, as it says in Proverbs, we ought to seek that from him. Um And he continues, but we have the mind of Christ. And this is, this is a one example of a very common uh situation in scripture, particularly in the writings of Paul, where you just don't get the full weight of the logic that he's using or the persuasive arguments he's making by reading our, any of our modern translations, you have to go back to the Greek. But even if we stick to the King James here, um what he's doing here, he's made his logical point that none of us has any business telling God what is right? But he also interjects a a um an orthogonal point which is, we do actually have access to that volume of knowledge, wisdom, whatever you wanna call it. But the mind of Christ, we, we have access to it. And so he's saying he's saying none of us are submarines, but we have access to the sub, the master sub, you know, the, the giant map of the sea floor, we have access to that because we have access to God. Um So the mind of God again, we could talk about this for a very long time and it's not the point of this presentation, but it's not just what, you know, it's what you have access to because no matter what, you know what you have access to is greater because God is greater than us and we have access to him. And another thing I wanna highlight about uh I I guess, typical limitations in our understanding of the mind of God. It's not just what you have received and it's not just what you could receive, it's also the process, it's the relationship, it's the connection and these are things that you really should think about and no matter how much you've thought about it before I invite you to think about it some more study this topic out the mind of God. And if the context of this presentation, which we're just barely into, but once we get through it, if it opens doors, maybe, uh you can leverage those new perspectives or new ideas to help you learn more about this than you knew before. But here are two scriptures that I'm going to share now and I'm not going to come back to them, but you should, so you should come back to these and uh look into them some more. So if you haven't figured this out already, the things that I produce are very concentrated and uh it's really hard to get everything out of them in their, in the form in which I give them to you. And that's just, uh, that's just a factor of time and I have to give these things out slightly compressed because uh there's a lot to do, but you can take those things and unfold them and work with God and he will, he will teach you more and you can discuss them with people that you care about and uh hopefully unfold them even more. And so these two scriptures, I'm just gonna read them to you. You can come back to them and plug them in to the, the conclusion of this. And hopefully you will see much more in these than you've ever seen before. You will understand more than you understood before. And you might be shocked at just what they say and just how plainly they say it once we get to the end of this. So here's Romans 12 2. Uh these are just both the King James and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove. What is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Second Corinthians 44 in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them. Um As it's the case with many scriptures, you hear these sorts of things all the time. You might be familiar with these two verses. Um And we become, we become well, I just said familiar, we, we recognize the verse as the verse. We, we remember it categorically. And what do I mean by a category? If I, if I say to you t-shirt, what do you think of? Do you think of a specific shirt? No, you don't. You think of this general generic thing that doesn't actually exist. It's a category t-shirt, right? Um Or if I say shoe, same thing. Now, if I said the shoe you wore yesterday, now that's a specific shoe, you see the difference. So what we do is um as we read the scriptures, hopefully a lot or as we recite and discuss gospel ideas, we stop thinking actively about them, we stop asking questions. What does this mean? What's this about? Why is this the case? Why doesn't it say this instead? Why does it say that? What's this word? What does it say in Greek or in Hebrew? You know, all these things is this connected to any other scriptures? How does this jive with this other verse I know about, is this really a contradiction to this other verse that it seems to be a contradiction to and so on? How would I explain this to a five year old, an eight year old, a 15 year old? What applications are there in my life for this verse, et cetera? Um And all of a sudden you start accessing the mind of God because he will talk to you and he will use your understanding and, and this is very relevant to the rest of the presentation. Um But, but I'll leave it to you and the Holy Ghost to remember that once we get there. Um But if we just categorize this and we, we reduce it down to uh like we draw a box around it and then we just deal with the box instead of using the verse or the passage as a gateway to a realm that is not so finite. So words are all finite, but ideas are all continuous. And again, this is highly relevant to the presentation. But let's move on. I just come back to these scriptures and think more about it. OK? All right. So Sonar Mind of God. Ok. Um Now, what about this radio? Well, all of us have a voice of God within us. I talk a lot about this in the book. Repentance, which I really hope you've read. I hope you've read more than once God's voice is in us. It's to us, but it's also in us and we're gonna talk a little bit about the variations that it comes in when it's to us, but it's in us. And that is the, the tried and true incorruptible, incorruptible, sorry, incorruptible voice of God to you. It's inside of you. It's in your mind. It's in your heart, it's in your conscience. It's, it's all these things he's given us the equipment to, to be a receiver. Ok? But the problem is just like with a radio, there's a limit to the waves that you can pick up and we could get into the depths of this analogy by talking about how long your antenna is and whether there's interference and how well your radio is tuned and unfortunately younger generations really won't understand any of that. Uh, they never had the bunny ears on the TV. And, you know, getting your little brother to stand there, move a little to the right, move a little to the left or even just tuning a radio station because it's all digital and you press the button today. But anyway, there's a lot of value in that analogy, we could keep going on about it. But I, I wanna actually just for the sake of, of um not skipping over something that's vitally important, even if it's not central to what I'm trying to talk about in this presentation. I wanna extend this analogy by saying that there's, there's a, a signal station here, right? And maybe, maybe the, the signal from the sub is too faint for this radio to pick up very clearly, but we could have a booster here. Um an, an antenna, but I truly am trying to keep this uh this analogy as, as brief as I can. But here's another piece of it. Um Did you know that every antenna is two way, every antenna, even a, even a radio, you can use all the same equipment on a radio to broadcast. So receiving and broadcasting uses the same equipment. It's, it's a very interesting idea. Uh Well, fact, it's not just a, a concept, but it's a, it's a fact anyway. So, uh and, and this, this happens all the time. With, with uh cellphone towers or maybe you have a Wi Fi booster in your house. And so something is receiving and it's also emitting. And so what is this in the analogy? Uh because they said the voice of God is to you, right. And so here we have a sub and it's, it's doing the sonar thing and it's broadcasting. Um Well, that, that this uh antenna that's receiving and boosting a signal and retransmitting. That's like the servants of God. We could talk a lot about this. There are fascinating extensions of this idea, but I just need to spit this out and we'll keep moving on. This is just for the sake of uh not skipping over it because it's so important. Um And you can feel free to pause this, to come back to it and study this out, take it anywhere you'd like uh of course, as always . But um here's the deal is that this signal boosts your signal within you. There's a, a misconception of this idea of quote, go direct to God. It turns out that, that the entire human family is, everyone's a radio and everyone's uh uh well, everyone's a receiver and everyone's a transmitter, everyone is both everyone. So um you, you can't say that you're uh scanning for the signal or listening to the signal if you're not both of these things. And that's a fascinating idea. And so everyone is a transmitter and a receiver and um all of those signals matter. They won't, they won't be exactly the same in content or clarity, breadth depth, et cetera, but they all matter. And so we have to, we have to be aware of all of them and be using all of them. So what are some of the benefits of the signals that come from these towers? Well, uh I mentioned it, boost the signal within you again, we could go off in the deep end about this. But this is, this is why you see things like um the bones of a prophet healing a man who's sick or um the shadow of Peter quote unquote healing the person he walked by. It wasn't a shadow, it had nothing to do with the shadow. It was a proximity to him. It's, it's literally a signal booster. And what's the signal? It's, it's the light of God. The holy ghost doesn't matter what you call it. It's God's goodness. And what in what way does this um does this connect us to what lies beyond what we already have? Well, in a lot of ways, so it could be things that we're not willing to hear. It could be things that we heard and decided not to pay attention to or that frankly, we rebelled against. It could be things that are beyond our capacity to understand because receiving them from below is not the same is receiving them from above. Uh The sea line is what I'm talking about, not heaven and earth. If we wanted to put it in heaven and earth language receiving from above is not the same from receiving laterally here on earth, it's not the same. And if you want um a very temporal example of that, then I invite you to think about what's the difference between creating a language and using a language. So Spanish didn't exist and someone hired you to invent it. Could you do it? I, I think it would be really hard. I mean, I'm not sure of any language that was created by one person. Uh As far as human languages, programming languages, definitely. But that's really hard, right? And even programming languages, all the paradigms for that have developed organically across a set of people. Um There, there hasn't been one person starting from scratch to produce some thing we call language, right? Which is amazing thought. So, so it turns out it's very different. It's a lot harder. Uh Here's another example to create something versus to copy it. It's, it's a similar idea they their worlds apart. OK. Anyway, so using the light that comes through another person to boost your own and this isn't in either or by the way, I hope that's clear. I I've tried to be clear about this. The voice of God is always in you to you, but that signal can absolutely be boosted or diminished by how you react to the signal of from God to others around you. It's absolutely coupled those two things. So other people can overcome limits to your breadth, to your depth to the topic. You might have sacred cows , everybody seems to, they might be able to reason better than you. They might not be. Um So believing as you are, uh maybe you get sucked into crazy ideas because you're just so open minded and maybe they're, they have a better filter on that or maybe um they can see through complex ideas better than you because you get tied up on the details and end up ranting and raving about something that doesn't matter at all. Maybe they're more obedient to God than you. Maybe they have more faith. Maybe they're willing to act based on sufficient reasons in ways that you aren't OK, but that's enough of a sidetrack . Um But I wanna get back to this picture and talk more about complexity reality in God. Um So we have this iceberg picture and now what we're going to do is we're gonna transform this into uh a picture that's more representative of reality itself and not icebergs. So um before we do that, let's talk about why we're doing this, this, this analogy, it applies in ways that you're probably not seeing just yet. It's immensely important. It, it applies to so many things in life like what choices. So choices, if I say choices, very few people get excited if we were at a concert and I was like, who, how many of y'all wanna see choices? And everybody's not gonna say Yeah. Right. They're just gonna be like, what? And maybe like the record, you can hear the needle rip across the record and the music just stops and everybody's awkward. Right. So, why do we not get excited about this idea? Well, I i it's hand in hand with the fact that you probably didn't think about choices. When I'm sitting here talking about icebergs and being able to see what's above and below the water, it turns out that your entire life is a chain of choices from the moment you're born until the moment you die. And obviously in the beginning there, there's a time where you have to kind of come online with your abilities to think for yourself and act. But it is the point of why we're here, right? We, we could go into Abraham and read about how God created everything we know so that we would have the opportunity to choose, right ? And uh, we're given instruction and then we make choices and that happens cyclically. It go, it's like a, a pendulum swinging back and forth or, or hands swing around, uh uh the face of a clock, it's a cycle and, and each, each uh, dispensation of instructions is followed by a choice or a series of choices and then something comes after that. It's a process that is life. It's extremely important to see that and understand it and live your life accordingly, situations, very related. But um often we don't break out of this just floating through life as if you were a canoe going down a river and you don't even have a paddle. Um And that's not the meant way we're meant to live. We're, we're supposed to be actively thinking about the things around us and, and experiencing what's before us and imagining what could be, what we, what situations we could be in and actively navigating through this really architecting our own lives and in the case of uh our loved ones, helping them to do the same and helping to impart vision, which means we need it ourselves first, right? People. What do I mean by that? So, um it's ironic that we're talking about icebergs here because each of these single words, it's , it's like the tip of an iceberg people. Um The, the human family, it's obviously it's, it's made of people. Um So what, what does this have to do with anything to put it in ridiculously brief terms? Totally insufficiently brief terms. All joy comes in and through God. God created everything we know in order that we might have greater joy through the choices that we make right along that path, what you are going to find, you probably can't articulate this yet. But after I tell you again, creation is much harder than copying. After I tell you you're gonna have this and it's, it's going to uh if you understand it properly, it will dominate the rest of your life. What a statement, right? All joy comes in and through God, mankind is created in God's image. What that means is that we have the potential to be like Him. As you seek greater joy in your life, you are going to find and you live according to that search, you are going to find that the greatest joy is always centered in people. Why? Because of all of God's creations, everything we have access to down here, only humans are capable of what is most like God. And of course, that's where all the joy is pretty interesting. Huh? Now, you're also going to find that that's not just generic, any old person will do kind of people. It's the people who are most like God. Now, I just dropped some serious bombshells on you that you may or may not have any concept of the importance of. However, I'm only doing that, I'm not doing that in an effort to tell you all there is to know about that. I'm just explaining why I have the word people up on this slide. So if it stands to reason that uh the greatest joy will always be encountered by and around the people, most like God, then it becomes really important to be able to distinguish between people in what way specifically by how much like God. They are interesting. Huh? So, I wonder if you've ever thought of that and I know the answer. So it turns out that, that your relationships in life are obviously options. You get to choose, you get to find people. You get to devote your time selectively to different people and you get to, to make choices about who you are as a person. You get to change your character. It's malleable again, we're in the image of God. We have the ability to choose to become more like him. All right. Moving on. What about ideas? Ideas are massively important, massively important . Um I talk a lot about beliefs in the book through faith. I talk a lot about it in the book, The Glory of God is intelligence and I will refer you to those sources for more on the topic of ideas. And there are other things too that matter as far as uh or excuse me, there are other examples of options that uh relate to this whole iceberg analogy. OK. So in each of these situations, it's extremely important to understand what different options exist, what they cost, what long term benefit each brings and um how they fit into the scope of everything else known as reality, what was, what is and what will be and as far as what will be, that's not just tomorrow, there's also a concept of time here which I haven't really spoken about, but I will and you need to understand time frames and how that affects value. Uh That's not what I'm going to talk about in this presentation. But I'm saying at some future date, I will tell you all about that. All right. So now let's, let's go through this transformation to bring this analogy into something a little bit more um high fidelity to reality itself. So, the first thing we're gonna do is flip this thing upside down. Now, the reason for that is that in the iceberg analogy, the greater truth lies below. And there's actually there's some serious, serious meaning there. And a connection to um the idea that suffering is, is totally coupled to knowledge and wisdom and value. If you read through the scriptures, you're gonna see scripture after scriptures , particularly in Psalms and job um that speak of uh God's acquisition of knowledge through his suffering. And you're going to see actually that um the space of where these things are learned, it's described as the sea. It's very interesting. And so he walks on the waves of the sea and he goes to the depths of the sea and he measures the sea in the palm of his hand and so forth. And I will also speak a lot more about that. But for now, um we're going to flip this around. And the reason is um uh also another interesting scripture uh for that before I move on is that um maybe I should look this one up. Just give me a second. I'm not sure what's going on with my internet. Elon Musk usually takes a break when I get up in the morning. So I don't know if we're on shifts or what, but, uh, he hasn't sent me my check if that's the case. Ok. I don't know what's going on here. Sorry. Just bear with me. Um, I might have to save this for another day. All right, I'm going to save this for another day. Maybe it's just not meant to be. It's a shame. It's a really good scripture. OK? Um So we're gonna flip this over because all good comes from above and greater knowledge is not going to come from uh below , quote unquote, not talking about descending below all things, but just your average human. So we're gonna invert this, ok? Um Way to take like 20 minutes on a slide that should have taken three seconds. OK? So once we flip this, we're not done with the transformation because we need to get away from these icebergs and we're gonna switch to dots. OK. So what are these thoughts? Well, look in this case, it's better not to think about it too much, which might sound funny, but just kind of let your mind ex explore it because like a parable, a representation like this is most powerful when it's least described. Um If you just kind of let your mind drift across this and don't get too much, too hung up on the details, you'll get more out of it. But what I do want to introduce is this line and uh we'll call that a level of understanding or a level of awareness. And so, um right now with this simplistic view, we've just got the sea surface and that's like the line. OK. So we've got our icebergs above the surface or below the line and then we've got some more going on below or above below the, the, the sea line and, and above this line. Does that make sense? Ok. So, so getting into more detail, the higher you go, the more there is to know. OK. And hopefully that makes sense. Although I think the Christian world thinks the opposite, the, the higher you go, the more of God, you know, the simpler he becomes, I don't know. Uh They sure act that way. So it's like if I can spell the word God, I know all there is to know about him anyway. Um This is actually how it goes. The the, the more you go, the more there is to know. And um anyway, we'll leave it at that. So there's another level of complexity here. So first off, I skipped over the fact that now we have not just three, but it just keeps going. It's, this is I've talked about this in, in many videos how knowledge just keeps going. Awareness just keeps going. There's no end. OK. But it gets even more complicated than that because these dots are related to each other. Now again, I don't wanna impose specifics on these dots, but you could think of this as different topics, different ideas, whatever. But it's a network, there are relationships between these things and some like if we go with ideas, some ideas depend on other ideas, right? If you wanted to think about cause and effect, different effects have a network of causes there, it's not just if a, then b that almost never happens, that I would argue it never happens. Everything's a chain and the chain just keeps going. And so it's like, uh it's funny, my, my son, he's young, he's really young. I'll say he's under 10 just to obfuscate. And uh he pulled out a tape measure the other day. And um , and he said, dad, integers aren't real, are they? And I said, nope, they're not. And he's like, it's just decimal points. I said, yep. Even those are just a summary of a reduction of reality because every number is continuous forever. There's no such thing as a number that, that ends. And he said, that's crazy. And he pulls out this tape measure and he's like, this whole thing is a lie. I said, yep. I said, it's a lie. It's just an estimate. It's not, it's not meant to be the absolute truth. It's just meant to be good enough for practical purposes. And I said, you know, those fractions go down so far on the tape measure and then that's it and, and it doesn't mean it doesn't keep going. It just means that it doesn't matter for this application. And that's like this, right? The numbers keep going forever. But maybe this is the scale on the tape measure. And then, um, it just doesn't matter after that because if you're building a house, you don't need micrometer precision. Now, if you're building a skyscraper, you might, or, or engineering it and you wanna make sure all the loads are safe, you might have to be accurate down to a millimeter or something. So, um how bad is this really? I mean, how complicated is reality because you're, you're probably already thinking I'm nuts for many reasons. But specifically for what I've just said about how this keeps going, there's massive connection between things and it's way, way more complicated than you imagine. I mean, I'm sitting at a desk right now. When's the last time we be? We began this presentation, I was talking a little bit about categorizing things. So what we do as humans to not go crazy, but it's a simplification. It's a reduction. There's, it's lossy, you lose detail and most of the time it doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. So when you sit down at a desk, you're not thinking, wow, how many, I don't even know the number if it's trillions or more how many atoms comprise this desk and, and exactly how are they moving right at the second. No one thinks about that. Right. But it's true and everywhere you look, it's that way and it doesn't stop at the atomic level, it just keeps going down and conversely, everything keeps going up because I, I don't wanna, like, slip into Yoda's script from, uh, that would have been Empire strikes back when they're, when they're in the swamp and he's like the force flows through everything , you know, and it, it, it's everything interacts with everything else but he, he's right. It's true. Right. It's true. Everything interacts with everything else. So you could just scale this infinitely to the entire universe and whatever lies beyond that, but no one thinks about it that way because you have to scope it in order to, to do the maximal good with the limited resources you have. Now that's all well and good when it's intentional. But in this presentation, I want to draw attention to the fact that most limitations are not intentional. Most limitations are in, in this are because people really believe that all there is to know is what they already know. And they won't admit that if you, if you pin someone down and you're, and you're like, OK, you tie him to a chair and inject the truth serum and say, um tell me, do you think you know everything they'll say? No, of course, not, but they sure act like they do in pretty much every way. Um, that they act, they, they demonstrate that they, they truly believe they know everything or at least almost everything. So that's a problem. All right. So here's, if we had to pick one scripture, maybe this is a good candidate. It's extremely hard to boil this down to one passage. And even this has several lines, but let's go through it, DNC 88. So he, in this case is God. God comprehended all things and all things are before him and all things around about him and he is above all things and in all things and is through all things and is round about all things and all things are by him and of him, even God forever and ever. There's a wonderful example of a verse that everyone who reads it just glosses right over. I have never heard anyone explain what that verse means and I'm not going to do it today. We're, I'm going to make use of the categorization of ideas uh to just share that and let your mind explore uh continuing and again, verily I say to you, he hath given a law unto all things by which they move in their times and seasons and their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth which comprehend the earth and all the planets and they give light to each other in their times. And in their seasons, in their minutes, in their hours, in their days, in their weeks, in their months, in their years, all these are one year with God, but not with man. The earth rolls upon her wings and the sun giveth his light by day and the moon giveth her light by night. And the stars also give their light as they roll upon their wings in their glory in the midst of the power of God unto what shall I like in these kingdoms that you may understand? Behold, all these are kingdoms and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power. I say unto you, he hath seen Him. Nevertheless, he who came unto his own was not comprehended. The light shine in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not comprehend it not. Nevertheless, the day shall come when you shall comprehend, even God being quickened in Him and by Him. Now, it's ironic to use this, this passage when we're talking about this because this passage is an example of this because what you're seeing in these words is this and what's actually here is this if I don't know some weird twist of fate happened, right this second and I had nothing better to do and the opportunity was open to me. I could absolutely write a phd dissertation on this passage and it would be like 800 pages minimum. OK? That there is so much to this passage, it's not even funny. But you know, when the book Mormon writers say things like I can only touch on the heads of these things. So when you try to explain something in a deeper way, you have to touch everything that, that precedes it, OK, upon which it is predicated. That's a scriptural phrase that's very much connected to this idea. And the, the more you want to explain, the deeper you have to go. And so it turns out that explaining the simplest of ideas takes 800 pages if you want to really understand it. And then this is like the hero's journey, those who know what I'm talking about will know what I'm talking about, right? You come back to the place you started, but now you understand all of this. And so even if you're standing here, you're in a much different place, then someone else standing there who doesn't have all that, this is deep stuff, folks. So, and it's really important I could also, I if, if we had the time, I could tell you all about language and how that is a, is another example of this that uh and I, I kind of already explained it to you with the category, but I don't know if you can connect the dots on that. So maybe you can um when, when, when we talk about having a language for something that too is a is a scriptural phrase. You can look it up if you'd like and, and read about why it matters. Um It's the ability to, to deal in depth with simplicity of expression and, and this is a crucial idea in the end times for many reasons. One of which, and, and this is just in the big pile of things people don't get. Um you have never comprehended just how much all of the experiences of modern life equip you to understand ideas that someone from 2000 years ago would really struggle with. In five minutes, you can be taught something that would have taken them 40 years of learning to figure out or to understand if someone was teaching them because they, they, they, you know, this might look like Greek to you. But it, it's 100 times clearer than it would have been to someone 100 years ago or this. And by the way, they didn't have powerpoint or keynote or clip art back then. So try to explain this idea, talking about sheeps, sheeps, sheep and goats and fish and uh you know, ships and nets. It's really hard. It turns out now some ideas you can teach really well with nets like and fish. Like the idea of casting your net, drawing forth all kinds of fish and then throwing back the ones you don't want. And that works really well when you talk about gathering, right? But uh it turns out that there are things that are really hard to explain when you have limits of language anyway. OK. But in explaining this, I'm, I'm actually just gonna focus on the end here. We had to include all this, which has vital information. It turns out we had to include all this to refresh you on the fact that he's talking about the Lord's using space gospel in space. He's using space to explain um the, the um the fact that the operations of the real world demonstrate God, a scriptural phrase that means the same thing is all things testify of Christ. Testify does not mean, you know, the Mormon use of the word . I'm going to stand at a podium and say, I know followed by various things. That's not what testify means. It's just one meaning of the word. It's a, it's a word. Um It's the same in Greek. It's the same word for uh witness or martyr or demonstrate. And so demonstrate is the key here. Those are all the same and the testimony quote unquote of people who say, I know would be much stronger if they uh would live and not just say they know. But anyway, so um it turns out that, that this part here is really important. Anyone who's seen any of these things has seen God. What you remember when Jesus said to his disciples during his mortal ministry, Philip was getting quite upset because Jesus said on the way and I'm going to a place that you can't come. But if you play your cards, right, eventually you can. And he said, well, how can we know the way? And he said, well, I am the way. And if you've seen me, you've seen the father remember that kind of combining some, some things there. But that's, that was the message. Well, Jesus could just as easily say on a, on a clear night, if you don't live in the suburbs or city, he could say look up to the sky, you see all that. Well, you've seen me and now you understand a little about Abraham's experience when uh on a dark clear night, he went outside and he looked at the stars and God said your seed will be like the stars in the heavens, uncountable. Um Anyway, so, uh by the way, just to be 100% clear, I'm not saying people who say that they have seen God are just saying that they've seen the stars or whatever or like a baby laughing or something. But all of those things also show God that's a really, really important thought. And uh WW this presentation is way too long already and I need to move on. But he's saying it doesn't mean you're gonna understand because even when Jesus came, he wasn't understood, even when he was literally there with people whose job it was to understand him, he wasnt understood. So, um and comprehend means much more than just understand. But we're just, we're just breaking it down here trying to get simple. Ok? But we're given a promise that there is a process whereby you can comprehend God and it involves being quickened in him and by him. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that. Ok? But the point with all of this is the complexity of reality is the complexity of God. They are absolutely tied together and the one goes hand in hand with the other all the time. So people who say that the gospel is simple, they're wrong. First off, second off, they absolutely positively do not know God. God. Reality and complexity. They're all tied together and you know, a stick has two ends. And if you pick up one, you pick up the other, this is a three ended stick. And if you pick up any of these things, it will draw you closer to the others. That's the point of this presentation. Don't stop it. Now, if, if you made it this far, there's vital things ahead, but that's, that's where we were going. And now I've shown you and the man behind the curtain. All right, let's go shake his hand. DNC 8841 says he comprehended all things and all things are before him and all things around about him. Remember we, we read this one and I said I wasn't really gonna explain it to you yet. Um And that no one had yet. Um, but this is part of it. Ok. It's, it's all tied up. All things are before him. He understands all things. Let's just stop there. If he comprehends all things, can you comprehend him without comprehending all things? No, you can't. If you comprehend all things, would that draw you closer to him or further away? Well, of course, it would draw you closer to him because you're more like him, right? And who do you understand better than someone like yourself? All things are not just by him. They're of him. It's, it's very, very much coupled together. He's in all things. He's through all things, right? We'll skip over the roundabout and above, but we're just touching on this. OK. Why does all this matter? I mean, good grief. We're, we're doing this long presentation on this. You drew pictures. Why does this matter? There are tons of reasons? We, we can't even touch on all of the reasons. I'm just gonna share two of them, in fact, and then I'll give you a list of some others, but we won't really drill in. Here's one that's really interesting and important. So let's say that, that we, we're going back to this re representation. Let's say that these colored boxes diagram the understanding of different people. We have three different people here. Now you tell me, how do these people see each other? How do these people see each other? Let's start with a blue person. Right. So they, all they understand is what's right in front of their face at the most simplistic level. How are they going to see the orange person? Well , because there's, there's so much overlap and because the orange person's understanding it, it just really doesn't go that much further. They're going to see things in the orange person that they like, they're going to see the orange person as knowing a bit more than them on some things and everything's hunky dory and they'll probably get along at least until the orange person says something that's outside of the blue box. And then the blue box person is going to ignore them or ghost them or make very clear that they never ever want the orange person to bring up any of those things again. And maybe the blue person even gets kind of angry with, with them and like I said, that ghost them. Ok. What about, how does the blue person see the red person? Well, I, I guess we didn't talk about how's the other direction? How's the orange person? See the, the blue person, the orange person is going to think of the blue person as their friend until the blue person draws a line in the sand. And then the orange person is gonna feel kind of lonely because they're gonna say, wow, I really thought this person was my friend and now I see that, um, they're actually pretty different than me and they don't actually care about me very much. And uh that's, that's a little sad. Ok. That's the way that's gonna go. Eventually the orange person is gonna run out of things to say to the blue person mostly because all the things the orange person wants to say uh are outside of their box because things grow this way, right ? Trees grow up. So as the orange person is progressing in their lives, they're gonna find less and less to talk about with the blue person. And then even if they maintain the relationship on the surface, it's not gonna grow and there really won't be anything there. And maybe they just become old high school friends or, you know, God forbid they're married, they become roommates and on and on and on. Ok. They maybe they get together if they're, if they're old friends, they'll get together at a wedding or to catch up when the one person happens to be in town. And then that's it. That's it. Not exactly a wonderful example of any kind of love, whether that's, you know, romantic or um brotherly friendship, all that good stuff. What about the red box? Let's talk about Blue Box and red box. Blue box is absolutely positively going to hate Red Box. Why? Because red box can't even come around Blue Box without remember I said signals boost without Blue Box's uh illusion of having any grasp whatsoever on reality. Just flying right out the window and Redbox doesn't even have to say anything for Blue Box to feel that way. That's the crazy thing. But if they have interactions, Redbox is gonna say things and it can come so quickly that um Blue Box could be the cash register person at a grocery store and red box is just going through the checkout. And in three sentences, Blue Box can start feeling very uncomfortable because that's how dramatic these differences can be. What if Redbox and Blue Box are in a situation where they work together or they live together or they just are, are in a situation where they're interacting all the time. Even though Blue Box really wishes that wouldn't be the case. Uh Blue Box might hate Redbox so much that Blue Box tries to get Redbox fired even by lying if they work together or Blue Box might try to kill Redbox and this really does happen. It really does. Now is it just two levels away? I don't know, let's not get bogged down in the details. It's not like it's really this diagrammed out, right? These are just representations, they're, they're um theyre just simplifications , but this is a really big deal. So Blue Box is gonna say things to Redbox like man, Redbox is so extreme and it's just Redbox is angry all the time and just blows things out of proportion. Just won't shut up about this one topic or I really like when Redbox talks about Blue Box things, but I really wish Redbox just wouldn't talk about orange box things or Redbox things because who really cares about that? That doesn't matter why is Redbox so obsessed with those things? Meanwhile, Redbox sees that those are the very things that Blue Box is missing. May and not up here. OK? Cause Redbox doesn't live Redbox's life just to spout off what they, you know, know, feel whatever. When you get up here, you only get up here. Uh I don't wanna steal my own thunder here, but moving up is becoming more like God and you can't become more like God in one way. It always happens holistically and when it doesn't, it limits itself. So it's a least common denominator situation always. So in the March towards greater understanding, Redbox is going to get that each person can only proceed to the next nearest increment of light. So Redbox isn't even showing Blue Box these things. He's down here working on this frontier . OK? But he's much better at it than Orange Box would be meaning um It's clearer, it's more direct, there's more volume, uh there's more frequency, whatever. So you get the point, we could talk more about that. We could, we could write whole chapters on how people react to light. Um But that's just one example of why it matters, why you really should understand this. OK? Because if you're in the blue box or even in the orange box and we're all in a blue box or orange box, by the way, because there's always a red box no matter how far we've gone. But if you're in a blue box or an orange box, you need to learn to interpret your reactions to things. Just like, uh, an adolescent has to learn that when they're hungry, it doesn't mean go eat chocolate cake. Right. Those two things are not the same. And um you need to learn to interpret your reactions to things and to, to see how they really are, not just how you think they are. Ok. But let's pivot to a much more important application. And that is uh our understanding of God. If you're down here, this is the blue box before. But if you're down at level one, how much do you really know God? You don't at all? Right? You can't because you're missing a whole lot. But as you come to learn more and more, you come to know Him more and more. Now, why on earth would it be important or in heaven? Why would it be important to know God? Well, it's only the definition of eternal life, right? I mean, that's, that's a little important at least. Ok. And then here's some things that you might not have thought about before. Um, you can only know yourself to the extent that, you know God. That's a crazy thought. I'm not sure I've ever shared that with you. But if you don't know yourself, you for sure can't have eternal life. Why? Because you have to know God and you have to reconcile yourself to God and you can't change something inside yourself that you don't know about. You have to come to see the darkness inside of you in order to replace it with light. If you don't know yourself, you can't become more like God. So you see how all these things are tied together. Knowing God is eternal life. You can't know God without knowing more of reality, you can't know yourself without knowing more of God. You can't repent and sanctify yourself or be sanctified is a better way of saying that without seeing the things in you that are different than God and making the changes to align more closely with Him. And if you don't do all of that, you will be very limited both in how much joy you have and in how much you can help others. And the reason those are on the same line on this slide is because they are completely tied together. How much joy you will have is absolutely tied to how much you can help others, helping others is not something you do. As a feeling, you can't effectively help others. As a feeling, you need to actually understand what's valuable because helping means benefiting them. It's not just giving them what they want, it's benefiting them and you have to understand what good is in order to do that and what evil is. Ok. And all of these things are connected to how well you can make decisions. We spoke a lot about that with the options. How much you understand reality is also? Absolutely. And God is absolutely tied to the meaning that you find in life and how much you really believe it, how much it really drives you and supports you. And then finally, uh and just this is all an incomplete set. Uh but just the, the short list of things that are enough, how much you know about God will absolutely dictate the power you have to obtain what you desire and overcome what would otherwise overcome you. So, I mean, those are some reasons, right? These aren't uh minor things. You could say this is everything. Uh It's not a complete list, but I'm saying, what more could you, what more reasons could you have for something? Right. So if it's important to go from here to here to here and onward, how do we get there? Well, uh this is where it all comes together. So first off, you should definitely read all of D and C 88 with these things in mind. And I bet a whole bunch of things will unfold to you, ask tons of questions to God and write them down and write down what He tells you and go look at other scriptures and other things to figure out the answers to those questions. This is a very um rich vein to mine, but here's just a couple of chunks from that section. Here's the question. Can you break through your supposed familiarity with scripture? We talked about the categorization when we become familiar with scripture to see what is put so plainly because the answers are there, but you don't see them one because you don't formulate the question two because you don't have real intent. You don't actually care to know and you have all kinds of limits on what you're willing to do if he actually told you. But if you can break through those, the next barrier is coming at these words with beginners eyes and not just glossing over them, reading them for the five millionth time. So what does it mean that God comprehended all things? What does this one mean? And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light and there shall be no darkness in you and that body which is filled with light, comprehend all things because that sounds like a cause and effect relationship. If you want to comprehend all things, your body needs to be filled with light. So the question is, how do you fill your body with light? Well, we're given the description that if you fill your body with light, there shall be no darkness in you. How do you find the darkness in you, John three is a good one. OK. DNC 8868 says, therefore sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God. What does that mean? And the days will come that you shall see Him? What does that mean for? He will unveil his face unto you. What does that mean? And it shall be in his own time and in his own way and according to his own will, why is that clause added to this ? Well, because there's a process and who determines the process, not you? It's a treasure map that's already written. How are you going to find it? How are you going to follow it? All right. So in, in your studies on that DNC 93 1 is a good thing to look at as well and you might want to study out what faith means in Hebrew anyway. So let's, let's let me just give you some things here. I'm gonna give you a two way relationship on this process. Ok. So God comprehends all things and you will come to comprehend all things as you comprehend. God. So what's the way find and adopt the purpose of God as far as you presently understand it? And hopefully, it's not too hard to figure out what that purpose is. It's really plainly stated in the scriptures in at least two places, work and glory. And also John 1010, is it 1010? The uh the robber comes to break forth and steal. But I come to give life and more abundantly. That's his purpose. Those two things working glory of God to bring to past the eternal life of man and to give life and more abundantly. So that's his purpose. I gave you that answer. But applying that to every facet of your life, asking a question, how does this overlay onto everything I know about life and everything I do every single day? That's up to you to figure out. So as you do that, you're fulfilling this part that says sanctify yourselves, that your minds become single to God. Ok. So that, that means to figure out what God would do in your place and to replicate that in how and what you do, say, think and feel. That's what it means and sanctify doesn't just mean bring into alignment with what you know right now about God. It also means engage in the process of learning more and more. All right. Well, that's, that's pretty plain. Ok? As you do this, he will teach you more about himself. And that's the meaning of the days will come that you shall see Him for. He will unveil his face unto you. That doesn't mean just once this isn't an event, it's a process. Do what you know, he'll give you more, do what you know with that. He'll give you more. That's the way it works line upon line. All right now, we can flip all this around the other way, God comprehends all things. You will come to comprehend God as you comprehend all things. Now, what, what's this all about? This is the part. So what I just said on the last slide, you know, that's a bombshell for most Christians who , who have very limited understanding of what the gospel is. And, you know, a whole lot of them don't believe that it's possible for us to become more like God. A whole lot of them believe there's no reason for us to because isn't that why Jesus came so that we don't actually have to do anything. Um But you will find people who react to that slide by saying, oh yeah, I already believe that they, they don't actually do it, but they'll say that they believe it. Ok. Well, how about this one? And this is, this is one of the ways in which you don't actually do it when you flip it around and you start talking about comprehending God by comprehending all things. This blows people out of the water. Why? Because they really persist in this belief that God is separate from life or that he occupies some little corner of life or that life is something that distracts us from God. None of those things are true. It's all integrated. It's all one thing. Do you, do you think, I mean, go read the creation account and do you mean to tell me that an all powerful, all wise, God spent all that time and effort to make everything we know as it is precisely as it is just because it was some lateral thing that had nothing to do with his purpose or only marginally related or that it's only here as a distraction that we need to learn to overcome? Or is it a tool? Is it the way, is it the classroom? Is it the very grist of the mill? Of course, it is, of course it is. Ok. So what, what are the applications here? Well , you need to learn more about reality, to learn more about God. There are no doofuses in heaven. You, you, you, well, we'll talk about this in a minute. OK. So looking at this way, it's the same way but looking at it under this different filter you live according to all the light that you presently see. This isn't just stuff tagged with the word God. He's in and through all things, all things testify of him, all things demonstrate him. So you have to learn how to see real life, daily life, temporal toil in the eyes of God. You know, in the, in the one old Testament verse about uh Zion, it says that even the horse bridles will say holiness to the Lord. What does that mean? I think people think of it like the wizard of Oz with, with that horse of a different color. It's like a branding thing or something. Um No, it's not marketing. It's, it's not uh so superficial. It means that even pack animals , even beasts of burden are consecrated to the purposes of the Lord. Now, that should generate a question in your mind, how the heck is uh a, a horse that draws a cart or horse that plows, you know, pulls a plow. How could that be used for the Kingdom of God? What an excellent question. Those are the sorts of questions you need to answer to get to the place where the horse bridles say holiness to the Lord because it's not a marketing statement. It's, it's a symbolic label that describes a situation. It's very important is very important. Um The, this isn't the Sunday Gospel. This is the, the real gospel, the every moment of your life, gospel, the deep corners of your heart gospel. So when we talk about living according to all the light you presently see, look around you. I and I said uh to life and more abundantly, OK? Or um you know, men are that they might have joy or the work in the glory of God is to bring immortality and eternal life of man. What does that mean? Greater joy, greater strength, greater intelligence, greater wisdom, greater utility, better character, look around you and think about what is better. How could things be better, look within you and say what isn't good enough here? What do I need to change? What could be better. What can I do with my life? That's more than what I'm doing with my life. And don't just think in terms of shiny glossy Sunday school things or giant giant outcomes, think about wherever you are right now. Just look around. Is there trash on the floor ? Is something dusty. Uh, I'm seeing trash on the floor and dusty things in front of me, pick it up, clean it up. Right. And if you don't, don't, not do it because you're lazy, do it, don't do it because you have something better to do, but always do the best thing in your immediate surroundings this moment today and also tomorrow and also on a weekly basis. And also long term, you have to think about all these things and if you're living your life on easy mode down here, yeah, it's gonna be a little more complicated at first. Right. But you can come to be comfortable with this level of complexity . And guess what? We, sometimes I talk to you about being comfortable in the presence of God. They are the same. They are the same. So, if you've done difficult things in your life, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't go talk to someone who has, when you climb up a mountain, it's not this unknown, difficult mystery when you, I mean, do you know anyone who knows piano? Well, they don't have to sit there and think about the 123 of how to play piano. They just play once, once, you know how to sight read, you can do anything. Right. I, I know those aren't exactly the same but you know what I'm saying? It becomes second nature. This to be made in the image of God is the explanation for why humans can get used to almost anything because God has overcome all things. These are huge, important ideas and people just don't get them and they live their lives differently if they did. All right , we did that one. OK. So this is what it means to sanctify yourselves, that your minds become single to God. This is what it means because He'll give you more and like leaves the light, you'll see more things that you can improve. Once you're improving everything you already know about. It's a process , it's a pattern and it'll keep going and that's how your whole body becomes filled with light. And when it's filled with light, you will comprehend all things. Isn't that amazing? It's right there. Oops, sorry. Um OK. So, so we referred to John 17 3 earlier. I won't read it. OK. But John 17 is a super important chapter. It's the Lord's intercessory prayer and amongst other things here, he's explaining how it is that we become one with him as he is one with the father. And it's the same way that he became one with the father. It's not some other thing. It's the same process. Now, you should reread this. This is 19 through 24 in the context of everything we've talked about and see if you can understand and explain this far beyond what you could be for. And I hope for your sake that you were familiar with this passage before. Um because otherwise it's not going to be as clear just the the the value of what you've just been given. But regardless now that that's been unlocked, you can read through this 19 through 24 John 17 and understand a million times more about what this is actually saying and how it's done and then you'll be able to do it. OK. So knowing what you know, now my question is how important, how much more important are the following things than what you thought before? You watched this reason, wisdom, knowledge, perception, value, cause and effect cost and benefit. Now, if you haven't connected the dots, let me connect them for you in. What church will you learn about any of these things that that are on this list? Let alone what I just told you that unlocked the beginning of an understanding of why any of these things matter. You won't find any of that in any church. So if we are seeking the way to God, it would have to include all of these things, wouldn't it? And yet how many Christians do you know that would get excited about a lecture on perception on, on awareness, on value, on cause and effect on, on knowing consequences of things, on understanding the true cost of things and how to evaluate it. And now, you know why few there be that find it because they are so tied to the world's understanding of what the gospel is. And isn't that they will not recognize when it's put in front of their face in total plainness and they will reject it as a thing of not and trample it under their feet. But this is what you're missing. It's not the Sunday school stuff. It's this. So as you address your deficiencies in these categories and as you recognize the value of lessons on this, when they're given to you, you will, you will drastically accelerate your progress towards God.