0:00:00 - 0:00:19 Many people have commented on the volume of materials that I produce. Um Of course, what you're seeing is just the stuff that, that you can see. Um I don't just mean the thousands of pages that I've written and not published or the many presentations that I've begun work on and in some cases completed 0:00:19 - 0:00:49 , but haven't published. Uh I'm also referring to the, the balance of my life because even with all the hours I spend on what you could call ministry, um, there are many other things that I have to do every day anyway. Um, people struggle trying to wrap their heads around what is much different or much 0:00:49 - 0:01:13 more voluminous than what they are familiar with. And it's very important to understand a few lessons that exist in all of this one is that there are different reactions to the same exact manifestation. Doesn't matter what we're talking about. If you have a work of art and you show it to 10 different 0:01:13 - 0:01:33 people, they'll feel 10 different ways about it. If you have a song that you play for people, same thing. It doesn't matter. There are songs out there that for some people um evoke some of the richest emotions that they know of. You play that same song for another person and they think it's rubbish or 0:01:32 - 0:01:59 they just are, are thinking about what they need to do later in the day or it just doesn't affect them as, as in the same way, not even close. The same is true of God. In fact, all of the other variations in reaction are just a subordinate example to the fact that we all react differently to God. So 0:01:58 - 0:02:24 what what clouds this statement at a minimum is the fact that we all see God to different extents, we see different facets of Him with greater or lesser clarity and with greater or lesser intensity and accuracy from one person to another. And so this complicates the clarity with which you could otherwise 0:02:24 - 0:02:49 see this difference. But if you read the scriptures, it's there from cover to cover, you'll see some circumstance, Jesus heals someone and there are all these different reactions. It it ranges the full expanse of possibilities. So how do you react to volumes of truth? I don't mean volume like volume 0:02:49 - 0:03:18 on your headphones or speaker, I mean quantity and content, richness of content. So how do you, how do you respond to this? Um There's two interesting verses from the gospel of John that I want to read. The first one is John 414 and the second is John 738 and I'll just read them together, but whosoever 0:03:17 - 0:03:36 bringeth of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him. A well of water springing up into eternal life. Everlast, I'm sorry, everlasting life. It's the same word in Greek. Maybe my autocorrect just turned on. He that believeth on me as the 0:03:36 - 0:04:04 scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. OK? So first off, I need to say that where it says out of his belly, that word belly doesn't mean belly. Um It would be more correct here to say out of his mind and heart shall flow rivers of living water. So we're talking about 0:04:04 - 0:04:32 information and emotion and um this is a, this is a promise that the Lord gives. It's a principle, it's an eternal principle. What are the conditions you drink, the water that He gives? And the other condition is that you believe on Him. So both of those things actually mean the same thing. Um to believe 0:04:32 - 0:05:00 in God on God is not just to believe He exists. It's not just a wish your way into whatever the heck you want. It's to become familiar with and live his teachings and in a fullness, it is to learn how he is and be the same way. If you actually believe Jesus, that's exactly what you're going to do. There's 0:05:00 - 0:05:23 no other option there. There's no, there's no consolation prize of I wanna acknowledge he exists and I wanna get everything I want and that's just it. I don't want any other requirements or changes. I just want what I want right now. And I'm OK paying the price if the only price is to say, I believe 0:05:23 - 0:05:52 in him or maybe we can mix in some simple rituals or something that I have to do once in my life or on special occasions. I might even be willing to give up an hour or two on most Sundays. So, what can I get for that? It's like the old joke I shouldn't tell this uh is the old joke um where Adams in the 0:05:52 - 0:06:19 , in the garden alone and God notices he's alone and, and Adam says, Lord, I want you to send me a wife and I want her to, to be perfect in every way. And um and God says, well, that's, that's gonna cost you an awful lot. And um oh, that's gonna cost you an arm and a leg. That's a joke. I was like, what 0:06:18 - 0:06:42 I missed the punch line that's gonna cost you an arm and a leg. And he says, what can I get for a rib? Uh So um I don't know, I think it's hilarious. Um So instead of saying, hey, I want everything the Lord has and then he says, well, then you need to be like I am. They say, well, what can I get for 0:06:42 - 0:07:03 it? What can I get for an hour or two on, on Sundays or for just trying to be a good person. I don't even want to mess with religion just I want to try to be a good person. What can I get for that? What you have is the answer what you have right now. So if you believe on him, you get a very different 0:07:02 - 0:07:35 experience out of your mind and heart will flow rivers of living water. Um And the the Lord's water in you will be a well springing up into eternal life. It's always flowing. OK. So let me ask you something. This was obviously true of the Lord himself, right? If you read the gospels, the four gospels 0:07:35 - 0:08:03 in the New Testament, it probably seems to you that there's enough there that you could spend your whole life studying and trying to apply those things and not finish. I wouldn't disagree with that. But how do you respond to that? What, what's your reaction to that manifestation? Because if you took 0:08:03 - 0:08:34 the gospels, which are, are a record of a three year ministry that all of that material probably only occupied about two weeks or so of time ish, right? A lot less than three years. So here's some questions. Why don't we have the rest? Question, one, question two, what difference would it make if we 0:08:34 - 0:09:01 did to you? Now, one of the reasons we don't have the rest is because the answer to the other question, what difference would it make to you? God floods the world with information about himself. He floods the world with sources of joy for us. But we make use of so little. And here is the gospel principle 0:09:00 - 0:09:29 . Here is a law of heaven. No matter how much he mercifully makes available upfront. The key to more is to make full use of what is already there. The key to everything that we don't have yet is always what we already have. It's changing our relationship with what we already have. That's the key if you 0:09:29 - 0:09:55 want more than what's in the gospels because well, you love the Lord and you, you're thirsty, you want more water. The key is to make better use of what's there already. Now, the truth is that almost everyone is absolutely overwhelmed by what's already there and it's important to dissect that word a 0:09:55 - 0:10:17 bit, to be overwhelmed is not the same as to not be thirsty. So we're supposed to hunger and thirst after righteousness and you can be in a place where you're just totally satiated and it's not the greatest thing in the world to be if there's still more out there. But if you feel like you're in the rest 0:10:17 - 0:10:38 of the Lord and just everything is peachy, then great. That's a good thing, right? But if you don't feel like you're there, then the only honest thing you can do is more than you're doing or different than you're doing. You need to make some changes, including you need to call to God to ask him to send 0:10:38 - 0:11:08 more or to correct you because clearly some of what you believe is not quite right or it's not as right as it could be. You ask him to, to help you, let go see and let go of what's not as great as you thought it was. So that the answer to the question of how you would react to much more truth. It shouldn't 0:11:08 - 0:11:31 be a mystery to you because it's going to be the same way you react to the truth that you already have. You don't use it very well. And as you fix that, as someone fixes that God will give more, but he will not do it until someone does. And this is described very clearly in the scriptures, but it's not 0:11:31 - 0:12:06 the main point of what I'm discussing here. So I'm not gonna go there right now, but you can find it if you want to. So why should we want more information from God? In John 668 Peter says to Jesus, thou hast the words of eternal life. What does that mean? So this living water was pouring out from Jesus 0:12:06 - 0:12:25 nonstop. How did the people around him react to that? We could go into the public reaction? You already know. But what about the apostles? This is something that's not spoken about very often. It's an interesting practice. To read through those four gospels and count how many times they wanted to know 0:12:25 - 0:12:55 something from Jesus and they dared not ask him a question or Jesus said something to provoke them to say something and they dared not say anything. They wanted more on certain things and not others. And this is a big problem because it's not usually clear what the thing that we desire, what preconditions 0:12:54 - 0:13:25 it has, what lateral associations it has. You might say, I want a million dollars. Well, what if wanting, what if getting a million dollars in your specific case has to cour with um with losing a child? Would you still want it? And maybe that seems ridiculous, but I promise you it isn't in the web of 0:13:25 - 0:13:53 reality. There are hard constraints and one of the reasons it's so important to be completely submissive to God, joyfully submissive to God is we don't know what to want because what we want is based on our ridiculously limited understanding, a bunch of the things we think are wrong. We don't see a whole 0:13:53 - 0:14:29 bunch of the picture. Everything is just about as jacked up as it could be. So it's really good to be submissive to God. But the words of eternal life, they are massively important and Peter recognized that they came from God from the Lord, even if, if he didn't always fully appreciate them. In John 0:14:29 - 0:14:54 663 the Lord said is the spirit that quicken the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. So the benefits of these words of eternal life are life. Both the kind that comes after here and the kind that comes during here. One of the things that the presence 0:14:53 - 0:15:23 of Jesus did for the apostles is it kept them alive. It held back his power was sufficient that they were not harmed during his life. They were harmed after his life. And he told them that would be the case because they did not have the words that he had. But his words also orient us to greater value 0:15:23 - 0:15:56 . It's not just about some sort of endurance in the world. Um or even some weird ephemeral idea of what comes after here and now as well as later, greater value. Life. Yes, but also more abundantly. John 1010, the words he speaks to us are spirit and life. They quicken us. They make us better than we 0:15:56 - 0:16:20 were. They may give us more joy than we had before. In second Nephi 3120 we read wherefore, you must press forward with the steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and the love of God and of all men wherefore if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and endure 0:16:19 - 0:16:54 to the end. Behold. Thus, saith the Father, ye shall have eternal life. The, the information that comes from God is vitally important it is the very path to eternal life, not just some later date, it's what enumerates what Elucidates, the very step we're on the very things that we need to work on right 0:16:54 - 0:17:18 now. Second knee 5 32 3 angels speak by the power of the holy ghost. Wherefore they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore I said unto you feast upon the words of Christ for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do. Now we get into an interesting point. Jesus made these promises 0:17:17 - 0:17:47 about the the living water and the conditions were open. They're open to all. All you need to do is drink of the water that he gives you and believe on him. Easily said, not so easily done, but it is possible. Guess what happens when you do that while you become an angel because the waters of life flow 0:17:46 - 0:18:18 into you just as Jesus promised um the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal life just for yourself. No, nope. You will be a branch in the true vine, out of your belly or out of your heart and mind will flow rivers of living water. You will have the words 0:18:18 - 0:18:50 of eternal life and others can feast upon them. By the way, it's still flowing to you. So you're still feasting too. But you become this conduit through which other people have more of the word of God to feast upon. Um Here's another scripture referring to the protection uh that the word of God provides 0:18:49 - 0:19:14 and that is necessary to obtain first name 5 1524. And I said unto them that it was, it was the word of God and whoso would hearken unto the word of God and hold fast unto it. They would never perish. Neither could the temptations and the fire, fiery darts of the adversary, overpower them unto blindness 0:19:13 - 0:19:45 to lead them away to destruction. So the word of God, from whatever source it does these things. And if if these negative consequences are not prevented, what is required more of the word of God, where is it going to come from? If you have, if you're a farmer and you live in a dry place, you need to 0:19:45 - 0:20:07 irrigate irrigate your crops. And sometimes you use flood irrigation and sometimes you have sprinklers. Maybe you have a whole network of sprinklers. The point is not the sprinkler. The point is not the pipe. The point is the water and all of the water comes from the same place, but different methods 0:20:06 - 0:20:39 are employed to get it to where it needs to go. John 17 is a really important passage because uh chapter I'm sorry, many ideas are vividly demonstrated there. But if you read verses 11 through 19, this is where the Lord is talking about this protection that he has offered over his disciples to that point 0:20:38 - 0:21:03 and that he's leaving and he's asking the Lord or the father, I'm sorry, the father to uh care for them after he goes. And um he says the word over and over again, the word, the word, the word, for instance, he says for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth 0:21:03 - 0:21:30 . So in other words, he has paid the price to come to know the father and live like him so that they could also know the father and live like him. Um That you should go read that 11 to 19. Uh those that thou gave us me, I have kept and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, um I have given them 0:21:30 - 0:21:55 thy word, et cetera, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. So if you follow these, if you live these conditions, you drink of the water, the Lord's water and you believe on him, then out of your belly shall flow the rivers of living water. And it's going to be a well of water springing 0:21:55 - 0:22:23 up into eternal life. Getting back to where we started. If you are overwhelmed by the four gospels, how are you going to react to someone who has done this? Well, if you ignore what's in the gospels or only treat them lightly or only read them every once in a while or are satisfied with a very superficial 0:22:22 - 0:22:49 take on them or, or or then you probably would not be interested in more covering what filled the rest of the three years of his ministry. And if you were to meet someone like this, you'd probably either ignore them, ignore what they have to say or reject what they have to say or complain about the volume 0:22:48 - 0:23:20 of what they produce. But what you wouldn't do is dig into it and extract everything you can about how it informs you on your journey to become more like Christ. But that is exactly what it would take to drink of the water that Christ gives you and to believe on him. And as you do that, and if you were 0:23:20 - 0:23:26 to do that, you would also have this flood of water in you and be flowing it out to others.