Video Transcript

0:00:00 - 0:00:22 So recently, I've been uh kind of lurking on a series of videos on someone else's channel, reading comments and thinking about what people are saying and, and seeing why and tying that into many past experiences across a wide variety of topics. And I thought maybe now is the time to share some thoughts

0:00:22 - 0:00:48 about this and some of these things hopefully will help shift perspectives. Uh This happens to be quite a deep tradition that's held by people. You could call it a sacred cow. So we're gonna try to extract this like an infected tooth. Um The topic I guess could be summarized as graduate from fixed beliefs

0:00:47 - 0:01:16 and what I want to show you is how to change your mindset from thinking of the gospel as a list of ideas you could write down and everything is either good or evil to a learning living relationship with Jesus himself. And that could be immensely deep. I, I hope this is a good level of depth to do the

0:01:16 - 0:01:35 presentation at. Um There are, there's a lengthy passage of scripture in the middle of this. We'll see how we handle that, but mostly it's pictures, this is very picture rich. This is not one you just want to listen to, you, want to wait until you can watch it. I know a lot of you find value in just

0:01:35 - 0:01:58 listening to things as you work. Um That, that can absolutely be valuable. Uh One thing that's a trade off on that is that you may share my experience of finding that the first time I experienced something. I there's a way of getting revelation that's not the same on subsequent passes, beginners eyes

0:01:58 - 0:02:20 or in this case, ears is really a thing. And uh this one, you might want to wait, I I highly encourage you to wait until you can look at it. OK. So this is the first picture we're going to start with and I have a series of Venn diagrams here and this is, these are individuals in their relationship with

0:02:19 - 0:02:41 the book. OK. My claim here is that the gospel's purpose is to make people more like Jesus. Now, um if you don't believe me with that, I, I will share some scriptures, but that the purpose of this presentation is not to convince you of that kind of assuming you already agree there. Um So if you don't

0:02:41 - 0:03:03 , then maybe you could stop here and just wait until you do come back. Um But this is kind of, I think, I think this is fair enough to, to pass off that, that, you know, by, by nature, humanity is pretty far from God and then you draw closer and then it, you know, the point is to, to actually align with

0:03:03 - 0:03:28 some of these things at some point, hopefully you're making c uh changes in your life. So that as a result, you are, you more closely reflect the truths in the book, right? So the book is scripture and, and this is the point, right? So the issue is that the overlap, it, it's not enough, it's not enough

0:03:28 - 0:03:47 to be the picture on the left. Although that I think is how people think of the ideal. They, they think if this is what I'm doing, I'm doing pretty well. Like, hey, there are periods of, of time in my life, whether it's just for an hour or a couple of days or whatever, it might be where I'm living mostly

0:03:47 - 0:04:07 how Jesus would. It isn't that great because if it weren't for, for this religion, I'd be, I'd have a terrible life. I'd be doing terrible things all the time. Well, that's great. But I submit that. That's just the step that there's another step in this process, which is to be fully aligned, to read

0:04:07 - 0:04:29 the book and say this is exactly what I do in my life all the time. I can't read this book and find anything that differs from how I live my life. That's the goal total alignment. Now, is this some extreme standard where only a zealot would be like that or some special person who comes down from heaven

0:04:28 - 0:04:54 with magic powers to never sin. No, no. This is what Jesus asks all of us to do. It's, it's called the gateway. He calls it the gate. It's not, it's not the end of the path. It's the beginning. It's the beginning and we, we twist this up and make it into some daunting impossible standard. It's not, it

0:04:54 - 0:05:15 is the beginning. It's gospel 101 you're supposed to get here before you're even allowed to be baptized. That's, and I say, allow on purpose. It's in the rulebook, so to speak, you're not supposed to baptize people until they stop sinning. That's the fruit meet for repentance. That's what that phrase

0:05:15 - 0:05:39 means. You teach them the gospel and they live it and then you baptize them. So here's, here's a quote from Jesus 35 27 27. He says, what manner of man ought you to be verily I say unto you even as I am now, is that a one day or you know, if you, if you just try really hard someday, you'll be like that

0:05:38 - 0:05:59 . And it's a process. And no, again, I'm not making a lengthy argument here because I'm assuming you kind of believe this already. It's not the point of the presentation. He says in 3518, I give unto you a commandment that you shall do these things. If you shall always do these things. Blessed are ye

0:05:59 - 0:06:18 for ye are built upon my rock. But whoso among you shall do more or less than these are not built upon my rock but are built upon a sandy foundation. And when the rain descends and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon them, they shall fall and the gates of hell are ready open to receive them

0:06:18 - 0:06:42 . Now, this is a rich, rich passage and I wish we could take more time right now to dive into this more deeply. But the point is this is not optional. This is not some zealot, extra reward in the gospel or an extra reward in the gospel for, for zealots. It's just what everyone is commanded to do. There's

0:06:42 - 0:07:07 no other way. The only name you could be saved by is Jesus. You have to live that way. Ok? It's not optional. Overlap is not enough. It's not enough and, and seeing it as whether it's a question of sufficiency that in and of itself is not quite right because it's not a question of sufficiency. It's a

0:07:07 - 0:07:38 question of whether you are in or out. It's, you're either in or you're not in and you can only get in by being exactly like he is. Now that should set off some flares in your mind of holy cow. That's a crazy standard. Um Just bear with me. OK? Because see this picture, it's a book, it's a book, but

0:07:38 - 0:08:12 Jesus is not a book. Jesus is not a book, you see, you come to, to know him through a book initially and that's what the gate is all about. What does the gate open to a relationship where you're no longer limited by a book, you actually interact with him. So in John 2125 the apostle John, the beloved

0:08:12 - 0:08:35 disciple, the one who laid his head on the chest of Jesus and heard his heartbeat. That's how close he was to him in life. He closes his gospel, his, his record of the life of Jesus by saying there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written, everyone, I suppose that

0:08:35 - 0:08:56 even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. John says, who tried, he tried to do this. He knew Jesus well enough to do this and he gave it his best effort. He said, I just don't even believe it's possible to write. Even the smallest bit about Jesus in a book is too great

0:08:55 - 0:09:20 a being to fit in a book. Now, what's funny is you hear the whole Christian world seemingly sometimes argue about the Bible, this the Bible, that the Bible, this the Bible, that solo scripture, everything is there. Well, do you know Jesus better than John did I have yet to meet anyone who makes that

0:09:20 - 0:09:45 argument? Who knows Jesus anywhere near John, what John did, who has spent anywhere near as much time with Jesus who has that kind of relationship in any way, make that argument. This is what John said from first John one, this is his authority if you will. I really don't like that word because it's

0:09:45 - 0:10:08 so abused in, in religious circles. But this is the context of his testimony. This is where it's coming from. He says that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life. For the life was manifested

0:10:08 - 0:10:32 and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested unto us, that which we have seen and heard declared we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ and

0:10:32 - 0:11:05 these things, right? We unto you that your joy may be full. If there are people out there who can sincerely say this, we commit a grave error by thinking that those who cannot say this know better and we commit a grave error by not hearing what those people have to say, who can say this. John was not

0:11:05 - 0:11:30 sharing his opinion. He wasn't echoing things he had heard from someone else. This was not the result of some academic degree awarded by an institution that has a faculty with no special experience whatsoever with God. This was not an academic pursuit. It wasn't a matter of opinion. John was sharing

0:11:29 - 0:12:06 his personal experiences with Jesus, what he heard, what he saw, what he touched, what he lived and his joy was full. He wasn't saying, I think if we go down this road, it'll probably be better for us. Maybe he was saying I am already there and I am calling you, I'm inviting you to follow the path that

0:12:06 - 0:12:34 I did so that you can be here too. And I'm already here. And that is another thing that we make a grave mistake when we set on a pedestal when we prefer or, or somehow defer to the teachings of someone who says, well, maybe this is true. It's not true for me yet, but I'm on, I know it. I know I will

0:12:33 - 0:12:54 be on there on that end. I will get there. I know I'm on the path but I'm not, I'm not at, at the end yet. I don't, I don't really have anything to show for my progress, but I'm sure if I just keep trucking, I'll get there. And we prefer that to those who say I write this unto you, that your joy may

0:12:53 - 0:13:34 be full as mine is because I already have seen and hurt and handled the word of life. This is not my opinion. And if you do these things, you will too. The only counterpoint to that argument is for someone to be able to say I have done those things and it didn't work in the absence of that, the sincere

0:13:33 - 0:14:02 statement of this kind of claim has to take precedence. And when more than one person says this, which is what happened here, Jesus said these same things. He said, the father has sent me and I know him and you don't, but I've come to show him to you that your joy may be full in me as mine is in him

0:14:02 - 0:14:26 . That's exactly what Jesus said. Go read the book of John. He says these things again and again. And now John says the same thing he says, yes, I was shown these things. I did these things. I came to the same end and now my mission is to share them with you so that you can be in the same place and have

0:14:26 - 0:15:06 all the same joy. Jesus is not a book and everything below this order of experience needs to be judged as such, less, less at best. It's less at worst. It's a dead end and it will never reach this point. What's the difference between a book and a person? Well, it turns out that that as people come and

0:15:06 - 0:15:36 reconcile themselves to a book which by the way, most professed Christians will never do, they will never do it. All of those people, all of the people that do not reconcile to what they say they believe ought to be dismissed out of hand. They do not make a valid argument. So let's deal with the subset

0:15:35 - 0:15:57 who do, who do live up to these things. So already we've excluded almost all of Christianity, almost all. Now we're going to address the differences between people who turns out it turns out they have different books. You say, wait, wait a second. You mean like different translations of the scriptures

0:15:56 - 0:16:22 ? No. What you mean? Like Jehovah's witnesses drop out some of the verses. No. Is that what I mean? Cause I'm not actually talking about the literal Bible. I'm talking about the set of beliefs that you claim represent. What's in the Bible. You could call that an ideology. You could call it a set of beliefs

0:16:22 - 0:16:53 . I think we're just gonna go a set of beliefs. OK. Fixed beliefs. What happens is when you reconcile yourself to a set of fixed beliefs, you change and you're no longer who you started as to the extent that there's any truth in that set of beliefs, you will become more like God in those ways. And now

0:16:53 - 0:17:23 it's not about whatever the book was, you have become that yourself, you have become the word. So what happens is depending on how much truth is in the set of beliefs. That's how much like God you become by aligning yourself completely with those beliefs, completely unfailingly all the time. Those are

0:17:23 - 0:17:43 the only people we're talking about here. And so if you got yourself a book that had a fullness of the truth. You'd become exactly like God by aligning with it completely. Now, whether you believe that it's possible to align with something like that or not, is a different story again, uh I promise you

0:17:43 - 0:18:15 it is. However, it's not the point of this presentation, but we just said that God can't fit into a book. So, what's this all about? Well, it's about successive representations of estimates of truth. OK? And we'll come back to this. All right. So what ends up happening is there are levels of truth in

0:18:15 - 0:18:43 these books that are out there, these sets of beliefs and there are people who have aligned themselves with them completely. Although that's very much the minority of each set who hold those ideologies as true. And what we need to start thinking about is how these people look to each other. All right

0:18:43 - 0:19:10 , because they're going to look different from one another. Now, the assumption which is false is that for this person, they are going to see this person and this person is holier than they are. They're going to see value in all the differences between them. And that's just not true. The fact is that

0:19:10 - 0:19:36 they don't know what these books are. The fact is that their present system of valuing things will recognize differences as something other than being more valuable. We're gonna come back to this. OK? But here's what happens because everyone just assumes there's one book everyone assumes there's one

0:19:36 - 0:19:59 book, they don't have a relationship with Jesus. Anyone who has a relationship with Jesus, what they believe changes all the time. Why? Because that's exactly what Jesus promised. He says, those who believe in me, I'm going to send them the comforter and the comforter is going to reveal to them, it's

0:19:59 - 0:20:16 gonna take from me and give to them. He says just as I'm doing here and now this is in the New Testament. So during his life, he said, just as I'm doing now, I'm revealing the father to you line up online. I'm showing you things that you never thought of before. I'm directly contradicting the things

0:20:16 - 0:20:41 that you thought were, were rock solid truth and saying you've heard of old times, the ancients believed this. And I'm telling you that I gotta change it all up. I'm taking you closer to the truth and I'm gonna directly shut down all these false traditions that you thought were just as central to religion

0:20:41 - 0:21:00 , your religion that you profess as the things that actually are the core. So you, you held this one thing right next to this other thing. And I'm saying, no, you got it right with the one thing, the other thing is garbage, throw it away, it's total trash. And then he's also saying, I'm bringing these

0:20:59 - 0:21:20 new things too. I'm, I'm cutting things apart and I'm replacing things. I'm pointing out what's totally false and pointing out what's limited and I'm giving you what is better. That's what Jesus did in his life. And he says after I leave the Holy Ghost is gonna come and do the same thing, it's gonna

0:21:20 - 0:21:45 judge you. It's gonna rebuke you. That's what it's gonna do again. That's in John. But for some reason, the Christian world has this one book mentality. And what happens is whatever the set of ideologies is, it doesn't matter. And you see these delineated by religious sect and often in splits within

0:21:44 - 0:22:07 those religious sects, there will be differences in some tenet or another doesn't matter. You pick an ideology and everyone is looking at it like this is the one true faith. That's one book Mentality. It's one book Mentality. And most of them will say literally that their belief is what the Bible says

0:22:06 - 0:22:36 . This is biblically biblically based, sorry, not good enough whose interpretation of the Bible yours? The other guys. So what happens is like I said before, we're mixing the previous visualization here, it'll pull in a crowd who say, yeah, this is the one true book, right? This is the one true idea

0:22:35 - 0:22:57 , the one true faith. But hardly any of them will actually live it. Hardly any of them will get very close to it at all. It's like a, they treat it like a fire hydrant or a fire hose, you know, in case of fire break glass and they're like, well, if I ever need it I'm gonna break the glass and actually

0:22:56 - 0:23:15 live this stuff, but I'm gonna wait till some tragedy happens in my life. And I feel like I'm just gonna die or that I wish I could die before I ever bother trying to live this stuff. And that doesn't work. There are plenty of scriptures about that, but I'm just trying to uh give a representation of

0:23:15 - 0:23:36 the fact that the vast majority of people who claim that it's the one true book don't even live it. Now, here's something interesting about those who do. The closer you get to actually living what you believe, the faster you will find the limits of what you believe, the closer you get to actually living

0:23:36 - 0:24:02 what you believe, the faster you will find the limits of what you believe. What's gonna happen is you're gonna extract all the good, get all the benefits from that and find yourself being able to see all the bad and there will be bad. The bad will leave you with unanswered questions with challenges for

0:24:02 - 0:24:36 which that, that you cannot overcome and problems that you cannot solve in spite of living your belief to A T and that will draw you into the next group. You were drawn higher by the limits of living what is lower. Then you find yourself a new book and that book has all the solutions to your current

0:24:36 - 0:25:00 problems. And you live those two. If you are uh hungering and thirsting enough. If you have enough desire for righteousness, you will align yourself with that too. And you just keep growing and you develop more and more of a direct connection to God in doing so, you become much more like him and it just

0:25:00 - 0:25:27 keeps going. You see how that works. But the problem is you don't see this path. It's a ramp and no one's ever showed it to you. You've been taught your whole life by your church that there's one true faith and conveniently you already have it. Now, some of you are coming from an L DS background and

0:25:27 - 0:00:00 I'm gonna quote to you something from the book of Mormon, which is true, whether you're from an L DS background or not, this is the passage that I'd love to go through in detail, but I don't want to detract too much from the momentum. So if I feel like it, we'll come back at the end. And uh, if not,

0:00:00 - 0:26:09 then maybe we'll just do it some other time. But basically, there's this, there's this pair of chapters, second Nephi 28 and 29. And we're going to go through them in verse to make this, this, this prophecy that there will come a time when and, and the time is our time because this is an ancient record

0:26:08 - 0:26:31 when God will send more of His word to the world beyond what, what is in the Bible. And the world's response is going to be a Bible. We've got a Bible. We need no more Bible. And the Lord says, why would you murmur? Because you receive more of my word. Why would receiving more of my word cause you to

0:26:31 - 0:26:54 murmur? He says my work is not yet finished. Neither shall it be until the end of man? Neither from that time, henceforth and forever. Wherefore because you have a Bible, you need not suppose that it contains all my words. Neither need you suppose that I have not caused more to be written. Now that the

0:26:54 - 0:27:13 L Ds crew, they wave this around as, as a, a badge of honor, you know, they wave it around and they say, well, look at us, we're so fancy because we have the book of Mormon and we don't go around saying silly things like everything that God ever needed to say will be written in the Bible. And we're not

0:27:13 - 0:27:36 dumb enough to quote the Book of Revelation. And one of the things that Moses wrote um in the Old Testament to mean that no one can ever write down anything else that contains any information from God because of this uh warning to not add or take away from this book, quote unquote at a time when this

0:27:36 - 0:27:58 book did not mean the Bible because it didn't exist. It meant that specific um book of the Bible, like the Book of Revelation, for example. Anyway, so they wave this around like we're so much better than everyone else, even though they don't actually do or, uh, do what the book of Morman says, they do

0:27:58 - 0:28:22 claim to believe it. And so here's the funny thing. I mean, the sad thing, they're just as guilty as anyone else of doing this. They're just as guilty. And what do, I mean? Well, let's go back to chapter again. There's a lot of text here and I don't want to go through all this, but you should read it

0:28:22 - 0:28:48 and think about the claim because the point that is being made here by this, this ancient prophet Nephi is that the way things will be taught. And this is certainly true today. Oh, I'm sorry, this verse was cut off. I'm not sure what happened. Um, the way this is taught today, the truth is taught today

0:28:47 - 0:00:00 quote unquote is that people argue with their own wisdom and they say, well, let's, let's duke this out and let's battle. And the problem there isn't that you're using reason and rational argument because that is not just the, uh a valid way to discover truth and test theory, but it's the valid way.

0:00:00 - 0:29:40 That's not the problem. The problem is that it's one person's opinion versus another. And what this highlights is they deny the power of the Holy Ghost, they deny the fact that those who are on the path, the real path. It's not just their opinion. What do they have with their opinion? They have experience

0:29:39 - 0:30:17 is this experience just limited to the kinds of claims that John made. No. Have you ever read the book that the power of God was in the lives of these people? There was a difference. It wasn't just arguments divorced from life. The life was the argument Jesus didn't say I am the way and the truth. He

0:30:16 - 0:30:48 said I am the way, the truth in the life. Gospel beliefs that don't plug in to the smallest details of your daily life are missing something at best, at worst, they're false, at best they're missing. Maybe the most important part because if you have a car and it doesn't have wheels, what's the use of

0:30:48 - 0:31:11 having a car? And you can pay the insurance, you can make the car payments, you can wash the car and shine it up real nice. And what you've got is an extraordinarily expensive paperweight and that's worse than having nothing at all because at least you could be spending your money on something you get

0:31:10 - 0:31:45 something out of. But at best you should buy yourself some tires, the tires of the Gospel or what is inside your heart. That's what's hidden with this false pretense of fixed beliefs. That's what's revealed when someone comes along with an idea that requires upgrading your belief, that requires letting

0:31:44 - 0:32:08 go of something you thought was rock solid truth that could never ever change. Because God makes a division. If you want something better, you have to look for something different. Everything that is better will be different. Not everything that's different is better, but everything that's better will

0:32:08 - 0:32:31 be different than what you already have. The question is just by how much. So if you're totally close to it being different, you're in big trouble and you're one of these people, it says the Bible, a Bible, we have a Bible. So I will specifically point out here and maybe it's enough. You're going to

0:32:31 - 0:32:56 see an echo of a thought that we already saw. You probably didn't notice it then and you probably don't notice it now. But look at this in verse 16 17, woe unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of not and revile against that, which is good note, not that which they believe is good, but that

0:32:55 - 0:33:18 which God believes is good. It is completely possible for us to believe something is good when it isn't. And it's completely possible for us to believe that something is bad when it isn't continuing and say that it is of no worth for the day shall come that the Lord God will speedily visit the inhabitants

0:33:18 - 0:33:37 of the earth. And in that day that they are fully ripe in iniquity, they shall perish. But behold, if the inhabitants of the earth shall repent of their wickedness and abominations, they shall not be destroyed. Saith the Lord of hosts. Such a brief verse. Do you see how it echoes what we read before

0:33:36 - 0:34:06 . From 3518, the gates of hell are open, ready to receive them. What does that mean? I will explain it to you very briefly here. It's worthy of further study. That's a gross understatement. God sends what is good by, by nature. We will not recognize it that way. It's, it's safer to assume that you will

0:34:06 - 0:34:35 reject something good because it will seem bad to you than it is to assume the other way around. And what's the purpose, the purpose is to prepare you for situations you don't yet expect or understand or see something's goodness, the goodness of a thing is determined by its utility. And if you don't

0:34:35 - 0:34:52 expect, if you don't see things as they really are and will be, you're not going to see something as good when it's good. If you think everything will be puppy dogs and rainbows, you're gonna say, well, what's the point of this? It's just an expense or? Jeez, this thing comes along with a lot of costs

0:34:51 - 0:35:12 . It's definitely not worth it. Why would anybody pay that? So, just a simple contrived example is if you live in a place that you think could never be flooded, why would you buy flood insurance? It's just a waste of money. But suppose you knew that in one month's time your house is going to be destroyed

0:35:11 - 0:35:31 by a flood. Would you buy flood insurance? Yes. Would you consider it a, a an expense. That's too high. No, you consider it the deal, the deal of a lifetime. You'd be all over it. You would stop whatever you were doing today and go buy flood insurance, wouldn't you? That would be the rational thing to

0:35:31 - 0:35:59 do. And that's how it is. So, God knows what's coming to the earth and he reveals these things, at least in part to some people as he promised in Amos, but not all people understand that. Even though it's so plain, it's so plainly written in the scriptures. But you know, we read it and we don't, we don't

0:35:59 - 0:36:22 understand it. And he's got to explain it to us and he explains it to some people to help us see gives more and more evidence. But even in this brief couplet, you still see the key of unlocking it. It doesn't say if the inhabitants of the earth shall instantly be able to see all good things for what

0:36:21 - 0:36:48 they are, they won't be destroyed. It says if they shall repent of their wickedness and abominations, now, hold on, how can it be wickedness and abomination if you don't know what's coming, if you need to know what's coming to see the value of what you're told as good, but you don't see what's coming

0:36:48 - 0:00:00 . How can that be your fault? The key is he teaches you everything through what you already know. And maybe that sounds too cryptic to receive more. You first have to live according to what you've already received. Remember this? He's saying you need to get here or else you're going to be destroyed.

0:00:00 - 0:37:50 Do you understand it's that critical? And it's that clear, that's the key. And why don't you see the value of what is better than what you have because you're not living according to the value of what you already have. You're one of these people you need to be here or you'll never see the value of this

0:37:49 - 0:38:23 or this or what's after because it just keeps going. And that's true of all times in the earth. And what's especially true of today. In addition to all of that is we're not just talking about your eternal welfare anymore, it's here and now you will be destroyed. If you do not become fully aligned with

0:38:22 - 0:38:51 what you understand, to be God's will to be what's right, whether you believe in God or not, actually, the only people that will be left standing in America after the things that are coming will be those who are fully reconciled to what they sincerely believe is right? Not in that moment, not in that

0:38:51 - 0:39:17 moment, but that's the way they have lived. And that's a tim virgins situation where when the moment comes, it's too late to get more oil. And so if you're not, you're not there. If you take nothing away from this presentation except the following, get your life, right? Not according to what someone

0:39:17 - 0:39:41 else tells you is right. But what you sincerely believe one Hallmark of these people is when they fight with each other. When the lowers fight with the uppers, the uppers tried to persuade the lowers when the lower fight with the uppers. And they say this is the one true faith. This is the one true faith

0:39:41 - 0:40:12 . They never point to the whole thing ever. They point to one or two cherry picked things that they happen to find relatively easy to live. They never ever, ever fight by saying I live this completely and I have all the blessings promised and you do not. Therefore, I have something better than you. That's

0:40:12 - 0:40:36 what these people say to those people. That's what these people say to these people. But the upward fighting is never that way. It's always I happen to live this subset of things because it's kind of easy for me and you don't, therefore you're wicked. The question is that these people should say is what

0:40:35 - 0:41:13 about the rest of the book? How are you doing on that? Just to complete this very brief dance over this chapter again, it's about denying the power of God and the gift of the Holy Ghost. And this is this is, they're, they're being led carefully down to hell carefully. They're being deceived very carefully

0:41:13 - 0:41:37 , very, very intentionally. And this is this is how they respond. Ok? You get this, we have received and we need no more. We already have all the truth. We don't need you to tell us what's better. We already have it. Are you living it? No, no, but we already have. Ok. And, and, uh, did you read that

0:41:37 - 0:41:55 bit about having the beam in your eye and trying to judge others while you don't even live? What you know is right. Oh, no, no, that's not, that's not about me. It's about somebody else. Oh, ok. What about the part when Jesus said, let him who is without sin? Pick up the first stone? Oh Yeah. But that

0:41:55 - 0:42:16 , that was a different situation. That's not about me. Oh OK. OK. So what's the response woe unto all those who tremble and are angry because of the truth of God again, not the truth that you recognize is truth. The stuff that's beyond you right now that you recognize is evil and do you tremble and are

0:42:15 - 0:42:35 angry? Yes, you do. I read one comment today. The guy said I can't even listen to this anymore. I'm gonna unsubscribe to this channel. Not my channel, but this other guy's channel. I'm sure he's not here already. Um I, I have to unsubscribe to this channel because these untruths just hurt my soul. No

0:42:34 - 0:42:57 , you tremble and are angry because of the truth of God. And you're so far from it that you call good, evil and evil, good because he that is built upon the rock receives it with gladness. That's how you know they're built upon the rock. If God reveals more of himself to a person and they say, Hallelujah

0:42:56 - 0:43:25 , let's do it. I'll give away all my sins to know thee and the greatest value anyone can give me the greatest gift anyone could give me. Is it to show me how I'm wrong and to cut the chains off me so I can be closer to God. It cut, cut everything out of me, cut my hand off, cut out my heart, cut out

0:43:25 - 0:43:57 my eyes. If it brings me closer to God, whatever's left, I'm gonna show up in heaven with a little toe and a fingernail. I don't care cause everything else will be so much better than what was cut away. Cut it all away. You take my reputation, you take my career, you can take my friends, you take my

0:43:57 - 0:44:26 relationships with my, my siblings and my parents and my grandparents. You can, you can take my marriage. I can even take the life of my Children and I will just bless your name because that's how much I trust that everything you said is for my benefit and not just that, it's the greatest expression

0:44:25 - 0:45:02 of your love that I have prepared to see and receive. And you just say, Lord, take it all. Thank you. Thank you for loving me so much that you're willing to give me the sufficient reasons to trust you even though it hurts this much because I know I know that this will all end in a way where the only

0:45:01 - 0:45:38 thing, the only way I can describe this is to say holy, holy, holy, because you are love. That is not the attitude of these people. They put God in a tiny box. They say this far and no further, there is no argument in earth or heaven that could persuade me that God is something different than I imagined

0:45:37 - 0:46:02 him to be. And he himself could drop out of heaven and show me the hands, his holes in his hands and his side and his feet. And I would say you can't be Jesus because Jesus would never command me to do this or that. Or Jesus would never teach me that this or that is good because I know that those things

0:46:01 - 0:46:37 are evil or that this or that is evil because I know that those things are good and you'd be shocked. Those people not only exist, they are the majority of Christianity, the majority. Imagine the difficulty we impose on God by setting up all these limits to what good he can send into our lives. The puzzles

0:46:37 - 0:47:03 we provide him to send us the greatest good he can manage through the network of constraints that we impose upon him. He has a reservoir of living water that's backed by a river that never ends, that can fill the capacity of anything given to it. And we present to him a thick granite mountain and the

0:47:03 - 0:47:32 only droplets of water that get to the other side are the ones that, that don't directly contradict the mountain of false traditions that we have and impose on him for behold. Thus, saith the Lord God, I will give unto the Children of men. Line upon line, precept upon precept here a little and there

0:47:32 - 0:47:55 a little and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts and lend an ear unto my counsel for. They shall learn wisdom. And where does it start? Does it start with with believing the wild man in the wilderness? The guy with the hairy cloth and the guy eating grasshoppers and honey? No, because the

0:47:54 - 0:48:28 message is you're a soldier don't treat people more poorly than you have to in your job. The soldier already knew that his conscience had already told him that God had already told him that in your life, there's already a list of things, you know, you're out of alignment with God on you already have

0:48:28 - 0:49:00 that list until that list is empty. You cannot see what comes next. You cannot accurately judge anything beyond that and you won't even know if something is beyond that. You've been given your orders by the commander of us all until you obey them. Don't expect any more and don't expect to be able to

0:49:00 - 0:49:38 see if someone operating in the adjacent area is above you in rank or below you because you're gonna get it wrong. You know, God is so merciful that a substantial percentage of the Gospel consists of commandments to forgive our enemies, to treat them well, even to serve them as we would. God himself

0:49:37 - 0:50:07 . And the magnitude of that, there's, there are no words to express the weight of that instruction. Let me ask you, why does he say that? And you might say well because God is loving and He wants us to treat everyone well and yes, OK, I'm with you. But do you realize that if you listen to that, that

0:50:06 - 0:50:34 chunk of the Gospel that teaches us to forgive our enemies and to treat them well and to serve them that it is a fail, this protection against rejecting those who know God better than we do because human nature will cause us to cast them out and hate them. Human nature will cause us to see them as our

0:50:34 - 0:51:02 enemies. What a loving and merciful God to give us instructions that are so clear and basic that, that they don't require us to understand any of these complexities about how we naturally respond to greater light and truth, to understand the natural man and the intricacies of human nature. If you just

0:51:02 - 0:51:30 obey his very simple command to love your neighbor and love your enemy and serve all men and women as if they were God himself, you'll never do the wrong thing with these people, but you all throw that away completely. You just serve the people who you like or who make you feel good when you serve them

0:51:30 - 0:51:56 , you throw away everybody else and you outright attack the people that God sends into your life to bring you greater light and truth. You don't live what you already believe, what you believe, not what I believe. Not somebody else. So you're not hearkening to his precepts. You're not lending an ear

0:51:55 - 0:52:18 to his counsel. You're not learning wisdom, you're not receiving and he can't give you more because you haven't received what he already gave you. You are saying you have enough even if you don't use those words. And here's what's going to happen from them shall be taken away even that which they have

0:52:18 - 0:52:48 how because in our time, he is going to send you situations that bitterly reveal that you do not have what you think you have. And so your only two alternatives are going to be to crawl to him in the humility. He already gave you all the reasons to willingly exercise before or to curse him and die. And

0:52:48 - 0:53:12 I promise you that if you live long enough, you'll come to one of those two conclusions in the days to come. And then this one which is twisted 100 and 80 degrees by almost everyone that employs it. Cursed is he that put his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm or shall hearken unto the precepts of men

0:53:11 - 0:53:33 . Save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost. Maybe there is a day where there was such a famine of the word of God that we just had to hear each other's opinions on things and just let's all just read the scriptures and give our best guess. And that's the way it is. But as soon

0:53:33 - 0:54:01 as people start standing up and actually living what they say, they believe that day comes to an end because now they are living witnesses of the truth, not just people sharing opinions, but people who have experience like John. And so where, how many books are there? Think in terms of human fingerprints

0:54:01 - 0:54:25 , it's not quite that many, but it'll take you in the right direction. There's a whole lot of books, a whole lot of books, you change one idea. It's a different book. They vary in the bread and the depth and the content and it's a hierarchy just like pretty much everything else. And as you ascend, you

0:54:25 - 0:54:54 come closer and closer to what's more true and you come together. So where do the books come from? I kinda already told you, God sends people to the earth that have more faith and by that faith, they do more to live everything they believe is true and because they live everything they believe is true

0:54:54 - 0:55:16 , he gives them more and then they're able to share what he gives to them. That's exactly what happened to John. That's exactly what happened to Jesus. If he's the example, then it cascades all the way down. But I will discuss this much more later. So here we have a pictorial representation of something

0:55:16 - 0:55:39 I alluded to earlier. The people below fight with the people above the argument of the people above is simple. We have more and better. We have more and better come join us, we have more and better. But then those same people will fight with the people above them. And so this this tendency diminishes

0:55:38 - 0:56:08 slowly as a person ascends and eventually eventually they get some sense and they develop a different appraisal of value, a different system for appraising value. This is another way of looking at the problem. And I've shown this before with the tag windows of truth windows of value and so on the tendency

0:56:08 - 0:56:29 of most of these people. And you see the speech bubbles, not on the last person because it goes away as you ascend. You stop assuming this. But in the beginning and for quite a while, you will assume anything outside my circle of the truth tm is bad. And then you start to open your eyes and not coincidentally

0:56:28 - 0:56:58 , this co occurs with ascent because each and every person can only see, see value up to just beyond the value that they already have. And that's why the key to seeing more value is to live the value you already see because until you pick that up, you can't gain perception of what lies beyond it. You

0:56:57 - 0:57:23 wouldn't say a Bible, a Bible. We have the Bible. If you actually tried to live it and did live it and found yourself with a whole new set of questions, a whole new set of challenges you'd say no, we absolutely need more of the word of God. Let me have it. If you've got it, I want it. But if you don't

0:57:23 - 0:57:45 even read the dang book, how are you gonna know what's in it? What's not? And if you don't live it, how are you gonna know if it's sufficient or not? Jesus said, John 717 gotta live it to know if it's the father's will. So from, from this guy's perspective, what's gonna happen is he's going to see what

0:57:45 - 0:58:07 doesn't overlap with what he already believes is bad. That's going to be his prime test on punitive truth. How well does this align with what I already believe? Because I'm just looking for things that align with what I already believe. He doesn't understand that the stuff that already aligns with what

0:58:07 - 0:58:28 he already believes will never be able to provide anything beyond what he already has. So that's only a good idea if you already have everything you need or want. So what you find is that the only people that hold this belief, it happens to be a majority, but the quality is true for all of them is that

0:58:28 - 0:58:50 they don't actually live what they say they believe, and so they're looking at what they claim they have because of what they believe all lies in the future. It's all hypothetical or even if they have it right now, they're just assuming that it will remain true forever. They have no proof because they've

0:58:50 - 0:59:09 never encountered all the things that, that they know exist in life that just hasn't come to them yet. They look at job and they say, well, God, that's, that's not even a true story that that could never be that bad for somebody. And certainly God would never do this to anyone else. And they just squint

0:59:09 - 0:59:28 their eyes shut really, really tightly as they see all these examples of terrible things in the world. They say, well, that that would never happen to me. But even if it did, I'm sure that my current beliefs that of life on easy mode, that have held true for my life on easy mode would absolutely remain

0:59:27 - 0:59:53 true. And I'd be just fine if all hell broke loose. If the gates of hell opened to me, to invoke the phrase we read earlier, I'm sure I'd be just fine. I'm on the rock. I'm good. Guess what? A house on sand looks exactly like a house on a rock until the storms come. You better be darn sure that your

0:59:53 - 1:00:11 house can withstand the storms and there's plenty of evidence to suggest what the storms are like, even if you can't really understand until you're in it. You can know the flash floods happen. You can know that lightning crashes and all these other things. You can know that your house has to be at least

1:00:11 - 1:00:38 waterproof and fireproof. Is it, are there aspects of water and fire even like droplets of water and, and like a match that cause you to see the inadequacy of your house already? And what are you doing about it? So they look at whatever doesn't fully align with what they already believe is bad. And then

1:00:38 - 1:01:01 they see things that totally don't align with what they already believe is really bad. And yet while many, if not most things are like that, it turns out there are going to be some that are actually better than what you have. You know, all the Pharisees and scribes thought their religion was the cat's

1:01:01 - 1:01:22 pajamas and Jesus showed up. They said this is the most wicked guy we've ever seen. We have to kill him right away. That was their immediate reaction. It wasn't evolution. It wasn't just in his hometown the first time Jesus preached in his hometown after he began his ministry, their immediate reaction

1:01:21 - 1:01:49 was to try to kill him. They ran him to a cliff to throw him over and he had to do his ninja vanish thing that he can do. So this is not how really, really, really, really evil people react. This is how you react. This is how completely normal people so called react to greater truth. And the evidence

1:01:49 - 1:02:18 is all through the scriptures. It is not normal to see greater truth as greater truth. It is very unusual to recognize it as such unless you know how you're going to see it, what your reaction will be. And then you use that. So let me give you an example. If you get burned by something, everybody knows

1:02:18 - 1:02:36 even babies know you pull your hand away. If something burns your hand, right? And it happens so quickly, you don't even think about it. I like an idiot because I am 11 time I was trying to fix a lawn mower and it had been running for a while and I bent down to, I don't know, do something on the deck

1:02:36 - 1:02:59 and I put my hand right on that really hot spot where the, the exhaust comes out. It has the giant like indented into the metal warning. Don't ever touch this. I put my hand right there like the picture was exactly what I did. Giant picture of a hand with a No, that's where my hand went. Ok? And I got

1:02:59 - 0:00:00 this massive burn. I didn't have to sit there and think about it. My hand reacted before my brain, but the conscious part of my brain reacted. Ok. Now, imagine instead of signaling danger slash you're gonna get toasted slash die, whatever that the, the sensation of burning pointed to something good.

0:00:00 - 1:03:41 Imagine some crazy person trying to convince you of this. But yeah, I know, like in all of your experience, first off, this is a natural thing that you didn't have to learn. You just knew. And then in your entire life of experience, you've seen that every single time you felt this, it was followed by

1:03:41 - 1:04:01 immense pain and logically, you could look at it to see it would have been much worse if you didn't pull away. But I'm telling you that that is actually the signal for something good. You think you're nuts, you're nuts. And I'm not about to try out this crazy theory of yours and end up with, you know

1:04:01 - 1:04:30 , skin grafts on my hand. Right. Right. Ok. So why is the gospel difficult? Why is it difficult to persuade people to see and value what is good? So, so the world thinks the gospel is difficult because the things that are obviously good are hard to do, that's completely wrong. That's completely wrong

1:04:29 - 1:04:55 . The gospel is difficult because people do not respond to what is good by seeing. It is as good. It's totally inverted. It's totally different than what everyone thinks. You know, the whole church industrial complex is built around the idea that we already know what is right. It's just really hard to

1:04:55 - 1:05:24 do it. The truth is you don't know what is right and you don't know what is right because you're not doing what you already believe is right. And that is not actually hard. It's, it's only difficult at all because it's impossible to you. And why is it impossible to you? Because you can't serve God and

1:05:24 - 1:05:50 mammoth, you will never fully repent of your sins while you still have conditions, you will never fully repent of your sins until you have completely cut yourself off from the world. And I don't mean go live in a cave. I mean, you truly have to submit to God at the level you understand Him to be. You

1:05:50 - 1:06:13 can't say, oh, I'm going to obey this one thing, this one time under these circumstances. And the next thing that comes along is an independent test. You have to come down to the dust in humility and let go of yourself. You lose yourself to find Him. There is no other way you have to say I will give

1:06:12 - 1:06:38 away all of my sins to know you, whatever they might be. I submit to you completely. Everything else is just pantomime. The, the, the Christian churches of the world are just a mockery of the real thing. They have not laid down their lives to Jesus and no surprise, they can't stop doing this or start

1:06:38 - 1:07:10 doing that. So the old way of appraising truth is, does this match my present beliefs? And you might think the truth is discovered by fighting over people's opinions. It's not the way it works. Here's the right way. Here's the way that works. You're drawn up by recognizing and receiving what is better

1:07:09 - 1:07:28 than what you have. That needs to be the thing that's in your mind all the time. Like you remember that Night Rider car, if you're old enough, it was that light that went back and forth on the hood, that light going back and forth on the hood all the time needs to be. Is this better than what I have

1:07:28 - 1:07:52 ? Is this better than what I have? Is this better than what I do? Is this better than what I feel? And if so give me that right all the time, let go of whatever is in its way and take it, get rid of what takes up the space in you and take this instead, it's like some role playing game where if you have

1:07:52 - 1:08:17 some lesser sword, you throw it away, you take the better sword, you can only have one sword, pick one ask yourself. Does this provide solutions to problems I still have in spite of my present beliefs. Does this provide answers to questions I I have in spite of my present beliefs, does this provide strength

1:08:17 - 1:08:45 to overcome challenges I face in spite of my present beliefs in the whole time, remember that the first key is living what you say you believe before you do any of this. Why is that necessary? Because if you don't do that, you're not going to say the problems I still have in spite of my present beliefs

1:08:45 - 1:09:02 because you're gonna say, well, I don't actually live what I say. I believe. Therefore, I think what I believe does have the solution to this problem. I'm just not there yet. You know, if you're L DS and you're one of these people that are obsessed about seeing the face of God, which, you know, there

1:09:02 - 1:09:24 are worse things you could be obsessed about, but you won't let go of any of the L DS stuff that prevents you from getting there. If you're not living up to the L DS faith and this has not happened for you, then maybe the reason is because you haven't lived up to the L DS faith. You don't know. Now when

1:09:24 - 1:09:43 you live up to the L DS faith, you're going to realize it's insufficient to yield that result. There are things you have to throw away and things you have to pick up. But if you're not actually living up to that faith, you're gonna assume that it's because you're not living up to the faith. So fix that

1:09:43 - 1:10:05 , live up to the faith, find all the holes and you'll see what you lack to get to the next level. What about uh overcoming challenges? Like maybe you struggle with some kind of addiction. Last I heard Jesus overcame all things and he promises the same to his believers. So if you're struggling with some

1:10:05 - 1:10:28 kind of addiction and you're not living your faith, you're gonna say Well, I think that the solution is here, but I'm not living my faith. So that's the problem. Well, test that theory, live your faith. If you are living your faith and many, many people in this situation, they are living their faith

1:10:28 - 1:10:54 and they still struggle with XY or Z. Maybe you need a better face. Go look for what you lack, go look for what you don't have and you want find people who have it. Now, this is a radical idea in religious communities. It shouldn't be every single person practically in the scriptures. Lived this idea

1:10:54 - 1:11:13 . You know, uh John and Andrew, I believe they were with John, the Baptist and Jesus strolled along and John, the Baptist said, oh this, this guy is better than me. I can't even unlatch his shoes. He's the son of God. They immediately dropped John and picked up Jesus. Why? Because he had something they

1:11:13 - 1:11:35 wanted that John couldn't give Peter was getting the best he could out of his life. As a fisherman, Jesus said, leave all this and come follow me, Peter said, all right, let's go. Actually, he said, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. But you know, so in the world it's in the scriptures, but we don't do

1:11:35 - 1:11:54 it in modern religions. Why? I don't know in the world we do it. So let's say you're poor and you're this guy on the left. You say I'm poor, I need more money by the way I hate watching basketball. Ok. And then you see this guy and you say, well, he makes more money than I do. I should ask what he does

1:11:54 - 1:12:17 for a living. I'll look at how he spends and saves money. Maybe I'll learn something, maybe I'll find a key to what I can do to become more like him in this way that I want. I really don't care if he loves basketball or not. That, that only matters if it has something to do with the money thing. Right

1:12:17 - 1:12:38 ? If the guy is like, well, let me tell you about why I'm, I'm in the financial situation. I am. It all started because I love basketball and no one who doesn't love basketball could be in this place. Right? So this makes sense. But then we flip it into religious context and everybody loses their minds

1:12:37 - 1:12:57 . So, same guy and he says, I believe in God and I love going to church. But you know what, I'm riddled with anxiety and to tell you the truth, I'd never admit this. It's very obvious in the way I live my life. I find it difficult to serve others. I don't enjoy it. It's a, it's a, it's a trial for me

1:12:56 - 1:13:20 . It's a, it's a burden, it's a job. And then he looks, and he, he says, ah, this guy here, he's got a much more complicated life than I do, but he doesn't have any problems with anxiety. Maybe I should find out how he handles that. So, the world, the religious world looks at this and they, and increasingly

1:13:19 - 1:13:40 the temporal world too, unfortunately, but the religious world started it. They have a much bigger problem with this. They say, oh, he doesn't struggle with anxiety. It's just my cross. It's just my special weakness. He's blessed, he's blessed with a gift. There's nothing transferable here. There's nothing

1:13:40 - 1:13:59 to learn. God isn't just He doesn't treat all people equally. This guy's got magic. So this is just my cross to bear. I guess this is just I'm an exception to Jesus's promise where he said peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be

1:13:59 - 1:14:28 troubled. Neither let it be afraid. He wasn't talking about me. It's everybody but me. I can have anxiety and be a disciple of Christ. No, you can't. Jesus overcame the world. He said everyone that believes in Him will also overcome. If you haven't. It's because you're not following him and you don't

1:14:28 - 1:15:03 know Him. That is the only answer your solution is to find more about him and live everything you find. He did not come to break just some chains. He did not show his power in healing people of physical calamities and somehow not be able to heal mental calamities, which is easier by the way, much easier

1:15:02 - 1:15:32 because all you need to do that is ideas. So if this person had nearly as much faith in religious issues as he did in temporal issues, he'd say, maybe I should find out how he handles that and give it a try. And maybe this guy believes that the father, the son and the Holy Ghost are three different beings

1:15:31 - 1:15:58 . And I don't, I think that's blasphemy. But let me just look at how he has what I seek to see if I can get it too. Then he looks at another guy. He says, you know, I'm intrigued by how this guy consumes his life in the service of others. It's nothing I would ever do. I'd find that impossible. And yet

1:15:58 - 1:16:24 he seems happy. Maybe I should find out how he manages to dedicate his life to other people. And you know what this guy says, modern churches are abominable to God, excuse me, to God. And I find that super offensive, but that's OK. Maybe he has something that I need in some other aspect. Ok? You don't

1:16:24 - 1:16:55 let that stop you and then guess what if you try it and you find that it's not what you were looking for. You are free to leave it behind. But at least now, you know, at least now you've made it impossible for you to get to the judgment bar and guess who shows up this guy and guess who's with him? Jesus

1:16:54 - 1:17:26 and Jesus said, you remember him says, you remember him say yes, I do because you can't lie or forget when you're there. You remember everything and you can't lie. And Jesus says, I sent you this man. I put him into your life. You knew him. You say yes, Lord, you say your whole life struggled with anxiety

1:17:26 - 1:17:52 . That's all you suffering. And I tried to use small means to help you see it, help you see the path out so that you can have the greatest amount of joy in overcoming this by doing most of it yourself. But you didn't see those things. And so then I sent this man to show you the way to give you a ladder

1:17:51 - 1:18:13 out of this pit that you found yourself in. But you would not hear him, you would not recognize this and do something about it. And like I said, maybe this guy is not, you know, overtly preaching or anything. You just know Him, you know him well enough to say these things about him. And Jesus shows you

1:18:13 - 1:18:39 all these examples of all the ways he, he tried to do it. And then he shows you what it cost this guy to overcome anxiety because unlike you, he didn't have an example. And actually that turned out to be integral in the justice of God. He had to pay that price to gain the power and the right to help

1:18:39 - 1:19:13 people like you and you see his suffering because you could see that too. And how are you gonna feel? Or you see this person who fulfills what Jesus said in John 1335 by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples? If you have love one to another, that was the token that Jesus indicated as demonstrating

1:19:13 - 1:19:50 who his disciples are his true messengers. They will love one another. How as he did, he says that as I have loved, you love one another. That's the verse before this. So when you see someone loving uh the world, the way Jesus does, sacrificing everything they have to give like Jesus did, that ought

1:19:50 - 1:20:16 to get your attention. And it ought to be a stronger signal to you than any particular beliefs. That person has to deviate from what you already believe, especially if you do not love all people like Jesus did. This is the most important thing according to Jesus. He said the two great commandments are

1:20:16 - 1:20:53 to love the father and to love other people. So nothing else that seems to deviate can trump that if they have that and you do not, then whatever they have is greater than whatever you have in summary, don't dismiss something because it differs from what you presently believe. Not only should you be

1:20:53 - 1:21:19 open to things that completely contradict what you already believe. You ought to be searching for them explicitly. Because everything that is better than what you already have must be different than what you already have in some way, instead of evaluating putative truth based on how well it matches what

1:21:19 - 1:21:46 you already believe, evaluate it based on the new ideas. What the new ideas have to offer that you currently lack and desire, you currently lack and desire the key to, to doing this well is you have to actually live what you claim to believe. This is of utmost importance.