0:00:00 - 0:00:22 So I got a comment the other day and I think it's a great opportunity to rehash a few topics in brevity. Each of these could be and should be talked about in a much more elaborate form. But you know, there are pros and cons to that. Several of the cons include that. It's just a lot of time and it's never 0:00:22 - 0:00:43 fun to spend a ton of the little time that we have on things that only a few people need to hear and their corrective rather than, than focused on getting to a better place. And there are things that people should sort sort of already understand. Um But we, we just have to balance that with the priority 0:00:42 - 0:00:59 of things. So here's, here's an attempt to do this in a quick fashion. Here's the comment. So this is from someone at not much. Oh, that's wonderful to be able to hide behind an anonymous tag and not have a picture of your face. But uh it makes people brave, doesn't it? Here's the comment. Everything 0:00:58 - 0:01:15 about Rob gives the Heebie Jeebies free craft setting himself up for a light, asking for money, wake up people. So in the reply to this comment, I addressed the Heebie Jeebies and the wake up people. I addressed all of this briefly in the reply, but I want to focus on the priest craft, setting himself 0:01:15 - 0:01:38 up for light and asking for money in particular. Because as with everything I teach, the point is not me. The point is that if you believe these same things, it's really going to mess up your progress with God. What, what do I mean by the same things? I mean, what this person thinks priest craft means 0:01:37 - 0:02:05 , setting himself up for light means and asking for money. So whether whether what I teach is valuable or not, whether it helps you draw nearer to God or not in general, understanding those things specifically independent of me is absolutely positively going to determine how effectively and how fully 0:02:04 - 0:02:37 you can draw nearer to God. So let's dive in first and foremost. So we're going to address this in order of importance. The most important idea out of this Jesus alone is the standard by which we ought to measure ourselves and others. Now it's beneficial to say something like the uh it's beneficial to 0:02:37 - 0:02:57 , to judge yourself and also other people based on Jesus. And I don't know if you remember. But when you do math in school, in elementary school, middle school, high school, there was always this variable of whether pun intended, I guess this variable of whether you need to show your work or not. You 0:02:57 - 0:03:15 remember that from a math quiz, excuse me, whether you need to show your work and sometimes you didn't have to, you could just give the answer and that was ok. But a lot of times, especially if it was wrong, you'd have to show your work. I remember a geometry teacher and he'd always say show your work 0:03:14 - 0:03:32 if you want partial credit because you have to show me that you were close. Even if you got the final answer wrong with our beliefs. It's really important that, that when we share them with others, we do so in a way where we show our work. And that way, even if we're off in our conclusion, other people 0:03:32 - 0:03:51 can, can see where we are coming from. And also those are arguments because we're presenting our evidence, they're arguments in favor of our position to just say what you think is a lot less valuable to say why than saying why you think it right? Of course, another level up from that is to share why 0:03:51 - 0:04:16 they should think it because maybe your reasons aren't actually very persuasive to other people. So for various reasons. So if you were to say something like I do this because I think Jesus would, that's great. And then you say, here's why and you share your actual reasons for thinking that Jesus would 0:04:15 - 0:04:41 do what you're doing in your place. Or if, if you're judging other people, what you're saying they should do or shouldn't do. And you say here's why that's a million times more valuable than saying you're wrong or you're right or I'm right or you're wrong or whatever, you're right, whatever. So this 0:04:41 - 0:05:04 is really important and that's what's beneficial is to, is to say, uh this is what Jesus would do. And here's my reasons for believing that it's not very beneficial to say that's wrong. That's right. And a whole lot of people, even Christians and this is a travesty that separate this. They have an idea 0:05:04 - 0:05:20 of right and wrong that's divorced from what Jesus would do. They don't think in terms of what Jesus would do, they're not constantly applying that. And because of that, they developed this morality that's independent of Jesus. And then when they learn more about Jesus, it doesn't change their morality 0:05:20 - 0:05:50 and one facet of this is judging themselves or others by standards, which would not Jesus would not pass and that's not good. That's, it should be really clear. We should all aim up to Jesus and then whatever our definition of evil is, obviously, if Jesus did it, it's not evil, right? I mean, isn't that 0:05:50 - 0:06:15 kind of the center belief of Christianity that, that Jesus is the definition of good? Otherwise, I think we should probably call it something else. Ok. So what's the opposite of this? Well, whether it's evil or retarded is a question of the knowledge of the person but anyone who believes the following 0:06:15 - 0:06:41 is at least one of the two that it's ok to ignore your own faults while judging others in ways that would obviously condemn Jesus. Now, I don't know who this person is that made the comment. And so I can't tell if they're just retarded or evil, but there are at least one because they ought to know this 0:06:41 - 0:07:07 . Ok. They ought to know this. So let's dive into ignoring your own faults and why? That's a really bad idea. The bottom line is you cannot accurately see someone else to the degree that you have to, to judge them correctly when you are in wilful sin. If you can't say that everything that you do in your 0:07:07 - 0:07:31 life is fully aligned with your understanding of what Jesus would do in your place. You have no business judging other people. And it's not because you don't have, you know, moral authority or whatever. It's because you literally cannot tell you have no way of knowing whether what they're doing is better 0:07:31 - 0:07:56 or worse than what you're doing. That's the reason. This is not my idea. It's what Jesus said. So I'll give you two snippets. We'll just do the briefer one first when the woman caught in adultery was brought to him, he said he that is without sin among you. Let him first cast a stone at her. That's from 0:07:55 - 0:08:20 John 87. He was not saying that it's never appropriate to stone, a person who has committed a crime for which the penalty in the law is stony. That's not what he was saying. He was saying none of you have any right to punish this woman because you're all sinners, you're all still sinning and they knew 0:08:20 - 0:08:43 that and that's why they put down the rocks and left. And so the crowd didn't leave, but the ones who had come as witnesses because that's what the law required to condemn her. None of them were worthy to condemn her because they were all still living in sin. Now, Jesus who had a right to judge her because 0:08:43 - 0:09:05 he was without sin. He did not pick up a stone, he forgave her. And that's actually a really important point that's fully outside of the scope of this presentations. I won't delve into it because it, it's going to ruffle some feathers of its own. But the point is Jesus said very plainly, if you're still 0:09:05 - 0:09:27 living in sin, you have no business judging other people in Matthew 72 through five, we read for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholds thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye but considers not the beam that 0:09:27 - 0:09:45 is in thine own eye or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye. Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. I am not sure how he could 0:09:45 - 0:10:02 have said it any clearer people. So that's why I'm saying you're either evil or retarded if you're saying this, because if you have a beam in your eye, you cannot see clearly to take a splinter out of someone else's eye. Now, people look at that and they say, yeah, but what if, what they're doing is 0:10:02 - 0:10:20 really evil. Then I could see even if I have murky vision. If my vision's blurry, I can still see if something big is there, but you can't even see if it's big. That's why he said a splinter the sin you're committing in your hypocrisy of, of thinking that you can judge another person. Well, you haven't 0:10:19 - 0:10:43 even, uh, obtained repentant, uh, forgiveness from God because you're still willfully sinning yourself. Judgment comes through the wisdom granted by the Holy Ghost which you are unworthy of. If you're continuing in sin, you have no ability to see right and wrong in other people while you're still choosing 0:10:42 - 0:11:03 wrong in yourself. Jesus could not have said that any clearer so we could probably just hit stop. This is one time that if everyone flees from the rest of this video and just abandon ship, I won't be offended. Not that I'm ever offended. But I do feel like you're making a big mistake when you do that 0:11:02 - 0:11:29 . That's probably all we need to say. But I do have six more slides so we can delve deeper if you'd like. The second half of the statement was while judging others in ways that would condemn Jesus if your standards condemn Jesus, you are wrong. Period. I don't think any Christian can argue with that 0:11:28 - 0:11:51 or else you have to give up being Christian. You're something else. Here's the pattern. This is what people do. I'm helping you see the pattern you're in. If you're in this boat, you believe certain things are right and wrong. Great. You're no different than other people. What you believe is right and 0:11:51 - 0:12:18 wrong might be different. But I'm saying that's everybody. Ok? But the actions of Jesus is recording in scripture, they contradict at least some of those beliefs. And this is where you're either evil or retarded. If your beliefs contradict, what's in scripture? How can you be a Christian? More specifically 0:12:17 - 0:12:46 if the story of Jesus in the scriptures? If the things he did in his life in the New Testament, I'm saying in the gospels, if the account of his life contradicts what you believe is right and wrong, you have a serious inconsistency that you need to fix. If your standards condemn Jesus, they are wrong 0:12:46 - 0:13:11 . Because if you were judging Jesus, you would condemn him, you would be in the crowd that said, crucify him. You'd at least be in the crowd that left him or didn't listen to him in the first place. Obviously, you don't want to be there. So, none of what I have said so far has anything to do with me 0:13:10 - 0:13:39 . It is strictly between you and Jesus. Now, here's where you continue to make mistakes where it exceeds your relationship between you and Jesus sort of is that you start to judge others according to those same beliefs by which you would condemn Jesus. Now, why is this such a big deal is because how 0:13:39 - 0:13:58 exactly do you think God is gonna help you see the error of your ways, the limits of your beliefs? How do you think he's gonna show you the edges of those beliefs? Because if you were a more honest person, you already would have seen those errors. You already would have seen those limits. You'd look 0:13:58 - 0:14:20 at the scriptures and say holy cow, I don't believe what I say, I believe. Or there's so much in the scriptures here that clearly contradicts what I say, I believe. Let me fix that, but you haven't done that. So exactly, how do you think you're gonna come to that change? And you, I know that you're thinking 0:14:20 - 0:14:42 , well, God would tell me if I were wrong. How exactly is he going to do that? You're not worthy of the Holy Ghost? If he did try to tell you, you just write it off and say that's not right. This must be from Satan, this must be my own mind telling me. So he's gonna send you people. That's the primary 0:14:41 - 0:15:07 method. When you don't respond to the signals that are already in the scriptures or in your life, he's gonna send you someone to try to set you straight, but you're gonna judge them by the same beliefs that by which you would condemn Jesus if you were judging him, you see the problem there. Now again 0:15:06 - 0:15:30 , this has a little more to do with me specifically, but we're still talking just in general about any old servant. It doesn't matter, doesn't matter who it is. So, where did these errors come from? Right? Because I know for every one of these beliefs, I'd say, why do you believe this? You'd say, well 0:15:30 - 0:15:52 , here's the reason and you could probably point to some scripture word or phrase or even idea. The problem is you're either looking at things too simplistically, that's in the best case. In the worst case, you've completely redefined these words, phrases and concepts to mean something very different 0:15:52 - 0:16:15 than what the author intended. Now, how can you know that you're off base? I already told you compare it to Jesus, right? And if you need even more material because that's not enough, which I think it is enough. But let's say it's not enough. Well, include the people in the scriptures that you accept 0:16:14 - 0:16:37 as holy people like if you think that Paul really was an apostle of God and that he had good standing with God and that he knew more about God than the people he was teaching, which seem like really reasonable things to believe. If you're Christian, then maybe you should look at what, how he acted and 0:16:37 - 0:17:02 what he said and what he did and, and filter your ideas of right and wrong through that because he probably knew more than you do. Now, how would you, how would you test that? Well, look at the power of God that he had, look at the wisdom that he showed through what he taught the beliefs he had, which 0:17:02 - 0:17:23 he showed through what he did and the power of God he had through miracles that he worked. Paul predicted the future accurately and those things, a bunch of them happened during his life. Uh He was saved miraculously from, from multiple things. He did miracles, he healed other people. He did miracles 0:17:22 - 0:17:51 . Do you do those things? What about the level of sacrifice Paul had in preaching the gospel? He was publicly humiliated by turning away from what he invested in his entire life in and being a pharisee's pharisee and uh was blinded in the process, miraculously healed anyway. He won 80 his entire life 0:17:51 - 0:18:12 . And then he spent the rest of his life on the road preaching the gospel to people who bitterly persecuted him. And I'm not just talking about the opponents of the church more fully the ones inside the church in every one of his letters. Practically, there's this section talking about all the people 0:18:12 - 0:18:41 who have recently betrayed him and it's a new list on every letter. Imagine that life. Have you done anything like that? If not, he probably knew a heck of a lot more about Jesus than you do and lived it. So, if your model of right and wrong would condemn Paul, you should probably fix all those elements 0:18:40 - 0:19:06 as well. So now let's look at some examples. Let's look at this phrase setting himself up as a light. This is something a lot of people like to throw around. Here's the question, what would Jesus do? This kind of boggles my mind because the scriptures are so dang clear about this. I'm not sure where 0:19:06 - 0:19:30 the controversy comes from except we've taken a phrase, plucked it completely out of context and then redefined it completely. And now anytime we want to condemn someone, even if they're doing exactly what Jesus said to do, we can throw this at them as if it's a bad thing and I'll leave it to you to 0:19:30 - 0:19:51 think of how ridiculous it is to condemn someone for doing exactly what Jesus would do in their place and or what Jesus commanded everyone to do. So in John 95, Jesus said as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world now mainstream Christianity likes to strip this down and just say Jesus 0:19:51 - 0:20:15 is the light of the world. Well, he is but he said as long as I am in the world, I am, I am the light of the world. Ok. So how does the world get light once he has left in John 812? He said, well, I'll, I'll just read the whole verse then Spake Jesus again unto them saying I am the light of the world 0:20:14 - 0:20:36 . He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. So how do we get the light that Jesus has? We follow him? What does it mean to follow someone? Does it mean to believe in them? No, that's not enough. If, if I say follow me to my house because you don't know how to 0:20:35 - 0:20:56 get there. But I do and we're driving and you just, I make a right turn, you make a left turn and the whole time you're saying how much you believe in me? It doesn't matter. You're never gonna get to my house. You're not following me because you turned left when I turned right. So if we follow Jesus 0:20:55 - 0:21:29 , it means we do what he would do. We do what he showed us to do through his own example. And what he taught in Matthew 514, he says, ye are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid is this clear. So setting yourself up as a light cannot mean to learn what Jesus is like and 0:21:29 - 0:21:55 to do it. And you might say, yeah, but that's not the same as telling other people to follow your example. Oh, really, Paul begs to differ. He says in first Corinthians 11 1, be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now, if someone were to say that without citing Paul, but just saying it for 0:21:54 - 0:22:28 themselves, you would probably use that as a piece of evidence that they are setting themselves up as a light and yet they would be doing exactly what Paul did and fulfilling the commandment that Jesus gave. So there's another scripture from Paul here, I'm gonna skip that. You can read it. It's in Ephesians 0:22:27 - 0:22:51 58 and I will read this one from the Lord in third Nephi 1824. He says, therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold, I am the light which ye shall hold up that which ye have seen me do behold. Ye see that I have prayed unto the Father and ye all have witnessed. So how do you 0:22:50 - 0:23:15 fulfill God's commandment to shine the light? You hold up the same light that Jesus had. What we've seen him. Do. You do the same thing? You do the same things you say the same things if you see someone doing and saying what Jesus did and said, or things like he did and said, you should not use that 0:23:15 - 0:23:39 as evidence that they are bad people. You should use that as evidence that they are fulfilling God's commandment. They're giving you an example to follow. They're showing you more about God than you knew before, or at least giving you evidence to believe that you can do those same things to helping you 0:23:39 - 0:24:09 have more faith. So, whatever setting yourself up as a light is, it can't be that. So what is it then? Well, we read when Jesus said, hold up your light, he said, I am the light which she shall hold up. So to set yourself up as a light, it means to hold up something other than the example of Jesus. Now 0:24:09 - 0:24:27 let me ask you this because it's one of several examples we're going to see of something, meaning the opposite of what you think it does of you condemning the very people who are doing exactly what they should in the topic you're talking about while praising the people who are actually guilty of the 0:24:27 - 0:24:47 crime you're describing, who are the people who do not hold up the example of Jesus. Well, they're all the people that say that we don't actually have to do what he says and we don't actually have to do what he did that we don't actually have to follow him that we can lie a little, that we can sin a 0:24:47 - 0:25:10 little and that he'll forgive us or that everyone's forgiven automatically all the time that eternal life is just a matter of saying you believe in Jesus or quote unquote, trying your best, which isn't actually your best. And I've talked about that before. So who is, is actually setting themselves up 0:25:10 - 0:00:00 as a lie? What's probably the people who are accusing the folks who are doing exactly what Jesus said of setting themselves up as a light because you're condemning people who are saying follow Jesus. Do you understand this? You're either evil or retarded, no one can do wrong by saying, follow Jesus. 0:00:00 - 0:26:11 That's exactly what we're supposed to do. Now, we might disagree on what Jesus would do in certain situations. I would expect that any two people are going to have disagreements about that. That's a good thing because it means one of them is gonna learn something. But to say that teaching people to say 0:26:11 - 0:26:31 that you are following Jesus and that you're trying to help other people do the same and you say things like no matter what do what you sincerely believe Jesus would do in your place. And if we have a disagreement on that, do what you sincerely believe Jesus would do in your place like we can compare 0:26:31 - 0:26:47 notes and I'm gonna do my best to hear your reasons. And if I think your reasons are better, I'm going with them and thank you very much, you've given me a tremendous gift. And if you think my reasons are better. Let's go on this side. Maybe we come away with it just with reduced confidence in both positions 0:26:46 - 0:27:10 because now we're just confused. That's fine. Now, we can go find something better together, but you can't condemn someone for saying, follow Jesus. That's exactly what we're supposed to say. All right, now we're gonna move on to slightly less important things, at least slightly but definitely less important 0:27:09 - 0:27:39 . So, what's this hullabaloo about priest craft? Well, I've, there's not, there aren't too many references about it in the scriptures, but here are three of them. The question that that is buried in these, these accusations is, is priest craft the same as money in ministry. So what did the scripture 0:27:38 - 0:28:02 say about it? Well, in second Nephi 10 5, we read but because of priest crafts and iniquities, they at Jerusalem will stiffen their necks against him that he be crucified. Well, how is that connected to money? You could make the argument that the leaders, the religious leaders in Jerusalem fought Jesus 0:28:01 - 0:28:21 , not because they really thought he was, he was wicked, but because they felt like their power was threatened by him either directly because he was, he was obviously he was doing miracles that they could not do and, and teaching with wisdom that they didn't have that exceeded their own, but also that 0:28:21 - 0:28:46 they were afraid of a revolt that would cause the Romans to take their power away and it even, it even says that that was among their concerns. I guess that's connected to money because they did get a lot of money through their position. But there's no overt connection to money here that they crucified 0:28:45 - 0:29:20 Jesus because they stiffened their necks against him. In other words, they rejected the proof that he provided of the things that he was teaching priest craft here is connected to iniquities and stiffened necks. So it's a response to well evidenced truth. A refusal to change from your prior perspective 0:29:19 - 0:29:41 . That's interesting because I don't hear that much from the people hurling this word around precisely because they are among those who are least likely to change their beliefs. What about in second Nephi 2629 we read, he commanded that there shall be no priest crafts for behold, priest crafts are that 0:29:41 - 0:30:04 men preach and set themselves up for light unto the world that they may get gain and praise of the world, but they seek not the welfare of Zion. OK. What is the welfare of Zion? Let's start there. It's for the benefit of the world. If you go to that same chapter, you'll see the phrase. So it's for the 0:30:04 - 0:30:26 benefit of the world. How is that different than getting gain and the praise of the world? Well, the more good you do for people, the less praise you're going to get and the less gain you're gonna get. Because the more like Jesus, you are the more like Jesus, they will treat you. So you will be persecuted 0:30:25 - 0:30:48 for doing those things not rewarded. And even if some people see some value in what you're doing, they will not see the full value and they will be a minority of the people because that's how it was for Jesus, right? So how could you tell if someone was doing something for gain and praise of the world 0:30:48 - 0:31:15 or for the benefit of the world? Because God does things for the benefit of the world and priest craft is the opposite of that. It's to get gain and praise of the world. Well, one way you could do it is to compare what their situation is in preaching versus doing anything else. So, someone who wants 0:31:15 - 0:31:32 to get gain is only gonna go into preaching if they make more money doing it than whatever they were doing before, or maybe they can spend less time on it than whatever they were doing before. So for instance, if, if what you're doing is you're gonna go be a normal pastor and I'm not trying to degrade 0:31:32 - 0:31:51 pastors. I know there are some out there that, that work a lot and they do counseling and all these extra things. But if all you're doing is preparing a sermon for each Sunday. Those in the L DS tradition know that you can do that while holding down a full time job and having a family and all the normal 0:31:51 - 0:00:00 stuff because those people in the L DS tradition, they get assigned to give lessons and talks all the time and you can do that and you can participate in blessing and the sacrament and all these other religious rights without making it a full time job. And so those kinds of people, they look at the, 0:00:00 - 0:32:37 the typical pastor whose full responsibility is basically preparing for an hour or two service every week. And they say, why the heck is this person getting a full time pay for this fair enough? Right? No dispute there. If, if you wanted to, to do that, you're obviously in a much better position than 0:32:37 - 0:33:04 a normal person that has to go to work in a normal job. But is there a difference between that and someone who like we read in the book of Ether from Sun up to Sun Down is preaching repentance and exercising the gift of prophecy. Is there a difference between those two things? It seems rather simplistic 0:33:03 - 0:33:30 to just crush all these things together and say if someone's receiving money, they are only doing this to get gain and praise of the world. That's kind of silly because guess what, Jesus accepted money for his ministry. So did Melchizedek. So so the highest person we have in the hierarchy, the son of 0:33:30 - 0:33:56 God himself accepted money for ministry and not just a little his entire subsistence during the three years in which he preached full time came from other people's money. So if you say money equals evil, you have to condemn Jesus. Otherwise you need to find something different or at least more sophisticated 0:33:56 - 0:34:25 . And Melchizedek did too. So where is he in your hierarchy? Because if you know better than him, maybe we need to rewrite the scriptures because it says that there was no better and I'm not sure if you've been taken up to Zion yet, but he's probably ahead of you on that too. Now, we've already talked 0:34:25 - 0:34:46 extensively about setting yourself up for a light unto the world. So hopefully, we don't have to go over that again. Now, finally, I want to read Alma 116, it says, nevertheless, this did not put an end to the spreading of priest craft through the land. For there were many who loved the vain things of 0:34:46 - 0:35:08 the world and they went forth preaching false doctrines and this they did for the sake of riches and honor. So we already talked about for the sake of riches and honor, right? Uh Alma was loaded, either one. We could talk about either one, but let's talk about Elma Junior. He was loaded, he was the chief 0:35:07 - 0:35:29 judge of the land and we know he had money, he had an estate. How do we know this? Because when he brought Amye back and am Amy's life was ruined. He brought Amye back to his house and he had the wherewithal to support him even though he had been completely gone for a long time, there was enough going 0:35:29 - 0:35:52 on his estate that it was self supporting and he got that money, at least in part from his years of being the chief judge. And I guess that paid very well. Ok. And he had transferred that into some sort of farm or whatever operation he had that was self supporting. He didn't need to work anymore. He 0:35:52 - 0:36:17 had enough money that he was good. Alma was worse off because he set aside the judgment. He could have stayed in that role. He set it aside to go preach full time. He turned away from making tons of money to go do something where because he had enough money, he didn't have to charge anyone anything except 0:36:16 - 0:36:36 when he was, you know, they didn't have Venmo back then when he was off in a foreign land. He could only take so much with him. Right. And maybe he didn't take anything with him because the whole person script thing. But there were times where he went without, when he showed up at Amy's house, he hadn't 0:36:36 - 0:36:56 eaten in a very long time and he was begging for food. So that supports the idea. He probably went out without person script. Even if he carried something with him, he had run out, he was still working God's work and he needed the support of other people. And aye fed him for many days, there's another 0:36:56 - 0:37:15 time when they go to the Zor nights, you can read about this where they preach nonstop when they're out there, they say their little prayer after they rami them lay hands on everybody and they go at it. They do not stop to work to support themselves, which means someone else was feeding them and giving 0:37:15 - 0:37:38 them a roof to sleep under. Is Alma Wicked. Did Alma do what he did for the sake of riches and honor someone accuses him of that. When he, after he sets aside the the judgment seat, he comes, he starts preaching and they say, how dare you call us wicked. Besides, we don't have to listen to you. You're 0:37:38 - 0:38:03 not the chief judge anymore, but you're only doing this to get rich. I might be mixing together two stories here. It may be between the Alma senior and junior, but the point still holds, which is his response was how can you not see that the only benefit I gain from doing this is if the gospel is good 0:38:03 - 0:38:42 and you receive it, I would be much better off not doing this unless that's valuable and it happens. And, and he even references that the priests are paid for their time, but they're serving during that time and they're providing greater value during that time than the money pays for. And that is a hallmark 0:38:41 - 0:39:13 of true religion. A true servant of God will never ever accept anything from any one that exceeds what he has already given them. When did Abraham give tithes to Melchizedek? After Melchizedek blessed him with what the priesthood as Abraham says that he was seeking the priesthood after he receives what 0:39:12 - 0:39:42 he sought. Abraham gives Melk his surplus. What Melchizedek gave Abraham was much more valuable than what Abraham gave Melchizedek. It always works like that. What happens when you obey God, if He asks you to sacrifice something and you do it. He immediately blesses you and it's greater than the value 0:39:42 - 0:40:12 of the sacrifice. And when do you do the sacrifice in the first place is King Benjamin wonderfully lays out. You're only giving back a portion of what he's already given you. It's always less always. So uh I've had donations up on the website for a little bit and I have 10 years of ministry prior to 0:40:12 - 0:40:49 that during which I never accepted a nickel from anyone. My going rate is about 65 cents per hour for the time that I have put into all of this. So anyone that's going to accuse me of doing this for the sake of riches and honor is either evil or retarded. I have no illusions of this being more lucrative 0:40:48 - 0:41:24 than the job that I lost to do it. That's not the point. That's not the reason. All right. Now, one final slide on priest craft and then I have two more. After that, I just wanna give you a specific example of how we need to have greater wisdom and sophistication. This is from Alma One. And what I've 0:41:24 - 0:41:48 done on this slide is I've changed the colors, yellow means that might be good or bad. It depends on the context. Red is, yeah, that's obviously bad and green is that's obviously good. So this is talking about a man who was accused by Alma of priest craft. So we if we have a model of what that means 0:41:47 - 0:42:12 , we could use this to train it. But the problem is people look through this and they say therefore any word or phrase in this passage implies priest craft. That's not true. You can't be so simplistic money does not equal priest craft. There's no scripture that says that you're making it up if you believe 0:42:12 - 0:42:36 that you're making it up and it forces you to condemn tons of righteous people that, that you believe are righteous that you believe are holier than you. And even if it's a list of one being Jesus, but there, hopefully there are other people on there like Paul or Alma and many others. So I'm not sure 0:42:36 - 0:43:01 how much time I wanna spend on this. Let's see, one, I'll just, I'll just pick a few things. One of the obviously bad things is declaring to the people that every priest and teacher ought to become popular and be supported by the people. No, not every priest and teacher. Obviously the vast majority of 0:43:01 - 0:43:26 people in ministry should not be paid. Why? Cause it's just a part time thing, its service. They do it. Like I said before. You can, you can run most churches, run them, not just be a participant but run them maybe 1 to 3 hours a week outside of church. No big deal. Right. If all you're doing is generating 0:43:25 - 0:43:49 a sermon. Look, you're supposed to be studying the scriptures. Anyway. What's the big deal? If, what church is, is, let's share what we've been studying this week. No one ever has to get paid for anything. This question of they ought not to labor with their hands. That's not a red flag. It's a yellow 0:43:48 - 0:44:12 flag. It could go either way because it's contextual. It depends. What's the alternative because if all you're doing is, hey, here's a one hour sermon. No, sorry, that doesn't cut it. But like Joseph Smith was told by the Lord, the time has come to cease from your temporal labors because he, he was doing 0:44:12 - 0:44:36 a lot of farm work and everything to support himself. And God said, look what you're doing has greater value than anything you can do with your hands. So dedicate your time to the spiritual things that you give to everyone else and they can support you. They'll still do the farming thing you give them 0:44:36 - 0:44:57 what's of greater value. You know, you get a hand from one person firewood from another. Some people come together to help you out with a house, whatever, what you're giving them is more valuable than what they're giving you. It checks out passes the, the rule. If you look at the people who supported 0:44:56 - 0:45:20 Jesus during his full time ministry, some of them are named and their story is there, you know, he healed one lady with this terrible sickness. She was a wealthy widow and thereafter she followed him and she gave him money. If someone saved your life, miraculously, are you giving them more if you then 0:45:19 - 0:45:45 support them financially or have they given you more? Because 100% of everything you earn thereafter is because of what God did through them. I know this kind of talk makes people very uncomfortable for, for many reasons. But you've gotta break through these sacred cows and understand how this stuff 0:45:44 - 0:46:05 works. And again, this doesn't need to have anything to do with me in particular. You read the scriptures and you say I want that I want these gifts, these tremendous things that are written about here that, that no one seems to have today. I want them. Well, you can have them but you can't take what's 0:46:05 - 0:46:34 there? Partially. If you want greater outpourings from heaven, you have to live higher laws. You can't just do what normal Christians do and get more than normal Christians get, it doesn't work like that. So if you were to find someone whose time could produce more valuable things, if they dedicated 0:46:34 - 0:47:03 it to ministry will say than temporal labor, you should absolutely give them money so that they do that instead because what are you going to get out of it? If you get more out of it, then do it. If you don't, then don't. Right. And again, coming back to the youtube comment, if someone were to say, Rob 0:47:02 - 0:47:28 , I see what you're doing. And I understand that people from the scriptures who are holy, accepted money for certain kinds of ministry or ministry done in a certain way. But I'm not giving you any money because I don't think the things that you're doing are valuable enough to warrant it. Ok, fine, fine 0:47:28 - 0:47:53 . If someone comes to me and says this book you wrote absolutely changed my life. And let me tell you about all the ways and I never would have learned this in a million years if it hadn't been for you writing this book, by the way, I'm not giving you a nickel because whatever, whatever, whatever. Well 0:47:52 - 0:48:21 , dude choose one of the two because what you believe is inconsistent. Uh I don't even want to say this. Uh if someone is alive because of someone's ministry and then they turn around and say, I absolutely will not donate anything to you because I believe that's wrong. How do you think God feels about 0:48:21 - 0:48:53 that? That's a funny thing, isn't it? These are not hypothetical issues, unfortunately. All right. So what's the good part about this? And this is a great getting back to this alma one passage for the Lord had created all men. Hey, that's true, isn't it? So if we're going to use this whole passage to 0:48:53 - 0:49:18 say that anything that touches this is obviously evil, we're in trouble because we just blasted a significant chunk of the scriptures. And a whole lot of people who have said this who are holy, including God himself. But we know that all mankind are not saved at the last day and we know that they should 0:49:17 - 0:49:42 fear and tremble. We all should fear and tremble before you love God. You must fear God. But what about this? Lift up their heads and rejoice that could go either way. You should lift up your head and rejoice if you're doing it at the good news of the gospel, but you should not do it if you're doing 0:49:41 - 0:50:06 it because you believe that God is gonna save all people or that he's gonna save you even though you willfully continue sinning because you're in for a rude awakening in the most literal sense of that phrase. Because when you're resurrected, you're gonna find out that you bought into a giant lie so we 0:50:06 - 0:50:27 could continue through this. Is it a hallmark of priest craft if many people believed on your words? Well, luckily this is not a problem I have yet, but it says that many people believed in Jesus during the New Testament. It didn't last very long. But it happened for a time. There was a time when, when 0:50:27 - 0:50:54 there were thousands of people who believed what he was teaching. Is it a hallmark of priest craft? If people begin to support you and give you money, like I say, Jesus was supported for three years, 100% of his money for three years came from other people. So here's one that's interesting that you may 0:50:53 - 0:51:12 not have noticed before. It says that this man began to be lifted up in the pride of his heart and to wear very costly apparel. Now noticing when someone's lifted up in the pride of their heart, that's not always the easiest thing, but it's interesting that it says that he began to wear very costly apparel 0:51:11 - 0:51:38 . This um is something that would be very obvious. What does this tell you about this guy's financial situation before all this happened? Did he go up or down through choosing to minister full time? He went up, he made more money preaching than he would in another way. Now, I wouldn't even say that that's 0:51:37 - 0:52:01 necessarily a guarantee that pre craft is happening. But if the money is used to wear very costly apparel, that's, that's much more expensive than it was before. That's probably a red flag, right? What about somebody that's making way less money than they were before like Elma? Well, that's probably 0:52:00 - 0:52:22 a green flag. What about establishing a church after the manner of his preaching. This is another one where people are like, oh, somebody's making a church, oh, somebody's making a church. I'm gonna tell you something. It's gonna blow your mind a little bit. In the last days, we're not gonna have fewer 0:52:21 - 0:52:52 churches. We're gonna have more churches and yes, they will all eventually be united or fall away, united into the, ran the, the root, the Lord himself or fall away. But a true messenger of God, he doesn't uh let me rephrase this in the last days. The message is not going to be, here's the one true church 0:52:51 - 0:53:13 and everyone needs to join it. It's gonna be everybody should make a church and get everyone they can to join it in a nutshell, which is something very different than you were expecting. But if you believe that establish, establishing a church equals bad, you are guaranteed to not see or take the right 0:53:13 - 0:53:36 road in the last days because there's gonna be a whole ton of churches, a whole ton of churches. Because what you're going to be taught is that your church begins with your family and then it merges with other families and that's the church. Now. Is this some kind of radical warped, crazy idea? No, it's 0:53:36 - 0:53:57 right there in the pages of the book of Mormon. Go reread the book. You say you believe you just never paid attention to those passages. Why? Because it directly contradicts what you believe if you're coming from an L DS tradition which if you believe in the book of Mormon, odds are high, it's not guaranteed 0:53:56 - 0:54:31 every holy person established a church after the manner of his preaching. What do you think the schools of the prophets were? And we have explicit stories about this with Alma Senior, for example, and some other people, but they're all churches. So that's not necessarily bad. Every example of good will 0:54:30 - 0:54:50 include that pretty much. All right, that's a lot of time on that. But there's a lot of information in that passage. So now I'm just gonna hit you with some questions and we're not gonna spend the time to go into this because I really am trying to make this brief. But I wanna give you some things to 0:54:49 - 0:55:16 think about to help you increase in the sophistication of your model of this issue is charging a fee for service, like give me money so that I can, is that the same as serving and accepting donations? So what do I mean by serving and accepting donations? That means doing what you're gonna do no matter 0:55:16 - 0:55:40 what and then allowing people to give you money when they feel like that's a good thing? Do you see the difference between those things? Can you go into the grocery store, take whatever you want and leave whatever you feel is right. Of course, you can't. But that's the way this kind of ministry works 0:55:39 - 0:56:10 is money for discretionary time. The same as money for full time effort. We talked about that already. Did. You know, you'd probably be surprised to hear that Paul talks about that specifically and he says explicitly that those who spend more time and do more good should get paid more. But you probably 0:56:10 - 0:56:36 never noticed that because it, it conflicted with your beliefs. And so you skipped right over it. Another question is more money than what you're worth. The same is less money than what you're worth. If you, if you could make $220,000 a year on the open market and you set that aside to make a whole lot 0:56:36 - 0:57:05 less while working a whole lot more hours. Is that the same as having no prospects for work and doing ministry and even making less money, then the first person or are they different? And how and why is the matter? Another question is more money than what you would earn in temporal things, the same as 0:57:05 - 0:57:23 less money than you'd earn in temporal things. And I just gave an example of that. Here's one because people always bring up King Benjamin. And again, there's a full length treatment of this. It's just, it's like a lot of pages of writing or really long presentation. And I don't think there's any point 0:57:23 - 0:57:46 to get to that depth because uh at least yet there's so many more important things to talk about. And I think this is so obvious that it shouldn't be necessary. But people will bring up King Benjamin and say, well, King Benjamin never charged anyone anything. Ok. So first off, King Benjamin was the king 0:57:46 - 0:58:10 . Now, do you think this is in a, in a feudalistic uh agrarian time? The economy was primarily agrarian. Do you think that King Benjamin had land? Do you think that King Benjamin had people working the land, whether he was an employer or something different? It doesn't matter. Well, of course he did 0:58:10 - 0:58:38 now he says he worked with his own hands. Ok. Cool. He was not preaching the gospel full time and he had to do other king stuff like judging people going to war, preparing for war, protecting, you know, so do you have that same situation? Probably not some people do. Some people have self sustaining 0:58:38 - 0:59:07 businesses or whatever where they, they have some kind of passive income stream or some flexible situation where they can take time to go do ministry without needing any extra money from anyone to do it. I worked for a very long time to build such a system and it was taken away from me for preaching 0:59:07 - 0:59:36 the gospel. But my goal, I had established a system where in around a maximum of 20 hours of work per week, I could make more than the average person, an income enough to support a moderately sized family and to have the time and money to spend large slots of time, including one year and seven, but also 0:59:35 - 1:00:09 multiple months per year in full time ministry. So if you're in that kind of position, fantastic because you never need money from anyone to do it. But all situations are not the same. King Benjamin exercised a government where he did not charge taxes. We live in a government uh wherever you live in 1:00:09 - 1:00:35 the world, you live in a government where a large chunk of your income is taken by the government for tax. And so are all these situations the same? No, they're not. The other thing that I need to point out with King Benjamin as an old man at the end of his reign, he was finally coming to preach repentance 1:00:34 - 1:01:03 to the people for the first time. For the first time. There was this huge sweeping change among the people and their hearts changed. You read about this is that the kind of ministry that you want where the life, the the accumulation of a lifetime, the results of all of that labor is just getting to the 1:01:03 - 1:01:30 gate because if that's what you want, yeah, all it takes is just to have someone who happens to be wealthy, to preach the gospel to you when they can. That's like people raised the fact that Paul sometimes made tents or worked as he was ministering so that he wouldn't require support from the people 1:01:29 - 1:01:50 . If you're living in a time where you can only preach to the people directly around you geographically and you've already saturated them and, you know, the next opportunity to preach, you know, there's enough interest to keep you there, but there are so few people and they need time to implement what 1:01:50 - 1:02:16 you're teaching that maybe you only have to preach once a week. Well, yeah, you're gonna get a job because what else are you gonna do? That's more valuable. But is that the ministry that you want? You see what I'm saying? If you want more material than that, you want better material than that, you don't 1:02:16 - 1:02:40 want Paul making tents. If Paul were alive today and the, the body of Christian believers said, Paul, it's not right to charge money for preaching. We want you to have a full time job making tents just preach on Sundays or when you have the extra time. That would be moronic because of his connection 1:02:39 - 1:03:11 with God and the things he was capable of giving to people. His service in ministry was much more valuable than anything he could do at tents. Even if he was the most whiz bang tent maker that ever was. Do you get that if you had the choice between King Benjamin and Noah, who would you rather have? And 1:03:11 - 1:03:42 if Noah said, look to do what I have to do, it's a full time job. Plus I can either farm or preach or do both, but it's gonna be a whole lot less preaching. Which would you rather this is what it comes down to final slide. Here's why all of this matters. This is the big takeaway. Second two, don't judge 1:03:41 - 1:04:05 Jesus by your standard, judge yourself and others. By his, the way you respond to God's servants predicts how you would respond to God himself. And the, the reason that's important is not the servants. It's your relationship with God. That's what they're here to help you with is your relationship with 1:04:05 - 1:04:31 God. Then I put four scriptures here. There are a lot more where Jesus talks. These are all quotes from Jesus where he talks about how your response to the people he sends accurately predicts your response to Him. This is really important. Now, does this Presuppose that anyone who claims to be a servant 1:04:31 - 1:05:00 of God is no, of course not, but it comes back to a point I've made in another place. You should be really careful about saying you believe things where you would never accept any event to fit that mold. What do I mean by that? If you say you believe that God sends prophets and you would never ever accept 1:05:00 - 1:05:23 any modern person as a prophet. You have a problem because technically, yeah, you agree with what it says, but in practice, you would never ever do the right thing. This is like what Jesus said about the Pharisees and how they painted over the sepulchers and built statues to, to not statue but monuments 1:05:22 - 1:05:42 to former prophets but they were at least as bloodthirsty as their fathers who killed them. When things are far off, we can lie about how we feel about them when they're right in our face. It's really hard. So let me just read these and you can do with them what you will. John 1320. Verily verily I say 1:05:42 - 1:06:06 to you, he that receives whomsoever I send, receive me and he that receives me, receives him that sent me Luke 1016. He that heareth you heareth me and he that despise you despise me and he that despise me, despise him that sent me John 842 Jesus said unto them. If God were your father, you would love 1:06:06 - 1:06:40 me for I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me John 1523. He that hate me, hate my father also. And these are all patterns that apply down to whoever is speaking. This is really important. So in summary, I hope that this helps if nothing else, I hope it helps you 1:06:39 - 1:07:03 ask more questions in your studies and prayers about what priest craft is and isn't about what setting up a light is and isn't. And about whether asking for money for ministry is always evil or not. And to get a little more clarity and detail around those things so that you can stop being uninformed 1:07:02 - 1:07:06 at best and evil or retarded at worst.