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So I got up early today, even for me, I was trying to put together something for a friend of mine. And I had a feeling that I might find, I was hoping that I would find what I was looking for amongst the many presentations I've created, but I haven't recorded yet and uh I was unsuccessful at that, but I did come across this one which I've had completed for quite some time and uh I figured it was time to, to make it or record it and publish it. So the topic is the ensign raised in the last days. So that's exciting and juicy. Maybe people actually share this one. We'll see um the bottom line up front to give you a one sentence answer is that the ensign is a process of recognizing and attaining greater value. Now, of course, you've never thought about it that way, but let me make a case for that. And I'll more thoroughly explain what I mean. So this is not going to be a presentation that you wanna just listen to. I've got pictures and I also am gonna show you scriptures that I'm not going to take the time to read, but you should definitely take the time to read them. So please watch this instead of listening to it. Ok. So we'll start with this diagram. So here we have a bunch of sheep and they're just kind of milling about and then there's one off on its own. And if you don't know anything about sheep, we, we frequently in the scriptures, there are many allegories and analogies that, that use sheep. So it's kind of important to understand a little bit about them. Sheep don't really wander off . They just sort of focus on what's in front of them. Unless they're being chased by a wolf or something, they just sort of eat, that's what they do. They look straight down at the ground and they eat. So if they see within their limited view, if they see grass that looks better or whatever it is that they're eating, they'll move over to what looks better. And um in, in machine learning, we call this a greedy algorithm. It's just sort of looking at the, the immediate situation and choosing the best thing among the set of obvious options. And so for a sheep to wander off, I, in, in most cases, it's going to need to not be satisfied with rights, what's right in front of it enough to look for something better. And it, it may even be the case that there's a gradual improvement on the, the available pasture. And as a gradient over time, the sheep will wander further towards the better and better grass increment incrementally, right? So the question is, is this sheep really lost well, in one way, it is because it's not in the main crowd of sheep, the herd of sheep, but in another way, it's the only one that's not lost because it's found better grass. And that's, that's the objective of the sheep, right ? So the question is why is this one separate from the others? The answer is in John 1027 Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And in another verse, in that same chapter, he says, they don't hear or follow impostors. And this is a significant difference between the Lord's sheep and sheep that are not the lords, whether you want to call them goats or, or whatever else, we don't need to overcomplicate it, right? So the Lord said this in John 1226 he said, if any man serve me, let him follow me and where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my father honor that word. Honor is a very interesting word. And it's used over and over again in the New Testament as a payment as a reward as wages for labor. So this is very interesting. The reason that the sheep is off on its own is because it's not satisfied with the garbage that the normal sheep are satisfied with. And because that's the direction toward the Lord. Now in this diagram, Jesus is in this cloud, the reason for that is because I wanted to denote that his true nature was hidden, his character, how he is. OK. So what happens is this? She here hears his voice more clearly than these other ones do. Why? Because he heeds what they do here while they do not sticking to the analogy. These sheep refuse to recognize that the grass that they're eating is garbage and they refuse to believe that there's something better. And so they don't go looking for it because you're not going to find what you don't look for, even if it pops up right in front of you, you won't necessarily recognize it. And so this sheep is hungrier than they are. And it has a, it has a more honest recognition of the quality of the grass. And this kicks off an incremental process where it can draw nearer and nearer to God through recognizing what it lacks. So the question isn't really, why is this sheep here? It's why are all these other ones not there? And that's a long discussion to try to hit it as briefly as we can. Here's why most sheep are happy in brown pastures. They love what is worthless. They hate what is good and they lack the faith to believe and act according to the existence of something better the scriptures are on the screen for you to read. There, there are many scriptures that back everything. I'm going to tell you in this presentation. I'm just giving you a few so that you have reason to believe that there are at least some that justify what I'm telling you. But you can go and search the scriptures and find a lot more. The Lord is the way he said so himself. But let's read John 12. I'm sorry, John 14 verses three through five. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also and whither I go ye know and the way ye know Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou go. And how can we know the way you remember? We already read if John 1226 if any man serve me, let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him, will my father honor. What did Jesus leave behind? So he came here and he lived his life. What did he leave behind? We have a record of him in the scriptures. And it contains many, many examples of how he responded to things in mortal life. If we read that and we spend the time to apply it, to read it, to learn it and to the faith to apply it in our lives. That's how you implement what he said. He said, you know the way because I've been with you and you've seen how I act in life. If you do the same, if you follow me, then where I'm going, you'll come to does that makes more sense. Now, we, we're looking at this. So what would that look like in the diagram? Well, this sheep would read the scriptures and then actually do those things in every situation. And in doing that, this sheep would move closer and closer to Jesus. In 35 37 21 the Lord said the works which ye have seen me do that. Shall ye also do for that, which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do. Now, why are there so few sheep who are moving away from the flock? And why is the flock so far away from the Lord? Well, look at any named religion, even if it claims to be Christian. Odds are that among its main tenets are things like you don't actually have to obey God. Believing in Him is enough or try to believe him, but nobody's perfect. And as long as you do this thing, you don't have to feel guilty about disobeying God. Now, this thing could be a whole bunch of things. It could be getting baptized, it could be some other right in the, in the church like uh the sacrament or whatever, but most of the time for most Christians, it's just a profession of belief. If you say you believe in Him, you don't have to feel guilty when you actually disobey him willfully. That's the, that's, these are the core beliefs of modern Christianity and they're anti-christ, they will literally prevent you from approaching God. And it's the opposite of what he actually taught. All right. This is, I want to read to you, Psalm 23. It's a very familiar passage of scripture, but it's, it's read, it's recited much more often than it's understood and lived. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yeah. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine, enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever now, like most scriptures that are kind of similar to this on similar themes. Christians recite this like some kind of mantra and they do it brainlessly. They don't actually read the words and think about it. This passage does not mean it's not some charm that if you , if you uh recite the incantation, you will magically feel better about life or, or ward off difficult times. That's not at all what this says. If you actually believe that the Lord is the good shepherd, it doesn't mean that you're not going to go through hard things. It, it means that when you do and it lists out the fact that you will the the valley of the shadow of death. It literally that, that idiom in Hebrew literally means the worst things that could possibly happen to a person. It's, it's the, it's the greatest possible suffering. Anyone could endure its descent below all things. And this passage says that even facing that you're not going to fear because the Lord is with you. But most Christians would say if you believe in the Lord, you'd never face anything like that. He suffered. So we don't have to. That's not what the scriptures say. The scriptures say no. Actually, if you follow him, you will follow him. If he descended below all things. Guess what that means? If he gave his life for the world, guess what that means? What does it mean to follow someone who does that? If you're following a friend to a restaurant you've never been to? He says come, I want to buy you a nice dinner . I don't, I've never been to that restaurant. I can't afford it. Well, follow me and he makes a right and you make a left. Are you going to get there? You're not. And those paths are the paths of righteousness. What does it mean? For his name's sake? He leads you to become like him, the paths of righteousness , for his name's sake. Why does your soul have to be restored because it's going to be destroyed in the process? It's going to be destroyed in the process. Conducting this path requires faith that few people can even imagine. They haven't even imagined it, let alone lived it. So in this diagram, now we've added this arc and I've labeled it Psalm 23. It's the descent below all things. And you can describe this in ways that are almost always interpreted superficially like Luke 923 when the Lord said, and he said to them all, not one person, the general call was if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. That is unambiguous folks that wasn't I came here to suffer. So you don't have to. That wasn't, my life is full of sorrow, but that's because that's so that yours doesn't have to be, that's not. I'm climbing onto the sacrificial altar and lighting myself on fire so that you don't have to. No, he came to show us the way he explicitly commanded it as I have loved you, love one another. So at some point a sheep does that. And in the fulfillment of Psalm 23 let's go back to that. Sorry. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine. Enemies that anoints my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. These are not superficial things. These are of the utmost value and they are not inexpensively obtained. They're not lightly given and they're not lightly received. I'm omitting a further exposition on the second half of verse four. And that's mostly just for time. But there's a process in this descent and it's a process of receiving correction from the Lord and loving it and receiving that unmerited suffering and loving it because you love him. So this sheep gets to the green pastures and then what happens? And and by the way, that's the fulfillment of John 1226. If any man serve me, let him follow me and where I am, there shall also my servant be if any man serve me, him will my father honor. So you get here by doing what the Lord would in your place. And for a little while it seems like you're on the up and up and everything just keeps getting better. But he's going to show you and lead you through the shadow of the valley of death, the descent below all things. So once that sheep, one sheep completes that arc, something changes. You remember before, in this diagram, this wasn't grass, it was a cloud and Jesus was hidden. But something changes. Once a living sheep has undertaken this process and come to know the Lord really know the Lord to receive a fullness in this life. That person will immediately use the oil that the Lord has anointed him with the waters with which his cup runs over the goodness and the mercy that the Lord pours on him that has promised him that, that the Lord has promised him irrevocably to continue for his entire life in the promise the connection that he's been given to the Lord forever, an irrevocable connection. He will use all those things and immediately attempt to share them with any one he can. And so he turns and he calls to the flock and he says something like what Paul said in first Corinthians 11 1 where he said be followers of me, even as also as I also am of Christ. Now, that's a, that's an idea. Paul wrote several times in his letters, but nevertheless, saying things like this always incites anger from certain people, from many people. In fact, you'll remember that this was one of the deal breakers for the Pharisees. When Jesus said I have come here to show you my father, they got very upset. That's one of the charges for which they crucified him. They said he makes himself equal to God. When in reality, the father made the son equal to him, they got the directionality raw and it makes all the difference. These, some of these sheep are gonna get very angry at this one for saying that he is like Christ and yet who made him that way? We read this. There are many other scriptures, OK? I'm just, I'm just skipping the stone across the surface of the water. You can explore the depths if you'd like and I invite you to, but I'm giving you the seeds and and then you could take that and grow the whole tree. Jesus is the one that carved him. He didn't carve himself. And so as the Lord said, these people are not reacting to him, they're reacting to the name of Christ. The example of Christ, just as Jesus plainly stated in the book of John, more than once, he said, the way you're treating me is because I am like my father and this is how you feel about him. So when this guy, this sheep says be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ, some sheep are gonna get angry but some other sheep are going to respond. So this one, for example, it turns in the other direction and walks this way and then these two join from even further away on the other side of the flock. Now, one thing to point out, not all lost sheep are the same. I made a case for a kind of lost sheep that you probably haven't thought about before. The good kind. But there are also the bad kind that everyone tends to think about when they think about lost sheep. These are people who are not religious, let's say that's certainly one characterization of, of these kinds of people. They're, they're not religious and yet they will respond with greater zeal more intensely and also in less time with greater faith than many of the religious. Jesus said that many tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the kingdom of heaven before the Pharisees, not all of them. But he was saying they will have greater faith. There will be people of greater faith from those groups than from you who pretend to honor the Lord, but you're just doing it with your lips. All right. So then what happens? Oh, by the way? OK, this is important. How did these sheep get here? Was it the same path as this? The first one took? No, it's not. Why is this super important? Uh I can't fully explain that right now, but it is super important. The point is only one person can take this path. Why? Because once they do that path isn't as hard anymore to put it another way. The descent below all things quote unquote is non rep replicable, all things becomes less than it was before. The easiest way to understand this is that Jesus did it the first time with no examples. No, no living examples. No man had ever done it before. So there was no example, living or dead of someone doing that before, but he did it and because he did it, it requires less faith to do it again . And once this sheep does it, the sheep will still be alive. Is there anyone else who does it? It requires far less faith because of that, there are less blessings, fewer blessings. And also it's not as terrible, even though it's still indescribably terrible. It's not as terrible. So their grass is shorter because that's the way it works. Remember him will, my father honor. What does honor mean its wages? Uh Paul has a really interesting scripture about that, that you can look up where he says that we should honor the elders or the servants in the church and those who do better work and pay a higher cost should be honored with more. So I say all this because I know it's a very foreign concept for most Christians and yet it's right there in the book. OK, so then what happens? Well, these, these, this, this first wave of sheep that listened to the first sheep, they repeat the same message, they say be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now, when that happens boy, the people left in the flock, they get really mad. They were angry before, but now they're ready to kill. But some that did not respond to the first sheep will respond to the first wave who did. And this cycle continues until the world is left without excuse. And everyone has heard a sufficient argument for being better than they are. Now. I just phrased that very carefully. I would listen to it a couple of times because it explains religious phrasing of the same ideas in ways that exceed what you've probably heard about or thought about before DNC 29 9 says for the hour is nigh and the day soon at hand when the earth is ripe and all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be a stubble and I will burn them up, saith the lord of hosts, that wickedness shall not be upon the earth. What's the fire? Well, beginning at the time closest to ours, it's going to be all sorts of things that exceed people's current capability of enduring. So basically, it's going to be anything that could overcome someone. Now, those who are in green pastures, those who are grafted into the living vine will have the strength to endure the fire and no one who isn't grafted into that living vine will because dry grass burns quickly, you can't stop it. So what is the end sign being raised? It is the demonstration of Jesus Christ. It's who He is. It's what he is. It's how He is and it's why he is. It's also because this is the same thing . It's a revelation of value. Here's a phrase for you to remember. God is unique. There is no way to describe him except as himself. Everything else falls short. And this is a really big problem because how do we define things if you look up a word in the dictionary, what are you gonna find a definition comprised of what other words? And so there have to be equivalencies in order to understand something, but what's the equivalency for God? Nothing. And so it's quite a problem to solve. And in a nutshell, the end times is all about solving that problem. In fact, all of creation is creation solves the problem of giving us a better idea of who, what, how and why God is, which is the same thing as revealing more accurate value. Why? Because God is the epitome of value, he's the apex of good. So in order to help us better understand value, to develop a more accurate appraisal of it, he has to show us what is good in greater accuracy. And this happens in two dimensions. He has to show us a greater extreme of good than we've ever seen and he has to reduce the good of what we believe is the best right now. I hope that's not too confusing. I've explained this in other ways. And other videos. But essentially what you think is best right now is not, there are ideas, situations of people experiences, all of that. There are things that more closely approach God, including God himself. He's at the apex of this that extend beyond the current limits of your perception and experience. And so he has to draw you out beyond your current bounds in order for you to better understand who, what, how and why he is. And the same applies for the bad. Right now. Your idea of the worst that things could ever get is wrong. It's exceedingly limited compared to the truth. And because of how we equate value, how we calculate it, you cannot understand what is better without understanding what is worse. Awareness has to expand in both directions at the same time. Value and character are intertwined because the fullness of good is found only in God. The there's I'm trying not to get too deep on this, but representations matter , the the vehicle matters. We are created in the image of God. And there's a reason for that. It's because this structure is the only one that can approach an understanding of God that can approach a similitude to God. Our capacity is defined in our structure. That's the image of God, we're made with the capacity to be like him and to understand him, which obviously you'd have to do to be like Him. If you look at a tree or a rock or a lion, they're not created in the image of God. And although they can perceive his glory and they can be glorified, they can't do either to the extent that we can. So as God reveals the good that has to include, it has to include human character. And as God reveals the evil, it has to include human character. And the purpose of this is so that we have stepping stones to acquire greater and greater levels of righteousness in ourselves. And so that we get rid of the bad in ourselves as God shows us what is better. We would like to think that that's going to entail things that don't. I, I already touched on this, but we're gonna zoom into it a little. We'd like to believe that that's a process where we're just adding things on top of the current best. So if you have your conception of good to bad as a stack, as a vertical stack of things, we'd like to believe that he's just going to put things on the top of that stack. And he's going to say, oh, this is the best thing you ever knew. Well, guess what it's like if all you knew was Neapolitan ice cream, which is nasty . My daughter likes it, but here's homemade, I don't know, homemade honey berry ice cream, which is delicious and you probably never had that before. So maybe this is a great analogy. That's what we'd like to think that it's just today or excuse me, tomorrow is gonna be like today only far better. That's in Isaiah. That's a fallacy. That's not true. What actually happens is he will show you how the things that you think are good are not as good as you thought. One way of phrasing. This is that the bottom drops out. This is not exciting. No one should get excited about this. It's a terrible thing, but it's necessary to make room for what's better. It actually, it all makes a lot of sense because the and I don't want to get too much into this, but you need to understand it to wrap your head around this idea without losing your trust in God. He he's, he doesn't rip people off, right. It's actually the reason you think that the best things in your life are the best things in your life is because he is he is poured out free gifts like like free samples, temporary merciful inflation of value so that you could have the greatest amount of joy given your ignorance of reality. That's why things are the way they are. And a good analogy for this is just thinking about what good parents do for their Children. They try to keep the walled garden going as long as they can, as long as it's appropriate because there is joy in being an innocent child. Now, at some point, the switch flips and you have to start exposing your kid to more reality and it's going to hurt and they're going to lose much of the value that they found in things like their dolls and their toys and their, you know, building forts out of stones or something. And, and you don't see adults doing that and it's not just because they don't have time to, it's because they've experienced greater sorrow and suffering in life. They've been exposed to more of the cost of producing that walled garden for kids and they're searching for something greater and hopefully they have found it. So the bottom drops out. And as as this happens, another way of putting it is that mercy is withdrawn. Mercy is always temporary. It's never eternal. Mercy is not an eternal principle. It comes through a finite cost and therefore can only have a finite benefit. So as mercy runs out, what happens is more of the full measure of consequences come in. And as that happens, it changes the cost benefit, appraisal of the things that you consider good. Just like that analogy. I just gave you with kids. That's exactly what happens as you get older, as an adult anyway, in, in, in a normal world, maybe not clown world. But up until very recently, people actually grew up, right? And they weren't Peter Pans. But as you grow up, you get a better idea of the true cost of things and that changes the equation much of what you presently enjoy in life is actually unmerited prosperity. It's a gift that's based on mercy and it cannot endure and it will be taken away. And when it does , you're absolutely going to feel like you've lost something. In fact, many of you are going to feel like you've lost everything because you, you haven't used it to build what does endure. That's why it's given. But most of you have wasted that and it's by degrees. So some people wasted it a little and some people have wasted it a lot. You should think about what it would require to give a just accounting of all the unmerited prosperity you've received in life. In other words, you should imagine what you're going to say to God. If, if he were ever to say to you, I made you more wealthy than 99% of the people that ever lived on the earth. You had more time. You had greater resources. I gave you technology that allowed you to instantly access any piece of information known by humankind. What did you do with it? And you're gonna say I scrolled through Instagram, I looked at Tik Tok. I took my kids to all these after school programs. I watch sports. It gave you the ability to hop in a car and drive anywhere you wanted or take a plane. What'd you do with it? I went to a concert, whatever. OK. So 11 real piece of this is that as these consequences roll in, they will include the set of things that are ever present. They form an inescapable piece of reality. Although people have looked at times where this was paused because of mercy as the norm, it's inverted. And what I'm talking about is plague, famine, civil unrest and war. So those things will continue to roll into life like like a tsunami , meaning that there will be spikes but also an ever increasing search. Now I kind of cheated there because I rolled some of the bad into the good. But the bad being shown is worse. I already talked about revelation of increased cost. There's also revelation of lower benefits, diminished benefits. So what do those include? For example, how long does something last just a few decades ago? If you made an average career choice, the benefits of that would be so substantial that it would probably take care of you and your family for the rest of your life. You roll out of bed, you walk to the nearest career opportunity, you get a job on the spot, you stay there till you die and congrats you're a millionaire by the time you die, if you count the value of your house. Well, that's out the window. And it's just one example of many of how our perception of long term benefit is just plain wrong. What we perceive to be the long term situation is disproportionately dependent upon extremely temporary and unlikely circumstances. So here's a verse from Isaiah. This is the NLV chapter one verse 25. I will turn my hand against you and burn what is of no worth in you and I will take away from you all that is not pure . There are generations alive that will see the fulfillment of this verse and everyone alive is already seeing it begin to be fulfilled. There are aspects of this that have already happened and they will continue to roll forward as I said, like a tsunami. All right. What about character? I'm just going to give you some very much summarized ideas. You'll see that later. I'm going to come back to all these with great detail. Sometimes a whole book for one of the sentences that I'm about to tell you the attributes of holiness are hidden to the natural man and they're much more hidden. Then pretty much anyone realizes and you'll see that I will make the case for that. Holy people are very rare and the holier they are the rarer they are. So this means that as God reveals what good character is, which is synonymous with how he is. It's going to be a surprise, it's going to be substantial, there's a lot to it, but it's also going to be extraordinarily valuable. That is a gross understatement. But as with all things, there is opposition with the revelation of superior character will be the revelation of pure evil in a person. Now, as a part of this, it's not just about the extreme. So on the good side of the scale, I, I told you the bottom is gonna drop out. Well, part of that is that a lot of people that you think are good, you're going to be shown that they're actually not good and you're probably on that list yourself. That's not a judgment on my part to you. It's just the way things are numerically . It's you cannot be passive in any way and be good because to be holy is the opposite of the natural man. It's, it's the diametric opposite to our default disposition. So, evil people are ubiquitous. That's the norm and that's part of what will be revealed to you. It's not just the extremity of evil , but just how widespread it is because right now, I promise you your perception of the distribution of evil among mankind, it's wrong in two ways. One, it gets a lot worse than you think. And two, almost everyone is further on that side of the scale than you think, including yourself and that will be shown to you. So, what is the end sign? Is it a very good person? Is it a very bad person? Is it the fullness of the Gospel? Is it an invading army or any of these other end times catastrophes? Is it a place? Is it the mark of the beast? Is it the Gospel? Being preached in the whole world, in a word . Yes. It's all of those things. Is it a very good person? Yes. Here's some, some verses from the scriptures that show that there are many, many, many more. Is it a very bad person? Yes. Here are some scriptures. There are many, many more part of the ensign is a person so much like Christ that they're more like Christ than anyone who's lived or will live except for Christ. Part of the ensign is a very bad person who's more like Satan than any one who's ever lived. Is it a fullness of the Gospel? Yes, it is. And there are scriptures about that. Is it an invading army? Yes, it is. And there's scriptures about that. Is it a place? It is. It's, it's two, in fact, it's Zion and Israel and those are each fulfillment of the ensign at different times and under different circumstances. But here are some scriptures about that. The ensign is the manifestation of the path to what you desire. That's what it is . It's everything necessary for you to ascend or descend to where you want to be in relationship to God. The end times is about enabling all people to obtain exactly what they desire according to their choices and to be perfectly clear, if that's not clear enough what you want. What I'm saying is that , that's not what you say you want. It's what you choose and all the necessary resources will be provided so that all people arrive at where they chose to be. And here's some scriptures for that. In conclusion, the ensign includes things that have not yet occurred. And it also includes things that have , if you aren't noticing and making use of what's already occurred, you probably won't notice or make use of what hasn't yet. But if you do, you'll get far less out of it. And so it behooves you to search these things and to learn more than you currently know, because one of the underlying themes of this presentation is the value that the accuracy of your value, appraisal is essential. And how do you get to a better place with that? You have to be honest and perceptive about what is already in front of you. Think back to the sheep, if you're eating brown grass, that's a problem. Look for the green grass, live up to everything the Lord has shown you and he will show you more.