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What is priesthood? And how do you get it for some people? This is amongst the most vital questions and with good reason. What is priesthood? Well, first we have to start it. What is the gospel? This is not an easy question for most people. The answer is quite simple, but people create all these artificial hoops to jump through and then they have to twist and bend to get through them. And it's quite a puzzle. The reason for that is because they don't want to accept the fact that they don't have or live it, they want to have and live the Gospel. So they create a definition where it's already true without them having to change. But here it is, the gospel is the means by which man acquires and implements the character of God. It's a process by which we become like him. And what do I mean by the character of God? It's how he feels. It's what he does. It's how he does it, it's why he does it in all things at all times. Priesthood is the degree to which you've done. So it's the ability of a man to do what God would do in his place. Here's a scripture that ties together these two ideas. Paul writes for, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth what's salvation to be saved means different things to different people. But if Christ is the archetype of salvation, as Paul said, he was, and as Jesus himself said, he said, I am the way the truth and the life, then the power of God unto salvation is the power of God to become like him. And that's the gospel of Christ. And that's priesthood. So what is priesthood not priesthood does not come through assuming titles? It's not title in Hebrews five. We read for every high priest, there are no exceptions taken from among men, is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way for that. He himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason, hereof he ought as for the people. So also for himself to offer sins all for four sins and no man taketh this honor unto himself. But he that is called of God as was Aaron in Exodus 28 1. It says, and take thou unto the Aaron Knight brother and his sons with him from among the Children of Israel that he may minister unto me in the priest's office, even Aaron Nad and Abau Eleazar and Ithamar Aaron's Sons in Matthew 23 the Lord speaks against those who had taken upon themselves a title without the underlying basis for what it was supposed to be in. Verse two. We'll begin saying the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat. All therefore whatsoever. They bid you observe that, observe and do but do not ye after their works for they say and do not. But all their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their pacies and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the uppermost rooms of feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets and to be called of men, rabbi, rabbi, but be not ye called rabbi for one is your master, even Christ and all ye are brethren and call no man your father upon the earth. For one is your father, which is in heaven. Neither be called masters for one is your master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted plainly. He's saying that this sort of thing comes through submission to and ori orientation towards God. It's not a, a titular same. It's not something you do in relationship to humans. It's something you seek in relationship to God through calling him your father and your master and not just by words, but in your works. So people talk about getting the priesthood. Well, what do you actually get when you get the priesthood, you get greater knowledge of God's character. And through that, through implementing what you learn in your own life, you gain a greater capacity to serve and love others because you have a greater willingness to suffer for their benefit. It's a common thing to find people who are, who are very motivated by this idea of quote unquote, getting the priesthood, it is completely separate from the desire to suffer more, to provide greater benefit to other people. They want to quote unquote, get the priesthood precisely for the reasons that the Pharisees wanted it. You remember that one of the reasons they killed Jesus was because they saw him as a threat to their station, not just their religious office , but their power and money that they had in the Roman system. They did not want to disrupt the Roman system. It says it right there in the New Testament and the people that quote unquote want to get the priesthood. They're not looking to learn more about God. They want more power to do what they want to do. They're not looking to learn more about God to more fully serve him. They're looking to get some of God's power so that they can serve themselves because that's what they're all about. You can tell the difference because a person who seeks God for the right motives, they want to better serve him through, better knowing him so that they can suffer more things for other people. So try making a booth in a fair and saying, hey, I'm selling something. What is it the ability to suffer more for other people? How long do you think that line will be? But it is simple, isn't it? So, in DNC 121 and verses 35 and 36 we read because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men that they do not learn this one lesson that, that the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven and that the powers of having cannot be controlled nor handled upon the principles of righteousness. Now, we could spend a very long time on these two verses and it would be worth the time, but we have to keep moving on. I just want to point out a few things. One, there's absolutely connection here to Matthew 23. What do you think it means to aspire to the honors of men? This word honor. So Doctrine, covenants obviously was written in the 18 hundreds. But that word, that's a scriptural word. And in the Greek, the word that we translate into honor in the New Testament in English, it means a payment, it means restitution for a price paid. It's wages, right ? The wages of sin is death kind of idea. And the wages of righteousness was eternal life. So, what are, what are, what are the honors of men? It's a desire to be paid by other people with, with their attention, with their favors, with their money, with their praise. And that's what these people who want to quote, unquote, get the priesthood. That's what they're all about, about the things of this world. But that's not the way it works. You can't get there that way. You have to learn more about the powers of heaven. You have to learn more about how people in heaven are and you have to be like them . That's that principles of righteousness. That's the way it works. If you want more of God, God's power, you have to learn what He's like and you have to be that way how God is, is priesthood. They are the same thing in John 14 verses nine and 10. It says Jesus saith unto him. Have I been so long time with you? And yet hast thou not known me, Philip. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father and how sayest thou then showest the father believes thou not that I am in the father and the father in me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Jesus did the works of the father because he learned what the father was like and he did everything the Father would do in his place. That is the source of his power. How do you think you will grow in the power of God by some other way? That's not what John 17 says. Read that prayer that Jesus offered read how he describes what we can become. We can be in him as he is in the Father. How by following his example, like he said to Philip, he said, and we can't read that whole chapter. But he said, I've shown you the way because the way is to be like Him. He is the way, it's the way the truth and the life. John 519 says, the son can do nothing of himself. But what he seeth the Father do for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the son likewise in every one of us who aspires to follow God. We need to come to the point that we can say the same thing. You have to come to the point where you say I can do nothing of myself. But what I see the Sun do because what he does that I also do, that's what God wants. Jesus. Came to demonstrate the nature of the Father and we all came to demonstrate the nature of the Sun. Now we read about Him in the scriptures and those that implement what they read about will be taught more through the spirit. And by doing this, we become a living example of how Jesus is to who, to all the people who haven't done that yet or to all the people who haven't done it as fully as we have. This happens by degrees. It's a question of how much you know about him and it requires living everything, you know. So one of those things is by degrees and that's how much you know about him. The other is binary. You either do it or you don't. And if you don't, the connection is severed and that is living everything you know about him, it's making sure that everything you do is exactly what he would do in your place. Here's another one from John 15. I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit, he purge it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more. Can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine. Ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me. Ye can do nothing . If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. And men, men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. Do you see how this is exactly what I just said . So abiding in him, there's a binary part to that. You're either attached or not. If you're not attached, you're cast forth as a branch, you're withered, you have no nutrients, the water. But there's a uh an element of this, that's by degrees because the longer you abide, the more he's going to correct you, the more he's going to give you and the more he's gonna take away and that's purging the fruits and the more you abide in Him, the more fruits you're going to have, the longer a branch is grafted into a tree, the thicker it gets, the bigger it gets. So again, it's what God thinks, what he feels , what he says, what he does. It's how he does all those things. It's why he does all those things in D and C 8811 through 13, it says the light which shines which giveth you light is through Him. Who enlighten your eyes, which is the same light that quicken your understandings which light preceede forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space, the light which is in all things which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed. Even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity? Who is in the midst of all things? Can you overlay this with the tree imagery from John 15? Do you see how the light is? What flows through the tree? Do you see how the tree is not a church? It's the universe. It's everything the light perceive the force from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space. There's no place where the light isn't the tree, its its branches spread out to cover everything. Every piece of the universe is a piece of the tree in a sense. Now, that's complicated when you think of well, but there are branches that are separate from the tree. Yes, but creation is comprised of filaments of light. And if you find one and you follow it up, you'll get closer and closer and the light will grow brighter and brighter. And it's the law by which all things are governed. Even the power of God, the power of God comes through the laws of cause and effect. The more accurately and expansively, you know them, the more power you have as you live them. So now let's go back to Matthew 2313 where Jesus says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye. Shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men. For ye. Neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in what church teaches what I just taught you. There aren't any, there's not one, they all teach you things that will keep you from living. What I just taught you. If Jesus were alive today, he could say the same thing to every single church I'm aware of. They're hypocrites and they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. They don't become more like Jesus and the things that they teach prevent others from doing. So, anyone who believes them will be further from God rather than closer to Him. Here's another one. This is Matthew 721 through 23. He says, not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesized in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name, done many wonderful works and then will I profess unto them? I never knew you depart from me. You that work iniquity. What does iniquity mean? It's that which deviates from righteousness, what's righteousness? It's what God would do. But iniquity has an element that detaches from the need to know God perfectly as in fully. It's much more on the level of what you see right now. It's deviating from what you believe to be best. How many people, you know, who claim to be Christians always do what is best as far as they understand it. If they don't, then they're iniquitous and you can't be iniquitous and be connected to the true vine. You're separated, you've cut yourself off from that. It requires you to be righteous, to be aligned with God as far as you sincerely believe Him to be. Why is that essential? Why is it a binary thing? You're either connected or you're not? Because deviation from the best that you know, will absolutely separate you from the Holy Ghost. And that is the mechanism of the flow . It's like when you, if you take a tree and you cut a strip of bark from around the trunk, the tree will die because it doesn't have the ability to pass the sap, it, it passes through the bark. And that's what you do when you could do this on a branch, you don't just have to do it on the trunk of the tree. If you do it on a branch, the branch will wither and die. And that's exactly what we read in John 15. If you don't abide in Him, you will wither and die the moment you deviate from what he would do in your place. As far as you understand, you've cut yourself off. And this verse applies to you at that point, it doesn't matter how many times you say Lord. Lord doesn't matter how many worship services you go to, doesn't matter how many people you baptize or how often you quote scripture, it doesn't matter your dead branch. In act 18, the Lord tells the disciples after his resurrection, but ye shall receive power after that. The holy ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth, the apostles did not fully receive Christ during his life. They were these branches that had been stripped, but they repented and he sent them the Holy ghost. Why did the reception of the Holy Ghost give them power? That's what he said. But you shall receive power after that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you because it increased their awareness, their awareness of what He tells them how it would change them, right ? Does it, is it a magic trick and it magically transforms them into someone that's more like God. No, it does not do that. The Holy Ghost does not do that. It gives you access to more information how new things. And also it reminds you of what he already taught you. The Holy Ghost is just one source of greater information about God. There are others. Although all of these rely upon the Holy ghost, it's an and rather than an or because anything that God teaches us is has to pass through our own understanding in our own hearts and minds and that's the domain of the Holy Ghost. But here are some other sources dead people who know him, excuse me, knew him better than you. And that's what is contained in the scriptures and living people who know him better than you. Now, you could also receive the visitation of angels and those are also living people that know him better than you, but they come from heaven instead of earth. And then there's all of creation because remember his light flows through all things. So you can learn more about him from studying a landscape or watching a river flow. The Holy Ghost can teach you using everything in creation because that's what it's designed to do. Both the Holy Ghost and creation is what they're designed to do. Holy Ghost is a record of heaven. So here's the question when it comes to greater awareness of God, all of these things except for creation, they have something in common. He's talked about dead people who knew Him better than you living people who know Him better than you and angels who know Him better than you. These are all individuals, right? Creation itself. If you're looking, I said a landscape or a river, those are still specific entities, but nowhere on this list. Do you see a church? Churches do not have greater awareness of God. People have greater awareness of God. Now, churches can be comprised of people. But the value is in their awareness of God as individuals. When you separate the two, you get in trouble, just like I presented scripture here, not as a direct source, but that the value in it is the testimony of the dead people who share their testimony in scripture. It's their individual awareness that's valuable. That book is not valuable in and of itself. It's only valuable because it contains words written by people who knew Jesus words written by people who interacted with God. And then there's a whole ton of examples of people who did the wrong thing as well. But when you separate the thing from why it's valuable, you get off the rails. Churches are only as valuable as the people in them as far as the people in them have awareness of God. So let's zoom into a couple of these in second e 5 31 12. On the Holy Ghost being a source of great awareness for God. The Lord says, he that is baptized in my name to Him. Will the Father give the holy ghost like unto me, wherefore follow me and do the things which you have seen me do Jesus here. He says, if you do what you understand I would do in your place based on the knowledge of me that you have so far, the Father will give you the holy ghost. And later on, he says, he'll teach you more about Him. The Holy ghost will teach you more about Jesus. Here's one for dead people who knew him better than you in DNC 1121. It says, seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word and then shall your tongue be loosed? Then if ye desire, you shall have my spirit and my word. Yeah, the power of God unto the convincing a man use what you've got and then you'll get more. So if you've never cracked open the scriptures, you're not familiar with what they say. It's very unlikely that you're gonna get as much revelation from God as someone who does. What about living people who know Him better than you? 35 27 21. Jesus says 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. And if you want to explore this further , you could go to Marrone I seven. I made a series on Maro I seven. It's quite long. But um whether you'd like to watch that or not, you could crack open M I seven and read it for yourself. And it talks more about the role of living people who know Him better than you. It also talks more about angels . All right. So let's talk about how increases in knowledge of God come incrementally. It's process the DNC 93 1 through four says verily, thus saith the Lord it shall come to pass that every soul who forsake his sins and cometh unto me and calle on my name and obey my voice and keepeth my commandments shall see my face and know that I am and that I am the true light, that lighte every man that cometh into the world and that I am in the father and the father and me and the father and I are one, the father because he gave me of his fullness and the son because I was in the world and made flesh, my Tabernacle and dwelt among the son's men. So hopefully, this clearly ties together some, some things that we've talked about already. But the focus here is that if you reconcile to what you understand he would do in your place, that's what it means to forsake your sins, come unto him and you call on his name to learn more and you obey what he tells you. Then we get this. He shall see my face and know that I am. Now, there's two ways to think about that phrase, see my face and know that I am one is in the literal way. And I testify to you from my own personal experience that that is one fulfillment of this verse . If you do these things, you will literally see the face of the Lord and know him. Another fulfillment of this is I think at least as important and that is to be more familiar with the Hebrew idiom of my face. It doesn't just mean your face like a picture of your face or you're looking at someone and you see their face. It's one way of thinking about it and a lot of people would be upset if they knew Hebrew, but it's knowing what someone's all about, it's seeing what they're aiming at. Does that make sense? So to see someone's face is to see what they're looking at? And so you can see it too and you're looking in the same direction, which is interesting because when you think about seeing their face, you think you're looking at their face, but there's a notion here of looking at what they're looking at and what does it mean to know that I am? Jesus said he was that I am to know him is eternal life. What is that I am? It's very interesting that we throw around titles for Jesus. He has a lot and yet many of those titles can also apply or maybe it's best to say are also available to his servants. Maybe you've never thought about that before. So they're not, many of them are not unique identifiers . The name Jesus was a common name in his time. Some people correctly point out that the the word Jesus is not, does not pertain to the time he lived. It's a, it's a more modern innovation in a different language and they'll say things like Yeshua and I guess they think that they're more accurately naming Him with that. But again, that applied to many, many people, some people say Christ and they act like that's a unique denomination. It's not Christ just means anointed. There are many people in the Scriptures who are anointed by God and you'll see that same word used for them in the Hebrew. So in revelation , we read that this is a name that's not known by anyone. His actual name is not known by anyone except who it's given to. He is unique. He can only be described as himself. So to know Him is not trivial. And that's why priesthood can't just be given to you. It's not just something that like I hand you a pen or something that's not the way it works. It's a process of getting to know Him and it, it, it's yielded by a process. It's by degrees. I think I already covered that. Ok. So you might respond to all this by saying that's it. That's the key to the priesthood. That's the key to the knowledge of God. Yes, that's it. And you might say, but I'm already doing that to which I'd say no, you're not. No, you're not. Let's go through this list. Do you ever act, feel, believe, desire or speak contrary to God's will knowingly because if you do, then you're not already doing that. All right. There's an increasing number of people who passed that test. Let's go to the next one. Is there anything that you believe God would never quote, never tell you to do? Many people don't pass that test. There aren't many people who can pass that test. Next one. How do you react to people who purport to know more than you? This is a very difficult one in the modern time. Do you rejoice when you find someone who purports to know more than you? Because you're, you have the potential of learning something or do you assume they're wrong? Call them arrogant, get angry and do all sorts of other devilish things? Because remember the pathway here is to find things and people that teach you more and different about God than you already know. And so if you don't react well to people or things, there could be events in your life that show you that you're off in some way. Do you rejoice or do you get upset? Here's a difficult one. Is there any evil you'd rather not experience or know about? So people would say, why do I have to know more evil to know more good? Well, they're coupled, there's opposition in all things. Would you be upset if the Lord put you through a job like trial or even something worse? Because there are things that are worse. Jesus said he descended below all things. That's all things includes whatever job went through. What are you willing to endure? At what point? Would you quit? What's the limit of your trust in God? Job said, even if God killed him, he would trust him. And yet he didn't understand when he said that, that there's suffering that you can experience in life, that's worse than death and job hit his breaking point. So, what's yours? Is there anything anyone could ever do or anything that could happen that would cause you to doubt God's love for you. How much time do you spend learning from God? And what's it worth to you? What are you willing to sacrifice to know more about God? One of the contestations might be. What about ordination? You haven't talked about that? How can you claim that you've laid out everything you need to know about priesthood when you haven't talked about ordination ? Well, sure enough, we find ordination in the scriptures, for example, in alma 13 1, the Lord God ordained priest after priests after his holy order, which was after the order of His son to teach these things unto the people. It's true. But we also read in that same chapter in verse eight that there's a process involved. It says they were ordained after this manner, being called with the holy calling, ordained with the holy ordinance and taking upon them the high priesthood of the holy order, which calling and ordinance and high priesthood is without beginning or end. So let's talk about that process because ord ordination certainly is a piece of all of this. But you'll see why I haven't talked about it. Let's do this by example. And let's use Abraham as the example. There's quite a bit about him in the scriptures and his process of obtaining priesthood. So let's talk about how Abraham took upon himself, the priesthood. Now, if you remember back, we're reading some old Testament verses about how you can't take upon yourself the priesthood except how Aaron did. right? So let's look at Abraham as an example of this. We have a lot more detail than we do out of the life of Aaron on this uh topic . So let's read Abraham 12. He says, and finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me. I sought for the blessings of the fathers and the right. Whereunto, I should be ordained to administer the same, having been myself, a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge and to be a great, greater follower of righteousness and to possess a greater knowledge and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace and desiring to receive instructions and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a high priest holding the right belonging to the fathers. There's a lot to that first. If we break it down a bit, here's one structure he says, I sought for the blessings of the fathers by seeking to be a greater follower of righteousness seeking to possess a greater knowledge, seeking to be a father of many nations, seeking to receive instructions and seeking to keep the commandments of God. So where on this list is seeking to find some dude to lay his hands on my head. It's not on this list, but what we are given are explicit things that you can learn more about and learn to do better than you currently do. And all of these things are synonyms for learning more about God and living what you learn righteousness is how God is. Knowledge is what He has. God is the ultimate father. He has all instructions and obviously He knows what the commandments are. All of these things were done before Abraham was ordained. They're all information Abraham sought to obtain and live information about what about how God is about how God would feel and act in his place, greater light and truth only ever comes through obeying what you already have and exerting greater effort. This is how you seek ordination. You have to become true and faithful in all things . You have to live up to everything, you know, and part of living up to the revelation of the goodness of God is exerting appropriate intensity in searching for more. If you give a mouse, a cookie, he asks for a glass of milk. But if you give a Christian, a revelation of some secret, kept a mystery from the foundation of the world, he will pretend like you just told him something that anyone could have told him that he's always known. And even if those things aren't true, that's not really worth anything. And he'll just walk away like nine of the 10 lepers, not realizing that the person that gives you what you're looking for is worth more whatever than whatever you were looking for. To be true and faithful in all things requires you to recognize the value of what you have not yet obtained revealed by the value of what you have. Now, let's look at another example which is Melchizedek. So Melchizedek was the dude that laid his hands upon Abraham's head. And how did he get the priesthood in Genesis? 14 Joseph Smith translation verses 25 to 27. We read and Melchizedek lifted up his voice and blessed Abram. Now Melchizedek was a man of faith who wrought righteousness and when a child, he feared God and stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the violence of fire and thus having been approved of God, he was ordained in high priest after the order of the covenant, which God made with Enoch. Now you quote this verse to somebody and they're going, their heads are gonna spin for multiple reasons. But one of the reasons is that it's some grand puzzle, but let's break it apart because it's really not that difficult. Mel sick was a man of faith. What does faith mean? It's to do what you have sufficient evidence to do and to only do what you have sufficient evidence to do. That tells us a lot about this man because that's not a very normal way to be. He wrought righteousness. What does that mean? What does righteousness mean? It's how God is. This means that Melchizedek made it his business to always do what the Lord would do in his place because he was a man of faith. He paid attention to everything in his life and everyone in his life that could teach him something about God and having done this or in the process of doing this, he entered into a path where he continuously learned more and more about God. And how do we know that he obtained greater knowledge about God? Because he did things like stopping the mouths of lions and quenching the violence of fire, which obviously exceeds the capability of basically anyone, even if they say they believe in God and in doing that and progressing in this continuation of learning more and doing about God and doing everything that he learns. He's approved by God. And only then is he ordained? You see the order, the story does not start. And Mel Kick was born to some dude who who, when he was a certain age had hands laid upon his head or, and Mel Kick was a man who was really good at going to seminary and he was really churchy and the the older priest recognized his churchs and laid hands upon him or he was a guy that got really excited about the gospel. And so he felt like he had a call from God. And then he just spent his days sharing his ideas from the scriptures. It doesn't say that the order and the content is important. What does it mean to be approved of God? This is the chosen part of called and chosen. Many are called, few are chosen. Why aren't they chosen? We already read about this because they're all about everything except for God. God is not the, the full aim of their lives. They're called, which means they know something about Him, but they don't walk towards what they realize is best. They don't fully implement their understanding of God in their lives. To be chosen is to be like God and to be like God is to be chosen. There's a lie in multiple religions, multiple Christian sects that says whom God calls? He qualifies. This is a complete and utter lie in Hebrews 11 4. We read by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God, testifying of his gifts. I actually heard someone say just yesterday, all believers are the same in the eyes of God. It's really shocking when people who claim to be Christians and who do spend time reading the scriptures say things that are So obviously, contrary to what they say, why was able sacrifice more excellent, because it more closely aligned with what God would do in his place. He showed he was righteous, uh talking about Melchizedek. Now he showed he was righteous by doing what a righteous person would do for the reasons a righteous person would have with the motive, a righteous person would have you become approved of God when you know what God is like and you become that way yourself and what you want and why you want it and what you do and why you do it and how you do it. So going back to this and thus having been approved of God, he was ordained in high priest after the order of the covenant which God made with enoch. It being after the order of the Son of God, which order came not by man, nor the will of man, neither by father nor mother, neither by beginning of days, nor end of years. But of God, I'm going to pause here. And how did it come from heaven through the demonstration that that God provides verse 29 and it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice. Remember calling that you know something about God according to his own will unto as many as believed on his name. So to believe on his name is to obey the calling of his voice. It's to live what you're taught about. Him, which is his own will. You see, these aren't cryptic things, but we've twisted them up when they get untwisted , you read it again and you say, wow, I'm really a doofus. And this is about as plain as it could possibly be said. But we've twisted it all up to make it more confusing. And the reason we've done this is so for some people, it's not their fault because it's just what they were taught and inheriting this incorrect structure, they lacked sufficient faith to notice that there is error and untwist it all figure it out. But the people that twisted it in the first place, why did they do it? It's the same reason people always twist up doctrine. It's because they don't want to change and they need to change the doctrine to match how they already are because they don't want to be how God is because they don't see it as better. All right. Now, we could read the rest of this. You could read it. Um I'm just gonna keep going because this is long already. We just have a few more slides. How do you get there? You get there by choosing what's best over and over and over again. We read about this in Alma 13. This is the manner after which they were, were ordained on account of their exceeding faith and good works in the, in the first place, being left to choose good or evil. Therefore, they having chosen good and exercising, exceedingly great faith are called with a holy calling, jumping down while others would reject the spirit of God, on account of the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds. While if it had not been for this, they might have had as great privilege as their brethren because in the first place, they were on the same standing with their brethren. But this calling is for those who would not harden their hearts. Now, when we read this, we go into good guy, bad guy mode and no one wants to be the bad guy. So we say, well, I must be a good guy and I have to tie these descriptions to someone who's really, really evil. It doesn't take someone who's really, really evil to have hardness of heart or blindness of mind. So you're focusing on that too much, divert your focus on to what it means to have uh exceedingly great faith and good works to choose what's good. What does that actually mean? What does that actually take? Do you have any idea what it costs to always do? What is best all the time? See most people, what they do is they do what's best every once in a while and it's just enough. So they don't, they don't have to feel like an evil person so that they have something like a trophy that they can look at on their shelf every time they do something that's less than their best and say, well, but I'm not that bad of a person because one time I did this or usually I do that. So this one time, I mean, the average is still pretty good. Or at least there's some ceiling, even if I'm living at the floor. Well, what's the relative difference between doing something, doing the best every once in a while and all the time? what's the difference? It's an eternity apart. It couldn't be further apart. So it's, it's not like you're somewhere in the middle, you're way at the bottom if you're in that boat because remember coming way back to the branch, you're cut off, you're cut off the cost of, of having exceedingly great faith of choosing good. What does that even mean? Remember, faith is to do what has sufficient reasons and nothing else. I hope you that you've read through faith . It's a book I wrote. You can, you can find it for free on my blog, but you could also listen to the audio book for free on youtube and you can get it off Amazon through Faith by Robert Smith. But one of the ideas that's, that's there. I mean, it goes into a lot of detail about measuring cost and benefit and choosing what's best and planning for the future and thinking about long term consequences and all these things that people never think about when they think about faith. But what you'll find is you start walking down that path is that almost every decision made by almost every person is either made , not using reason at all. It's just an emotional decision that, that reasons bolted on to after the fact because you do whatever you feel like and then you come up with reasons to justify it after the fact. Or people require so much more than what's sufficient in terms of evidence to do what's good that it's sickening. It's like if a feather were the sufficient reason, they need an elephant worth of, of weight of evidence. That's how people are to have exceeding faith is to do what's justified as soon as it's justified. You don't wait until an elephant worth of sand accumulates in the one side of the balance, even a feather will offset that balance if the other side's empty. And so you go with it immediately. That's, that's one thing is, is how quickly do you respond to subtle signals that are still sufficient? Another measure of this is how intensely do you respond to intense signals? And what do I mean by that? If you touch a hot stove, you will recoil with appropriate intensity because it hurts. That's a visceral reaction. You don't actually think about it. You just do it. What would be the long term equivalent of touching a hot stove? What, what's a situation where the long term consequences are at least as bad as that? I mean, we could talk about burning in the fires of hell, but is sort of the extreme of this, but say, I don't know, just off the top of my head. I mean, say you buy a car that's clearly got a lot of issues and you didn't stop to do the math of the long term cost of this thing versus a car that's slightly less used. And the maintenance costs are gonna be different. The, the lifetime cost per mile, the miles miles per gallon. All these things you have to factor in what if over a lifetime you just spent four times what it would cost relative to another option is that extreme . It is extreme. That's an enormous difference for a car. But do you recognize that and act that way? This is exceedingly great faith. It's not just uh well, I really wish that God were true. And so I'm gonna be really over the top when I, when I talk about him and just sort of gush about it or whatever . I don't know, whatever it is. I'm gonna go to church every night because I have exceedingly great faith. That's not what it means. All right. So I, I referred to Maroni seven earlier. Here it is. Again, you can read more about it. You can watch the video series if you'd like final note on ordination . There's just two sides after this. It's not about a man laying his hands on your head. In fact, it's actually about the man, not his hands. And that's not what this presentation is about. But just for the sake of completing reference, the reference to the topic in Alma 13 verse one, it says that the Lord God ordained priest priests after his holy order, which was after the order of his son to teach these things unto the people. What does that mean? What is this order? It's how he is. There's a chain of individuals and that chain is ordered by how similar they are to Christ. This is what ordination is actually about. In verse two. There's a little bit of elaboration on that they're ordained in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his son for redemption. How and why? Because the priests are somewhat like him, the people can look to the priests and recognize them as a way point on the way to Christ. They can pick out of those priests, examples of how to be more like Jesus. This is exactly the role that Jesus fulfilled in the greatest possible way to the greatest possible extent in showing us the father through his mortal life. That's what a priest does. He shows what God is like here on earth through how he is. That's his job and to the extent he's able to do that, that's how good of a priest he is. So if the priesthood is similarity to God. How would, you know, if someone has it or how much of it they have? Because it's by degrees. Well, it's a really difficult problem because the, the whole reason we need priests again going back, it's so that we know to look forward to Christ because otherwise we wouldn't recognize him because we're that far away from how he is. The natural man can't see holiness. It's discerned through the spirit. It takes one to know one. First Corinthians 214 says, the natural man receive not the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned in John chapter three, it says until you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God. So it's quite the chicken egg problem in Luke 1615. It says that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. So if someone's low enough in the food chain, their idea of holiness is actually going to be closer to the opposite of truth. It's no surprise that the holiest person to ever live . Jesus was murdered. Precisely because he was holy and Titus 116. It says that even believers are not immune from this quote. They profess that they know God, but in works, they deny him being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work, reprobate. A reprobate, a reprobate is someone who does not respond to evidence. They're unreachable. You can't correct them. And so to be unto every good work reprobate, it means that there's nothing that's sufficient to show you what's better. So, the, the summation of this is that it's really hard, it's really hard to know if someone has priesthood or how much they have. It's exceedingly important to learn how to recognize holiness. And that's a challenge. The most important, the most important prerequisite to solving that problem. This is the good news is living up to what you already believe. I can't stress this enough. In Luke 642 it says cast out first the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. You will not be able to correctly judge other people while you're still living in sin. It's literally not possible. You're you're going to make mistakes, your judgment will be incorrect . This is why John the Baptist was sent before Jesus to make the way straight. Look at what he told the people. He reminded them of all the things that they should have already known. His advice to them. His instructions were extraordinarily specific and he helped individuals recognize the ways they were out of alignment with God in ways they should have already known there wasn't anything deep or new about what John, the Baptist said. He just called people on the carpet for what they knew they were doing. That was wrong. He reminded them of what they should have already known and what they had known at some point, but they turned away from it. So he told the soldier how to be a better soldier. Right? And so on. That's the first step. And then there's another, that's what you bring. It's like bringing your sacrifice to the Tabernacle. And who do you hand the lamb to a priest? And this might seem circular because how do you know what holiness is if you're a natural man? And it's a mystery. Well, you can't, but you can prepare yourself to receive it when someone who knows tells you. So bring what you've got to the Tabernacle and what you need will be brought out of the Tabernacle to you. This is how you prepare and it's always this way. It's why John the Baptist came before Jesus. Dear John, the Baptist is to live your life up to how you currently believe Jesus to be. And then the Lord will arrange to send more guidance from heaven to help you. You can look at Adam's story in the book of Moses for another example of this. And you can trace out they were given instructions in Eden to till the land and have Children, which they did. And then God spoke to them, they heard his voice out of Eden and he gave additional instructions which they followed, they had to to offer sacrifice from their flocks. And then after many days, an angel came and gave them for their light and truth in person. And when they did, when that angel came, Adam and Eve didn't throw a conniption fit and say, we've heard the voice of the Lord out of the garden of Eden. We don't need you angel get lost and it was step by step. And that's how they came back to the same um connection to the Lord that they had in the garden. Right. Finally, I'll just leave you with this verse from R I seven. And I, I say these words as a quote, but also as if I were saying them myself, I beseech of you brethren that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil that if you will lay hold upon every good thing and condemn it not, you certainly will be a child of Christ.