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OK, so welcome. And this talk is entitled Seeing Eye To Eye, To Bring Zion. The main point of what we're gonna be talking about today is a concept that I call awareness and awareness isn't really a special word. Um But I hope at the end of all of this, you'll understand a little bit more and especially the talk this afternoon, a little more about what that means. And essentially you could, you could call awareness, knowledge or intelligence or anything like that. But we have sort of preconceived notions about what these words mean. And so I, I like to say awareness. And so if you get the book, The Glory of Goddess Intelligence, which I highly recommend you'll see that I use that word frequently. I wonder if we can get rid of this. Uh Let me see. There we go. That works. OK. So what happened when uh Adam and Eve were in the garden and they ate the fruit? Everyone's just reading the scripture, um their eyes were opened, right? Their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil. But what, what does that actually mean? I mean, were their eyes physically closed? When before they ate the fruit. No, right? Their eyes were open. So eyes here means something other than what we think of when we say ice , right? Um So specifically in that instance, their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked, right? They knew that they were naked. So before their eyes were opened, they weren't aware of their nakedness and after their eyes were opened, they were oops, let's see. Ok. So what arise? So there are many scriptures that include the word eyes used in this application. Here's one of them in Proverbs 15 3, it says the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. What do you think that means and recorded angels recording? Ok. Could we say that God is aware of what's going on at all times and in all places, every place, right? Uh This one's interesting in revelation four, it says before the throne was a sea of glass like unto crystal and in the midst of the throne and round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him and they were full of eyes within and they rest not day and night saying holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come, what are their eyes? Very good. So, um the number of eyes is sort of the scope of their understanding and the before and behind is about the future and the past. So it's their awareness of the future, their awareness of the past, awareness of the present. Uh It's their awareness. If you dig deeper into this, you know, there are crowns and all these other things, they're all representative of, of things that matter. But in, in this case , we're just focusing on the eyes. Um What about the eyes within? if eyes in front represent your awareness of the future and eyes behind our uh representation of the past, what do you think within of themselves? And this is a very deep topic and I, I feel like we just kind of skate across things because that's all we have time to do. But I invite you to think about this more. It turns out your awareness of yourself is the thing that matters the most. And I'll just briefly entice you with a little bait here and say that um we're not as righteous as we think we are. And um when we, as we draw closer to God, he increases our awareness of ourselves. And this actually is kind of a double edged sword, it can be a very positive thing. Well, it's always a positive thing because the truth is always a positive thing, but it can be a comforting thing for those of us who uh are closer to the Lord than maybe we realize it could be a painful thing. For those of us who are further away than we think in all things, there's opposition and it's a fine line that we walk in balance between these opposites. That's a side note. How about this one? If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, we know this, this passage, right? What's it talking about? Should you really pluck your eye out of your head maybe? But that's probably not what it's talking about. It's your awareness, your perspective of things. If your understanding of the world leads you to sin, then you need to pluck it out and get a new one, right? It's better not to have your traditions if they chain you to hell, right? Be wise, be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. What does this one mean? Thank you. Exactly. Yep. Don't, don't be too prideful in thinking, you know, a lot. Um All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes. Love to self justification. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna make a man woman joke there. I won't. Ok. Eyes are awareness. That's the point I'm trying to get across here. So why is this matter for Zion? Because remember that's what this talk is about. Well, um for the remainder of this talk, I'm gonna make a case that the best thing you can do to build Zion is to build your personal awareness, your individual awareness this is from Isaiah 52. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice with the voice together. Shall they sing for? They shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. So we're gonna talk about what it means to see eye to eye. But I've got this other part highlighted here. Who brings Zion? The Lord, I think for whatever reason, some people forget that break forth into joy. Sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord hath comforted his people . He hath redeemed Jerusalem, the Lord hath made bear his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. So part of what he's doing is redeeming Jerusalem. The way he does that is making bear his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all of the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. God as we approach the end is going to increase the amount of awareness that is in this earth. And he's going to do it in two ways. One is the voluntary individual way where we have access to light and we can get more. The other is an involuntary way where he is going to make bear his holy arm or make us aware as humans, everyone more aware of reality will elaborate on this. But but this is, this is how he will redeem Jerusalem. This is part and parcel. It all goes together. So we're gonna tease this apart. And now I say unto you that the the time shall come, that the salvation of the Lord shall be declared to every kindred nation, kindred tongue and people. And what do we think of when we read that? You think a missionary is going out and we think of books being printed, right? Ok. But there's another way that it will be declared and this is that people will be made more aware than ever before of how much the Lord is needed and what exactly he has to offer and what exactly he saves us from. Because especially right now, maybe more so than any other time in the history of the world. We are insulated from the consequences of not having the Lord that's going to change. It's changing right now as we speak and it's going to keep getting more and more severe until it's undeniable and everyone everywhere will have to admit that he's needed in Moses seven, we read unto a place which I shall prepare again. Who prepares it? The Lord a holy city that my people may gird up their loins and be looking for for the time of my coming. Why would they be looking forth for the time of his coming? Not just because somebody told them that that was going to happen, but because they need him to come. Do you remember in the book of Mormon. When things are going crazy before the Lord comes in in third Nephi. And people were praying that he would come to save them because they were being persecuted so heavily. Do you remember that? I'm not making it up. Am I somebody? Ok? Somebody remembers it good because I didn't know like maybe there's something in my pancakes this morning. Um For there shall be my Tabernacle and it shall, shall be called Zion in New Jerusalem. And the Lord said unto Enoch, then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there and we will receive them into our bosom and they shall see us and we will fall upon their necks and they shall fall upon our necks and we will kiss each other. Why? Who said joy? Yeah. Anyone wanna elaborate, what have the people in the city of Enoch been through the same things the people who make it there to to this reunion will see eye to eye with those people because they will have had the same experiences , their awareness will be at a mutual level. Does this make sense? Yeah. OK. So what does it mean to see eye to eye? It means that you know the Lord, this is dangerous because if I say no, the Lord, everyone has their little packed away, meaning that they already think of when, when I say that. Um but what I want to highlight from what this could mean is uh the idea of trusting him completely unconditionally. This circles back to this idea of um, what does it mean to know yourself? How do you have inner awareness? I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands. But if I said again, do not raise your hand, if I said who here thinks they trust God, I would hope that some hands would go up. I don't know. With all this preamble, maybe you'd be scared because you'd know I'm, I'm setting you up for a 12 punch. But um you do not trust God. We do not trust God because if we did certain things would happen, that are different than our common experience. And you might be an exception to this. I'm not trying to pretend that I know all of your hearts or anything like that. I'm just saying in general, we do not trust God. And in fact, one of the principal purposes of this life is for God to show us that we do not trust him. And the way He does this is by sending trials and we get to know how thin that wall of trust really is because the second something bad happens, we immediately get frustrated, get sad, get angry, whatever. We also keep his commandments completely. That's without exception, I'm not saying uh that we know everything God knows and that we do everything that He does. I'm saying as far as our awareness goes, we keep his commandments completely and when we do these two things, we have peace that exceeds what the world can give us. This is what he was talking about in the New Testament. When he said peace, I give unto you. Not as the world giveth. It's a kind of peace that's very special. And it's only held by those who can lean on their awareness of how good God is. Therefore, trust that absolutely nothing in life can decrease their peace or modify the trust that they have in Him. They can honestly stand and say there is nothing in this world that can happen that will cause me to love or trust God less than I do. Now, now, if you think you're in that place to say that one, I congratulate you if you can sincerely say it. But two, I would say get ready because if we had time, we could do a little analysis and I could probably make a case that you're not quite where you are. You think you are yet. And he's going to help you realize this. Uh If you just sit tight, OK, let's talk about this one a little bit more. Um In the lectures on faith, Joseph wrote Jesus descended in suffering below that which man can suffer, or in other words, suffered greater sufferings and was exposed to more powerful contradictions than any man can be. But notwithstanding all this, he kept the law of God and remained without sin showing thereby that it is in the power of man to keep the law and remain also without sin. Can we live without sinning? Yes. Yes, we can. And I do not understand why this is something that I have to make a case for when I talk to people. But when I talk to people, Christians, their whole lives. Can we live without sin? No, no, we can't. I mean, and they give all these reasons. Yes, we can not only can we, we must. And if we don't, it is only because we do not trust God. That's it. That's it. That's not what this talk is about. But I have to mention this. OK? And then uh as far as finding peace goes in Jeremiah 3134 and they shall teach no more. Every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more when we come to the point where we all see eye to eye and we all know the Lord. It's only through repenting of our sins and increasing in our awareness. These are like two dimensions on a, on a graph. One is your awareness and the second is your obedience to what you know, and you have to be fully obedient to what you know. And then God gives you more and that's how you ascend. Yeah, I'll talk a lot more about that in Centerville. So this is a summary of what we've gone over so far. And now I want you to look at these three things, obedience, knowledge, and peace and trust for things. And I want you to think of those and we're gonna look through some passages and I want you to in your mind pick out each of these things from these passages you ready? So here's one for because of the word which he has imparted unto me. Behold, many have been born of God and have tasted as I have tasted and have seen eye to eye as I have seen. So why, why did they see eye to eye? Because the word was shared, the information was the same. Therefore, they do know of these things of which I have spoken as I do know and the knowledge which I have is of God. Ok. So what have we seen so far from those things? Trust, obedience, knowledge and peace once highlighted in red knowledge? Yes. Thank you. What? OK. Um And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind. Yeah. And in all manner of afflictions. Yeah. God has delivered me from prison and from bonds and from death. Yeah. And I do put my trust in him and he will still deliver me. You see these elements here, they all go together, right? If you have one, you've got the other ones too. Do you think he trusted God? Do you think he would face anything with trusting God? It says right on the last line, he will still deliver me? That's a blank check. That's a blank check. It says no matter what happens, I believe it's God's will and I will be cared for. It's all for my good, right from a loving God. So it's kind of long but bear with me and I know that He will raise me up at the last day to dwell with Him in glory. Yeah. And I will praise him forever for. He has brought our fathers out of Egypt and, and think about when, as we're reading this, why is he going into this history? You know, this monologue of history. Why to show that in the past, God always delivers His people, whatever deliverance looks like we don't get to pick, right. But whatever happens is what he wants to happen because he's perfect. He's all knowing he's all loving and therefore we're good. And I know that he will raise me up at the last day to dwell with him in glory. Yeah. And I will praise him forever for he has brought our fathers out of Egypt and he has swallowed up the Egyptians in the Red Sea and he led them by his power into the promised land. Yeah. And he has delivered them out of bondage and captivity from time to time. Yeah. And he has also brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem. And he has also by his everlasting power delivered them out of bondage and captivity from time to time, even down to the present day. And I have always retained in remembrance , their captivity. Yeah. And ye also ought to retain in remembrance as I have done their captivity. But behold my son, this is not all for ye ought to know as I do know, eye to eye that inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God. Ye shall prosper in the land. And ye ought to know also that inasmuch as you will not keep the commands of God commandments of God, ye shall be cut off from his presence. Now, this is according to His word. You see these themes, this passage. Yeah. Why were they always kind of reciting the great things God had done in the past to give people trust that He would do great things in the future if it were His will, right? Ok. So this is an important one. This is from the Joseph Smith translation of Genesis 921. When men should keep all of my, all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch, which I have caught up unto myself. Does it say all men? No. But when there are people who keep all of God's commandments, this can happen again can it happen before that happens? No. Why? Well, in part, because if they did come down, would we see eye to eye? No, no. Uh This is very clear through scriptures. But in, in particular, if you think about lectures on faith, um you can't have the same blessings as a people who have gone through more than you have, who know more than you have, who are more obedient than you are, who trust God more than you do, right? OK. So what do we do in doctrine? Covenant 88 it says the light which shines which giveth you light is through Him. Who enlighten your eyes? Which eyes we're talking about these optical deals here, no awareness, right? Which is the same light that quicken eth 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. So where does extra awareness come from? From God straight from God? So this is elaborated on uh a lot in the talk this afternoon and there's a lot of this in the book incidentally, there's nothing about Zion in the book that I remember, but we're just taking awareness from this lens. So this isn't a replacement for the book. So don't get lazy. You actually have to read the book. Yeah, you don't have to do anything but you won't get, get anything out of it if you don't. Ok. So this is a two parter uh for, for thus saith the Lord. I the Lord am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, who delight to honor and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end, great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory and to them. Will I reveal all mysteries? Yeah. All the hidden mysteries of my kingdom from days of old and for ages to come, will I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom. So to whom are these things revealed? That's right. People who fear him and serve him in righteousness and in truth to the end is, is, is that out of reach of anyone in this room? No, no. Every one of us can actually trust God and actually serve him. It's our choice. It's completely 100% our choice. Now, if we turn that dial up all the way and think about what that would be, what will be the result to those people, he will reveal all of his mysteries, everything that's hidden from days of old eyes behind days to come eyes in front, all things pertaining to his kingdom. Even the wonders of eternity shall they know? This is how we get there. It's all written down. It's nothing magical. It's nothing new. It's actually the oldest thing ever because it's the gospel and it existed before any of this and their wisdom shall be great and their understanding reach to heaven again, who can do this. Anybody, anybody can have great wisdom. Anybody can have understanding that reaches to heaven because it's not from us. Everything you think about your intelligence is most likely tied to your flesh. Your flesh does not dictate or control what God can reveal to you. Only your spirit does. Every single person can get to this point and every single person has to if they want to live in Zion because in Zion, we will see eye to eye and we will all know these things. We will all know the Lord. There's no other case where you know this is class B of Zion citizenship. It, it just, it's everything for by my spirit will I enlighten them and by my power will I make known unto them? The secrets of my will. Yeah. Even those things which I have not seen or which people have not been previously aware of, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man. And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light and there shall be no darkness in you and that body which is filled with light, comprehend all things. So how do you get there? Will you make your eye single to His glory or you understand that all of your awareness comes from Him and ought to be focused on Him. It doesn't mean that you don't brush your teeth at night because that's not thinking about God. That's not what I'm saying. But all learning of everything, it all comes from God. It all comes from God through your spirit and we'll talk about that mechanism this afternoon. But ok, so what happens is light increases. So if you recall a few minutes ago, what what I said was that um God will reveal his holy arm and everyone will be more aware of the necessity of His salvation, right? This is rapid fire. Um You can think more about this as you would like there is an opposition in all things. And so as God increases the light, the pendulum has to swing the other way and will be aware of much more darkness. Um Also as the light increases, the righteous people will absorb this light and become more righteous and the wicked people. What, what do you think is going to happen with them? They become more wicked. You know how the the Lord's word is a wedge. It's talked about as a, as a sword, it divides things. This is what happens when more light comes. So it's a good thing and it's also an intense thing as the light increases. What we will see is we'll see groups of people rise up and we'll see other people who fall away and the wicked will become more wicked and the righteous will become more righteous. Um and lots of people all across that spectrum will die. So here's a passage for Moses seven. But before that day, the heavens shall be darkened and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth and the heavens shall shake and also the earth and great tribulation shall be among the Children of men. But my people will I preserve and righteousness. Will I send down out of heaven and truth? Will I send forth out of the earth to bear testimony of mine only begotten his resurrection from the dead? Yeah. And also the resurrection of all men and righteousness and truth. Will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood to gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth. But before that day, he saw great tribulations among the wicked. And he also saw to see that it was troubled and men's hearts failing them. Looking forth with fear for the judgments of the Almighty God, which should come upon the wicked, righteousness and truth doesn't just mean some person coming and writing some book about some topic. It doesn't just mean you getting these ideas that as you're reading the scriptures that you had never thought of before, even though you studied the scriptures for 2030 50 years. It also means that these pillars of support that we rely upon in our first world life are going to get kicked out one by one, they're gonna be kicked out. And um this is how this is the means that the Lord has designed to reveal his arm to show us all what we lack and what we need and why. So this is coming, in fact, it's happening already. Um Let's get into this. So everything that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men by Thrones or Principalities or powers or things of name, whatsoever they may be that are not by me or by my word, saith the Lord shall be thrown down and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection. Saith the Lord your God for whatsoever things remain are by me and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed. And then Paul says something similar in Hebrews 1227. So the the intensity volume will continue to be turned up and things will quote unquote shake and be destroyed. A great deal of what we enjoy in this world only exists because of the grace of God because it's, it doesn't pertain to this world. It's just a foretaste of what you could have if you were living the right laws to obtain it. And all these things are going to be taken out systematically and it will just keep happening until the only things that are left are from his word. That's sort of its own topic that I'm not gonna crack open. But uh there's a parallel here with this phrase as by fire. Does that one ring a bell here ? A few mentions of it at my command, the heavens are opened and are shut and at my word, the earth shall shake and at my command, the inhabitants thereof shall pass away even so as by fire. It doesn't say by fire. It says as by fire, right? For by doing these things, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. Gay. And the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you and cause the heavens to shake for your good and his name's glory. So the fire is not a bad thing. It's only a bad thing. If you're on the the wrong side of it, right? The the fire is actually exactly what saves the righteous. And at the same time, it saves the righteous and it destroys the wicked, right. Every man's work shall be manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon , he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved yet. So as by fire, I'll give you a very worldly example of this. So, uh growing up, I was pretty poor. I had a friend who is pretty rich and a good guy and we were good friends. And then as we got older, the, the, the levels changed a bit and um, because he hadn't really known want as a kid in part, at least he wasn't super driven and his life kind of went a different way than mine where I had a lot of drive because I didn't want my family to not be able to eat dinner at night. And I knew what that was like. And um, life had a way of showing us what the strength of the principles we were taught as Children were. And it was revealed over time as by fire because as these things hit us, we reacted in different ways and it, and then if you look at today, we're in very different places . Um, again, a very worldly example, but it applies on spiritual level as well. And so the, the trick what we're up against now is we're trying to acquire as much light and truth as we can. And as the world deteriorates, it will be made apparent what the strength of our, um our knowledge is. What the principles that we have. This one's really long. Huh? Need the magnifying glass. I'll read the highlights. All that fight against Zion shall be destroyed. How they must be burned. Yeah. But the fire comes to the righteous and the wicked. It's just that the righteous walk through it, that's the difference . We're not spared from any of this. It's just that if we acquire sufficient light and truth, it serves to our good instead of too bad, he will preserve the righteous by his power even if it so be that the fullness of his wrath must come and the righteous be preserved even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Mm I'll keep reading wherefore the righteous need not fear for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved even if it's so be by as by fire. Um So the fire comes, the fire comes and it saves the righteous and it damns the wicked. It reveals our hearts and it reveals the strength of what we think we know. Ok. So in conclusion, the Lord brings Zion, your part in that is to build it in yourself. The way you do that is you obey every single thing that God tells you. You trust him unconditionally and you seek Him with all of your heart might mind and strength and he'll teach you more, then you have to obey that too. And if you do this with all of your heart, mind and strength and as the world continues to be subjected to this fire, you will be saved but saved does not mean spared from suffering. It just means that the suffering will be for your improvement and benefit. Thank you.