0:00:00 - 0:00:24 Today, we're gonna have a little chat about love. So I got an email that I'm very grateful for. It was well written and inspired. It gives me an opportunity to share some things that I've known for a long time, but I, I just haven't had the window to share them yet. Uh As with so many other topics, the 0:00:23 - 0:00:50 these uh are being encoded into books, but you know that that's gonna be a while. So let's just start with the email and then we're going to get into some slides. I've redacted a few parts of this to make it anonymous. Uh This is a, this is a new writer. I, I haven't interacted with this person before 0:00:49 - 0:01:13 . He says I've been watching your content for a while. Now, the section of scripture, Luke 627 to 36 in the related versions within the gospels has never sat well with me until what I feel was a revelation. Recently, we gonna pause from his email. It's so important to be honest. It's obviously very important 0:01:13 - 0:01:39 to be honest with God and that might seem like a uh something so obvious that why does it even why is it worth saying? You might be surprised how often people and maybe you are dishonest with God in what they desire and how they feel about things. And this is super silly because he already knows what 0:01:39 - 0:02:06 you desire and he already knows how you feel about things. So typically, what happens is when we don't feel how we think he would feel or how we think he wants us to feel about something, we just hide and pretend that we feel differently than we really do. It's not good. It's, it's really important that 0:02:06 - 0:02:30 we appear before God as we are. And the reason for that is that you, you, you're just not going to be as receptive to help until you appear as you are. It's like Adam when he was naked and he realized that he went and he tried to hide from God. That's a really dumb thing to do. But, but instead of pointing 0:02:29 - 0:02:55 and laughing at, at him, we should think if, if we're about whether we're doing this ourselves because it's so common. Some of the most powerful prayers are the ones that start with a confession about how we are and recognizing that we desire to be different than that and that we're coming to God for 0:02:55 - 0:03:17 help. There's no hiding from Him. But when you try to hide, all you're doing is distancing yourself from Him and his goodness and the good that he could do for you. So this is a point of maturity with this person that I don't know that they recognized when they were reading a scripture, they were inserting 0:03:16 - 0:03:41 themselves, he was inserting himself into this passage and saying, I don't really feel that way or, and I'm, I'm not super comfortable with this or I'm thinking of all the situations in my life where I wouldn't want to do that. That's an honest mission. And it's a, it's a point of maturity. It's a critical 0:03:40 - 0:04:10 key to having a greater relationship with God. And we can apply this in our human relationships as well. Especially spousal relationships, don't hide from your spouse. No, you should exert appropriate effort to shield your spouse from your nonsense in the sense that you should be, you should bridle your 0:04:10 - 0:04:36 passions to put it in scriptural parlance, but you should save them from as much of your nonsense as you can. But that's not a question of hiding. It's a question of behaving well and being kind and not being a burden on your significant other in as much as you can help it. But if you're truly upset 0:04:35 - 0:04:59 about something, you should not try to hide that you should um in an appropriate way, make that known because maybe they can help you with that. If you're, if you're feeling really frustrated about something, you could lie about it, but that's going to deprive them of the opportunity that they would 0:04:58 - 0:05:17 otherwise have to help you with that. Uh, and more often than not, it's gonna leak out anyway, but it's gonna leak out in a really unfair unhelpful way where you're lashing out at them when it's, when it's either not their fault or they don't understand why or it's not being done in a way that's connected 0:05:16 - 0:05:41 to fixing the problem. And so it's, it's the worst possible approach you can take anyway. Ok. Continue with the email. I wanted to run it past you to verify that I'm not trying to put the word of God into a box that I'm comfortable with just uh to justify my potential doing less. So let's jump to Luke 0:05:41 - 0:06:02 six which I inserted here so we can read it in context. Here's the, here are the verses he was pointing to but I say unto you which hear love your enemies do good to them, which hate you, bless them, that curse you and pray for them which despite use you and unto unto him that smite the on the one cheek 0:06:01 - 0:06:24 offer also the other and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat. Also give to every man that asth of thee and of Him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. And as ye would, that men should do and do to you. Do ye also to them likewise for if you love them, which love you 0:06:24 - 0:06:47 , what thank have ye for sinners also love those that love them. And if you do good to them, which do good to you, what thank have ye for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them, of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye for sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again. But 0:06:46 - 0:07:11 love ye your enemies and do good and lend hoping for nothing again. And your board shall be great and ye shall be the Children of the highest for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil, be therefore merciful as your father also is merciful. Um You know, this, this passage or the, the principles 0:07:10 - 0:07:37 behind it, it, it came up recently in conversations with two women who told me that their husbands had divorced them uh for unrighteous reasons, in their opinion. Of course, I don't know the story. Um But in both cases, these ladies were obviously very upset and both of them were in circumstances where 0:07:37 - 0:00:00 the negative consequences of their husband's decision were still present. They were, they were actively navigating those. And essentially both of them said, do I really have to love my ex-husband? And what does that look like? And I said, yes, yes, you do. Uh uh I mean, Jesus said that that's, it's, 0:00:00 - 0:08:30 it's uh it's actually a tremendous opportunity. It's a, it's tremendous gift to have someone betray you because um it's so, so many interactions that we have with people, we will get something out of it. And you might think, you know, if you go help a homeless person that they don't have any means to 0:08:30 - 0:08:52 repay you and therefore you're fulfilling the Lord's admi admonition to lend to those who can't pay you back. But the fact that you feel good about it is partial payment, that's something people don't realize now. Is it, is it as good as having, you know, your every wish fulfilled? No, of course not 0:08:51 - 0:09:18 . Is it as good as the job you work for predetermined pay where, where it's considered an equal exchange? No, of course not. But you're doing it for a reason. If you want an opportunity to truly love, you need to have the opportunity to do it when you really don't want to when it doesn't feel good. Not 0:09:17 - 0:09:41 only are you not kidding, tangible benefits, but you also don't have the intangible ones because those experiences are the only ones where you can truly and fully show the Lord how you feel about him because it's him. You're loving when you do these things for, for people who ha who do nothing but harm 0:09:40 - 0:10:12 you. That's the only reason you would have to do that. That's the greatest faith. That's the greatest love. That's what Jesus showed in his ministry and his life. Back to the email. So um sorry, one more thing about the passage, if someone didn't stumble over this passage and say, you know, this is asking 0:10:11 - 0:10:34 a lot. Well, I think that, that we should be concerned with their honesty and comprehension of what it's saying because this is it folks, this is the greatest thing back to the email to put the question into some background context. Some time ago I learned that the word meek in old Greek has a far deeper 0:10:34 - 0:10:54 meaning than appears superficially in English. It portrays the meaning of being in possession of power yet knowing when and how to use it as God would. An example which I reference this with is when Alma and Amye were confronted with saints being burned while they were to do nothing while in possession 0:10:53 - 0:11:15 of power to help as Amye states. While on the other hand, they break their bonds and come out of the prison unscathed via the power of God. Another component of the abovementioned context is the faith of Captain Moroni. For the sake of brevity, the faith of the Nephites included the idea that they were 0:11:14 - 0:11:39 not to let themselves become victims to a people that want to abuse them without God saying so Alma 4813 through 16, now I would like to address Luke 6 27 36. I had long felt that these verses lead one to becoming constant victims if taken at face value without further context or a question being asked 0:11:38 - 0:12:02 to put everything into its correct frame, it goes against what I felt was taught mentioned above with Captain Moroni when I asked God, I remembered that love is a word. I can generally try inserting uh ch uh he said that's the Hebrew word for this covenant of love. And see if covenant relationship makes 0:12:02 - 0:12:24 sense from this idea. And this is the first crux of my question. It dawned on me that it also makes uh I'm sorry, it also means to take responsibility for or have a vested interest in the well being of someone. The second part that came to me was the fact that my ability to develop relationships is finite 0:12:24 - 0:12:45 . So I have a responsibility to choose and learn to correctly choose who I have this relation with. Are these points correct? I am partially hesitant with the second point, God wants me to learn to choose whom to develop this relationship with and he wants me to be sure I am not just picking those people 0:12:45 - 0:13:05 who I am comfortable with looking at these verses in this mentality. I would gain the understanding that God expects us to provide more light and benefit to others under the understanding that they will never be able to return it. This matches with things that you have stated in multiple videos. This 0:13:05 - 0:13:26 also narrows the scope of people I sacrifice for matching what I feel is taught by the faith of the Nephites. Furthermore, this idea makes the following verses 37 to 42 fit the overarching context of being a righteous judge and leader to those I have for the sake of simplifying the idea taken responsibility 0:13:25 - 0:13:47 of because this knowledge seems to slide in perfectly as a missing puzzle piece to make context and different scriptures flow into one another. I tend to believe it is true. The final question I had comes to the point on meekness I gave at the beginning, if I'm able to choose whom to have a relationship 0:13:46 - 0:14:10 with as defined above is my ability to be meek, limited to my ability to sacrifice for and help people via the power of God. This if true would mean that the more I can or am willing to help, the more knowledge and power I require from God to help others, the more meek I become furthermore, would his 0:14:10 - 0:14:29 statement of blessed or the meek for they shall inherit the earth also be a promise that God will help expand one's ability to sacrifice and be meek to obtain more power and knowledge from God with context of when and how to act from a small or imperfect amount until it's perfect. I hope my questions 0:14:28 - 0:14:46 made sense. I'm currently a medical student in Germany. I guess there goes the anonymity, sorry and don't interact much in writing more particularly in English. If you're able to respond, I would greatly appreciate it. However, if you don't have the chance to answer, I do believe by writing down this 0:14:46 - 0:15:05 email and sending it even more has been made clear to me by simply acting upon the impressions I had received to write this. Thank you for being a recipient in this case. Thank you for the material you're putting out. It has helped me verify the things I'm learning by myself. The loneliness of learning 0:15:04 - 0:15:22 the truth makes me feel quite insecure because I know that I can be wrong. I make mistakes all the time and don't want to be misleading myself. I can't tell you how many times I've learned something in the scriptures and the exact teaching was verified a couple days later in your video. Well, there's 0:15:22 - 0:15:44 , there's a lot here and um you know, reading this comically, I was thinking of that meme with a couple in bed and they're facing opposite directions and the speech bubble above the lady says, I bet he's thinking about whatever. And then the speech bubble above the man is, is some complicated and not 0:15:44 - 0:16:05 ne nefarious thing. You know, she usually a speech bubble above the woman is I I bet he's thinking of other women and then the speech bubble above the man is something like this email. So uh OK. Um Just a quick bit, we're gonna get to all of this and it, it's, it's so inspired because all of these questions 0:16:05 - 0:16:32 dovetail precisely with what I was gonna say about this topic. And um not just with what I was going to say, but with the best possible way to lay this out. Um and like I've said, this has been percolating on my brain for a very long time. But before we get into those details, just a bit on confidence 0:16:31 - 0:16:57 and insecurity. As you come to understand that, that everything you know, is, is potentially incorrect and, and probably um incomplete. It's a, it's a big, you know, religion sells itself as having all the answers and while God has all the answers, it's what religion is, what the Gospel is, is a process 0:16:57 - 0:17:20 . It's not an outcome. It's a process. And that shift is really difficult because the bait of religion attracts the kind of people that want to be told. It's all figured out. Here's the simple answer and anything that, that is outside of that doesn't matter, but that's not the way it works. And, and 0:17:20 - 0:17:41 that shift can be very rough. But in the place of I'm gonna call it ignorant certitude because you're, you're confident even though you don't have reasons to be confident. And, um, you think you've got it all figured out even though what you understand is actually tremendously limited in place of that 0:17:41 - 0:18:09 is a confidence that comes through knowing, you don't know. And in being in this process, you build the, the, you build confidence through doing and you accumulate evidence by testing and all of a sudden, it becomes much more like the philosophy of science rather than what's typically taught as religion 0:18:08 - 0:18:28 because science doesn't prove things are true. You can falsify, you can prove things are false, but you can't prove things are true. Things are either false or supported so far. And the strongest theories are the ones that have the greatest supporting evidence. They're the ones that have been tried in 0:18:28 - 0:18:46 the hottest fire. And so even with the language, you start to see this tremendous overlap between these worlds that were thought to be or are thought to be by so many people completely separate and they're not, they're a lot more similar than you than you think. And as with so many other things, the 0:18:46 - 0:19:05 truth lies somewhere in the middle. So, um that's, that's where that confidence comes from and it comes from asking questions, people who don't introspect like this guy. Uh And, and don't think through in this level of detail, what their beliefs are, they don't have the confidence that the people who 0:19:05 - 0:19:29 do have this is what it takes. And then you have to actually go live it. You have to poke as many holes in it as you can. And that's the opposite that you would expect from religious people. They tend to be very close minded and very closed to what might be contrary evidence. So let's get into the slides 0:19:29 - 0:19:54 and we're gonna hit on pretty much everything that guy asked and uh we're gonna do it in three slides and this one's pretty simple. Uh But don't let the simplicity throw you from understanding the importance this is the marriage covenant, the man and the woman exchange, every, each, each individual says 0:19:53 - 0:20:19 , I'm, I'm consecrating everything that I am and everything I could be to your benefit. As far as I understand it. There's two pieces to this and he, as with all the points we're gonna make today, he's, he's pretty close. One is who you are right now. It's what you bring to the table. The other is everything 0:20:18 - 0:20:48 you could be. So like I said with the gospel and it's no coincidence, it's not a set of, of, of finished answers. It's a process because of that everything I could be and it's oriented towards the benefit of the other person which will be limited to how far you understand it. So you see the elements 0:20:48 - 0:21:19 of capacity here, potential, everything I could be and capacity as far to your benefit as far as I understand it. Both of those things benefit and and your understanding, those are, those are completely tied to your beliefs and your ability to process information. So um this is very simple yet extraordinarily 0:21:18 - 0:21:45 deep and this is the way it is, this is not ever an even exchange. There are things that are complementary, there are things that are one sided, you know what, what can a man give a woman in exchange for a child? That's not a balanced equation, right? And there are tons of things that men give women 0:21:45 - 0:22:21 that they can't reciprocate and that's OK. And then you've got all these differences between individuals that would be too numerous to list out. It differs. But it's, it's the same sacrifice and in its um what's the word I want here? It's not entirety um in, in the property of being fully engaged. Total 0:22:20 - 0:22:44 consecration. The totality of the consecration is what's exchanged, not the material of it. You know, one of the two could be an absolute doofus. But if they're still giving everything they are and everything they could be according to their understanding of benefit, that's still a match. It's not equal 0:22:44 - 0:23:11 . Covenants are never equal exchanges. They are always directional. OK? So that's a good segue into part two. The covenant with God is everything God has for everything we have. Now this the number, the percent of Christians who understand this, you could probably squeeze them all onto the head of a 0:23:11 - 0:23:36 pin. And if I'm standing on the head of the pin, there's probably no room for anyone else to just let you know that's not too far off of an an analogy. OK? But it is so important to understand and this is absolutely how it is. It's everything He has for everything we have. It's not, he gives us this 0:23:35 - 0:23:58 little laundry list of things that we need to do and need to not do. And then everything else doesn't matter if we get everything He has in exchange for that. It's not that OK? It's everything he requires everything. All right, if we do less than that, if we're less committed than that, we will receive 0:23:58 - 0:24:30 less than everything. He has a lot less. So, you know, he has to give, he has eternal life to give and, and there are conditions of covenant that won't even get you mortal life, you will die, let alone eternal life. So this is very important to understand. And furthermore, he, unlike in marriage, he 0:24:30 - 0:24:56 doesn't actually want us to give him everything we have directly. He takes that check, he endorses it. He gives it back and he says, now go give this to other people. He commands us to to direct all that we would give to him to others as if we were giving it to him. John 1512 says this is my commandment 0:24:55 - 0:25:28 that you love one another as I have loved you. So this is the setup. Now we go to more of this email. So the writer is correct that, that we are limited in the resources that we have. And so how does this work? So if, if we're married and we're meant to give everything we are or could be to our spouse 0:25:27 - 0:25:58 , what's left? And even if we're not, if we give everything that we are or could be to an individual, what's left. Well, the answer isn't nothing per se because first off, we all have limits in what we're willing to receive. And that's a topic that I've spoken about at length. Um, so maybe we'll just 0:25:58 - 0:26:29 leave it there, but I guess I'll just give one simple example and then we'll move on. So let's suppose that, you know, a young man who doesn't have a terrible, uh, amount of potential and isn't doing anything with his life. But you contrive a situation where he can gain employment and a certain degree 0:26:28 - 0:26:56 of independence that wouldn't be possible in any other way. And so you offer this young man the opportunity for which you will pay and he turned you down because uh he wants something that would preclude taking your offer. And it doesn't matter if that's something he currently has or something, he imagines 0:26:55 - 0:27:18 he would have to give up in the future or whatever. Well, that's the limit of what he's willing to receive. And if, if the puzzle is such that the only solution to it is something like what you've offered him, he will never have anything better, right? So that's limits to what people are willing to receive 0:27:17 - 0:27:39 . But we're gonna set that aside for a second and just pretend that all people are willing to receive all things. That's not how it is. The willingness to receive is a, is another uh parameter of this equation. It's another constraint on the circumstance, but just to simplify things, set aside, pretend 0:27:39 - 0:28:06 everyone will receive all good that you're willing to give them. So now how do you solve this problem. Well, it's actually not that complicated. In, in, in theory, in practice, there are a lot of moving parts, but in theory, it's easy, you just direct the, the resources you have to the greatest global 0:28:05 - 0:28:37 benefit. And I'm not making this up. This is what God does. OK. So the greatest global benefit is defined as the greatest joy over the longest duration. Now, it's not defined in terms of maximizing the joy of every single individual in the world. In, in, in uh a collection all at once. That's not true 0:28:37 - 0:29:06 . That's not what the greatest global benefit is. If, if you wanted to think about this mathematically, it's the sum of everlasting joy across all individuals. What this means is maybe what that looks like is that you have one person who's just willing to be ridiculously happy and you invest 100% of 0:29:06 - 0:29:29 the resources in that person. Because when you sum up the joy across all people, long term, there's more there than if you were, were to spread it out amongst all people. I hope this makes sense. Now, this flies in the face of so much of our culture today. We think so, not talking about joy, but talking 0:29:29 - 0:29:48 about money for a second. And obviously, those are not the same thing. But we think that the best approach culturally, we, we pretend that the best approach to the money problem is taking all the money and splitting it evenly among all people. Now, no one actually believes that because when you get down 0:29:48 - 0:30:10 to the fine print, it's, it's the animal farm paradox. Some people are more equal than others. Every time there's a pre like universal basic income was never gonna be universal. From day one, there were controls on who gets it. It's not everybody. And, and there are various reasons for this one. The 0:30:09 - 0:30:31 false arguments used to persuade people to support this always involve some kind of conflict between at least two groups of people. And so if you, if you really give it out universally, you can't use that as an argument, you can't do the oppressor, oppressed narrative um which takes most of the wind 0:30:31 - 0:30:55 out of its sails. But the other reason it's never universal is because those in the know, understand that if you give everybody $10,000 within a week, most of that money will be concentrated on a few of those people maybe a year. And this is well known. It's, it's, it's well documented in lottery winners 0:30:55 - 0:31:28 , for example. So money flows towards uh merit. That's the way it goes. So those aren't one for one, but that's, there's a trend, it concentrates and uh it tends towards a winner takes all anyway, back to joy. So what does this mean? Um that the, the the greatest global benefit is not, it doesn't mean 0:31:28 - 0:31:53 the greatest situation for every single individual. It means as a whole, you're trying to maximize long term joy. What means a lot of things, it means that you actually have to understand reality enough to know what things are valuable and how valuable they are. You need to know the set of options and 0:31:53 - 0:32:20 the cost and benefit of each over time. And then that's not enough. And then you need to know people why and how, well, just because something is valuable doesn't mean it will be appraised as such by all people. In fact, the more valuable something is the less likely a given person is to recognize it 0:32:20 - 0:32:48 . So this is quite the challenge. And one of the big pieces of this puzzle is learning much more about what is valuable and how valuable it is and the differences among people and how to spot that. Why? Well, like the young man example, I gave you, if you went ahead and spent all the money and time and 0:32:48 - 0:33:14 risk and whatever else you'd have to do to set that guy up. And then in one week he quits, you just lost all of that and you could have spent all of that on someone else and yielded greater long term joy. Do you get it? And so it's on the one hand in theory, it's simple, but in practice, it's very complicated 0:33:13 - 0:33:43 . It's quite a puzzle and this is why it's a tremendous blessing to be poor. Why? Because the more resources you have and that could be money. But it could also be time or some talent. You have some amazing talent, you have. God holds us accountable for how well we do in achieving the greatest global 0:33:43 - 0:34:12 benefit with what we're given. He absolutely holds us accountable. And when you don't live up to that, you miss out on the joy of being party to helping someone else have greater eternal joy. And in in place of that happiness, you have guilt, regret, and misery. But he also takes away the gift that you 0:34:12 - 0:34:39 have been given. These are all plainly described in the scriptures, these principles. So um God acts in this way and let me make a case for that. In second ei 2624 we, we read He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world. In Moses 139 we read for behold, this is my work and my glory 0:34:39 - 0:35:10 to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. It does not say of all men, why? Because the process to yield the immortality and eternal life of a man necessarily precludes the eternal life of all men. Satan proposed a plan that was impossible, that would yield the eternal life of all men 0:35:09 - 0:35:34 . But you can't do that without making it impossible to have eternal life. I'm not sure if I'm being clear with this, you can either choose to make it possible, knowing full well doing so is going to doom a whole ton of people who choose against it or you can try to spread something out amongst all people 0:35:34 - 0:36:03 and guarantee that it's worthless. Whatever it is that they get is going to be worthless. You can't have it any other way. Do we have evidence that God treats the wicked and the righteous differently? We do. He prefers those who will have greater joy over the longest duration. That's where he allocates 0:36:03 - 0:36:35 his resources. Now, this bothers people because they believe that the omnipotence of God means that He can do anything. But what we're talking about here are um nonnegotiable constraints. The like, like I just was explaining with eternal life. He treats the wicked and the righteous differently. Here's 0:36:35 - 0:37:07 first Nephi 1735 behold the Lord esteem all flesh in one. He that is righteous is favored of God. One way to think about this is that we're all equal under the law of God or that He judges all people according to the same, um the same rules, the same system. Another way of putting this is we all have 0:37:07 - 0:37:37 equal access to consequences. And that's why those that are righteous are favored of God. And there, there in Alma 12, we read about how in 13, we read about how He treats differently. Those who have exercised greater heat and diligence to those who have not. And so we're meant to do the same. Now, you 0:37:37 - 0:38:01 might push back against this and say, well, all over the scriptures. It says God is no respecter persons. It does. But that doesn't mean what you think it means if you're using that as a counter argument to what I'm saying, we're all, we all have equal access to the consequences of the law, which means 0:38:00 - 0:38:28 that we will absolutely experience differences in the consequences we receive because we choose differently. But the law doesn't change and, and he's a just judge and so everyone gets what they deserve in the end. So if you want to maximize the outcomes, we, we have to do what God does and we have to 0:38:28 - 0:38:57 prioritize those who will receive the greatest and most enduring joy from what we do and how we do it. And that's absolutely going to lead to situations where, where there's a uh disparity of joy among people where basically some people might hate what we're doing, it might, it might make them miserable 0:38:57 - 0:39:22 and it doesn't matter. We have to do what leads to the greatest joy in righteousness that and that means to do what God would do in your place. Here's a really interesting example um in Isaiah 43 4, this is the Gileadi translation, the Lord says, because you are precious and revered in my eyes and because 0:39:22 - 0:39:49 I love you, I give men in return for you peoples in exchange for your life. So he's speaking to a person and he's saying, I value your life above the life of these other people. And it's because you are precious and revered in my eyes and because I love you now, doesn't he love all people? How can there 0:39:49 - 0:40:12 be a difference? Well, Jesus, in the New Testament, he equates love as in, in one place when he's talking about the rich, young, talking to the rich, young ruler. Um It's, it says that he looked at him, the, the man was asking what more should I do to receive eternal life? Like I keep all these commandments 0:40:11 - 0:40:31 , but I still don't have eternal life. What more do I have to do? And Jesus, it says, he looked upon him and he loved him. And then what does he do? As, as a result of that, he gives him instructions for improvement. He says, sell everything you have and give it to the poor. So when God loves us, he 0:40:30 - 0:40:55 , he gives us more and that often includes correction. And if we're willing to receive it, we will become more like Him because that's what improvement does. It makes you more like God makes you more righteous. And so he reveals more of himself to us and we choose to, to rise up to that. And what it 0:40:55 - 0:41:23 does is it makes us more precious and revered in his eyes. Moses said to the Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, and then he asks for a blessing on the people, which is exactly what this sorry, this was right, direct all you have to others is if you were giving it to him, he says, if I have found 0:41:22 - 0:41:52 favor in your sight, in other words, if I am precious and revered in your eyes, if, if you are inclined to bless me, I ask that you redirect that blessing to these people. And the more what you ask God aligns with God's desires, the easier it is to get miracles. It's a piece of cake when you're asking 0:41:52 - 0:42:13 for the right things and you're living your life in the right way. But Moses didn't say if you are, if you are righteous, Lord, please bless these people. Of course, he's righteous. There's no condition there that's changed. What's the extra part of that? That's any different than it otherwise would 0:42:13 - 0:42:41 be. There is none. But Moses says, if I have found favor in your sight, why would God favor Moses because of the similitude of Moses to God? And God says, I ha you have found favor in my sight. That's his reply. You have found favor in my sight. And then he says, I will grant what you've asked. So in 0:42:40 - 0:43:06 , in, in this case, uh this particular case that I'm thinking of what Moses was asking was instead of an angel leading them, leading Moses and Moses would lead the people to the promised land. Moses asks for the Lord himself to do it. So, um here's another interesting example. Uh So, so I'm sorry, let 0:43:06 - 0:43:27 me just stay on Isaiah 43 4 for a minute and let me present to you a horrible situation that you absolutely don't want to think about. Suppose that you're on vacation or something. And you're in some weird situation where there's a hazard and in a split second you're there with your kids. You can only 0:43:27 - 0:43:54 save one kid. There's nothing you can do to save all of them. And if you don't do anything, they'll all die. Which kid would you save? And why isn't that a terrible question? But you know, God faces this every day, all day long, billions of times over. And the more like Him, you become, the more you 0:43:54 - 0:44:18 have to make these decisions. If I had time, I could lead you through some stories from the life of David for instance. And this is, this is how you decide. And actually as terrible as that scenario sounds what you do every day is just as grave. It's just as serious because every day you're partitioning 0:44:18 - 0:44:43 your zero sum resources and you're meant to be doing it just as seriously as if you had that situation where you could only save one kid. Now, maybe the the right answer in whatever particular circumstance is, in fact, uh to spread your resources across multiple people in relatively equal ways. That 0:44:43 - 0:45:08 could totally be this the case. Um But there are many, many situations where that's not the best and you have to think about that. You know, when the lady broke open the Alabaster box and started putting a year's worth of money in the form of this ointment on Jesus. Jesus said that that was a better 0:45:08 - 0:45:30 use of it than giving it to the poor. We have to be able to grapple with these situations and understand how he sees things and learn to see them the same way. Here's another interesting example that's also related to, to taking life with Ammon and the Marauding Lamanites. When these, when these thugs 0:45:29 - 0:45:50 come by and scatter the sheep that Ammon and his fellow servants are in charge of watching. They um they all get quite upset, anticipating the punishment they're gonna receive. And Hammond gets all excited because he says he's gonna show the, the glory of the Lord, but he jumps up and he starts murdering 0:45:49 - 0:46:13 these people left and right. Um and cutting off arms and throwing slings and, and killing people, not slings but slinging rocks and killing people. And um in, in one case, uh it says that that one of these thugs tries to kill Ammon, I guess he was, was preoccupied and the guy snuck up on him or something 0:46:12 - 0:46:36 . But when he raised up the sword to, to drop it on Ammon, God struck him dead. And so Ammon's actions aside, why did God value the life of Ammon above that, that thug I'm telling you why it's because it was for the greatest global benefit. Ammon was about to save thousands and thousands of Lamanites 0:46:36 - 0:46:58 and, and change the course of history forever for two nations and his life was worth more than all those thugs. And if God needed to, he would have slaughtered all of them. And this is something that, that Christians are embarrassed about. They don't even want to think about it and let alone understand 0:46:57 - 0:47:20 it. They can't explain it. And this is my final example here with the Canaanites. Uh I know people, I know people who have positions on this that, that uh just don't make any sense. The fact is that, that those people had hundreds of years to sort it out. They were all warned, all those tribes were warned 0:47:19 - 0:47:46 by Abraham and his immediate descendants. And yet they continued on in their idolatry and their false traditions until the Israelites came back out of Egypt and, and they killed almost all of them as prescribed by God and each tribe. The situations, the, the instruction was a little different depending 0:47:45 - 0:48:09 on the, the specifics of the tribe. And, and God was very precise in what he said to do and not to do. But why? Because the Canaanites couldn't coexist with the Israelites at that time, their traditions, it just wouldn't work. The blessings extended to the Israelites couldn't be maintained under those 0:48:09 - 0:48:38 circumstances. So they had to go, right. Many of them had to go. And so um shifting away from, from stories of people being killed in the scriptures. Um and, and pivoting to pouring out what the world would more readily recognize as love. You have to pick and choose because you have limited resources 0:48:37 - 0:49:03 . But going back to the email, you don't choose that based on uh trying to protect yourself like, oh I'm going to love the people who are less likely to slap me in the face and that somehow is fulfilling, turning the other cheek. No, that, that sometimes the greatest joy, the greatest global benefit 0:49:02 - 0:49:28 requires the greatest suffering. So think of the knee fights. I'm sorry, the the, well, the people of Ammon who knelt down and let the other Lamanites slaughter them because that would yield the greatest global benefit. It's, it's not an issue of self preservation. It's an issue of what you're going 0:49:28 - 0:49:54 to get from the sacrifice. So I was thinking of an example, but I, I think that'll be too complicated. It won't really help. I hope this clears up a lot of the confusion about these topics. They're so important, but you really have to orient your whole life to the greatest global benefit and just going 0:49:54 - 0:50:22 back now full circle now to the marriage covenant. Why is this good? It's good because it provides opportunities for greater global benefit than other situations that compete with it would, what are those situations? Well, uh you know, blatant fornication, whatever just everybody running around like 0:50:22 - 0:50:45 rabbits that would prevent the benefit that comes out of the marriage covenant or uh people waiting until they're super old to get married that would prevent the, the greatest benefit that's available in this when it's done, right? You understand, it's not, this is, you could zoom out and look at every 0:50:45 - 0:51:12 single commandment. The point isn't the rule. The point isn't the thing. The point isn't the ritual. The point is how does it increase the greatest global benefit? And by global again, just to drive this to the point where it's super clear, it doesn't mean every, each and every person has more joy because 0:51:11 - 0:51:33 of it. It means that the sum total of the greatest joy will, will be I'm sorry, the sum total joy across all people will be greater. You know, Satan is not going to have greater joy as a result of creation and the people that follow him are not gonna have greater joy because of creation, but the greatest 0:51:33 - 0:51:56 , the the sum total of benefit exceeds that cost. And it's fair because everyone gets to choose for themselves. We're given what we desire. So that's pretty much all I've got to say about it for now. And I, I hope that I've addressed those issues in that email and that this helps