Episode #179 Temple Series PT-9: So You Have Been Through The Temple, Now What?

0:26 The you're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast. What's? Going on big guy. Hey Dave, good to be back. Dude, this is the last episode in the Temple series. I didn't set out for it to be like. I think it's going to be like 9 episodes long dude. I'm really looking forward to this one. Right. Yeah, I'm, I'm glad to be able to be here and I hope I can do justice to all the fantastic presentations and discussions that have come before so. Yeah, no, this should be good.

1:08 And like I said, this one, I, I'm really toying with the idea of saying, OK, so you're endowed now. What? Right. Because that's kind of where this goes, right? Is, is now what? We've been through all this, now what? Right. Yeah, exactly. So, and I guess I, maybe I should clarify, so, you know, I've been, I've been a long time temple goer, right, starting in the LDS Church from my mission 20s. And it's kind of was a weekly activity for me throughout my time and within the LDS church. And so, you know, I got a lot of familiarity, right with the ideas and the concepts and the temple leading up to that. More recently, I've actually been doing some other types of research into early Christianity and occultism of all things, which it sounds bad, right? Occultism that is like that initial gut reaction, like, oh, that's black magic, right?

2:01 The funny thing is though, when you actually look at it, most modern occultism actually dates back to Christianity and the rise of Christianity. Well, part of that's probably to the printing press as well. But many of these many of the cultic traditions are variations on Christian. At least it started out that way. A lot of the early occultists were devout Catholics and it kind of is AI mean. The way I look at it is the apostasy happened. Right. And there but it when the apostasy happened at the time, there were competing branches of apostasy and you know, the Orthodox Catholic, you know, faith kind of emerged victorious. The the fascinating thing is a lot of this, a lot of these ideas of occultism branch off of Christianity and the things that go back even further are, are connected as well. And so part of this is trying to apply some of the ideas and concepts.

3:04 And among that, one of the biggest ones is this idea of temple worship or dense work. So this is new. The temple is brand new to us in in our present day from our paradigm of, you know, America was founded as a Christian nation, Protestantism. The idea of temple worship is brand new. And it's something that was restored as part of the restoration. But the idea of temple worship is really old, right? And it actually goes back. So these ancient ritual traditions, you know, just these are a few examples if you've ever looked at Nibley, right, or the Egyptian, the Book of Breathings, things like that. And in the Hebrew, there's this Kabbalah tradition. And in the Christianity, Catholic and Orthodox things, you've got things like Saint John of the Cross, Order of the Templars, The Greeks had mystery schools. Many of the philosophers, the originators of of our modern understanding of science and math, come from these mystery. Schools.

4:14 And the Greek, the Hindus have yoga and yoga, you know, yoga is actually a lot more than just a, you know. An. Exercise, stretching, routine. You know, they, that's an aspect of it, but there's a whole ritualized faith around it, right? And then you've got South American in South America we've got, you know, the Aztec temples. And then even in presently there's ayahuasca cultures there. And in the Middle East before Islam, you had Zoroastrianism. And even within Islam you've got Sufism, which is they're all kind of Mystics, traditions. Are those the ones that spin around?

4:55 Might be, might be, I think. I don't know a whole lot about. That I haven't researched a whole lot. I just know that there's something fascinating, though, that all of these have in common. And it's, and it's really shocking because I, I feel like we've missed this modern, you know, or early American Christianity was, was really missing this aspect. And what all these things have in common is these are systems. They're designed to bring us into an encounter with God. Right. An actual encounter, not just like you know, you, you, you, you followed the rules. You lived a good life. You go to heaven.

5:35 No, these, the idea behind these things were to bring you into the presence of God. You know, and, and that's something I feel is super important to, to, to realize, right, is that when before Joseph Smith comes around, Christianity had for the most part, discounted encounters with the divine, right. You would hear about it from time to time, but by and large, it lost that. And I was always a guy who figured, OK, if there's a God out there and he really is, views us as our chill as his children right now, being a Mormon, I know that's absolutely the fact. But at that time I was like, if he views us like we're his children, why wouldn't he want to talk to us anymore, right? Why is just the letter AKA the scriptures? What?

6:22 Why is that right? Like at some point doesn't a dad want to talk to his kids? Right yeah and that that clearly that yearning to connect with God is ancient, right And you can see from this list, and this could be even bigger. I, I, I mostly included things I'm more familiar with towards the end. I was just throwing in stuff just to fill out the points on the PowerPoint. But but yeah, this there's a, there's an innate human yearning to connect with God, to have an actual relationship and to basically kind of overcome the effects of the fall to find that divinity within us as well. And So what I wanted to present today and I, it is a presentation.

7:04 It's a little awkward. I'm not, so I'm not so great at presentations, but it's the only way to really communicate some of these ideas. And I guess I apologize anybody listening. This is 1 where you really really might want to watch the video if you get a chance because I've got slides here and I'll I'll do my best to describe it, but you'll probably be missing some of it. Without the visuals. OK, so. You don't go to the temple so you can qualify to meet God in the next life. You go to the temple to learn how to experience God in this life. And I think this is a perspective that even in modern Mormonism, fundamentalism, all of that, it kind of gets lost.

7:45 Sure does. Because we we have this idea of, of how we're what we're supposed to do in our life. That. You know, our checklists of, you know, to receive eternal life, check, check, check, check. And the endowment just kind of becomes one of those things, right? Some reason it's required. And so you do it and there you go. You're set now, right? Right. And I think it's kind of this is the, it's an incorrect perspective, I think because the intent of the temple ultimately is to teach us how to experience God in our lives, in our lifetime. Right, well, and, and look, let's let's be clear, right? I, I do think that sometimes there is a necessity of faking it till you make it sort of a thing, right 'cause let's face it, we don't always feel like getting up and going to church, right?

8:34 There's sometimes where you're just like, I don't know man, this couch is awfully comfy and those bag of Doritos are calling my name. But yet you, you do it because you know it's good for you and that's good, right? That's exercising discipline. However, if you just go and perform the checklist as you put it, right, I think we becoming, we start to flirt with danger a little bit there if we stay there too long. Because I, you know, the God was very clear when he spoke to Joseph, right? They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power they're in, right? And it would be real easy to just go and do these things because darn it, that's just what we do. But it's a form of godliness.

9:23 But you're not digging deep to get what you need out of it, right? Right. And so it's a funny parallel right now, right? Because I know Taylor's been doing these gospel fundamental classes, which has been fantastic, right? And honestly, that's the stuff that really nourishes the soul too. Those are things that I, I just love going back to that again and again because that's the nourishment. Today I would like to say I want to get into the meat. More likely than not this is going to be the just the high calorie, low, no nutrition but it makes you feel good stuff. I'm down for it. I'm here for it, yeah. So let's have some cake. Let's have. Dessert Some dessert. All right, so one of the interesting things is almost all of these other systems have models, visual models that help us, that help guide the initiates and their path to God.

10:14 And I, I think that I've seen something very similar here happening in the temple. So I'm going to present a map here. And the idea is this map is our journey back to God. And it's interesting because we were talking about checklists, right? That's kind of what's spawned a lot of my interest in doing this as well, because a lot of times, you know, you go through the checklist, you kind of get to the end and you're like, now what? Because I don't maybe don't feel like I've arrived. So now what? Right. And I think the temple is actually specifically designed to give us an answer to that question. And the best way that I could understand this actually, it starts with going modeling this off of the ancient Israel Tabernacle or temple.

11:03 I don't know. We know more about the Tabernacle than the temples. And so we've got here a courtyard where we have the basin of water, right? And we have an altar where the animal sacrifices are performed. And then and there's a, there's a gate, right? There's an out there's outside of that you have, you know, the, the camp, but there's a, there's a wall around the, the Tabernacle, right? And so you pass in from the wall into the courtyard, and that's where you find the altar and the and the basin or the larva. I don't know how to pronounce it. Right.

11:43 And then the building itself, we have the sanctuary inside the Tabernacle. And inside the Tabernacle we've got three primary objects. We have this, the menorah, it's a A7 pointed candles, candle, oil lamp thing, right? I don't know. You must a Candlestick, but I believe it's actually oil. You have the shrew bread table, and then you have an altar of incense, and then there's a veil, and on the other side of the veil you have the Ark of the Covenant within the Holy of Holies. OK, Yep. So this is the this is the diagram that I want to start with and I'm going to map onto this the endowment ordinance. So we are going to start with the garden and I'm putting the garden outside of the outside of the the the courtyard area. That doesn't mean that the garden is the world, so to speak, that the garden is a pre fall condition. So from an analogy perspective, This Is Us before we enter into life.

12:56 This is the premortal realm, right? Then the courtyard maps to the telestial, X-ray to the terrestrial, and then the Holy of Holies, the celestial. So pretty simple, right? All right, so I want to start by just kind of going over how the different aspects of the endowment map, and I'm going to tie these to certain symbols, and we'll get into more of that as we go. But first we have the law of obedience, and that's given in the garden, right? Right. And then we also have the law of sacrifice, which is also given in the garden. Actually, I, I'm going to share some scriptures with some of these things.

13:46 So let's talk about the law of obedience real quick. Obviously, what, what I'm kind of presenting here is a, a map, right? And with a map, there's like here, here's where you're at now. But the point is, is to see the bigger picture. Right. See where you've been and where you've got yet to go. And so with an understanding of that, I'm placing the law of obedience in the garden because I believe this is a actually a pre mortal covenant before we entered into the the lone and jury world, we before we were born, before we enter our gauge of accountability. I believe that this law of obedience is kind of foundational and central to everything right?

14:30 And so in Abraham 3, we can read in verse 24, starting at verse 24. And there stood one among them that was liked unto God. And he said unto those who are with him, we will go down, for there is space there, and we'll take of these materials, and we will make an earth where on these may dwell. And we will prove them herewith to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them. And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon. And they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same Kingdom with those that keep their first estate. And they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever. So this law of obedience is something that we entered into when we accepted God's plan. So if we if we entered into that premortally, why would we need to take the covenant again in mortality? Well, it's AI would say it's a renewal of that covenant and many of these covenants, they have application in multi layers.

15:31 Maybe I should also clarify real quick before we get too far into this that these are these are mostly my ideas, right? This is not, this is not a gospel act and and it's my best understanding of it, right? And so if you've got better ideas, that's fine. There's no problem with that. I'm not, this is not, I'm not dogmatically stating anything here, but I just think that it's useful to see this as a model. And even if you disagree with the model, you'll probably see some really good, valuable stuff to take away from it. OK, so maybe not so much doctrine, but more more ideas.

16:11 Right. I guess the way I'm tying it all together isn't doctrine. OK, right. The individual aspects absolutely are though, right? Law of obedience. We know that we obeyed 'cause we're here. We kept our first estate. It's a good point, Yep. If if we didn't keep our first estate, we wouldn't be here, which means we chose God's plan. Right. And so we already exercised that first step in obedience right now. Another reason why I think it's, it's important to see why is that in the garden is because this has lasting effects. This accompanies, this encompasses everything after it. And so it's not, I mean, some of these things, it's like you get there and it's kind of like, all right, that's done, then you get there, that's done. This law of obedience, though, it pulls forward to this point where, you know, when does law of obedience begin? Well, it began before we came.

17:04 Right. Does that make sense? That makes perfect sense. And you're right there. There was a choice that we had to make, you know, before we came here, right? We did have to choose to be obedient to the plan or else we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't have the body, right? We would have fallen with the other third. So that's. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. Right. And I don't have a verse here to share on this, but the law of sacrifice, I think is very closely connected to the law of obedience, right? When you look at the the story of the creation after Adam and Eve are expelled, the first thing you see Adam doing is fulfilling the law of obedience by performing sacrifice as he was told.

18:01 And if you think about it, you know the the earth was cursed. Right. Adam's in the lone and dreary world and the the very first thing we know that he does is he builds an altar so he can obey. So I I kind of see obedience as the yin to the Yang of sacrifice because obedience requires sacrifice. Yes, there's no point in there's always another decision you can make, right? And often there might be some short term benefits to something like that. Certainly for Adam, it would have been, it would have made a lot more sense for him to have of to him to, to not be making these sacrifices because you know, you got to provide it for yourself.

18:47 You're in the slow and dreary world. The garden's not just providing everything you need anymore. Right. And so the sacrifice is kind of a fulfillment of obedience. Gotcha. And I also think this is another premortal covenant. If you think about it, one of the one of the requirements of coming down here was we had to relinquish our memories, right? We we sacrificed our memories in obedience to God's plan. And those were probably hard things to give up, if you really think about it. Oh, because. I mean, that knowledge and that comfort, that security that comes from the way that you've got these eternal parents that are all powerful and right, You're divine, You're one of their divine sons and daughters. And I mean, to have to let go of that, that knowledge to be tested, that's not an easy thing to do. It's a hard thing to do.

19:49 Yeah, No, I could. Who? Yeah, I I didn't even think about that. I mean, we put that in perspective, right? We were all acquainted with our father before we came here and our our other loved ones, right? And so part of the plan is you're going to forget all that, right? You're going to forget all about it. And I'm going to give you some tools to help you get back. But ultimately it's up to you to get back. And I shouldn't say just up to us, right? We do need the atonement, but you know, we're. The It's not our shelters navigate. Yeah, we have to navigate that. And so, yeah, no, that I never thought about that. But yeah, there would have had to have been a willingness to sacrifice in the pre mortal world to come here with kind of a, you know, a veil of forgetfulness, right. We forget who we are, we get forget where we came from and we have to navigate that.

20:48 Right. Yeah. And so I'm going to come back to these again, but I want to keep going for it. So we have context and I'm going to come back. So next in our in our journey through the endowment, we're going to encounter, you know, the garment. And this is the gate here. This is the gateway into the lone and jury world. And the here's where we have Moses chapter 4, and it says starting in verse 27 unto Adam and also unto his wife did I the Lord God make a coat of skins and clothed to them. And I the Lord God said unto mine only begotten. Behold, the man has become as one of us to know good and evil.

21:31 And now, lest he put forth his hand and partake also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, therefore I the Lord God will send him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So Adam and Eve are cast out, but they're they're given a garment on their way out. Technically the garments between the law of obedience and sacrifice, but it kind of makes more sense. The way that I understand it is this is the the garment. Is this this coat of skins? You know, you know, I have a coat of skins on right now. Even if you're born into the life with a coat of skins. Right. It's your own. Skin, right?

22:14 Absolutely. And no, it makes a lot of sense. And that's that transition here. So. Next in the lone and dreary world, right? And this terrestrial realm, we're we're given this law of the Gospel. And this really makes a lot of sense when you look at it with the symbolism of the items here in the courtyard, right? Right. You've got this basin where you're you're doing these ritualistic washings and you have an altar where you're making these ritualistic sacrifices. Gotcha. And so we've got the law of the gospel. What exactly is the gospel?

22:57 Well, this is 13527 and this is Christ himself kind of explaining what the gospel is, right? Starting in verse 13, he says, Behold, I have given to you, I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you, that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because the Father sent me, and my Father sent me, that I might be lifted up upon the cross. And after that I have been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me. That as I have been lifted up by men, Even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before Me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil. And for this cause have I been lifted up. Therefore, according to the power of the Father, I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works.

23:46 And it shall come to pass that whosoever repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled. And he that endureth to the end, behold unto him I will hold guiltless before the Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world. So if you think about Adam's cast out of the garden, the first thing again you see him doing there is he's at he's at an altar and he's he's making a sacrifice. He doesn't know why he's making that sacrifice right away, right? Right. It's not later until an Angel comes and reveals to him basically the gospel. Right. And he's taught what the Gospel is. And so the symbolism of the the altar where the sacrifice is made and the basin of water, we just read what is what is the law?

24:34 Well, the law is to do what Christ told us to do in the Gospel, which is repent and be baptized. Right. And then also be reliant upon his sacrifice for it, right? Exactly. Recognize. That's why the altar. Would be there OK? Nope, that tracks. Yeah. And so let's continue on our journey. Next, we're going to come to the Robes, right, Robes of the priesthood. And this is the entrance into the sanctuary on this map. This is what you do in preparation to enter in. And if you think about the endowment, it's also stated explicitly, I mean, there's an initial, well, there's, there's two ways that the ropes are presented, right.

25:17 Right. But specifically the second one, it's given with the express purpose that the the the second time it's given so that they can so that we can move into the terrestrial room, we can enter into the sanctuary. Right. So the robes are then symbolically prep symbolic of this door to the sanctuary, the steps to the sanctuary. Got you. So moving on, we now enter into the sanctuary and we the first law we're going to explore here is the law of chastity. Right. And I'm putting the law of chastity here with that menorah. Maybe I should go that way instead. No, this is good, this is good.

26:10 Let's keep going. So why am I sticking law of chastity with the menorah? I think there's some symbolism here that is really important, and this can be explored a lot more depth. But just for now, I want to share First Corinthians Chapter 11 starting in verse 11. And it says nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man and the Lord. For as the woman is in is of the man, Even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. So. The law of chastity, it's a, it's a certain you, if you look at it from a certain degree, it's a prohibit. It's a prohibitation, right?

26:52 It's don't adulterate yourself. Right. But another way of looking at it is the proscription of binding yourself, creating a family. Right. Because we, we ultimately, we don't come unto God on our own. And if you look at the Candlestick, we know that the man is appointed as as the head of the family, right? Right. And so you've, you've got that central, central light. Right. And then the. And then on the sides, we have the other flames, which I think can be symbolic not only of, of children and wife, but wives as well.

27:41 And so I, I see the law of chastity. It's they're being all brought together in one. You have these separate flames that are all united on a single on a single. Gotcha. Menorah. I see what you're Yeah, No, I see the symbolism there. OK. And you see how they're all bound together. Yep, Yep, that makes sense. We're going to go over those many times, so we're going to keep layering each time we go, so let's keep going for now. Next we got the Law of Consecration, and I'm sticking that up here at the table of the shrew bread. Gotcha. And maybe for now, well now let's go into this.

28:21 Actually, let's actually step back. Even I want to go back to the robes in Revelation Chapter 7, starting in verse 13, we read this is John's vision, right? So John's, John the Beloved is having this vision. And in it he sees a bunch of elders. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, what are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. Or I guess that's a way of saying I don't know, but you do. Please stop it. And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have been, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

29:06 Therefore are they before the throne of God, to serve him day and night in his temple. And he said it on the throne, and shall dwell among them. So with this, the throne of God, the Ark of the Covenant, is the throne of God over there in the Holy of Holies. Right. Right. But there are these that are wearing these robes and they're white robes, and it says that these robes have been washed and made white through the blood of the Lamb. Interesting. So so. Let me ask you this question. In that scripture, it said they are they who who have endured great tribulation. What do you think it's talking about there specifically? Oh, well, we'll definitely get to be getting into that. OK.

29:54 All right. Next. Layer, move, move along. I'm just moving ahead. Yeah, yeah. So, so I'm putting a lot of consecration up there at the table of shrew bread. And I think it is involved in this concept of, well, the robes I believe are connected to this law of to this law of consecration and the true bread table. And this is This is why I'm mapping that there specifically again, this time what we're going to Jacob chapter 1 and starting in verse 7, it says wherefore we labor diligently among our people. Actually, let me clarify. Let me talk about this. Table of shrew bread real. Quick, this table of shrew bread has 12 loaves of bread on it, one for one for each of the House of Israel.

30:42 And there's this table is refreshed every week. And when it's refreshed, the priests will basically they would, they would go in and they would eat the eat the bread and they would take that bread with wine and they would, and then they would replace the replace the bread with fresh bread. Gotcha. OK. So with that in mind, right wherefore we labor diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come into Christ and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his, into his rest, which entering into his rest would be entering into the holy folies, right?

31:22 Right. Lest by any means he should swear in his wrath, that they should not enter, as in the provocation in the days of temptation, while the children of Israel were in the wilderness. Wherefore we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross, and bear the shame of the world. Wherefore I, Jacob, take it upon me to fulfill the commandment of my brother Nephi. And then specifically down at 19, it says, And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads, if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence. Wherefore by laboring with our might, their blood might not come upon our garments, otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day.

32:22 So we have this perspective here of, of, of laboring in the priesthood, right? Right. And we have the true bread table, which looks an awful lot like a sacrament table where a priest would would exercise priesthood to bless or to in sacramenting opportunity to teach the people. And what does the law of consecration have to do with that? Well, I believe it's because the law of consecration involves the consecration of our time and our talents as well. It's not just a, it's not just a material commandment. It's asking a lot more of us than that.

33:03 Right, you know, and and sometimes I think we look at sacrifice as kind of an event, right? This is something I'm going to sacrifice to the Lord consecrations a little different, right, in that you're not saying you're willing to die for the Lord, which I look, I think we all should be to some extent, right? We should be willing to lay down the utmost for God, but with the law of consecration, it's something different. And, and I think it has a lot to do with saying you're going to live for God, right? And some of those scriptures you just read talked about, you know, these are going to be the things that you have to do. And, and for those who have the priesthood within the restoration, the idea is, is that you are now consecrated or you should be consecrated, right? That you'll drop anything at the drop of a hat to go help a brother.

34:00 And look, without getting too specific, you're a perfect example of that. And I know you've helped me out in tremendous ways as of late and, and I can't thank you enough. But that's the sort of thing that we need to be willing to do, right, is to live that that kind of consecrated life so that, you know, when it comes time to serve, you go serve, right. That's that's what I think it's driving at. Right, Well, I've got a long ways to go still, but I do. I do love what Jacob says about wasting and wearing out our lives right. Yep.

34:40 That they're giving everything 100% all in. Right. And that is a priestly office. And so I see the lost consecration maps to me maps to that shoe bread table, makes a lot of sense there. And so we then have the incense altar. So the incense altar is kind of interesting. So this is a, it's an altar, just like the altar outside. However, instead of animal sacrifice being performed on it, this is an altar where incense is burned and the smoke rises up into heaven. And I, I, I don't know for sure about ancient Hebrew traditions, but I know certainly in a Native American traditions, smoke is symbolic of prayer.

35:37 It's something that's ethereal. You can't see it, you can't touch it. Just like a prayer, right? You say your prayer and this, this something, this part of you is reaching up into the heavens, reaching up to God. And it's something you can't see, but you can feel it. Maybe you can kind of see it, but it's more of a spiritual sacrifice being made. And that spiritual sacrifice is, is going up to God. And so, and this also, the altar of incense is placed right next to the veil. And So what I see here is the lecture at the veil in the prayer circle. OK, that makes sense. And if you think about what happens in a prayer circle, right, it involves prayer and involves an altar.

36:22 Yep. And I, I threw the lecture in there as well, just because we'll, we'll get more to that in just a minute. And then finally there's the veil. And this is really easy to understand why the veil would be symbolically beat the veil, right? Yep. I don't know if I don't know if any more need be said about that one. Nope. So with that, this is how I see our modern LDS endowment and temple worship maps onto the into the ancient Israeli Israelite Temple Tabernacle. And now with that I want to show how this is a map. OK.

37:08 So we're going to go back to the beginning again, to the law of obedience and sacrifice. Oh, now that we're here too, I want to show you something else that's fascinating here with the law of sacrifice. There are three altars in this diagram. Right. The, there's the altar in the courtyard where the animal sacrifices are made. There is the altar of incense. And then the, the Ark of the covenant is also an altar. And on the Day of Atonement, the priest would take blood from the altar where the sacrifices are made and they would bring them in and mark the, the altar of incense and the, and the ark of the covenant with that blood. Interesting.

37:53 And the law of sacrifice, again, it's outside, it's in the garden. This is a, we kind of come in with this. It's, it's, it's kind of outside of the world in a way, because I believe that there's, there's layers to it. So the first layer is very simple. It's right there in the courtyard, There's an altar right there. This is where you are performing. You know, in our modern day, we, we don't do animal sacrifices, but we redo our covenants through the sacrament. Right. Right. And we're doing this work on that altar. Yep. But who are we doing that work for? That would be for, for ourselves, right? We're, we're laying stuff on there from, from ourselves, right?

38:39 When we go to partake of the sacrament, we're, we're trying to clean out the junk, right? All all the crap that we got to get rid of so that we can progress. Right, Exactly right. So this is an altar that's focused on us and our salvation. When you look at the altar of incense, this is an altar where the scope has now gotten bigger. And if you think about when when a prayer circle is performed, one of one of the core aspects, one of the core traditions we have with with that is we put names on that altar. We're not working at this altar to exalt ourselves.

39:20 We're working at this altar to exalt others, and so the scope just got bigger. It's still the law of sacrifice, but it's a bigger scope we've added. Right. And then finally we have the we have the ark of the covenant and the work, the work that's done there is the the work of eternal lives. So this law of sacrifice, I believe, is central to all of this because this is where God sacrifices his Son, Jesus Christ. This perfect sacrifice is made so that we can all become partakers, so that his entire family can be redeemed. And we're not there yet.

40:12 But as we follow this plan in this map, the end goal is that we want to become exalted beings ourselves. And to have an eternal posterity, and within that the law of sacrifice still applies though. OK. But now, rather than sacrificing for yourself, rather than sacrificing for your brothers and sisters, now you're sacrificing for an eternal posterity. Right. So the scope just got infinite. It starts with you, gets a little bit bigger, and then stretches off into the eternities. Makes perfect sense. So with that, here's how I see our our journey through this diagram. We're going to start in the garden and we kept our first estate.

41:01 And so this one we can check off to a degree, to a degree because we did keep our first estate. But I think there's still yet work to be done because we are now in our second estate and what principles governing govern keeping our second estate? Well, I think it's the exact same ones as keeping our first estate, obedience and sacrifice. Right. Well, and it would make sense on why, why those would be here again, Right. We talked about that, that we did some of this before we came here. But it's one thing to do it when you know you're in the presence of God. It's another thing to do it when you're kind of left on your own, right and you have to make a choice. Yeah, exactly.

41:48 Yep. So we've got keeping our first estate and then we're born. Right. And we receive a body, and we enter into this fallen world. Gotcha. And within this fallen world, the first thing we need to do is we need to be baptized, right? That's that's really entering in the way. And so you could almost really put that right at that entrance way too, because that's this is how we really begin. We come out of the world and into the courtyard and we start with we start with baptism and sacrament and we renew with sacrament. So, you know, again, so keep being first date, probably check birth, check baptism and sacrament. You know, I can say check there.

42:41 I've been baptized. I've I've and I and I renewed that covenant through sacrament. Next, we've got priesthood ordination, of which we are looking at 2 separate ordinations. We're looking at an ironic ordination and a Melchizedek ordination, right? And I believe that's right there on this journey. The next stop. Now this, the order switched around a little bit. It gets a little bit confusing in the sanctuary with the three things in there. Sure, but. It's priesthood service. We basically, we, we exercise our priesthood in, in service to help others. Now, for any women listening, you're like, well, wait, I don't, I didn't stop there, right? This isn't, this wasn't part of my journey. Well, it, it's not and it is.

43:34 We'll get more into that again later, but there's a very specific difference between men and women as they go through the temple in the initiatory. There's some differences. And at the very beginning, we are introduced with a with a opportunity. Right. So I'm going to talk about the opportunity just a minute. But basically, as men, we have an an extra obligation in our journey to become clean from the bloods and sins of this generation, right? And we just looked at Jacob and what did Jacob show us? He showed us that the way we do that is through service in the priesthood.

44:19 Right. And actually, that whole thing is fascinating because if you look, what if you look right before Jacob, you have Nephi. And Nephi is basically teaching law of the gospel. Yeah. And then we come on to Jacob and he's teaching about this priesthood service. And then what is he going on to talk about? He talks about law of chastity, law of consecration in a sense. Right. Well, I think it's important to note here too, that that the Savior makes a very clear connection to this, right? When he says in the New Testament, those who lose their lives shall find it again, right? And I think what he's talking about is just this, get lost in the work, right? Just pour your whole self into it. And I think the promise is, is not only is he going to meet us at that point, but he's also going to, because we know begin to know God better.

45:14 We know who we are more right. We can be honest with ourselves. We can the ego's a funny thing, right? It's placed there so we all don't just wind up under the desk because we just suck, right? The ego helps guard against that. So if, if we some, sometimes I think if we saw what, what Nephi saw, you know, when he says, gosh, and they're lower than the dust of the earth and those sorts of things, we'd never get anything done. We'd be like, what's the point, right? However, as we go grow closer to God, that light illuminates who we really are, right? So we can look and say, yeah, we got some stuff we got to work out, but that doesn't mean you're worthless, right?

45:55 That's that's the hope that that Christ offers us. There is not only just the atonement, which is massive, but also an idea of as you, as you come to know God in Christ more, you're going to come to know yourself more intimately as well. And that's going to give you, that's going to give you a place, so to speak, in time, in time and space from a theological point of view. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so it just makes sense. Preset service, you've got the table of shrewbred right there and associated law of consecration. It's a part of this journey, at least for men specifically.

46:38 So next we're going to come over here to the endowment, which I'm placing here at the, at the altar of incense next to the next to the veil. The reason I'm placing the endowment here is because if you look back at the lecture through the veil, everything, the, the whole map is laid out again. Even though you've just, even though you're part way through this process at this point in the endowment, you're going to go over everything again because you're receiving the instructions you're being told. Here is your map. Here's your map to navigate this. This is what this journey looks like. And you might think, well, it seems a little late in the journey to be getting the map, but we've got a long ways to go.

47:21 We've got a long way. So we're just getting started. So we receive our endowment and then after we've been endowed, now we can be sealed in the temple to a spouse, spouses. And so marriage ceiling, a place right there at the menorah underneath the loft chastity. And so for most of us, this is kind of the, this is the path, right? We're bored. We get baptized, you see the priesthood, if that's appropriate. You get endowed, you get sealed. And you know, once you've checked all this stuff off, you can be like, hey, I made it. I'm done. But are you? I'm done, I'm done. I'm there.

48:03 I've arrived. But have you? So this is one of the first kind of mysteries I'm going to going to bring up here a little bit and I'm not going to talk about it too much, but there is, well, actually before I get there, even even before I get there, see, this is where the disappointment maybe sets in because you've gone through all of this and you might be looking at yourself and saying, you know, sure, I've learned a lot, I've grown a lot, but I have so far from perfection. Right. Where, where do I, how do I, when do I become healed from all of all of these things that are, that are not right with me?

48:48 When do I enter into the presence of God? And that's why we're given this map, I think. I think This is why the endowment is presented the way that it is, because we're going to explore this in just a minute from a Cabalic perspective or a from a cult perspective and a gold, a cult. Technically a cult just means something that's hidden, something that's a secret. And you know, things are kept secret for the purpose of keeping them sacred and holy at an appropriate time and place.

49:29 And so to a certain degree, it's, you could actually look at the whole temple ordinance and endowment process as a cult. In fact, outside outsiders from our religion would definitely see it that way because that's where you go to be taught the mysteries, whereas it's not just printed publicly and it's not just shared with everybody. You, you got to, you got to kind of qualify to get there, right? Right. And if you look at this whole process, there are qualifications. First of all, we had to keep our first estate so we can enter into this telestral world. While you're there, you have to be baptized and, and for the men you need to receive the priesthood so you can then eventually continue on and then you can go in and you know, priesthood service that could be colleagues as well.

50:15 Right, right. You hold colleagues in the priesthood, you receive your endowment, you get sealed to your spouse, and those things aren't available to you in the T last year. They're not available in the courtyard. Right. You need to be baptized and men need to have the priesthood first. So you can see that there are these gates, these walls, right? Right. Well, the veil is also one of these barriers, the third barrier here. And just like the previous ones, the Veil requires an understanding and a certain amount of mastery. Gotcha. Of what's in front of the veil in this area. And so there is one last ordinance specifically here that we haven't talked about, which is the second anointing.

51:00 Yeah. And I'm placing the second anointing here in the Holy of Holies, underneath the veil. And this is, as far as I'm aware, at least at least as far as I've been aware, the absolute final, absolute final ordinance in this in this journey. Right. But even there, it doesn't necessarily mean you've you've arrived receiving your second one is still it's an outward ordinance. Right. And so it doesn't mean you've arrived, but I want to talk a little bit about how you get there because the veil is, is what we have right there in front of it.

51:41 And if you look at this as I've kind of put forth, in order to receive your second anointing, what is required? Well, you have to have. You have to have a marriage of some sort. Right. The ordinance is the This is an ordinance that is absolute, that is dependent upon a man and a woman. Right. And you also kind of have to have to have the priesthood and have served in the priesthood to a certain degree as well. So the second anointing is given by Revelation, right? Right.

52:23 However, it's given by revelation, by your priesthood, and you would be recognized to receive that by your priesthood because you've been laboring in, in that priesthood, you've been serving in that priesthood and having done service in it, you, you, you know, you can be recognized that, that, oh, you know, whoever that is in, in the LDS Church, I'm not sure who it is who makes those decisions, if it's the quorum of the 12 or certain 70s. But either way, whether in your LDS church or in a fundamentalist group, priesthood service is a requirement as well, because you won't be nominated to receive it without having made yourself manifest.

53:06 Right. And then finally in the endowment, I believe has another layer here and I believe that it is work for the dead, doing endowment, using the temple and doing, performing baptism and, and, and endowments, basically these other things for the, for your, for your ancestors and bringing them into the, into the covenants of God. And when you are performing these three things, when these three things have been met, then you can receive the second anointing. Can can I jump in here for just a second? Talking about vicarious work here. Yeah. There there is, I have heard where people have been like, you know, gosh, I, I don't see, I, I don't feel a calling to do that work right. And So what does that mean?

53:57 That means you're going to go to the temple once and you're going to think that you checked the box. As as with all things in God's Kingdom, very rarely do you find something that just serves one purpose, right? Right. When, when we, we do an act of service here for somebody else, not only is the person who receives that act of service grateful, but a lot of times, or at least in my case, I feel good when I'm of service to somebody else, right. So we can see how it works on both, on both parties there. Now, vicarious work for the dead is going to do the same thing for you.

54:43 If you go to the temple once, look good for you. You took that step. That was huge. But if you don't go back, how else are you going to dive in to some of these things we're talking about, right? I, I firmly believe that the restored gospel is kind of like spiritual exposure therapy, right? You have to be exposed to it. You have to sit in it. You have to, to dive in and, and spend the time in that place. And so when you go to the temple for somebody else, not only are you doing their work, right, and not only are you providing a service to that person who can't progress any farther without that, you are enriched as well, right?

55:29 You can then go to the celestial room and sit and gain your own personal revelation. You can then understand those covenants that you made when you first went through. And look, this whole series has been, has been from a place of hoping to help people get prepared to go. And so when they go, you know it, it's not as overwhelming. But make no mistake, your first time through, it's going to be like drinking from a fire hose, right? And that's a good thing, right? That's a good thing, because as you take your names of your family members back and you start doing vicarious work for the dead, you will become better acquainted with with the covenant you made, and that's going to tell you what you need to do in your life now.

56:18 Likewise, not only does that does that happen, but also you are going to get so much revelation there. And the temple liturgy itself is almost like scripture. It's going to mean certain things to you, different things to you at different points in your life depending on where you are in that walk. And so this idea of just going through once, don't shortchange yourself, spend the time, think of it if you have to, is going to the gym. Sometimes you don't feel like going, but once you get there and you get it done and you walk out, you're really glad you did. And this, it's super important that people go back and they do vicarious work for the head anyway, that that's all I had there. All right well, no, I think you're absolutely correct there. And one of the really cool things is this is just a model that I'm presenting here, right?

57:10 It's one of many models. The temple is a, a multi dimensional building and you can take this symbolism and these laws, these these ordinances and have an entirely different perspective on them from a different dimension. And they can all be true at the same time too, right? And so like you're saying, it kind of evolves and, you know, just to speak on doing work for the dead. So here's the thing. None of us would be here if not for our parents. Right. And they wouldn't be here if not for their parents. Yep. And they wouldn't be there if not for their parents. I think that this work of salvation and exaltation is a generational family effort.

57:58 And you know, there's a, there's a trend of people and I, I think there's a certain amount of truth to this, of trying to heal trauma in their genealogy. Right. You know, if, if your dad's an alcoholic, then you know that trauma might get passed down to you and it might create struggles and difficulties and, and well, why was your, but why was your dad an alcoholic? What did he get from his dad? What did he get from his dad? We have these, these, these negative experiences that kind of we inherit through our family land, right? And I believe part of the what we're doing is, is we are through redeeming our dead.

58:42 We're, we're healing our, we're healing our past as well. It, it heals us because when we're doing that work, if you, if your great grandfather had some problem and, and, and it passed on to and passed on and passed on generationally, if he receives his baptism and his endowment, he, he has to be healed. Yeah. And that power of him being healed, I think has a has a ripple effect down to yourself. So you're empowering yourself as well? Yep. And the other thing is you also are literally empowering yourself because whereas our ancestors, we might have a whole bunch of ancestors right now sitting in spirit prison.

59:24 Yep. And all they're doing is twirling their thumbs, waiting. Yep. You know what they could be doing helping us. Right. Oh man, I wish. I won't name the gentleman's name because I'm not sure he'd be comfortable with me doing it. But a guy who who worked on the temple a lot and had a lot of experiences talks about this very thing, right? That as we do this temple work, we get more help from the other side, right, To, to do the things that we need to do 'cause they have a vested interest in it, right? They are not simply spectators watching, right? And just like you said, there's there is generational trauma. But look, an infinite and eternal atonement. Those two words, infinite and eternal, tells me that the Atonement works the same way on the other side as it does here, right?

1:00:24 Yeah. And So what we're doing is we are allowing others to make the same covenants and approach the Lord in a more meaningful way, right? And with that, I also think it's important that not only is there generational trauma, though, there's also generational blessings. And I think every generation, regardless of whether they have the gospel or not, they try to make the world a better place for their children. Whatever baggage they've got their, their desires and hopes is that their children will have just a little bit less. And sometimes those things can swing other directions, right where you get, you know, rebellion and, and children that become the exact opposite and things like that.

1:01:08 But even even those efforts, it just shows that generationally we have a lot to be grateful for for our ancestors as well. Absolutely. They might have passed down some negative things, but they've passed down a lot more positive things than that. The very most important is life itself. Right. Whatever failings our ancestors had, they at least made the sacrifice of having a family, or at least trying to have a family. They they tried to to bring forth life. They chose to bring forth life and try to provide better for it than they had. Absolutely. And so, yeah, so with that, we, we, we've got this kind of path laid out.

1:01:53 We can go from our birth to all the way second anointing. But we arrived. So this is something that I've always was curious about because I know before I received my endowment, I kind of had this idea that you're going to go to the temple, you're going to receive your endowment, you're going to go into the celestial room, and Jesus is going to be there to greet you, right? Right, right. I mean, symbolically we, we pass through the veil in the, in the endowment and we enter into that and we do enter into that space.

1:02:33 But this is just, it's, it's done symbolically, right? We still have work to do. So there's no necessarily disappointment. You don't need to be disappointed because you've you, you think you've arrived and you're not there. You can be grateful that there's there's more to it. And to really dig into this, I want to actually first share some perspectives. We're going to go, we're going to get a little crazy here with some occultism, so I'm just going to share a couple examples because these they're kind of important. Now this is Kabbalah here, right? Yeah, this is Kabbalah. So on the left, here we have the Tree of Life. Hold on, is it Kabbalah?

1:03:16 Before we dive in there, there could be some people who aren't familiar with what Kabbalah is. Can you can you kind of give an an explanation of what that is exactly? Yeah. So Kabbalah is basically it's a Hebrew occultism or Hebrew mysticism. It's. Founded on on, on this heat on the Hebrew religion, faith documents things like that. However it goes, it's it's trying to get somewhere further. And I mean I've got I'll just give you my opinion on on what the Kabbalah is. My opinion is Kabbalah is a decent attempt at overcoming what was lost at Mount Sinai for for an Israeli person who or a modern day Jew, right because the fullness of those buses, right?

1:04:18 Like if you look at that that temple diagram, basically God took away everything but the courtyard. Right. They took away everything but the courtyard. And we know he did. He says he does. I mean you, you, you can read the Torah. It says he, he took it away. He removed it, right. So I what the way I understand Kabbalah is an attempt at those of the, of the Hebrew faith to figure out how to get back there because they understand the end goal. They understand the end goal is we want to reunite with God. We want to have that experience with God. We want to be able to become like God and they get that and it but but they don't have all the tools. And so this is that that's that's my take on cabalicism. And so here on the left we have a diagram. And this diagram is called the tree of life. Interesting.

1:05:21 Yeah. Directly directly connected to the the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, right? Right. And it's a diagram where we have these 10 principles, these 10 concepts, and these these represent a lot of things. Just like the temple. There's a lot of symbolism here and it's really deep. I don't want to go too far into it, but basically this is the body of God as well. And it's also the body of a man and a woman coming together. Interesting. So, and again, if you don't, if you can't see this, I'm sorry. But go watch the video. Go watch a video.

1:06:02 You can watch the video on Yeah, you can watch the video on Spotify. You can watch the video on Rumble. It's there for you. But each of these circles, they are called sephirot, and these represent aspects of the divine basically. And the center is called the the pillar of balance on the right, we've got three of them on the right, those aren't in the pillar of expansion. And on the left there's another pillar. And there's three other Sephirot. And those are in the in the pillar of contraction. And there are two ways you can look at this diagram. One of them there, it's all it's a tree of life and it is God and it is a man and a woman all at once. OK, so the way you see it as a tree, it kind of looks like a tree, right?

1:06:55 That one's pretty simple. The way you see it as God is at the top you have catcher or crown, and that's God's head. And down at the bottom you have Mal Mal hood. And that is God's feet. And it is a drawing of of God and it's a drawing. This is important too. It's a drawing of God that faces away from us. And so just like if you see on the right pillar, that's our right, well, that would be God's right as well because we are looking into this with this idea of we're trying to attain divinity ourselves. Or we're trying to follow him.

1:07:40 Or we're. Trying to follow him, Yeah, Yeah. And so you can also have a body kind of painted over that right with the, again, with the feet at Malkut and, and their head at Ketter. And then you also have a man and a woman. The right pillar is the masculine pillar and it's facing inwards. And the left pillar is the feminine and it's facing inwards. They're facing together. And so that's another way of looking at it, which is also fascinating because it it reveals the truth that God is man and woman. Right. Right. This is a this is a a very beautiful diagram, a way of looking at and understanding how we have God, but God that is both our father and our mother. Yep.

1:08:31 Which they are, right? I mean, they, they, they are they, they are separate, right? They are two distinct male and female entities, if, if you will. But they've come together, right? And they're they are now 1, so to speak. Exactly. And so the masculine is on the pillar of expansion because masculine, the masculine energy is to go outward, external on the left, the contracting pillar. We have the feminine because it's it's the space within looking inward. And now if I'll let me go through these real quick, but there's, there's lots of I don't want to spend too long on this. There's lots of really cool stuff here.

1:09:12 But for our purposes, you'll notice at the bottom you've got Malkud or Kingdom. Next above that we have hesed or foundation. These are the English translations on the right. And then we had that, and this is where it splits. And to the left and right equally, we have victory and splendor. And if you look at it, almost kind of creates a wall. And then we have the center. Again we have beauty and then it splits again and on the right we have mercy and on the left we have judgement. Now this is really interesting.

1:09:52 I have understanding here next, but it's it's yellow. Why this is the hidden Sephirot. There are 10 Sephirot, and then there's a hidden 11th 1, and it's called dot. And it's in the middle between that square formed by the Dana Chakma Groove and Hesed. And the Cabalists don't always list that in their diagrams, but in their higher teachings they say there's something here, there's something here, and they named it dot. It means understanding, but it's hidden. And then we have yet another wall with the wisdom and intelligence where wisdom on the right, we've got intelligence, on the left, it's a wall.

1:10:40 And then at the top we've got Crown. So what's interesting here is if you look at this diagram, if you were if we were to rotate this 90�� counterclockwise, you can see we've kind of got a very similar diagram again, we've got Kingdom and foundation in the in the pre mortal. Then we have that first wall with victory splendor where we enter into life. We have beauty at the, at the law in the, in the, in the lone and dreary world or at the at the altar where where Christ where the sacrifice is made. Right. And then we have another wall of judgment and mercy, and that's the stairs into the sanctuary.

1:11:25 And then we've got the sanctuary, and what happens in the sanctuary in this mysterious dot. And then we have the veil with wisdom and intelligence, and then crown would be the the Ark of the covenant, the Holy of Holies. So we can see that very, very similar process. And the Kabbalah idea is that you start at the bottom in Malkah and you're going to work your way up this tree. And when you achieve the top, that's when you experience God. At the Crown and. So that's the crown? Yeah, That's, that's and so, and, you know, in this diagram, there's even a, a, a sun behind it representing, you know, divinity.

1:12:10 And so from a Kabbalic perspective, how do you get to God? Well, you climb the tree of life. Right. That's how you get there and there's some esotericism and some interesting stuff there. But basically it's, again, you can see that this is a, a, a similitude. It's a, it's a similitude, similitude. There we go. It's a similitude of the, of the, of the temple with very similar ideas going on here. And what I find really fascinating is the mysterious dot, because that would be inside the sanctuary where we've got the, the, the, the Candlestick, the shrewpread table, the altar of incense, right?

1:12:55 Right. And if you think about where these cabalas are coming from, they understand the law. They were given the law all the way up to the, you know, their altar sacrifices. They, they were taught those things, even the law of the gospel to a degree, right? If you read the Old Testament properly, you understand that these sacrifices aren't redeeming you, that that they're they're symbolic of the sacrifice that will redeem us. Right. And so they have an understanding of the law of the gospel, they have an understanding of this existed pre mortal existence and they have an understanding of where we're trying to get to the crown. But what they what are they missing? Well, the the fullness of the gospel. Right.

1:13:41 And that's symbolic, symbolized as that is the sanctuary of the temple. So it, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that in this Cabalist diagram you have the invisible hidden 11th Sephirot. That's kind of a mystery because the fullness of the gospel was taken away from them and they're trying to re rebuild this based off of, of, you know, oral traditions and teachings and their own spiritual yearning. But you really can't fill out that understanding. Without. You can't have that understanding without the fullness being restored.

1:14:21 No, that makes perfect. Yeah. So there's a lot there to digest. There is, there is. And I could probably talk about, I mean, we'd probably do a whole episode on just something like this, but I I wanted to show because for one thing, you have a diagram here on the left and you superimpose God on to it. Right, right. As an understanding of how to get back to him, and this is a very, very common idea that we're going to see come across. So this next one here comes from the Hindu traditions. And this is the these are the seven chakra. So these are energy wheels according to Hinduism within the body.

1:15:06 And they they, they go starting at the bottom of the spine and they trace all the way to the to the top of your head. So your spine brain basically. And again, we have these ideas being presented at certain positions and places. So I, for people who can't see, I'll just starting at the bottom, we have the root chakra moving up, we have the sacral chakra, then a solar plexus, then we move up to heart, then we move up to throat, then we move up to third eye, and then we move up to crown. And there is a lot here. I mean, I, I know it's, it's, it's Hindu.

1:15:47 It can't be true, right? There's some amazing, amazing depth. You can go into this and you can see these, this, this pattern and, and scripture and in Christ's teachings and just all kinds of stuff. But for our purposes today, I, I'm just going to explain these to you real quick. So the root chakra is at the very bottom and it has this meaning of security. This is your, your survival and, and security experience in life. So if you don't, if you feel really unsecure and ungrounded and, and terrified of everything in life, how are we going to get by? You know, you'd say that's a root chakra imbalance. But it's also interesting if you think about it, if you look, if going back to the template diagram here at Root, we've got basically coming into life.

1:16:36 We're passing through this is birth. We're we're entering into mortality and we've made a sacrifice of that security that we used to have when we were in the presence of God. And so we have Root or basically our initial coming into existence, temporal existence. Above that we have the sacral chakra. And the sacral chakra is all about our desires and the things that we, the things that, the things that we want. And again, it's kind of interesting because what are we asked to do with our desires? We're we're asked to sacrifice.

1:17:16 We're asked to give our heart as an offering to God, a broken heart and a contrite spirit, which means we, we put aside our own natural carnal desires, right. And so in route I can see the law of obedience, and sacral I can see the law of sacrifice. OK. We then move up to the solar plexus. The solar plexus is has to do with our agency and our will, our decisions, our choices, the things that we do and the things that we do that are right, the things that we do that are. Wrong and. So I see this can map to the to the law of the gospel because it's all about law of the gospel is ultimately law of the gospel is be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect. But it's a process to get there.

1:18:11 And it's a process of exercising our agency, making mistakes and try repenting and trying again. And we're trying to master that aspect of us that does things the doing part. And so the law of the gospel. You can see maps here to the solar plexus that we move up to the heart. The heart I believe maps to the law of chastity. The heart is about relationships, while sacral is about like desires. Right. The hearts kind of also desire, but it's not desire in a, in a, in a carnal sense. It's it's like desires in an empathetic sense, the desire to be connected to people, to understand people, to feel close to somebody, to be understood and those relationships right. Right.

1:19:03 And I think that maps really good to the law of chastity because there is a certain curtailing of desire yet again. But what's the law of chastity really about? I believe it's really more about our relationships. Interesting. And so moving up next, we have the throat chakra. Now the throat chakra includes your ears as well as your as well as your like your mouth and it's speaking and hearing, it's being able to communicate and it's being able to to be heard and, and and also to understand other people, right. Here. And this just makes a lot of sense to map to the law of consecration the way that I've tied it into priesthood service.

1:19:52 Gotcha. Because one of the primary things we're doing in priesthood service is we are preaching the word of God. We're teaching people, we are acting as priests and we are ministering to people. And in order to do that, we need to hear what they have to say, what people are struggling with, what their challenges are in line. And then we need to be able to speak the word of God to them so that they can find answers and healing in the in the truth of the gospel. So the throat we're proclaiming the gospel. Got you obligation. I found where you're going, Yep. Right. And now we come up to the third eye, which I would map to that altar of incense, because the third eye is vision, sacred vision.

1:20:35 We're seeing things as they really are. And it the at the altar of incense or the lecture and the lecture at the veil together. I mean, so you could say maybe the maybe the altar's also still throat because, you know, we're praying. Sure, sure. But certainly the third eye in the lecture is the whole point of lecture in the veil is to teach us. How to expand our? Vision how to expand our vision how do how do we get to the other side well, let me show you and we're. Taught. How to how to go through the veil? And so that's our third eye. And then finally, we actually do pass through the veil and we enter into the celestial room, or we enter into the Holy of Holies, we enter into the presence of God, and that's the crown.

1:21:23 Gotcha. Divinity. So let let me ask you this question. Do you, do you feel like that, that this is stuff that's leftover from every culture when we all were kind of in touch with God, so to speak, when we all had an understanding of these, you know, and I say we, I mean, different societies, that sort of thing, right? Is that what you're, is that what we're seeing here or kind of echoes from when there was fullness before? Well, yes and no. I do believe there is an aspect of that. There's a book, I think it's called Written Upon Their Hearts. It's a Christian book, but it's a pretty good book talking about how you can find the gospel in all these cultures and civilizations.

1:22:11 And like this is was written upon people's hearts from the beginning. I think that's definitely a part of it. But I also think another part of it is, is when you seek truth, you find it. I think God's willing to answer the prayer of a Hindu person. He's willing to answer the prayer of a Muslim. He's willing to answer the prayer of an Indian. Now their ability to understand might be limited by the by the truth and knowledge that they have, but at a core level, God is all of our Father, not just us Mormons. And when you seek after God, you learn truths and these are eternal truths and you might not receive them the same way as we have in the restoration. But I think you get glimpses, you get concepts. And so I think not only does some of it, some of it is AI believe for sure, a carryover from ancient traditions where that they become corrupt over time. But I also believe that there's an aspect of because God is all of our father and all of us and many of us in various different religions and world, world views are seeking after him that, you know, for the Hindu person seeking God, the, the, the, the temple doesn't make sense.

1:23:27 But what does make sense to them are these, these energy points in the body. And here are the concepts behind them. And you can see that we have the same pattern yet again, right? Here's a human body. Just like the cabal, there's a body. And on this body you're mapping points. And the points of the point of this is to ascend again and return to God, but just wouldn't. Necessarily take the place of the ordinances, though. Right. Oh, no, no, it doesn't take the place of the ordinances, but the principles, the underlying those ordinances are eternal, right? OK. All right. I see what you're OK. So almost kind of a a way of gaining some preparatory kind of information. Right, right.

1:24:09 Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not saying the ordinances are not necessary by any means. They are absolutely necessary. And these things testify to the, the necessity of them even I would say, but the truth of that necessity and, and those principles, I think are manifest to man in all times and in all countries. And so the, the chakra journey to God is you, you know, again, you're starting at root and you're dealing with your insecurities and your survival and your fears. You got to overcome your fears and then you move up to the sacral. You got to restrain your desires. You got to get to store plexus. You need to exercise your will properly do and you know do good work, so to speak live a Christian life manifest have root and then you move to the heart.

1:25:00 You have to have deep relationships with people and that kind of connection. Then you move to the throat. You have you have things to say express expressing yourself, expressing truth as it manifests through you. You move to a third eye. You, you now have, you start developing a vision of spiritual things and then and then the crown where you have A and, and you know, basically they call it kundalini when they're all activated. And it's a, it's an idea of, of entering into an enlightened state. But for our purposes, I'm not saying this is the way. No, because I know you and understanding though that these principles keep showing up again and again, right? Right.

1:25:50 Yep. People seek to find God. These same ideas keep coming forth. Gotcha. OK, I see what you're you're you're drawing connections here. Yeah. Because I'm about to, I'm about to now taking this, I'm going to now apply these types of ideas. I'm going to take these principles and now overlay them onto the temple endowment. OK, OK, so. This is this is where things are going to get interesting. And so here I'm emphasizing certain aspects, basically just the laws. Right. And we're going to overlay a body onto it. Interesting.

1:26:34 OK. So if you can't see, there's some interesting stuff, we've got the law of obedience and sacrifice down here on, on, on this, on this leg. Right, kind of your base. Yeah. And then in the in the in the lower torso right, we've got the law of the gospel, maybe like around where the belly button would be. Right. Then up here, where the heart would be, we've got the law of chastity. Right. And they're chilling on the on the right breast. We've got law of consecration. I. See, we've got and now this didn't line up perfectly, but with the the we and I didn't bring these forth because I'm not going to talk about it as much, but we have the altar of incense at the throat. We speak our operations to the on high, to our on high. The veil would line up with the third eye and then the crown top of the head, the Holy of Holies.

1:27:40 Interesting. So this is pretty cool, right? And if you look at it closely, you might see a pattern. And now for no reason whatsoever, I just want to talk about some symbolism that we find at various points and various temple traditions. So 1st I'm going to talk about the symbolism of the. Square right, which we see in in all sorts of things, right. You can find old Christian artwork from the Middle Ages that depict depict the square. Same with the compass. Masons today still still use that as well so. Absolutely, and I believe that it lines up with the table of shrewbred symbolically.

1:28:30 OK. For one reason, that's where it lined up in the diagram I just showed you, right? But. Right. Yep. But also, if you look at that symbol of that table of shoe bread, there you see, what do you see? You see a lot of right angles. Yep, a lot of right angles. And so this is, this is the, the, the symbolism of the square according to according to me. But the square is a really important tool in, in the construction and building of things. And we don't use it a whole lot anymore because we've got more advanced variations basically. But it's still integral to building anything. So if you're going to build a house and you had a square that instead of 90��, it was, you know, 45 and you know, you're, you're lining up the studs to build your walls and they're all at a 90��, they're all at a 45�� angle. You.

1:29:26 Know what's going to happen when you put a load on that? Structure. Yeah, it'll collapse. But the square is a really interesting shape, right? You got these two perpendicular lines coming together at a point, and when you put weight on that square, it holds firm. Right. When you square geometry you can then put pressure on it and it it it holds you can build something with the square, something like a temple. Yep. If you don't have a square, if you built, if you try to build a temple, especially anciently and you don't have a square and your angles are off, your structures going to collapse. And so I think it's symbolic of of our priesthood in a way. And in that this needs to be done with exactness and precision because priesthood is all about building the Kingdom of God.

1:30:28 And if we build the Kingdom of God and we don't have a square, we get those angles off, it will not last. It's not a sure found. You might even have a sure foundation, but your structure will not will not stand right. Right. And I also see that very symbolic with working in the priesthood. OK. I also want to type out the symbolism of the compass. So the compass is kind of another tool used in in construction or drafting a lot of times, right? Oh yeah, Yep. And well, I mean, you can tell me what is what is the purpose of a compass? It's to draw a circle, right?

1:31:15 It's to draw a circle, and circles have two things, an inside and an outside. They're when you don't have a circle, you have a blank piece of paper and it's all, it's all one thing, right? Right. Use a compass and you you put a circle and all of a sudden instead of having one thing you don't have two things. You have circle and not circle. Right. And I think that actually ties right in with the law of chastity because ultimately the law of chastity is a commandment not to adulterate ourselves. When you really look at it, it's yeah, it's this is a boundary. And we need to define what is inside and what is outside. What is part of my family, what is not part of my family, what is part of me, what is not part of me. And in order to do that, you need to define, you need to, you need a wall, you need some guidance. And then you can, and then you can organize this is inside, this is outside.

1:32:21 Now, I've tied this also with the symbolism of menorah, because if you take that menorah and you put it upside down, you kind of have a makeshift compass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean you'd have you'd have 6 circles essentially. Well, three, right? With a point in the middle. I guess so. Three. Yes. Excuse me. Yep. Which again, I think there's symbolism in that because like I like, we already looked at that. We've got those three walls, or we have these three entrances, the entrance into the courtyard, the entrance into the sanctuary, and the entrance into the Holy of Holies. Three members of the Godhead.

1:33:06 Three members of the Godhead. And the fascinating thing is I found out that there are, there are, I think it's called Talmud, right? There are Talmudic traditions. And the Talmud is like basically commentary on the Torah. And it's, it's more of debate, like recorded debates on the Torah. So there's a lot of different ideas. It's not considered a, you know, a gospel truth as much as it is of just ideas and musings of the rabbis. But regardless, there is a tradition in in the Torah or not Torah in the in the Talmud that the the Nora actually didn't have bows, but they were sharp angles. Right. So it would literally look exactly like 3 compasses upside down. Interesting, according to certain rabbis. Interesting.

1:33:58 Yeah, so interesting symbolism right there. Are you sure? Another one here. I want to share symbolism of the navel for no apparent reason. OK. So our, our navel, right that that is, I've got a symbol here of a baby with an umbilical cord. Because we this is where a lot of occult traditions I think go off the rails is they have an understanding that there is a certain amount of divinity within us, but they think we've already arrived. Gotcha. And I like to see it as we are gods and. Embryo, right?

1:34:39 We have not been born into our godhood yet. And you know, in fact, we might not make it right there. You know, we might end up being, we might not keep our second state. We might be, so to speak, miscarried, right. But as God's an embryo, what does it? What is an? What does a fetus need more than anything else? It's, it's the, the precursor of, well, I don't want to say that it is the earliest stages of human development. Right. And it's dependent upon that umbilical. Cord. Yep. That umbilical cord is the lifeline, right? With that, without that umbilical cord that you lose the baby.

1:35:26 Right. It's what it's it's brings in. It's what brings in the nourishment that it needs to grow. If you don't have the umbilical cord there it the the baby starves. You know. The oxygen, nutrients, all of that stuff. Vital. Just as vital, if the umbilical cord's not there, it'd be like if something the air was gone, you know, we we wouldn't be able to. Breathe right? We wouldn't be able to eat, we wouldn't be able to drink. Absolutely. And so symbolically, I think it's interesting that if you look at the.

1:36:12 The basin of water, right, or basically baptism and sacrament. When we look at the ordinances of baptism and sacrament, it's a sacrament's a constant renewal. This is a this is how we receive our nourishment, our spiritual nourishment. So if we are gods and embryo, then we have an umbilical cord. And that umbilical cord is connects us to our, our, our divine parents. And the way that we received nourishment for that umbilical cord is through this renewal of our the making and renewal of of our covenants. Right. And then also, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I want to talk about symbolism of the knee. Right?

1:37:01 Because the knee is all about submission. Right. It's about bowing down, it's about humility, it's sacrifice and obedience to our Father. And that's what it teaches us. Gotcha. So, you know, I want to talk about the compass in the square for a minute. Yeah, yeah. So Nibley, I believe it's in temple in the cosmos talks about something interesting that the ancient Egyptians used to understand, which was this concept of squaring the circle.

1:37:43 Now this relates to temples in the sense that many societies that were engaged in temple building, and I'll say it's it's true for Mormonism too. Is the universe or the eternities are represented by that circle, right? It's never ending. It has no beginning. It has no end. Much like the cosmos, much you know, much like our God. Much like our covenant of eternal marriage. Exactly. The square squaring the circle is a representation of bringing what's in heaven down to earth. And ancient temple peoples have been doing this ever since temple worship was a thing, right? You can see it in the old American geoglyphs where they have built squares around circles. And so there is something very powerful in that symbolism when we start thinking about the temple, about bringing the eternal to a point to where we could understand it. And I think that's something hugely important to keep in mind about those two symbols, right?

1:38:59 This is a way whereby you can begin. I don't think we ever fully get there in this life, but begin to start understanding the eternal and those things which are are mysteries to us, right, Right. That's great, that's good. So this is kind of, this is definitely cake here. It's interesting stuff, but I want to, I want to bring it back down and try to bring it back down to something useful and applicable because this is where I this is to me, the stuff that was really powerful and insightful. So I was reading, let me go back to our diagram here.

1:39:41 We're going to just focus on these parts that you can see. So I was reading in John 3 and starting in chapter 3. This is where is it Nicomachus, Nicodemus. This is where Nicodemus comes to Christ, right? And and he wants to know what to do. Well, actually he's asking if you know, he wants to know who he is, right? But Christ is instead of answering that Christ is going to tell him what to do instead, right? And this is what Jesus tells him. He says sign verse 3. Jesus answered and said to him. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

1:40:28 So Nicodemus is a little flippant. He's like what, I'm going to climb back to my mother's womb. You being silly here, right, right. Well, and Jesus kind of ignores his flippantness again and and decides to answer the question he should have asked maybe and says Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. So. There was this idea that kind of came to me. So for a lot of this stuff, it seems like you can go through a lot of these things in a way of just going through the motions, right? And you get to the end and it's like, well, now what? Right.

1:41:13 Well, I think that's actually by design. I think it's by design and I'm going to tell you tell you why, because Jesus said except ye be born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. That's the baptism of water he's talking about. Right. If you're not baptized, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. OK. All right. That's interesting. So. He's telling you this is where you start. Right, right, right. Baptism gives you the opportunity to to see, to see the map, so to speak. To see the map. Yeah, that exactly. We're we're going to get a we can picture and I hate to say it like this, but this is how I feel about myself sometimes.

1:41:55 You can fake it till you make it. You can be a poser, you can be, you can receive baptism and, and, and be a tourist and you're just, you're just checking it out, right? Right. But then Christ clarifies and says, Verily, verily saved me. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom, entering into the Kingdom. In my mind, what he's talking about here is the theophany. This is the whole purpose of this map. It's the destination we're trying to get to.

1:42:35 And So what he's saying is it's OK start by being baptized so you can see this snap and start following it. But you're not really going to enter in until you've been, until you receive the baptism of Spirit. Gotcha. That's what's required to enter in, and so I'm going to call that the baptism of the Holy Ghost. OK. So these are what I believe to be the mystery. So this, what we look at thus far is the map. And for most of us, I think pretty probably, probably all of us, we're all kind of at the veil now and we're like, what next, right? We've been symbolic symbolically. We've been taught how to pass.

1:43:22 Through right? But we, we need to do it now. We need to actually do it. And we we need to understand how. And so going back real oops, oh, shoot, this is going to take forever going back to the tight crown with the body on it, right? Give me just a second. No, it's it's good refresher, good refresher. Yeah. There we go. Oh. No, it's going to do all of them. It's OK. We're we're OK.

1:44:02 Just relax. We're just fine. OK, here we go. So I'm going back to this, this view of the of the body overlaid on the on the temple right with specific with the laws specifically highlighted to point out that there are certain symbols on the veil. Right. And that should be a clue to understanding what is required to actually pass through the veil. Right. Does that make sense when you look at it like that? It does. Yep. I see where you're going and, and I kind of, I kind of feel bad for, for the audience who haven't been endowed, but I want you to, to use this as kind of like, I don't know, fuel to get to the temple, right? Some of this stuff we're talking about, we're being very careful on how we word things here because we're dealing with super sacred things.

1:45:02 Nonetheless, for those who've been initiated, so to speak, you will understand these things. For those who haven't, they're still value here. But to understand the full significance of what Justin's laying out here, you're going to have to go receive your ordinances, right? Yep. Exactly. And so I want to start with this one because this is the first one that clued me in that maybe there's something more to do than being baptized. Maybe baptism isn't the destination. Maybe there is like a outward ordinance and an inward ordinance. And also I want to be clear that that's OK.

1:45:42 Like you're not necessarily expected. God doesn't expect us to be baptized and then never sin again. Right. That's not the design. We're we're meant to be tourists. We're meant to fake it till we make it kind of and get a lay of the land because that's how we learn and grow, line upon line, precept upon precept. Right. But with that, at a certain point, we want to pass through the veil. And what's fascinating is a lot of these other ritualistic cultures that I mentioned have a process, a final process as well of, of entering into the presence of the divine. And this these usually involve being tested.

1:46:23 Right. We know that it's certainly that way in the, in, in the Book of the Dead with the Egyptians, right? There was, you know, a weighing of the heart. There were were passing the the, the, the sea of Reeds, all all that stuff. And in the Kabbalah, we you have a meditation where you, if you imagine yourself coming before these angels and being asked questions and knowing the answers to be able to pass through. And you're passing through these various stages on your way, right? There are these hermetic ideas of a a where you're, you're meditating and, and projecting yourself, your astral projecting yourself into the cosmos. And you're going to pass by each plant where you're going to pass by the moon, the sun and all the plan that's on your way. And each of them has a test.

1:47:19 And as a practitioner of that, you would go as far as you can, But then you might get somewhere and you're stuck and like, Oh, I don't have the answer to this one. You don't know. And that's the end of that meditation. Go back, live your life a while and maybe come back again and you'll have learned it, your experience or something, right? But this idea of being questioned and kind of tested is important because here's the thing, there are a lot of fundamentalist Mormons, you know, restorationists that have kind of gone through the outward ordinance checklist all the way up to their ceilings and possibly even second anointings. Regardless though, I don't think any of them arrive when they arrive.

1:48:04 No. They're still, they haven't passed through the veil yet. They might be at the veil, but they haven't passed through. There's still things to be done. And I believe that the whole point, the lecture at the veil and the and then the accompanying instructions on passing through the veil that are presenting the endowment. This is our road ahead. This is what we have yet to do. Does that make sense? Yep, Yep. So it's one thing to to go through these and we absolutely need to and we need to keep going back. It's another thing to internalize them, right? Exactly. So I want to really dig in a little bit here in law of the Gospel and this baptism in sacrament. So I place these things together because there is a mystery to baptism.

1:48:54 We we understand what the baptism of water is, but what is this baptism of the Holy Ghost? What is this baptism of spirit which Christ spoke of? I believe there is a mystery here. And we haven't really fulfilled that ordinance until we fulfilled it inwardly as well. Because when it's fulfilled inwardly, then we are, it is marked upon our soul, so to speak. And you know, actually this is something else that's really significant in the endowments that are performed today. I'm not aware of any that still do this, but traditionally they were done slightly differently and the major difference is when you came to the veil, that is when your garments received marks, your garment was not marked.

1:49:48 Until you approached the veil, it did not come marked. So when you receive your your garment in the initiatory, when you symbolically put it on after the law of obedience, this is an unmarked garment. This is a body with no markings. However, when you're presented at the veil, before you can actually pass through the veil, you need to receive 4 marks on your garment. And they would do it right then and there at the veil. And so that's not done so much anymore because it it ruins a lot of shirts. I mean. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but we know about this 'cause there's a letter from from the temple present talking about this, saying, hey, you know, we're through a lot. We're through a lot of.

1:50:38 We're going through a lot of clothes, yeah. In order to mark the garments, maybe we ought to remark them. Right. But I think it's important to understand the original symbolism here because we're approaching the veil we want to pass through. We want to know what is required so that we can actually really enter into the presence. Yeah. And, well, you got to know the signs. You got no tokens and you have to have a marked garment. Yeah. So this baptism of the of the Holy Ghost, if you think about what is a baptism, it's when you are immersed in something, right?

1:51:26 It doesn't mean sprinkling, it doesn't mean a misty, It's not a doesn't count if the preacher's really excited and a little spittle lands on you. No, no, no, you need to be dunked all the way, completely immersed. So. We have an understanding that when we baptized, there's a an associated blessing attached. And I'm going to just flat out read, I'm going to just straight out plagiarize Nephi here. Yes. Honestly, this is my favorite explanation of the gospel. OK. So this is Nephi preaching.

1:52:07 This is his last sermon. And it coincidentally, this is this is his last sermon where he's talking about the gospel prior to his brother Jacob talking about priesthood service, the law of chastity, the law of consecration. Gotcha. There's a It's interesting that you can actually see a a form of the endowment, actually, as you read through Nephi and into Jacob. Right, I've, I've I've I've several years back, I came across an article about that. And when you when your eyes are kind of open to that, it pops, right? You definitely see he's he's talking in layers here so that those who are initiated will understand.

1:52:54 Right, exactly. And Nephi wants us to understand. So he's going to be, he's going to try to explain one of the mysteries here as plainly as he can. Yep. So he says, And now I would ask of you, my beloved brethren, where in the Lamb of God that did fulfill all righteousness and being baptized by water, which is a beautiful symbolism here, because here's the here's the altar, there's the sacrifice upon it, and there's the water right there in the courtyard. Wherein did the Lamb of God. Why know ye not that He was holy? But notwithstanding He being holy, He show it unto the children of men. Excuse me, That according to the flesh He humble it to Himself before the Father, and witness unto the Father that He would be obedient unto Him, and keeping His commandments, he's going to perform a sacrifice. Right.

1:53:45 And, and in in obedience to his Father. Wherefore, after He was baptized with water, the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove. Now we're getting into it, Holy Ghost. And again it showeth unto the children of men the straightness of the path and the narrowness of the gate by which they should enter, He having set the example before them. So again Christ is he's showing us exactly what we need to do here at this law of the gospel. And Christ is our exemplar. And he said unto the children of men, Follow thou me. Where for my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus?

1:54:27 Say, we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father. And the Father said, Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my beloved Son. And also the voice of the Son came unto me, and said, 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. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if you shall follow the Son with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that you are willing to take upon you the name of Christ by baptism, Yeah, by following your Lord and Savior down into the water according to His word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost. Yeah, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. And I separate those two.

1:55:28 I actually believe there's three baptisms being talked about here. And I mean I can get into why a little later. But and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel? So baptism is the beginning of this process. Nephi is stating it as well. Right. You're entering in by baptism, that after that you received the Holy Ghost, and that is. And eventually then you can receive the Baptism of fire and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and can speak with a new tongue.

1:56:13 Yeah, even with the tongue of angels. And after this and after this should deny me. It would have been better for you that you had not known me. And honestly, if you really think about it, to whom would it have been better to have not known? Jesus? I think that's basically Son of perdition. All right. I mean, this is even the vilest dissenter in this life who's made mistakes, not knowing the fullness of the gospel. If they had an understanding of Jesus, they tried to follow and failed. I mean, I don't think that's what's being talked about here. So again, it's talking about the the Highness of this baptism of the Holy Ghost.

1:56:53 Right. This is something that's so exalting that to then fall from that is essentially son of perdition. Right. And now, my beloved brother and I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved. So. Again, Nephi is pointing to the end goal here, right? When I was a missionary I remember teaching this and I always thought endure to the end meant like enduring to the end of your life. No, right. That's enduring until you. Well, I'll let you go ahead. How's that right?

1:57:36 No, we got to get to the end of this path. That's the end. Right. If we should die on our way, all is well. You know, we're going to we're going to keep working on the other side, but we but we still have the work to do. We got, we got to get there. Yeah. We got to get there. That's what we're trying to endure to the end of this, the end of this journey. And so having been through this whole diagram, we're suddenly going back outside of that altar and we're realizing we might have been baptized, but there's more to be done here. Have we been baptized by the Holy Ghost? And I mean, the whole chapter is fantastic.

1:58:18 And The funny thing is, is he keeps going on talking about repentance, right? And this need for obedience and sacrifice and. And then afterwards in chapter 32, Lephi is basically like, yeah, he still don't get it, do you? You're not getting it still, right? OK, let's try this one last time. I'm gonna turn on my ultra plainness now. Do ye not remember that I said unto you, that after you received the Holy Ghost you could speak with the tongue of angels? And now how could he speak with the tongue of angels, save it were by the Holy Ghost? Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost. Wherefore they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore I said unto you, Feast upon the words of Christ, for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things, what he should do.

1:59:13 So we want this baptism of of the Holy Ghost. Right. Well, how, how do we attain it? We've been baptized. We received the gift of the Holy Ghost, right? Right. But you'll notice, even in receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, we are commanded to receive the Holy Ghost. Right. It's not given. Right. We're commanded to receive it. Well, and and you know, this is where I think we come into the equation, right? And I think Christ is alluding to that as he's speaking to Nephi there, right, in the sense of we have he spells it out. He says you've got to follow the Son, right, The Son of God. And I think when we start looking at the law of the gospel, that's really what it's about. Are you pattern patterning your life after the sun and that? That is hard work, right?

2:00:08 It's not something I've certainly mastered. I'm working on it real hard but I I don't have it mastered yet. Right. Exactly, exactly. But I, I believe it's attainable. Here's the thing. I don't, maybe there's nobody in this generation that's attained to this, but I believe that this is that this destination is attainable in this life. Maybe we don't get there and that's OK, but I believe that it is available. I mean, it was available to Christ and we're supposed to follow Him. Well, look, I don't think God's going to give a, give a, a commandment or a way to live and then expect us not to get there, right? Or, or, or expect that it is completely impossible, right? I go back to that scripture where where they said, you know what, what you know, BE perfect there as your father in heaven is perfect, right?

2:01:12 That sounds really daunting until you realize that the the translation is bad to the English there, right? What that should say is whole, right? Well, now wholeness and perfection are kind of different things, right? Whole is you're doing all the things you should be doing, right? It's the same illusion and, and it speaks to balance, right as well. And so while, while I don't think it's perfection like we think of perfection, it is a, it is an attainable goal, right? Can you put all these things into balance? Can you become a whole person?

2:01:52 Can you merge the the temporal with the spiritual and and be able to operate in a spiritual nature while in mortality? Right. No, I, I agree. And we want to receive that wholeness. We want to, we want to be purged of our weaknesses. We want to get to that place. And Nephi is trying to explain it to us, right? And he says it starts with baptism. But. Apparently they're like, well, now what? And he's like, what do you mean now what? You receive baptism and then you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So, but they're still like, well, what do we do now? Where do we go now?

2:02:35 They want to be told exactly where. They want somebody to tell them what to do. Right. Right, So Nephi is trying to explain, and the first part of it is, is that you need to study the Scriptures, You need to turn to the words of Christ, read his words, get familiar with them. Let those things instill upon you. You got to be familiar. You got to put in that. Work, right, right. And, and there's so much safety there, right? Like I've always said, if you become really familiar with the scriptures, it's going to be a lot easier to spot an imposter a mile away before he gets close enough to do damage, right?

2:03:15 There's a ton that goes into this idea of of getting into the scripture and figuring out what it is it's telling you. Right. And so first of all, he's saying feast upon the words of Christ. And then Nephi interjects again. You can tell he is pained that this isn't clicking for everybody. He wants us to click so bad. You know, he wants his people to understand this and they're struggling. But he goes on and says, where For now, after I have spoken these words, if you cannot understand them, it will, because it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock. Wherefore you are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.

2:03:57 Or behold again I say unto you, that if you will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all the things what you should do. And that's really the key there. Well, both of those things together, that's, this is how the Holy Ghost works. First of all, you have to plow the field. Right. And that is plowing the field. That is where we are feasting upon the words of Christ. We are making place within us a framework, a soil, something for this to grow in. And then we're going to we're going to grow a tree and it's going to start at the scene. It's going to have to grow in this process. And with that growth process is you receive the Holy Ghost and it will show unto you all things what you should do. Now, this is not a theoretical principle. This is literally the process of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I believe.

2:04:57 Right, so. We start out and we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost having been baptized, right? Right. And the gift of the Holy Ghost is what makes the Baptism of the Holy Ghost possible. Without it, you can't receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. The point is, is that I mean, if you instead of ghost think about like maybe spirit and think about your own spirit, is your own spirit holy or is it not holy? I mean, mine's. It's got some good spots, don't get me wrong, right? It's got some, it's definitely got some good spots. It's got some spots that aren't so good either. I want to be baptized in the Holy Ghost. I want my spirit to be fully immersed in that divine so that there's no speck of any unclean spirit within me. Gotcha.

2:05:53 And in order to do that, you go through this process and the process is the cyclical process here on the altar. Now on this diagram, this altar is having sacrifices done on it daily. Right. Constantly and just now. The further in you go, the less active this diagram becomes. But out here, out here in the courtyard, there are priests there, you know, all day, all night. Maybe I mean, not all night, but they're, they are, they're doing a lot of sacrifices on behalf of the people. And I think what that shows is this, this need for a repetitive renewing of this spirit.

2:06:34 And we recognize this in our ordinances today as the sacrament where we where we are weekly renewing that ordinance. And that's great. Nothing wrong with renewing that covenant every week, but is that really enough? Well, again, right, these ordinances aren't, it's not enough to participate in in at some point you have to internalize them, right? You have to figure out what it is they're trying to communicate. If you don't, you're, you're kind of missing the boat and you're just, you're just checking boxes. And again, we all get there from time to time. Just don't stay there. Right, right.

2:07:15 Exactly. But we want to keep going. The objective is to keep going and to keep going, we need to be even more actively involved in that spiritual refinement process. So there is a in, in, in Mosiah. There is a section where where the, I think it's Mosiah. Well, it's where King Mosiah either way, in the Book of Mormon, when King Mosiah is giving his address to the people, it says that they experienced a mighty change of heart, that they had no more desire to do evil. Right. Right.

2:07:55 And they have this spiritual outpouring. It's beautiful, it's powerful and it's fantastic. And we see a similar type experience later on and I believe third Nephire Helaman, where, where these Lamanites are preached to imprison. And again, there is a baptism of fire that these Lavanites undergo. They have the spiritual experience. They can see angels. I think of the Kirtland Temple dedication. It was a baptism of fire the day of Pentecost, these baptisms of fire. And these are things that we want to experience because they give us a hint at what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is.

2:08:43 But it's still, you're still not fully immersed. You, you, you're dipping in, though now, now you're really dipping in, you're getting a feel for what this is what it is. You're, you're look what it, what the bastard of the Holy Ghost really would be. And what that is, is what we make in our, in the sacrament covenant, that we may always have his spirit to be with us. Not some of the time, not, not not when you're praying, but when you're working, when you're, when you're struggling with problems, when you're dealing with obstacles you got to overcome. And so in that journey, sometimes we get blessed with these baptisms of fire. And I believe they're there to give us a, a testament that we're on the right track to give us a taste of that fruit.

2:09:31 So we so we desire it even more. But here's the challenge, right? This is a fascinating law because this is something that grows with us. What I mean by that is, you know, I had a experience of a, of a mighty change of heart, so to speak, or a baptism of fire when I was on my mission. And at the time it felt like I had arrived. I thought like, I'm there, I'm done. I got it nailed. It. Right. The thing is though, I was on my mission, LDS mission, right? So. Conditions are perfect. Conditions are. Perfect, right? And.

2:10:14 Completely perfect and so then you get back from your mission and all of a sudden you've got to OK, how you going to take care of yourself. You got to start dating so you can get married. You got all these, you're dealing with things that you didn't have to deal with before. Yep. And all of a sudden. You ain't got it. The context changed, it shifted, right He's like, OK, you're doing good, you're doing good. Now let's medium difficulty, you know, then you get married and you start having children and you have to teach you children and, and all of this. And now we're on hard difficulty, right? And it's like, all right, can you master this on hard mode? And so we have these moments where we brush up against an understanding of what this baptism of the Holy Ghost is. But to fully be baptized by the Holy Ghost, you actually kind of have to have toured this whole thing first. You have to have explored the temple first because as you do that you receive greater and greater responsibilities and and living the law of the gospel becomes more and more challenging.

2:11:29 Gotcha. And so, but I just want to get to practical application here because here's the thing, even though we're now talking about the final stages, we're trying to talk about how to pass through the veil. Even though that's what we're talking about, this is something that you can work on as soon as you're baptized. You don't need to wait until you've gone through the rest of this either, though, to start progressing on this path and start getting it down. You might not be able to get to the ultimate conclusion of it, but you can start putting in the work right now. And here's the thing. The works got to get done. Whether this life or the next, the works got to get done. You know, I mentioned that that old patriarch that I, I talked to in the LDS church when I first, when I first joined the church, he would spend hours with me. Like, look, podcasting wasn't a thing back in that day. But man, I wish I had some of that audio recorded because there were some deep discussions and I remember, gosh, I, I hadn't even been a member a year yet, right? And I'm already trying to chew on some pretty heady stuff, right?

2:12:34 And probably had no business doing it at that point, right? Because again, I'm I'm typical Dave style. I'm biting off a little more than I can chew. It seems like all the time, right? I think it's a double edged sword. I think that's where a lot of growth happens. But I also think that's where you can get sidetracked sometimes. Yeah. And I remember he caught he, I shouldn't say cautioned me. He just kind of tried to slow me down a little bit. Right. And he was like, look, before you start worrying about these things, get really good at living by the Spirit. Get used to what the spirit sounds like. Understand what it feels like to have that, that spirit with you constantly and then you'll be ready to move on, right? And so speaking to your point about you don't have to wait to go to the temple to Start learning about the spirit 100%. In fact, that's where you should spend a lot of your time is learning that, right?

2:13:34 If look, I, I've always said and, and I truly believe this, that the temple is kind of the Ellis Island in design, right? That's where you're going to go to get your citizenship paper, so to speak, right? With that, if we use use the analogy of of immigration, right, learning to hear, feel and listen to the spirit is like learning the language, right? And you have to learn that language if you want full enfranchisement into this new Zion society, right? And so Start learning to speak that language now so that when you get ready to go get your citizenship papers in the Kingdom of God in Zion, you're going to know how to speak the language. Right, You're that much further along, you're that much more ready.

2:14:25 Absolutely. And that's the thing, right? And nobody ultimately does other than Christ, right, because he's the one. That's the symbolism that Nephi is referring to is when Christ was baptized, the Holy Ghost sent the, the dove, the sign of that, that was an indication that for Christ, as soon as he was baptized, he was also received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. It all happens right there for him. But we've got a, we've got a journey. We've got to learn his words and learn to follow them. And that's the key too, right? Because Nephi talks about the Holy Ghost as if this is some sort of a beautiful gift. This is what you're getting baptized for. The baptism, not the important part is the gift of the Holy Ghost. That's why you're doing it.

2:15:06 This is a transaction. You're going to enter into this covenant and you're going to obey and you're going to make these sacrifices. But the whole point is so you can receive this blessing, right? And the blessing is the gift of the Holy Ghost. And this is so instrumental in everything else, because the way you get to that baptism of the Holy Ghost is by the Holy Ghost. Yep. This is like, it's like you're playing a game of of Marco Polo, right? Except instead of, instead of the, the player you're trying to catch moving around, they're holding still and you're just getting washed around in currents in the, in the, in the currents of life. And you're like Marco 00 clear.

2:15:47 OK, go that way, Marco. Oh, now it's OK that way. It's you're, you're learning to navigate your life. This is the compass to your and that's exactly the symbolism, like the compass to Leahona. And this is the absolute down to earth practical application. Here's what you do. You wake up in the morning. Do you feel the Spirit powerfully? Is that manifesting? Is it? Is it in your heart? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, pray. Right. And pray until you get the Spirit. Right. Now you've got the Spirit, you started your day with the Spirit and you're going to start going about your day and 10 minutes later you need to check yourself and say, do I still have the Spirit? Right.

2:16:36 And it might be that, oh, it's gone. What happened, what happened in the last five minutes? This is the Holy Ghost showing you what you should do. You're showing you because that that's going to illustrate what you shouldn't have done. And this is purely subjective. I'm not just talking to, well, not subjective. This is individual. This is purely individual, right? Because when you're, when you're starting out on this, the main things are let's just try to keep the basic commandments right? And you can have the Holy Ghost with you and and you know, and then you went and I don't know you, you passed by a beggar asking for money and you decided not to help.

2:17:17 And you feel that hit and oh, OK, but that's kind of a bigger event, right? But as you, as you follow the Holy Ghost, you get more sensitive. You get closer. You're getting closer to that baptism of the Holy Ghost. And as you get closer, suddenly different things now are going to drive that spirit away so that you can be aware. It's not that you're falling. It's not that you're not making progress. It's that there's more to learn and the Holy Ghost is going to teach you. And so now, well, why, why is it gone now? What am I missing? What it maybe, what did I do or, or what didn't I do in the last five minutes? Oh well, oh, the kids came in and they were kind of fighting and I just kind of pushed them off to the wife. To deal with.

2:18:05 And now I'm not feeling the Holy Ghost. You know, I think the Holy Ghost is telling me that I need to to deal with that. And that's OK. See, this is, I hate to say this because it can be taken the wrong way, but I believe that the Gospel is a plan where you failing is part of the plan. Sure, you have to fail so you can learn. This is how we grow by making mistakes and learning from them. And So what do you do right there on the spot, you, you repent, you had This is why you pray always, right, So that you can say, hey, you know what, I just I just there's a problem in the household and I probably should have dealt with it. And I just pushed the responsibility off of somebody else.

2:18:49 And that's not what I want to do. That's not who I want to be. And you're not, you're not find you got the Spirit back with you again. Right. And now you go and you and you deal with the situation and you got the spirit back and you watch it and you watch it all day long. And you, and from that you learn the things that you should do all things what you should do, because you can't make a list. There's this is too individualized at this point. This is no longer the checklist stuff, right? That we can provide you with like here, go through this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and there you go. You know, this is we're trying to become gods. We're trying to become like our Father in heaven, and we're all different. We're all coming from different experiences. This is a highly personalized process at this point. It's very internal.

2:19:32 This is the inward ordinance. Right. And this is the first key baptism of the Holy Ghost, and this is what we're attaining to. And I believe that if we do as Nephi says, we can get to that point. So this refinement process where we have the Spirit with us so constantly and so powerfully that we can immediately notice when things are off and we can correct them and that's and immediately correct them or maybe even avoid them. Maybe you're about to step on that rake and you and and you pull back. Right. And that's what we're trying to get to. That's the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

2:20:12 And it's a process. There's many stages, it's very individual, but the whole thing is very, very simple. And it just comes down to repent, receive the spirit, follow Spirit, repent, receive spirit, follow Spirit over and over and over again. The more, the faster you do it, the more you cycle through that, the, the, the faster you grow. But it's going to take time either way. It's going to take time. It will, but that's what comes first. And I would say that when you have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you have met one of the requirements to pass through the veil. OK. And I would say that it is a it is written upon your soul. Gotcha.

2:21:01 Maybe more than just more than just an A marking on the body. It's been internalized. I mean, yeah, it's, it's internalized. It's on the Spirit. Yep. Internalized. So continuing on with these mysteries here, sealing power. So you've received the priesthood, you might have received all of the priesthood, you might have received everything. Maybe Joseph Smith himself lays his hands on your head and says he gives you everything. That's still outward, that's still an outward ordinance. And there's an internal component to our our priesthood service and the exercise of the priesthood.

2:21:44 And this is what I would call the ceiling power. So I'm going to just jump on over here to heal him in chapter 10 because this is a story that I believe exemplifies what it is we're trying to attain to. So we've received the outward ordinance of priesthood. We want to receive the internal ordinance. We want to fulfill this so that we can pass through the veil what is required. This is the Lord speaking to Nephi. Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which he have done. For I have beheld how thou hast with unwavering this declared the word which I have given unto thee unto this people.

2:22:25 And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but has sought my will and to keep my commandments. That's really beautiful there. And I think it, it signifies all of this stuff, right? He's preaching. To the. People he's teaching, he's serving them, but he's also sacrificing. Right. Himself, he's consecrated everything into serving God. And now because thou hast done this with such unweight wearing this, behold, I will bless thee forever, and I will make thee mighty in Word, end in deed, in faith, and in works. Yeah, even in all things, Yeah, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, For thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. So we have an aspect here of of perfect obedience. Right, right.

2:23:26 Nephi's this Nephi here. He's not a. He's not a. He's not a. He's not a an 89.99�� angle. He is a. He's a exact 90. Yep, he's 100%, and he's being blessed for it. Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels that ye have, that ye shall have power over this people, and shall smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people. Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and thus shall ye have power among his people.

2:24:07 So you received the priesthood. But do we have power in our priesthood? And again, we're trying to understand how to cross through the veil here. We're trying to learn what we need to do to get to the other side. And here we're talking about do. Is there power in your priesthood? Is it, given his power from God, been given to you in your priesthood? So go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say there was a statement that was made by Russell M Nelson of all people that I thought was very telling. And I heard this because I had, this was back when I was in the LDS Church and I had to go because of the calling I had.

2:24:54 There was a certain leadership meeting that I went to and the IT was then president of the Quorum of 12, Russell M Nelson. He wasn't the president yet of, of the church. And he said something that really stuck with me and, and, and the spirit really caught me and said, perk up, you want to listen to this? And he said, we've here in the church, we've done a very good job of passing the authority of the priesthood along, but we haven't done such a good job of teaching men how to access that power. Was he speaking from experience? Right. I'll leave that to everybody else to decide.

2:25:35 No, no, you're good. You're good. That's, that's staying in. But you know, you know, the, the there is truth to that, right? I mean, we can show you where to go to get proper priesthood authority all day long, twice on Sunday. It's something different to access the power of the priesthood, right? And, and I think that's what, what what God was alluding to as he was speaking to Nephi there, right? He's like, OK, your will is matching my will. So at least in the things that pertain to my Kingdom, I can trust that since your will is aligned with my will, you won't do anything that's contrary to mine, right?

2:26:19 And I think that's where the accessing of that power comes in. And, and I think that's why that scriptures included about Christ's prayer at, in, in Gethsemane, right? Because there's only one thing. I'll, I, I would say there's two subsets of it, but there's only one thing that the Father won't encroach upon. That's our will and the go along with that, what we're going to do with the time that we've been allotted here on earth, right? Because that's a reflection of where where we value things. And so the Lord's not going to encroach upon that, right?

2:27:00 So with that said, if we look at that scripture, that's a humbling scripture for the Son of God where he says, just let this cup pass from me, right? Why include that unless there's a greater lesson here we're supposed to learn and and he he brings that caveat in, but nonetheless, not my will, but your will be done right. And I think that's where we've got to get if we really want to access the power of the priesthood is learning to sync our will to the will of the Father. Yeah, absolutely. And I believe, just like with the baptism, the law of the gospel is what is going to teach you how to attain to that mystery. I think again, here we have priesthood service. It is the law of consecration that's going to teach us how to attain to ceiling.

2:27:51 Power, yeah. That's the point of the law. And you know, you, you, I, I, I did enjoy that. I, I love that podcast on, on the law of consecration. It was really good. I want to just share my take on this though, because I think this is something that has immediate application and I've got a heresy too. So, OK, I'll share my, I'll share my heretical perspectives as well. So the law of consecration is a very controversial topic and Mormonism and fundamentalism because there's a lot of different ideas on, on what this really is and, and what it looks like on how to live it, right.

2:28:38 And first of all, I want to start with saying I think that there's a separation. A lot of times you bulk all these ideas together and I think they're separate. I think the law of consecration is separate than the people having all things in common, which I also think is separate from a united order. There's a relationship between all three of these things, but they are all separate things that need to be looked at as individual components, right? And I don't have the time. I also not entirely prepared to go through this whole thing, but just a high level overview. This is this is my heresy. OK, so let it be written.

2:29:18 I believe that the the point of the United Order is to provide an inheritance so that everybody who comes into this life has an opportunity at the temporal success. Got you. If you look at the ancient House of Israel, they were given these lots and The funny thing was on these Jubilee years, ownerships reverted back. The point of that, I believe, is because if ownership doesn't revert back, a father can sell his son's inheritance before he even has a son. Right. And then a son is born to a father with no inheritance, cannot give him an inheritance and this child is now destined for poverty, doesn't have the opportunity to to have success in anything temporal. So I think a united order, the idea behind that united order was to, it was like you we have later in the church we had like the perpetual immigration fund.

2:30:16 Right. That one point the church had a perpetual education fund. Well, I think that the United Order original intent was a perpetual land ownership fund and people consecrate into it. So there is consecrations involved, right, Because people consecrate into it. But the point was to provide an inheritance for everybody so that everybody has a, a land. Now what they do with it, it's up to them whether they rise or fall. They don't succeed, but at least they're given the opportunity, a baseline opportunity. It's not universal income because that's, that violates, I think these principles of agency, but universal opportunity at having a resource ownership of something, that stewardship, I should say stewardship over something that you can use to create an income.

2:31:12 I, I do believe that there is an aspect of the human right to that and I think that's what United Order is. Now, what does it mean to have all things in common then? I believe having all things in common can only mean one thing. It does not mean that there's 22 applications and we always jump to the one, and I think we completely miss it. But having all things in common means that all things are united under one thing, right? And so from a worldly perspective, this is what we would call maybe communism executed perfectly. And I think that's how a lot of people look at that. I don't believe that's necessarily what I mean. That could be hypothetically, if you were to take Mark said his word and say this is actually going to work and you implemented it, yes, you would have all things in common. It wouldn't be the right all things in common too though, because what are they in common to in that case? They're all in common to man.

2:32:15 There's another way of looking at this, and this is and I, this is what I believe. This is intended to me. I don't believe it has anything to do with shared ownership among us. I believe all things are in common because we have consecrated all of our things to God and God is the common because it's a society. I can do that individually, but if I do it and you do it and everybody else does it, you in in a community, you could say in a sense, everybody in this community has all things in common because they are everything is consecrated to God. And with that, we then become the stewardship stewards. And so when you look at what the word consecration means, it means to, it has this meaning of you're setting something apart to be holy.

2:33:13 And so we consecrate oil before using it for blessings. We don't consecrate oil and then use it on salad. Right. Why not? Because it's, we dedicated it to something very, very specific. It is, it is consecrated and set apart now. And so this is my take on law of consecration. And it's kind of heretical maybe, but I believe that the the true application of the law of consecration is when you literally, literally consecrate everything you want and your time, talents and possessions. And you might use a church as a vehicle of the consecration, but ultimately I don't believe you can consecrate to a church. You can only consecrate to God.

2:34:05 That's where I get a little heretical. OK, gotcha. That's where you're going to take exception with a, that's where. I'm going to take exceptions with something and I, I, I don't disagree, I just interpret it differently. I believe that we consecrate, that consecrating to the church is a vehicle. And here's what I mean by that. Now the law of tightening is absolute, right? That's going to go back to law of the gospel. The law of tithing is very specific and it's very absolute on, on what's on, on what it is you're supposed to be giving away what you're sacrificing. The law of consecration, I believe, is a principle where you are giving everything to God and then you receive a stewardship over it.

2:34:53 And so I might own a shovel. Is my shovel consecrated? Well, what does a what does a consecrated shovel look like? Well, it doesn't mean I gave it to the church because if I gave it to the church, now I don't have a shovel. And maybe they gave it back to the stewardship, but that's just getting ridiculous. In my opinion. That's just getting ridiculous. It's a lot of busy work and it with no apparent really value. But if if I consecrate my shovel to God, then it's no longer my shovel. I'm just the stewardship steward over it. And so then I have a neighbor and my neighbor doesn't have a shovel and he's digging a hole. Can I lend him my shovel?

2:35:37 Can I give him my shovel? Well, you, you would ask God, because you're steward and you got to ask God and you got to ask God what you should do with that. And it might be that my God might direct you as steward of that shovel to lend it to your neighbor. He might tell you to give it to your neighbor. You don't know, but this is how I look at the law of consecration. And this is a very different way of looking at your time possessions, your money. Because let's say you want to buy something and you're like, oh, you, you know, you're at Costco and oh, there's a display and there's a, and there's a limited time offer to get some really good pants and you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket. Do you buy them or not?

2:36:27 Well, this is an issue of consecration. Have you consecrated that money to the Lord? Right. Hopefully you have and if you have, you can now ask the Lord Lord, how would you like me to use these funds? And the Lord might answer and say, I want you to buy those pants because it'll, it'll bless your wife and it'll, and it'll allow her, it'll make her life more comfortable so she can focus on more important things. And there could be a very good reason to buy those pants, right? But at the same time, the Lord might tell you and say, no, you don't need those you can do without, and there's something better you can spend that on that would serve me and my purposes for you.

2:37:11 Gotcha. So that's how I see the law of consecration. And here's where it comes to the church because especially in the context of something like a united Order, we're we're trying to provide inheritances for everybody that's going to require donations. And I see the church can be a fantastic medium or a vehicle for the law of consecration because this is a place where we can come to as a community. And if you have a need, you can express that to your church. And you maybe would go to your Bishop. Maybe you'll some, for example, maybe you want a piano and for your family and maybe you can't afford one, but it's really important.

2:37:54 I mean, I, I bring that I always wanted a piano as a kid and I never learned. We never could afford 1. The keyboards were expensive back then. And so I didn't really have that opportunity, right. But maybe my parents really want that opportunity for me and they feel like that's something that is important. Well, they could maybe go to the Bishop and the Bishop could then say, OK, noted. And then the Bishop might announce it in sacrament, say, Hey, we've got, we've got a family here that is would like a is in need of and would like a piano to bless their family, to bless their children with. If anybody would be able to assist in that in some way, you know, come talk to me after church and then somebody, maybe I've got an extra piano I don't need.

2:38:37 And I, I, I had it for a while. I used it for a while and it's outgrown its purpose for me. And I, I want to donate it. Or maybe I've got some money. And now here's an opportunity to concentrate that money to, to something. Or maybe you feel inspired not to, or maybe you feel inspired to say, hey, I've got a piano and I don't feel like I'm supposed to give this away, but I prayed about it and I want to invite that person to come over, their children to come over and I'll and I'll teach them even too. And we'll have access to a piano and I'll teach them as well. These are all ways of implementing law of consecration. But the point I want to get to is I believe that this law of consecration is applicable in the here and now. This isn't something you need to wait for your church to organize something with.

2:39:18 You can start living this today and it's just like with the with the other laws, like the law of the gospel. It's also not something you just attain to all at once. You're going to make mistakes in this process as well. It's a growing process. You know, I, I liked when David was on here because he did do a great job of illustrating that there wasn't just one model to this United Order thing, right? They were trying a ton of different things to see what hit and as, as I've heard different takes on it. I, I've kind of got to a point to where I'm like, I'm not sure it's either or sometimes I think it's Ant right.

2:39:59 And I, I, I think when, when it does come back, I and, and you know, we try it here in mortality again, whenever that is, I expect to see different models and I expect to be like borrowing from all of them, right? Like, OK, that's working, but that's not. To get to somewhere where it's supposed to, because there's really not a lot of of revelation on how to do it right. There's a ton on the principle of it, but not a great explanation on go to step one, go to Step 2, go to Step 3. So I think I, I look, I think there's a lot of different ways to get there.

2:40:40 Yeah, yeah. And you don't have to agree with mine, but this is a model that is applicable in the here and now. And I believe that's actually really important that you have a way of living this law in the here and now because ultimately the law of consecration is going to teach you how to be a a proper steward. And the proper steward goes to the master. They don't make decisions on their own. They they they refer, they defer to the master, to the owner. Right. No, I, I, I agree with you that we shouldn't just because there's no formal organization that that can start meeting this out. We should be getting used to consecrating things right now, right? And at least start getting comfortable with adopting the mindset of, look, everything I'm blessed with is a stewardship. It's not mine.

2:41:31 I'm just a caretaker for this season and we'll see what happens later down the road. Yeah, and that teaches you how to be a steward of your priesthood. Yeah, Yep. And it's and it's being a steward of the priesthood that leads to the sealing power. That's what Nephi that we just read. That's what he figured out. That's what he got down solid. Right. The Lord says, I know that you will not ask him this. Yep. You would never exercise this to do something that wouldn't be in alignment with with with me. And what do we see immediately afterwards? Nephi exercises that priesthood by praying to God and pleading his case and saying, hey, you know, we've got this war going on.

2:42:14 And I think a famine would bring repentance better. And here's my reasons why. And you've given me this power to end this war and create a famine instead. Is that your will? And the Lord said, I agree, that is my will. And then Nephi does it. Yep. So if we want to have sealing power, we've got to realize it is not our priesthood. We are stewards of this priesthood and the Law of Consecration is our school teacher to teach us and develop our exercise of the priesthood, the inward ordinance. Right, right. Well, and I think it goes to show that again, this idea of you have arrived, you know, I think that there there are certain milestones re reach, but we even see Nephi still doing check insurance with the Lord, right? Is this your will?

2:43:04 Should I be doing this right? Always checking back with the father? Yeah, well, and I think that's what the Lord means when like I know you won't, you won't use, you won't abuse this power because I know you will ask. Right, right. Absolutely. And that's kind of what it really kind of comes down to, right? And so here's another one. I believe that receiving the ceiling power is one of these mysteries, one of these keys to be able to pass through the veil so that we can get by the that we can know this process and procedure, we can pass the test. So this next one here is the Holy Spirit of promise, which I'm tying to our ceilings.

2:43:49 And honestly, I don't have a whole lot to say on this because I I don't know if I could do much better justice to what Isaac already said in the in the previous episode of this podcast. So I will defer everybody to go re listen to that episode. Basically, it's and if you missed it, go back and listen to it. But I'm going to give you the premise here. When you buy a car and you find you, you finance it, generally speaking, and you own it, but you still have an obligation to the person you purchased it from. You don't own it until it's paid off. Right. And yeah, that is how we need to understand our marriage ceiling. It's not guaranteed.

2:44:34 Just because we were sealed in the temple does not mean that we will have this eternal marriage. It means we have the opportunity to have an eternal marriage. Right. And now you got to do the work and you have to build that relationship. You have to be worthy of that relationship. And as men, we need to be able to instill trust in our women so that they are, are, are willing to obey us and, and have confidence and, and, and under and, and know that that if we that, that we're going to lead them properly and that that falls on us to earn that trust, right? Absolutely. And, and, and so anyways, I think that there is the in DNC.

2:45:19 Let me just go to it real quick. In Section 132, it tells us, it pretty much tells us this. It says, and again so Section 132, verse 18. And again verily I say unto you, If a man marry a wife, and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant is not by me or by my word, which is my law, and is not sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise through him whom I have appointed unto this power, then it does not valid neither enforce when they are out of this world, because they are not joined by me, saith the Lord, neither by my word. When they are out of out of the world, it cannot be received there, because the angels and the gods are appointed there, by whom they cannot pass.

2:46:05 They cannot therefore inherit my glory and my house is a House of order, saith the Lord God. So it's flat out says right here, this is something that's required to pass through the angels that, that, that that are appointed there. You want to, you want to actually pass through that veil. You need to receive this Holy Spirit of promise. Yeah. And you know, that's, that begins when you when you are sealed to your spouse in in the temple, but it it's not completed. In fact, it's not even complete. This is something, and this is true of all of these, actually, I believe, but I believe that that at this point, none of these are fully attainable.

2:46:54 You can move along in the process a long ways, right? But they're not fully attainable until you've received a second anointing, right? Because there is a part of the second anointing where where a wife commits herself to her husband in a way that clearly if that hasn't happened yet, then you're not bound together for eternity yet. Right. There's a prerequisite there. And so again, it just goes to show that all the way through these outward ordinances, all of them, including the second anointing, are just here to show us. And we've got to find these internal, the inward ordinances and receive them. And so the Holy Spirit of promise, that's one of them. And it's something that we can also all work on, you know, our, our marriage relationship.

2:47:42 And it's something that's going to take time. And just with that real quick too. I would also add to this that I also believe the key part of this is, is defining, again, defining the family. If we turn that menorah upside down, we've got a compass with multiple layers and what's supposed to be inside, what's supposed to be outside. And so part of obeying the law of chastity might involve a family bringing in another wife that's supposed to be there. Right. So it's not just don't go around committing adultery or fornicating. I think it it, there's a, there's another layer to that as well as having the right people where they're supposed to be. And and that's a process that's going to take time, too. Absolutely.

2:48:24 You don't end up with, you don't. You don't get married and the day after your hunting when you've got a perfect marriage for the rest of your life. No, no, no. That first five years is boot camp, Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot to learn, and I'm still learning too. I mean, I've just a lot to learn for a long time. For a while I thought, yeah, I think I've got this figured out. And then, you know, God reveals something to you. And if you're humble enough to take it, you realize how I've got a long ways to go. But. You know. It's worth the work. It's worth the work. I've noticed the pattern and that is the closer I grow to the savior, the more is light illuminates my flaws, right?

2:49:06 I'll be like, oh, I'm I'm getting closer and then I'm like, oh, and now there's this I need to work on. I'm not done yet. Right, so with that, I've got one more thing to look at. And it's funny because the last, the last shall become first virtually can last as you look at the law of obedience and sacrifice. And is there a, is there an, an inward ordinance here to keeping our first estate? And this is what I would say is the, the culmination of these things you have.

2:49:49 So let me I'm going to turn the lectures on faith for this one. OK. It's Canon in my book, even though it's not on my scripture apps. So I'm going to be reading here from lecture 6 and we're going to really look at this law of obedience and sacrifice in this context. OK, so and I'm going to jump around a little bit, but I just want to talk. So we're talking about this concept of sacrifice and the need for for knowledge. And in verse 5 here it says for a man to lay down his all, his character and reputation, his honor and applause, his good name among men, his houses, his lands, his brothers and sisters, his wife and children, and even his own life also counting all things about filth and dross.

2:50:44 For the Excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ requires more than mere belief or supposition that he is doing the will of God, but actual knowledge. So why can't we just receive our second estate? Back then we we obeyed the law of obedience. We obeyed the law of sacrifice. We chose God at his plan. Why did we have to come to mortality? I would say it's, look, I'll give you my explanation and I'll let you you know then, then you can tell me where you agree or disagree. I think at some level we have to understand that this whole existence that we're going through right now is for one reason and one reason only.

2:51:32 And I think that's, well, I shouldn't say one reason, but the, the main reason I think is to find out what we're going to do when we're not in the presence of God. Because if we're going to inherit all that he has, there's got to be some sort of vetting process on that, right? Or else a bunch of unqualified people would make a mess of the eternities, right? I want to be clear, you know, I, I'm not a finished product yet, right? If, if I was granted that right now, I'm not sure I wouldn't make a mess of things. And so there needs to be a time of testing to find out where the heart is.

2:52:13 It's my thought. Right. No, that's exactly where I was going with it. That's exactly it, I think. And so we need to try these things. And here we are, blank slate, separated from God. Are we going to get back there? It's the journey. The journey is the point, the journey is the process that that transforms us from our our fallen state with the potential to attain to divinity and kind of towering over all these laws present in all of them. We've got obedience and sacrifice and here we have on the lecture of the faith. We are to understand for a man to lay down his all, to be able to live the law of sacrifice, in other words. Right.

2:53:01 To really be able to live the law of sacrifice, if you want to live the law of sacrifice, to be able to lay down his character, reputation, honor, applause, in order to do that requires more than belief or supposition that he is doing the will of God, but actual knowledge. So in order to fulfill the law of obedience to sacrifice, we need to have actual knowledge of God. It can't just be faith, and that's what everything else here is leading us to. Everything else we've looked at in this journey is to bring us to get us to that point where we're prepared to receive that actual knowledge so we can fully obey the law of obedience and sacrifice. So and then I'm going to jump ahead here in verse 7. It says, Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.

2:54:03 For from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation, never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It was true, the sacrifice and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life. Right. This is it. We've got to obey it, but to obey it, we've got to have that. We got to develop that faith. And to develop that faith we got to go through all this stuff, this mortality, this mortal probation. But that's all a journey to bring us back there so we can get to that point where we can make a final sacrifice. And So what I believe the kind of internal blessing here, or the the, the mystery of the law of obedience, the law of sacrifice is it goes by many names. We call it exaltation.

2:55:02 The early church called it theophany. The cabalists call it the alchemists call it the philosopher's stone, the transmute LED into gold. In other words, transmute a fallen man into a God. The Greeks called it apotheosis. The Hindus call this kundalini. The Buddhists call this Nirvana. Right. And they all, regardless of how correct their understanding of it is, we can see that. This is what I was alluding to. We're back at the beginning again. Every culture, every ritual, observing culture, religion has this understanding that the point why are we doing all this?

2:55:50 We're doing all this so we can have an experience with the divine. You know, and really, when you boil down the message of Joseph Smith, I firmly believe that that the message is, is this. I've had my counter with the divine and I want to show you how you can too, right? I think that's exactly what Joseph was trying to do. And these ordinances are there to when there's power in them, right? How they all work on the other side of the veil. I couldn't tell you. I, I haven't received all that yet. But we do know they're, they're effectual, right?

2:56:30 They're, they're effectual to us here and, and they're effectual to those on the other side. We only have to look at the life of Abraham, right? All the covenants that we entered into in the temple are, are the same covenants Abraham entered into. What was the effect on his life? His life had an impact on everybody else. I think that likewise the the service that we render here, it, it's effectual not just to us, but to those that we serve. There's a great line out of the movie Gladiator where he says what we do here echoes in eternity. I, I, I would take only one exception with that.

2:57:12 And that is, I don't think it echoes. I think it screams, I think it's loud. I think it's, it's there. And, and I think that's what these things can do for us here, right? Part of what they can do here is help us to encounter the divine. And quite frankly, I'm not interested in a religion where that isn't an option, right? I've I've got too many other things to do if there's not a hope of that at some point. Yeah, exactly. And it's that hope. And it's fascinating because, you know, we started off here in the garden and we journeyed out and the very end, at the very end of this, here we are back in the garden again, right.

2:58:01 And what's fascinating is the garden is also symbolic of the Holy of Holies. The garden was a pre fallen state. It was already in an exalted sphere and it it fell. We're trying to get back to that. And we get back to that by moving going forward, but we also get back to that by going backwards. And as Adam and Eve were expelled right as we read at Cherubim, and a flaming sword were placed to guard the way to the tree of life, lest Adam and Eve partake and live forever in their sins. So we have cherubim like on the Ark of the Covenant over there in the Holy of Holies, and we have a guarding of the way.

2:58:49 We have a veil that saying, hey, it's OK. It's important to go through these, these outward ordinances that are necessary for salvation. But before we let you in here, we need to make sure they're really written on your soul. Right. We got to make, there's a vetting process there, but that's what we're trying to get back to. We're trying to get into the Holy of Holies, which in a sense is a return to the garden. And there's evidence that at some point, and I believe that at least the temple of, of Herod that they had a tree in there, which I believe would be the symbolic of the tree of life. And so we're kind of going back by going even the way this diagram's kind of laid out, even though we're starting in the garden, the garden's on the right. Adam and Eve were cast out of east. They were cast out eastward of Eden. And so our journey to return is to the West. And that's why the temple faces east, so we can enter in and, and go through this whole process. And that's why the whole diagrams backwards. If you're used to reading left to right, I apologize, but I mapped it according to the tradition because that is, that's the Hebrew tradition.

2:59:53 You read right to left, but also you we're going, we want to go West to get back into the into the presence of God. Yep, absolutely. And so, finally, with all those things fulfilled, we can be crowned with the glory and receive eternal lives. Dude so. This is my map. Here's the whole thing. I guess it's missing a few things, but just as an overview again, real quick, this is a map, right? You're starting over here in the garden. You're moving the celestial, you're moving the terrestrial, you're having, you're learning about the celestial, and then you're going back and you're developing these things and then mastering them, having experienced them.

3:00:39 And when you get them far enough, you pass through the veil. And no matter where you are in your life what there's things here that are not checked yet. Right. Guarantee it. You're never done, right? And that's it. That's, that's a good thing, right? And I feel like this is a good place to say this. We, we absolutely should be aiming for the end goal. We should have that goal firmly in our sights. But we should never forget that this is a process, right? And there's no use in just running through the process, right? The process is what's going to get you ready for those blessings.

3:01:28 So hey. Enjoy the journey. Yeah, enjoy it, right? That look. The older I get, the more I begin to realize things, right? Like my kids are grown and gone now, right? And I look now at the younger couple in church who's got three screaming babies and they're trying to do the best they can. And I know what that dad is thinking, Justin, that dad is thinking, oh, man, my kids, my kids annoying everybody else right now, right? But that's not true. That's that's not true. I love hearing that right. And so again, don't be too, don't hyper fixate, right?

3:02:15 Enjoy the ride, work hard, play hard, but enjoy the process because the process has a lot of blessings attached to it as well. And there will be times that you will look back as you get older and realize maybe I didn't enjoy that quite as much as what I should have. Yeah. So. Absolutely. Well, dude, that good, good stuff. The only thing I'd add to that real quick is also if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling stuck and you're like, I don't know what to do now. I think I've gone through that, you know, as far as you know, what the church taught me. Maybe I've I've hit these check boxes and I know I'm not there. We're what?

3:03:01 What lack I get right? Right. I'm hoping this can also provide this map so you can say, oh, I can look at that and say, OK, here's where I am at now I know and here's where I need yet to go. Now, you know, and you have you have a vision to work from. I mean, going back to lectures on faith, you have to have a this belief that your will is in accordance with that your life. You're living your life in accordance with God's will in order to exercise faith as well, right? Right. And so here's how you, so I feel like I, I don't know if I'm there yet. This is what this is, this is the teachings. And again, the way I've organized this, maybe it's meaningless, maybe it doesn't really matter.

3:03:45 However, the individual points I, I pulled straight from the scriptures, these are, these are doctrinal concepts. These are things that we that have been asked of us. These are things that have been taught to us. And these are things that we can, that we can accomplish. And if the diagram doesn't work for you, that's fine. But regardless, I'm hoping at least you can take away an understanding of, of where to go next, what you can work on next and how to move forward as well if you're if you're feeling stuck, because I know I felt stuck many times in my life where I'm like, now what? Yeah, yeah. And and look. And that can be frustrating too. That can be just as frustrating as over fixating on on something you haven't gotten through is just not knowing what to fixate on. Well, look, and, and I believe that feeling is there for a reason, right?

3:04:30 And that reason is to motivate you. If you're feeling stuck, it's because there's something you haven't quite internalized yet. And look, we all go through it. I go through it still. I know you go through it still, Justin. We all still go through it, right? It's part of the trial of mortality. But embrace that. And then ask yourself, OK, what am I missing? Right. And better than ask yourself, go ask the Lord what you're missing. He'll show you. He'll tell you and work on that. There's no reason to stay stuck. We all get there, but there's no reason you got to stay there. Yeah. So, dude, good stuff. I appreciate it.

3:05:14 Yeah. It's it's been fun. I enjoyed sharing it. Yep. Absolutely. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up? I think that's about it. I. Think, I mean there's more layers. I mean, I honestly, I could probably talk about the temple forever. I I just. Go on and on and on and on. There's some other really cool models that you can look at, but I felt like this was the most important one I wanted to share because this is the one that is applicable. It's it shows you how to take that knowledge and apply it perfect and and so. Yeah, awesome. Well, dude, I appreciate it. So hang out for just 5 minutes, all right, all right, all right. Bye everybody.