Latest / Scripture Central / Enos–Words of Mormon | April 15-21 | John Welch and Lynne Wilson | Come Follow Me Book of Mormon

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Enos–Words of Mormon | April 15-21 | John Welch and Lynne Wilson | Come Follow Me Book of Mormon · Scripture Central

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  Hello, welcome back to Scripture Central.
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  I'm Lynn Hilton. Wilson here today with Jack
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  Wells to talk about the books of Ennis, Jacob Omni and Words of
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  Mormon. We get to finish the small
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  plates. These are wonderful historical
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  chapters. They cover a long span of
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  history with very few words. You.
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  Cover hundreds of years and hit some high points that will be
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  wonderful to explore together. So I hope people well think
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  about a lot of things this week, even though there are only a a
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  few pages here to worry about. Well, Enos is a gem.
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  It's such a beautiful message. Now Enos is probably the son of
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  Jacob, at least that's what the text says.
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  He's only gives US1 date in his timing.
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  It's 179 years at the time of his death when he's passing the
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  scriptures on, so 179 years since his Lehigh left Jerusalem.
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  So he's a record keeper for a long period of time.
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  We probably have his efforts from around 500 or so, all the
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  way down to the time that he passes them on.
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  So he lived a long life and he's a great prophet.
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  It sounds like he starts as a young man gaining a testimony of
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  his own as he prays in the wilderness.
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  But what do you love about the Book of Venus?
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  Well, about the book of Venus, I I like to think that he must
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  have been fairly young when he goes out hunting and has a a
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  prompting and a spiritual experience.
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  And you know, a lot of times when you're just doing your
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  daily chores and you're associating with other people,
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  you don't get the big cosmic vision that that, like Moses got
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  when he went out into the wilderness, up into Mount Sinai
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  by himself. And I think going out alone,
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  this young man, Heinous, he went out to hunt, but maybe not
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  really. Maybe he's hunting for truth.
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  He says in verse three that the words which I had often heard my
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  Father speak concerning eternal life and the joy of the Saints
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  sunk deep in my heart. So he is pondering, He's
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  thinking about these things. He is focused on the things of
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  God. And do you think his father
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  Jacob had just recently died? Would make it miss sense.
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  It seems to me that that might be the timing here, and Jacob
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  would have left the records in Enos's hands and Enos would have
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  been taught somewhat. I'm thinking that Enos is
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  probably a, you know, a young teenager at this point, maybe
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  ready to have his bar mitzvah so to speak, but maybe he's just
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  recently had his bar mitzvah. If they did those then, but
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  usually there was a point in which he had become a man and
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  now he's responsible to take over the the the role of high
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  priest or the carry on the priestly lineage there in the
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  temple. I think that would have weighed
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  very heavily upon him. Well, and it he doesn't tell us
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  his age, He just describes here that I want to talk to you about
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  this wrestle I had with God. And do you remember in the Old
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  Testament, Jacob wrestles with the Angel before he receives a
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  blessing. And so the idea of really
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  working hard to receive an answer is something I have done.
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  I know what it feels like to wrestle with the Lord, and I'm
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  so touched with the fact that he kneels down and that he calls
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  upon God and he does not want to get off his knees until he knows
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  he's worthy of whatever assignment has been given him.
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  That his sins can be forgiven him.
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  It. It's a powerful message for all
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  of us because we all need to know where we stand before God,
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  and we all need every mission of our sins.
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  And once he gets that, he says, OK, what's next?
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  Well, verse five is when it says thy sins are forgiven thee.
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  That's probably my favorite verse, and that's when his guilt
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  is washed away in verse 6. Isn't that nice?
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  Yeah. So once we are forgiven, that
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  can be removed from us. We don't need to wallow in in
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  that past. And then he says, how's it done?
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  And the Lord says, because of your faith in Christ.
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  And that's when he starts. Then, in verse nine, it came to
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  pass that when I had heard these words, I began to feel a desire
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  for the welfare of my brethren, the Nephites.
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  And isn't that the way that works when you know you've been
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  given some blessing, you want to share it, and you want to give
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  it to other people? But he didn't just get off his
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  knees when he had that feeling, he stayed on.
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  It says in verse nine. I did pour out my whole soul
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  unto God for them. And the Lord enlightened him
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  again. And then he goes from praying
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  for his own people to praying for even the enemies, even those
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  who had been persecuting him. It's verse 11.
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  And I, E Nos, had heard these words.
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  My faith became unshaken in the Lord, just like Jacob said, just
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  like Nephi said. And I prayed unto him in long
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  strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites.
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  You know, Christ tells us we're supposed to pray for our enemies
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  and those that persecute us, And that's exactly what E Nos is
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  doing here. There's actually a a term that
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  has been used for this kind of prayer, and it's called an
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  intercessory prayer. Oh.
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  And where a person is praying. In behalf of someone.
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  Else interceding on behalf of someone else.
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  Like Christ does in chapter 17 of John.
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  That's right. That is called his Great
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  Intercessory Prayer, where Jesus prays for the disciples and for
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  all who will believe. And there are several of these
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  kinds of prayers that we find in the Old Testament and in the
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  Book of Mormon. And this is, I think, one of the
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  best examples of that, where he now will turn to praying for
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  everyone. I think that's one more signal
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  that he realizes that as the heir to the high priest office,
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  his responsibility will be to intercede between God and the
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  people and to bring about the atonement of Jesus Christ and
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  through their sacrifices under the Law of Moses, realizing the
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  underlying and eternal purpose and function for that.
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  And I see down in verse 13, not only does he pray for them, but
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  you can see his love and and and these people have been killing
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  off his his, his brothers and sisters, and yet he grows in
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  love. He says here that the Lamanite
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  should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a
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  record of my people, the Nephites, even if it be by his
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  power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth as some
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  future date to the Lamanites, that perhaps they might be
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  brought unto salvation. Has the Book of Mormon gone
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  forth to these? People, Yeah, Yeah, we've.
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  Seen that prophecy fulfilled? This prophecy is being fulfilled
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  in our generation as well as our parents and grandparents.
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  And I think we can also take. I can take a personal lesson
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  from this example of E Nos, because we can pray and should
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  be interceding for others, especially those who have
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  offended us. But the answer is don't just
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  pray and hope for the best, but then give them the Book of
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  Mormon. That's what he wants to see
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  happen. Well, he then prays for the
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  plates, doesn't he? Yes, he prays for the record
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  that it will be preserved. If it were possible, they would
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  destroy our records. And so he has to pray for them,
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  because he knows they're going to try to destroy them.
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  But I was you always do a good job about saying, oh, someone,
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  he quoted King Benjamin or someone 20 Nephi.
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  Well, I found one of these in Enos.
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  Somebody quotes Enos. Listen to this one, verse 15.
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  He says Whatsoever thing he shall ask in faith, believing
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  that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive
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  it. Do you remember that from Moroni
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  Chapter 7, verse 26? I think it's slightly different.
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  I put the two side by side to see the slight differences, but
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  this is one of my favorite verses.
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  It empowers our prayers. And how did Moroni know that?
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  Well, he studied the small plates, yeah.
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  And you know the other thing about the Book of Enos, We we
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  hear about this night praying. But during the prayer and during
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  this small chapter, he has seven different examples of receiving
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  personal revelation. The last one is in verse 18.
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  The Lord said unto me, Thy fathers have also required this
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  thing of me, and so I will do it.
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  I will save the record for you. So he cites the Lord said unto
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  me. I think he's familiar with the
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  voice of the Lord, which is such a good example for all of us do
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  we recognize the voice of the Spirit and the Lord's voice when
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  he calls us. But then he goes on.
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  The rest of the book is all about his experience as a
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  prophet acting as a spokesman to help people come under Christ.
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  He understands the importance of the atonement and as the
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  officiator in the temple there in the city of Nephi, it would
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  have been his job now to be the high priest.
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  He continues on in verse 20 to talk about how filthy and
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  revolting the Lamanites were. So he has this love for them
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  earlier. And then he says they're even
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  drinking blood, blood, thirst. And you talked about the law of
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  Moses. And that reminded me, you know,
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  this was highly offensive in the law of Moses to have any.
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  You couldn't even eat an animal that had been strangled because
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  the blood had remained in the animal.
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  You know, blood was not to be eaten because it was sacred.
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  It is to be offered on the altar.
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  It's to be poured out with the sacrifices.
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  And he he really attacks him. Yeah, and he next says, full of
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  idolatry. Yeah, what does that mean?
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  They're worshipping other gods. Idols.
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  And so we do know that in ancient cultures there was a
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  tendency to want to make idols that you could then bring not
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  just into the temples, but into your own home.
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  Enes is making all these statements about what his
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  culture was like. Here, not only do they have
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  idols, but then he goes on and talks about their animals.
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  And living in tents and wandering about in the
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  wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins.
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  And keep going into 21 It came to pass that the people of Nephi
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  did till the land. They raised all manner of grain
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  and fruit, and flocks, and herds, flocks, all manner of
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  cattle, every kind, goats, wild goats, and many horses.
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  Now this has been a challenge. So I I have here in my slides a
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  few examples of some of the animals that are claimed to be
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  in the Book of Mormon. Now, I don't have the cure limbs
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  and coulombs here, but we do have references to horses,
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  asses, cows, oxen, goats, wild goats, sheep, lions, and wild
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  animals. And of course, when Joseph was
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  first writing this, none of those things had been confirmed.
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  But over time in the next 100 years since he wrote that some
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  things were confirmed and few more.
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  And by today 2023, we have confirmed horses from the pre
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  Columbian time. Horses also in with many
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  traditions, cows, elephants from pre Columbian honey bees, lions,
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  wild animals. We still don't know about the
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  wild goats. We're still looking for a few of
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  them, But so many of these have been partially confirmed.
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  I'm just so thrilled that our evidences of the Book of Mormon
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  are so much easier to stand on now than they were in Joseph's
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  day. You know, they knew nothing of
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  these things. Joseph was just guessing in the
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  dark. He wasn't guessing at all.
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  That's the whole point. It was all inspiration.
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  And now we've found truth to his prophecies.
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  And I hope that helps us. I wonder if the people in the
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  Church 100 years ago who didn't have this evidence weren't
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  blessed because they believed and had faith even when they
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  didn't have evidence. But I think the Lord knows that
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  in time evidence will come and we can then still admire those
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  who had faith even when they didn't see.
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  We don't have faith because we see, but because we see.
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  We can understand even better. Amen.
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  Amen. He finishes up this wonderful
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  short letter in verse 25 by saying, it's been 179 years.
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  And then he gives his last beautiful words, comes to the
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  Lord. He says, I'm going to enter into
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  his rest of my Redeemer. And in verse 27 he says, I
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  rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality
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  and shall stand before him. Then shall I see his face with
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  pleasure, and he will say unto me, Come unto me, Ye blessed,
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  there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my
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  Father. Amen.
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  And right after he counts how many years it has been, he's now
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  old and very old, and he is now preparing himself to go down in
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  the grave and meet God. And what he plans to do before
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  he does with his last dying breath, is to preach and
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  prophecy unto this people, and declare the word according to
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  the truth which is in Christ. And I have declared it in all my
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  days, and have rejoiced in it above that of the world.
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  But what I like about this is what a great missionary chapter
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  this book of Venus is. And there is in the MTCA
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  beautiful painting, very one of those large paintings in the in
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  the new high rise building showing Enos going out there,
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  praying in the wilderness. And many missionaries as they go
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  out through that MTC, see that painting of Enos.
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  And I think can really relate to and appreciate this.
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  That what Enos is doing is realizing that once you know and
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  once you have the priesthood and the scriptures, then we have an
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  obligation to share it with other people.
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  And that's what he feels so strongly about, that he will do
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  this and has declared it all the days of his life.
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  So it's a real powerful missionary expression and
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  testimony. And we, as missionaries, as we
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  go forth, should think of Venus a little more often.
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  Let's move on to Jerem. This is an interesting book.
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  First of all, he starts out by saying I'm not going to talk
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  about my prophesying, I'm going to talk about my genealogy and
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  I'm going to give you some history.
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  So he does exactly the opposite. He says I've had revelations and
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  I've had prophecies, but I won't record those.
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  I'm doing this for my genealogy. And when Nephi asked Jacob to
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  take over and Jacob told Enos, it was the exact opposite.
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  And interestingly, when that changes, we begin seeing a
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  falling away. After Jerem, these sons are no
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  longer righteous. So I see something here to
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  following your commands with exactness.
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  Jerem gives us two dates. Verse five, it's been 200 years
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  since they left Jerusalem. And then verse 13, it's been 238
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  years since they left Jerusalem. So we're just going through
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  history lickety split and these people are living a long time.
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  They are. And I got wondering about how
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  long are these people living and what can I learn about them?
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  And I'll tell you a little story about this because it was back
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  in the early 1980s. I received a phone call from a
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  doctor in Salt Lake who was the president of the Latter Day St.
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  Organization of Doctors, and it's called the Collegium
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  Escalapium. OK.
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  And they had lunch meetings every now and then.
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  And I had just started farms and this doctor called me and
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  wondered if I would come and be a lunch speaker.
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  And FARMS is the foundation of ancient research in Mormon
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  studies. And so you dealt a lot with the
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  Book of Mormon. That's right.
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  And this president's name was Russell.
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  Oh. Oh.
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  It was Russell Nelson. He was the president of the
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  Sunday School and he had learned what we were doing.
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  And he said, could you come and talk?
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  We'd like to hear you speak about what you're doing with the
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  Book of Mormon. In a medical setting.
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  And I well, that's my question to him.
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  Well, there's not a lot of medical information in the Book
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  of Mormon. There's a little bit.
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  And he said, well, maybe you could talk about healing and
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  things like that and diseases. It does talk a little about
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  disease. And I said, But, you know, I've
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  just been going through the small plates and I've been
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  wondering about how long these people lived.
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  They're very old. Longevity.
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  And would you be interested in me talking about longevity in
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  the Book of Mormon? Because, you know, there's
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  sometimes when people are living a long, long time and then there
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  are others like in the book of Helaman where you're going
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  through a lot of generations very quickly, there's a lot of
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  disease and people are dying quickly and wars.
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  And he said, well, yes, that sounds very interesting.
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  So I did. I went and spoke, and then I
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  turned it into an article that was published in the most
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  prestigious place you can imagine, which was the journal
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  of the Collegium Escalapium. And nobody's ever heard of it
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  since. Is it available on a in our
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  archive? It's available in the archive.
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  Good, Good, Good. And all you have to do is search
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  for Welch longevity. Good.
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  Much easier than that Latin title.
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  And you will find in the archive the this article which I look
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  back on and it's it's still really fascinating to me that we
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  can piece these little details back together.
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  There is continuity in the text, another evidence of its reality.
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  You know you only gain a testimony of this from the Holy
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  Ghost. But there are so many evidences
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  that add to my faith, and some of these things are how the
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  chronology actually works. So coming out of that talk about
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  longevity, I did produce a chart that's in the Charting the Book
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  of Mormon Book, which we now have in an electronic form
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  called The Best of Charting the Book of Mormon.
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  And chart #26 shows the lifespans of Lehigh's lineage
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  from Lehigh to Jacob Enos, Jerem Omni, and on down.
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  I've got another chart not nearly as detailed as yours on
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  this timeline between 600 BC with Nephi and Jerem.
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  And the reason why I think it's fascinating is he specifically
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  says it's been 238 years and Jack, this is 2024.
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  Do you know what happened 238 years ago?
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  And do your. Math.
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  American Revolution. It's 1776, and so we get a feel
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  for how long this civilization has been going and why you have
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  undulations in their righteousness and undulations in
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  their religious practices. Because it's been a few years.
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  In first eight, Jerem starts talking about a lot of things
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  that were in his culture and community.
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  And in addition to the animals that we talked about earlier, I
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  want to talk a little bit about some of these historical claims.
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  And Jack, do you remember back in 2005, you and I went to that
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  conference in Washington, DC to celebrate Joseph Smith's 200th
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  birthday and it was in the Library of Congress.
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  We had a three day conference and one of the speakers.
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  Do you remember John Clark's lecture?
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  OK, this is all published in BYU Studies called Worlds of Joseph
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  Smith, and it's available also in our archive.
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  But one of the lecturers, John Clark, had this chart, and I
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  asked him if we could use it here.
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  And he talked about claims that the Book of Mormon made about
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  itself in 18. And he chose the year 421842
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  rather than 1829, which is what I would have done.
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  But we knew nothing. You know, there was a few
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  things. We knew there were wild beasts.
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  We knew there were stone monuments.
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  But all these other claims that the Book of Mormon makes were
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  unconfirmed. You know, 80% of what it was
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  claimed as Americans, we did not know.
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  And then this was 2005 when he gave the lecture, he said.
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  Look how many now are confirmed. Confirmed ones are in green.
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  The and the red are ones that we still don't have confirmed,
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  which remains some to be worked on yet.
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  Yeah, it was 38% then, but we were heading in the right
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  direction. It was don't leave the church
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  over no horses, you know. And that was almost 20 years ago
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  now. The next thing Brother Clark did
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  was he added the unconfirmed. We have a lot of evidence, but
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  it's not completely there yet. And so when you add that in
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  yellow, you can see in the chart how many more things, such as
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  the elephants and the sheep. But now 2023, what is the status
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  of our claims now? And this is John Clark's listing
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  here that I have now updated, but I also said what else does
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  the Book of Mormon say? And the Scripture central team
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  has added these as well that are confirmed evidences of the Book
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  of Mormon 52 more. So we have 96% of these things
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  that the Book of Mormon states about itself are there.
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  And many of these come in the Book of Jerem.
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  As we start the Book of Omnite. You know we no longer are
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  seeking to do what Jacob asked and what Nephi asked with
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  including in these small plates the prophesying and the
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  revelation and to speak and preach about these things.
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  They now are just doing a genealogy and they say this is
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  the purpose of these plates because the plates are just
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  going to be for the Lamanites. They've completely lost the
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  purpose of it until we get down to Amalekai or Amalekai.
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  However, we're going to pronounce his name and he goes
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  back to some of the fulfillment of these important prophecies.
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  So I'd like to spend our time with him, if that's OK with you
• 23:05
  all. Right.
• 23:07
  So although we don't learn a lot of history in these small, small
• 23:10
  plates, there is one important historical development that we
• 23:14
  begin to learn about and we'll learn more about in the book of
• 23:16
  most. Very important, yeah.
• 23:19
  But it is that starting in verse 12 of Omni A Malachi, the son of
• 23:25
  a Benidorm, wants to tell us a little bit about a person named
• 23:28
  Mosiah, And he'd been the king of the.
• 23:31
  Nephites of the. Nephites.
• 23:32
  So he probably comes from the lineage of Nephi and not the
• 23:37
  lineage of Jacob which is over at the temple.
• 23:40
  But he became concerned and interested for some reason and
• 23:46
  wanted to leave the higher lands where the Nephite people had
• 23:51
  lived and moved down into the more open lowlands.
• 23:57
  Well, it says the voice of the Lord said that he should depart
• 24:00
  out of the land. That's verse 12.
• 24:02
  So he is commanded to go into those wilderness places.
• 24:05
  And do you think he takes all of his people?
• 24:07
  He does well. He takes a lot.
• 24:08
  Who followed? Him.
• 24:09
  I think so. But he's the king.
• 24:11
  And so why? He's being told by the Lord.
• 24:16
  Or maybe it's something that he's decided my people will be
• 24:20
  better if I take them away from the conflicts.
• 24:23
  Because they were fighting. They were having wars with the
• 24:26
  Lamanites. And it says in verse 14 that
• 24:29
  when they get down there, they discovered a people which were
• 24:33
  called the people of Zarahemla. That's verse 14.
• 24:35
  They don't call them the Mulekites there, they just call
• 24:38
  them the people of Zarahemla. And their king was named
• 24:41
  Zarahemla. But they also called their city
• 24:45
  the city of Zarahemla. And so that name sticks.
• 24:48
  Even though this king Mosiah, who has more records, more
• 24:54
  knowledge, more Royal Instruments, he has the sort of
• 24:59
  Laban. He brings the Leahona with him
• 25:01
  so he has these valuable and impressive royal artifacts.
• 25:06
  But it's still been over 200 years since they, the people of
• 25:10
  Zarahemla have left Jerusalem. But amazingly to me, when they
• 25:16
  left Jerusalem, they claim to be bringing a a king, but they
• 25:21
  don't have any artifacts, they don't have the language, they
• 25:23
  don't have these things that Mosiah had well.
• 25:26
  From the best we can tell, Mulich was a young man at that
• 25:32
  time. All of his brothers were killed
• 25:35
  when the Babylonians come in and take over.
• 25:37
  Jerusalem, yeah. So he doesn't know much
• 25:41
  language, he doesn't know what it means to be a king, but he
• 25:44
  has royal blood and so his descendants will become kings in
• 25:50
  this new land. But these people have forgotten
• 25:54
  their heritage. Including their religion.
• 25:57
  And you can imagine how impressive it would have been to
• 25:59
  them when King Mosiah comes and says, well guess what, We also
• 26:03
  come from that area and we can tell you your heritage and your
• 26:08
  tradition and we want to have an alliance with you.
• 26:12
  I I don't think that they merge completely.
• 26:16
  The two populations, because of language and cultural
• 26:21
  differences, probably stayed as two separate people.
• 26:25
  We learn in Mosiah chapter 25 that they are still separate
• 26:29
  Mulekites and Nephites, and there are more Mulekites than
• 26:33
  Nephites. But it also says that the here
• 26:37
  in this book of Omni that they ask Mosiah to be their king.
• 26:42
  Yes, and as we've explained, he knows how to be a king from a
• 26:49
  Hebraic point of view, and he has the Law of Moses.
• 26:54
  Can you talk a little bit about this large stone they find in
• 26:58
  verse 20? It came to pass in the days of
• 27:02
  Mosiah. There was a large stone brought
• 27:05
  unto him. This is Mosiah with engravings
• 27:07
  on it, and they asked him to interpret it.
• 27:09
  So Mosiah is a seer as well. And this engravings of course
• 27:13
  came down with the account of 1 Coriantimer.
• 27:16
  Verse 21 Coriantimer was discovered by the people of Zara
• 27:20
  Hemla and he dwelt with him for the space of nine moons.
• 27:25
  He survives for nine months and is able to tell people a little
• 27:31
  bit about the history of his people, the Jaredites.
• 27:35
  Who have been destroyed. And on this stone would have
• 27:37
  been some kind of monument that was important to the Jaredite
• 27:43
  people. We find these kinds of Stilas in
• 27:46
  lots of places where people record important battles or
• 27:50
  royal installations or the dedication of buildings and
• 27:55
  things of that nature. Now notice that King Mosiah had
• 28:00
  translated or interpreted those engravings by the gift and power
• 28:04
  of God. And Mosiah's grandson, who will
• 28:09
  be the son of Benjamin, will eventually translate by the
• 28:15
  interpreters the record of the Book of Ether.
• 28:20
  So this gift is something that they'll have that in their
• 28:24
  tradition and powers. But but notice, like you say in
• 28:28
  verse 25, when it came time for a Malachi to pass the records
• 28:35
  on, he wonders, well, who should I give the records to when he
• 28:38
  gives them to Benjamin? He says he had no seed in verse
• 28:40
  25. That's right.
• 28:42
  And he knows Benjamin to be a just man.
• 28:45
  And so he gives Benjamin the plates.
• 28:47
  And he says, exhorting all men to come unto God, the Holy One
• 28:51
  of Israel, and believe in prophesying, and in revelations,
• 28:55
  and in the ministration of angels, and the gift of speaking
• 28:59
  with tongues, and the gift of interpreting languages and in
• 29:03
  all things that are good. For there is nothing which is
• 29:06
  good, save it comes from the Lord, and that which is evil
• 29:09
  cometh of the devil. Moroni quotes that as or.
• 29:12
  Mormon quotes that in The Book of Moroni as well.
• 29:15
  That's right. And don't we have that in the
• 29:17
  articles of faith too? We we believe in the gift of
• 29:21
  tongues. Well.
• 29:22
  And 26 is a beautiful summary. And now, my beloved brethren, I
• 29:27
  would that you should come unto Christ, the holy one of Israel,
• 29:30
  and partake of his salvation, and offer your whole souls as an
• 29:34
  offering unto him, and continue in fasting, and praying, and
• 29:38
  enduring to the end. And as the Lord liveth, ye will
• 29:41
  be saved. So we've now gotten to the end,
• 29:49
  basically, of the small plates, and Mormon has an interesting
• 29:55
  thought here. Why does he write the words of
• 29:58
  Mormon? So he says he's finished editing
• 30:01
  the books of Nephi, and as he's going through the records, he
• 30:06
  finds this small little book that he thinks is powerful
• 30:09
  because of the prophecies and revelations that were written by
• 30:13
  Jacob and Nephi and Enos and others.
• 30:16
  And so he says, I'm just going to tuck it here at the end.
• 30:18
  I just feel like for some reason I should clip this here at the
• 30:21
  end. OK, you said he finished the
• 30:23
  plates of Nephi, but let's be clear that what Mormon has
• 30:27
  finished as he's been abridging the plates of Nephi are all of
• 30:31
  the records of the Nephite people down to the end of 4th
• 30:36
  Nephi. Mormon finishes Abridging all of
• 30:39
  that history, and looking back on that, he realizes that what
• 30:46
  he had begun with with the Book of Lehi and other things had
• 30:51
  dealt more with the the history and the wars and and he has
• 30:59
  these small plates. That he thinks are precious.
• 31:02
  And he says, I wonder what to do with this.
• 31:04
  I probably should have included in my abridging more of this
• 31:08
  dimension of the Nephi world. Yeah, 'cause we know Mormon
• 31:12
  included a lot of warfare. But he's not going to go back
• 31:15
  and redo the abridgement of the plates of Nephi.
• 31:19
  They're huge. But he also knows that if he
• 31:23
  just gives people the small plates, you don't want to leave
• 31:29
  the the reader with this cliffhanger where you end with.
• 31:36
  A book and then go back to this one.
• 31:37
  So he bridges the two books. Exactly.
• 31:40
  So he needs to tie these together so that whoever will
• 31:43
  have the small plates will know how they fit in with the
• 31:47
  history. Sort of like an introduction.
• 31:50
  So it's it's not just an introduction, it's it's also a
• 31:55
  transition from from one to another.
• 31:59
  And he also was inspired to do it.
• 32:01
  When six he says, I'll put the these with the remainder of my
• 32:04
  record. And then in verse seven he says,
• 32:07
  I do not know all things, but the Lord knoweth all things
• 32:11
  which are to come. Wherefore he worketh in me to do
• 32:15
  according to His will. And I think that's all of our
• 32:18
  goal. All of us hope to be a servant
• 32:20
  of the Lord, to be able to do His will.
• 32:23
  But he had such an important, important role with the loss of
• 32:30
  the 116 pages to have these small plates because we don't
• 32:34
  have that record that he edited at this point.
• 32:38
  Mormon has this library, yes. And I think more than anything
• 32:41
  else, I don't think he knows that the the abridging will get
• 32:46
  lost of the 116. Pages Discouraging.
• 32:51
  I think when he gets down to the end of the process, and he, of
• 32:56
  course he was a soldier, he was a, you know, he was interested
• 32:59
  in the wars and the history and now he probably has a little
• 33:05
  revelation, maybe a little. Reflective times.
• 33:10
  His conscience says you know you haven't told enough about the
• 33:13
  prophecies, and look what we have in this this record.
• 33:17
  You can't understand the Nephi world without also understanding
• 33:21
  the prophetic and temple tradition that feeds into the
• 33:26
  large plates. And we know he's a man of God.
• 33:29
  We read his sermons that his son adds in in his son's
• 33:33
  abridgement. So it's a beautiful Little Words
• 33:37
  of Mormon is crucial for us to understand the text.
• 33:41
  And it Yeah, it makes good sense.
• 33:43
  It doesn't take Mormon very long to bridge from where a Malachi
• 33:49
  ended. Finding the people of Zarah
• 33:52
  Hemla. And like I said, he You don't
• 33:54
  want to end on that cliffhanger. What happens when they get
• 33:58
  together? And who was this Benjamin that
• 34:01
  the plates are given to? And so Mormon tells us a little
• 34:04
  bit about this Benjamin, to whom the plates have now been
• 34:08
  entrusted. And in verse 13 he begins by
• 34:13
  saying that Benjamin gathered together his armies.
• 34:17
  He was a king. And he fought the strength of
• 34:20
  his own arm with the sword of. Laban.
• 34:23
  And that's how we know that King Mosiah had brought the sword of
• 34:26
  Laban with him, and he fights with the strength of the Lord,
• 34:31
  and they prevail. And it sounds like there were
• 34:34
  many people who were fighting with the strength of the Lord,
• 34:36
  because look at verse 16. King Benjamin with the
• 34:39
  assistance of the holy prophets who were among the people.
• 34:43
  And then verse 17 said he did reign in righteousness and there
• 34:47
  were many holies. And as these wars and problems
• 34:52
  came up, notice in verse 15 that there had been false prophets
• 34:58
  who had begun to arise. Perhaps they had become aware
• 35:05
  that civilizations are fragile and even the the civilization of
• 35:11
  the Jaredites, of the people who Corey Antomer was a survivor
• 35:19
  from. That great civilization had been
• 35:22
  destroyed and there were wars going on.
• 35:27
  And it looks to me like there were people then who came
• 35:31
  forward and said, I will be your Messiah, I will be the Christ.
• 35:38
  And we do know, though, that King Benjamin is able to bring
• 35:41
  peace. Mosiah, I mean, excuse me.
• 35:43
  Mormon ends with that beautiful message that with the help of
• 35:47
  these prophets, with the help of the righteous people, King
• 35:50
  Benjamin is able to establish a period of peace.
• 35:54
  It wasn't easy. He has to labor with all the
• 35:57
  might of his body and faculty of his whole soul, in order to
• 36:02
  bring about peace. But then there is an era, and
• 36:06
  Benjamin will be a king for a long time, probably over 50
• 36:11
  years. And he will then of course pass
• 36:15
  the the royal responsibility on to his son Mosiah the 2nd.
• 36:23
  And Benjamin has carefully taught that Mosiah he he knows,
• 36:30
  he knows the records, he knows the the will of the Lord.
• 36:35
  He's a holy man and a prophet. So he combines priest and king
• 36:41
  and prophet, and that's a very powerful, unifying presence.
• 36:48
  But you can see how Mormon has then brought the small plates
• 36:53
  with just a few sentences right in to pick up where the book of
• 36:57
  Mosiah would begin. But I'm so glad that we can end
• 37:00
  with King Benjamin. He is both a concluding figure
• 37:04
  but a beginning figure. King Benjamin is such a wise
• 37:09
  man, and I love King Benjamin and his his revelations, his
• 37:14
  wisdom, his culture, his his concern about the poor and the
• 37:20
  needy. We'll talk more about this, but
• 37:23
  he is a king inspired by all of the best of the royal ideals of
• 37:31
  ancient Israel, what the kings of the Davidic monarchy should
• 37:35
  have been, and probably what the kings of the Nephite world
• 37:39
  should have been. And of course King Benjamin
• 37:44
  wants us all to come unto Christ as our Lord and Savior and King
• 37:49
  Omnipotent, and he will be our eternal King.
• 37:54
  I testify in the name of Jesus Christ.
• 37:57
  Amen. Amen.