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Jacob 5-7 | Scripture Study Insights with Tyler Griffin · Scripture Central

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Hello there, I'm Tyler Griffin and this is Scripture Study
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Insights by Scripture Central Today Jacob 5 through 7 and
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Jacob chapter 5, if you, if you have forgotten, is the longest
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chapter in the entire Book of Mormon.
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And it is often seen by some as a a very boring passage because
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you've got all these verses talking about a Grove of olive
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trees with the the Lord of the vineyard with a whole bunch of
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servants. They're doing all kinds of
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things with the trees and it feels a little bit disjointed
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for some people. So today as we dive in, the
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scripture study overlay that I want to talk about is related to
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the word study Elder and Sister Bednar.
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So Susan and Elder David A Bednar gave a devotional, gave a
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devotional addresses at Brigham Young University in January of
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2024. And in Elder Bednar's talk,
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which you can look up online, it is called Consider the Wondrous
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Works of God. In that talk, he reminds us that
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God's work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and
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eternal life of all of us. That that's what he does.
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That's that's his whole labor and his glory.
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And consequently, if we want to become more like God, it means
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we become more anxiously engaged, more actively working
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for good causes, for righteous righteousness to spread and
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building up the Kingdom. The entire talk is remarkable.
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In fact, both of their talks highly recommend that you you
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look them up and read them. One little quote is work is
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essential for our spiritual progression.
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The idea being it's not optional, it's it's a
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requirement in our process to grow to become like God.
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So as you approach Jacob Chapter 5, there is a power in taking
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time to search, to ponder, to reflect, to apply, to consider,
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to look at various angles of each part of this story.
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To basically my invitation to all of us is let's let's get to
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work. Let's roll up our sleeves.
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And when you come to a passage like Jacob chapter 5, Zenith's
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allegory, or to the Isaiah chapters, or to chapters that
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are talking about the the covenant of God-given to Abraham
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and Sarah and to all of us, or the gathering of the House of
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Israel, that sometimes these sections that are easier to to
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zone out when you're reading them, the the invitation is
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let's do the work to actually jump in and engage in scripture
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study. And if you think about life in
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general in the church and on the covenant path, think of how many
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times we use the word work. You do temple work.
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You go to the temple to help the Lord work with people as they
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are working out their salvation as you are working out your
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salvation with His help, with His guidance.
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It's this beautiful opportunity and invitation that He gives us
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to to do some work, family history.
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It should be a little bit of work.
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It takes this effort where we have to sacrifice time and
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energy. Missionary work, the work of
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building the Kingdom in your callings, the work of raising a
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family or of building a relationship work is this very
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God like attribute that we get to practice over and over and
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over again. And through that lens, that
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Elder Bednar is able to provide in this incredible talk that I'd
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recommend you read Again, you see that everything you do has
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the potential to help activate your agency.
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So you're less and less like a a a victim or an object waiting to
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be acted upon by forces around you.
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And you become more anxiously engaged, more actively working
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towards becoming who you were sent to this earth to become to
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accomplish those things that you were born to accomplish in your
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life. So with that, let's not be
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afraid of the work that will be required to dig out some
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beautiful principles in Jacob chapter 5.
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So let's jump in. The first thing to notice is
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he's quoting the words of the prophet Xenus.
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So Xenus is going to describe this beautiful, extensive
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allegory because he's a Hebrew prophet, a Hebrew poet who is
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going to teach his principles using these symbolic,
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repetitious metaphors and allegories.
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And so as we pick it up, it says in verse 3 for thus for behold,
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thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee so you can circle the
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word liken it. It becomes this metaphor.
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I'm going to liken thee, O House of Israel, like unto a tame
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olive tree. We'll push pause right there.
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So if we if we look at the timeline of prophets in the Old
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Testament, it's important very quickly to reorient ourselves in
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the context. So we had dispensation #1 with
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Adam and Eve, who open up the preaching of the gospel as they
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come out of the Garden of Eden and start raising their
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children. Then the Lord opens dispensation
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#2 with Enoch. Once he is taken up, Zion is
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lifted up to heaven. The Lord needed to open up
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dispensation #3 with the prophet Noah.
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Following Noah, we get dispensation #4.
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With Abraham, and with Abraham and Sarah you get that beautiful
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covenant established that their posterity will be greater than
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the stars in the sky and more than the sands of the sea, and
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that they will bless every nation, kindred, tongue, and
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people, all parts of the earth through their posterity and
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building that covenant as it spreads.
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I'll be your God, and you'll be my people, and they're all these
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promises that flow from that covenant.
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Well, Abraham's son is Isaac, and Isaac's son is Jacob, whose
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name is later changed to Israel. And then Israel has the 12 sons,
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the 12 tribes of Israel, those those sons born to Leah and
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Rachel and their two handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah.
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So just to very quickly Orient here, Zenith says I will liken
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thee, O House of Israel, like unto it, a mullet tree.
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So for context, we're talking about this group moving forward
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in time. We're not talking about Adam and
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Eve's generations or dispensation, or Enoch's or
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Noah's or even Abraham and Isaac.
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It's Abraham's grandson Jacob and his family that now moves
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forward into the the rest of our biblical history, coming forward
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in time towards us. So there's the the likening set
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up. So the House of Israel is like
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this tame olive tree which a man took and nourished in his
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vineyard, and it grew and waxed old and began to decay.
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So you have in this allegory an olive tree symbolically
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represented here of the House of Israel, that began to wax old
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and decay. So if you go forward in time
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from the story of the birth of those 12 sons, the first time
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that they began to wax old and decay is in Egypt.
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So you you see in verse four it says it came to pass that the
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master of the vineyard went forth and he saw that his olive
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tree began to decay. So one of the things that we can
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do in our scripture study, in this work of again rolling up
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our sleeves and diving in, is to look more carefully, read more
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slowly, read more purposefully and look for specific things
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that could be easier to liken to our own day.
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So if we say our current prophets and apostles are
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encouraging us to engage in the work of gathering Israel more
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than ever before, then this, this allegory will become more
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like a handbook of instructions. The how to guide, if you will,
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they'll they'll help us understand what are some of the
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things we could do. And if you look at the verbs let
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me change the color here to to black.
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If you look at some of the things that the Lord does, what
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does what does he do to work with his vineyard?
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Those become things for us to apply in our own life.
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So you notice first of all he saw.
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He went forth and saw. So if we're going to do the work
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of the Lord, we need to go forth.
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We need to get out into the vineyard and observe.
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So he saw that it began to decay.
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And so then he says, I'm going to do some things.
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Number one, I'm going to prune it.
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I'm going to dig about it, I'm going to nourish it.
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And that's all in verse four. Why?
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Perhaps that it may shoot forth young and tender, branch
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branches and perish. Not so.
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The Lord of the vineyard is going to do these things to the
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tree that, from the tree's perspective, two of those items
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aren't going to be seen as as pleasurable.
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He's going to come in, and he's going to cut certain branches
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out of the tree that it's been working on.
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Many of you will remember the beautiful story told by Hubie
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Brown in General Conference years and years ago that was
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then retold by Elder D Todd Christofferson.
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And the church made it a nice little short video about that.
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The current Bush story of when Hubie Brown went out and he cut
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the current Bush back, he pruned it extensively and that those
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branches seemed to weep, saying to him, why did you cut me back?
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I had worked so hard on those branches and the reality is, is
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when you cut a branch of a fruit bearing tree, it now puts more
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of its energy into bearing fruit than growing wood.
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And in our life, sometimes we can get so excited about growing
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wood and putting energy into certain aspects of our life that
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God will sometimes come and cut away those opportunities, or
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those jobs, or or those educational opportunities or
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even sometimes those relationships.
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And we feel wounded. We feel hurt, we weep and feel
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like what was God doing? And in that parable, that
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allegory of the current Bush, I love Hubie Brown's description
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of the Lord telling him later on when he had an opportunity in
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the military that was cut off from him because he was a member
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of the church and asking the Lord, why are you doing this to
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me? And the Lord's response to him
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being I'm the gardener here, I know what I'm doing and I know
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how to produce fruit. So at the at the 30,000 foot
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overview perspective of this allegory, when you you dive in
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and do serious scripture study here, remember that this is a
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handbook not just for us on how to magnify our callings or to
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gather Israel in our work in the church and in our work in the
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home with the family. It's also a how to guide, to
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increase my faith in and trust in the master of the vineyard,
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the one who knows what he's doing, not just in general with
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the church globally and collectively, but he knows what
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he's doing individually with my life.
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So yes, there are programs of the church.
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There are procedures that have been pruned or cut out over time
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in the church collectively. But there are also things that
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he comes and prunes out of your life individually.
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And it's an invitation and an opportunity for us to do some of
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the hard work of discipleship, of being able to acknowledge his
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hand and plead for his guidance and direction to learn the
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lessons he intended for us to learn through that process.
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If he's going to cut off 1 branch, that means we now need
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to put our energy that would have gone into continuing to
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grow that that part of our life into other aspects of our life.
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And we need the help of the Lord of the Vineyard to guide us in
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that in that readjustment effort.
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You'll also notice with the digging, when you go and you dig
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in the roots of a tree, you're going to sever some of those
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surface roots which caused the tree to now sink roots deeper,
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which is such a benefit it loosens the soil, it aerates the
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soil, allows the the nutrients that are needed to be absorbed
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into those roots to have better access to the to the structure
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of the tree where it can be taken in.
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So that when God then brings those nourishing teachings and
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ordinances and other relationships, they actually
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have a way to get into us, to become a part of us, to flow
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through through the the lifeblood of the tree or of that
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organization or of that individual disciple.
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So you can see that God is not afraid of work.
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He's he's in the soil, he's in the branches, He's putting lots
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of nourishment into the soil and and mixing it in.
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Which is interesting because it still allows the tree, the
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opportunity to do the tree like thing over time, which is an
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important thing. Recognizing that God in the
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vineyard, the Lord of the vineyard, is very, very patient.
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He allows lots of time for these things to develop.
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He doesn't just prune, dig and nourish and then expect to pick
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fruit that afternoon. He gives it the time that it
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takes for individuals. He respects their agency to
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allow them to continue to grow and develop based on his guiding
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and shaping efforts and his his guiding hand.
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If you jump down to Versaid, it says gives us another
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significant verb. It says, Behold saith, Lord, the
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vineyard, I take away many of these young and tender branches,
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and I will graft them whithersoever I will.
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So it's beautiful that he takes branches that maybe you have put
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a lot of effort into building and and developing and growing
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over maybe years and even decades in some cases.
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He prunes some of those. It says he takes away many of
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those and he moves them to other parts of the vineyard and he
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graphs them in other places. So your effort wasn't wasted.
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No kind deed, no kind word, no kind effort ever goes wasted.
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The Lord will use it in his vineyard in some way, and it may
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not be you who brings that effort to fruition.
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He may have somebody else do that.
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You may get called into something, or have opportunities
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at work or in school or in your family where you work on things,
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and then somebody else comes along and is given the
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responsibility to run with that baton.
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And sometimes that's painful, to give those things up.
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But in the context of this, this allegory, it's a beautiful thing
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if you keep the perspective of I'm not the Lord of the
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Vineyard. The Saviour knows what he's
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doing and sometimes he will call us to different different work
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in in his vineyard and notice just because he cut things out
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and your works might get grafted somewhere else, there are other
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trees that got pruned and had branches cut that he will now
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bring and graft into you. These arrows go both directions
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so you can picture these compensatory blessings that Lord
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that the Lord of the Vineyard brings.
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He'll cut off some branches and leave that space open to allow
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light to nourish and provide that that life to parts of the
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tree that maybe were being shaded.
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Other times he'll bring in a branch and graft them in to that
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spot. These brand new relationships,
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brand new callings, brand new opportunities or careers or
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other things that you didn't, You didn't see it coming and all
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of a sudden you're now able to work on producing fruit in an
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area that before you didn't even know it was a possibility.
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So it's this beautiful interplay between the Lord and his
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servants and the trees of his vineyard as we watch him do his
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work. Now there are 4 visits, very
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distinct visits, and you and you could separate these out based
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on their verses. The Lord of the vineyard is
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going to come down 4 distinct times.
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Over a long period. So if we know that we're
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starting with the House of Israel, which is the grandson of
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Abraham and Sarah moving forward in time, the first time he would
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come down would be probably in. When it began to wax and grow
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old would be the time frame of Moses in in Moses's
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dispensation. So let's list these out, the
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four distinct visits that the Lord of the Vineyard makes.
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So all of these are in chapter 5.
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The first one is where he introduces it in three and he
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goes down in verse four and it takes us all the way to verse
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14. This is largely Moses moving
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forward through the second-half of the Old Testament.
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So all of these prophets in the Old Testament, the Elijah and
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Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel, all
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these servants, who are working under the direction of the Lord
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of the vineyard, to try to help those trees become fruitful, the
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House of Israel, so that they can become righteous and bear
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the fruits of that righteousness and that covenantal connection
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with him. And in there, in that
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dispensation you get the great scattering of the House of
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Israel. Look at verse 14.
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It came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went his way and
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hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree in the
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nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some
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in another, according to his will and pleasure.
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So in 721 BC, when Assyria comes and conquers the kingdoms of
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Syria, and then Israel in the north, and then all of the
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Kingdom of Judah except for Jerusalem at the time of Isaiah,
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those those 10 tribes from the Kingdom of Israel, they get
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scattered and and that's beautifully portrayed here using
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this allegory of olive trees, this taking of the potential
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fruit bearing from the mother tree of Israel and scattering it
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out into the nethermost parts of the vineyard.
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And then verse 15, it says, and it came to pass that a long time
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passed away. So after the scattering, you'll
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notice how patient the the master of this vineyard is.
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He he allows the process and growth that comes over time to
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occur naturally. And then it says, And the Lord
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of the vineyard said unto his servant, Come, let us go down
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into the vineyard, that we may labor in the vineyard.
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There it is again work, labor. He's he's not going down to
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vacation in the vineyard. He's going to work in the
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vineyard the second time. So this second visit starts in
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verse 15, and it goes all the way over to verse 28.
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This is largely so. So there's number one.
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Here's #2. The second visit is largely the
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time frame of Jesus and his apostles in his dispensation and
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you'll you'll notice this beautiful pattern that he also
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is including parts of the House of Israel that have been sent
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other places. And I think for Jacob teaching
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his people in the new world, this was amazing to him because
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you get the the servants interacting with the Lord in
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different parts of the vineyard saying, why'd you plant this
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tree here in verse 21? It's the poorest spot in all the
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land of the vineyard. And the Lord teaching this
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beautiful principle that by their fruits ye shall know them,
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not by their roots. So instead of looking at where
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they were planted, look at what they're producing.
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Instead of looking at their past, look at their present and
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their future, which is a very godly thing to do in your in
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your interactions with people. And then in the process of
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interacting with that servant and taking him to a worse spot
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of ground in verse 23 and showing him, look, here's
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another tree you didn't even know about this terrible spot.
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But look, it's still producing fruit.
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Because I have nourished this tree this whole time and this
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tree has responded to my nourishing.
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And then he takes him to a really good spot of ground in
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verse 25. And he says, I've also nourished
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it, this tree this long time. But only a part of the tree has
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brought forth good and the other part has brought forth wild.
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I can imagine Jacob teaching his people saying, can you see how
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this could be likened unto us, the Nephites and the Lamanites
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in a good part of the vineyard? And so then you get verse 29, it
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says, And it came to pass that a long time passed away.
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That's a Zenith's marker for give it some time.
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Let's see what happens with this effort.
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And then the Lord of the vineyard said unto A servant,
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Come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labor
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again in the vineyard. So he does it again.
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There's also a pattern here that the Lord of the vineyard gives
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the vineyard time and space once he's done certain things with
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it. That's a beautiful principle for
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our relationships, that we don't smother them.
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We work with them using some of the symbolic analogies of what
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pruning and digging and nourishing and grafting might
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look like with those relationships.
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But then we don't sit there and hover and force the growth.
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We give it space for this, this work to to take its effect and
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and to sink in, so to speak. So this third visit is by far
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the longest and it goes from verse 29 all the way through.
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And as you as you read through here, you recognize verse 40, it
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says, as he's gone into all parts of the vineyard, he finds
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all this fruit, but it's corrupt and it says, and the wild fruit
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of the last had overcome that part of the tree which had
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brought forth good fruit, even that the branch had withered
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away and died. So even that comparison to the
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Nephite, Lamanite part of the the vineyard, that tree planted
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in a good part, the wild part of the tree has overcome the
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natural part of the tree. And so that branch is withered
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away and died. You can picture the the sadness
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of Jacob in telling this part of the story.
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And then verse 41 it came to pass that the Lord of the
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vineyard wept. And he said unto the servant,
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What could I have done more for my vineyard?
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I love this, that you could add to your list of verbs that the
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list of things that the Lord of the vineyard does with his trees
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and with his vineyard. One of the verbs is he weeps, he
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he feels something. These are more than just trees.
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This is his work. This is his glory.
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This is everything he's, he's investing.
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All of his time and energy and effort into is building these
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trees so they can produce fruit and providing everything he
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could for them. And so you keep going down and
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he then goes and visits every part of the vineyard and
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everywhere he goes it's all wild fruit.
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So it's this period of the apostasy and he keeps asking
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this question what could I have done more for my vineyard.
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And it's it's going to end when you get over to verse 50, and
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this is debatable, where you where you end the third visit
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and start the 4th. It it could actually go
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significantly further down into like verse 61, where the 4th
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visit starts. But it's somewhere in there
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where there's this transition because there's a conversation
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between the Lord of the vineyard and his servants.
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And some of the servants notice the loftiness of the vineyard.
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And they say, I think maybe we tried to put too much into the
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branches and they overpowered the root of the tree.
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And we see that in the book of Acts there are thousands of
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converts that come into the church so quickly in those early
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years that it seemed to overpower the the root
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foundation structure of the church or of that tree.
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And it ended up in a state of apostasy of this falling away
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from the truth. Then we open up the final visit
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of the Lord when he's going to come to the vineyard, and this
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will take us all the way to the end, to verse 77, which is the
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latter days. This is where we stop being
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spectators of what's gone on in the past in the vineyard, and we
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become part of the servants. I love this, this part of the
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story because once again you look at the verbs, you look at
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the action words associated here, and there's a lot of work
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expected of us starting verse 61.
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Wherefore go to and call servants that we may labor
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diligently with our might in the vineyard that we may prepare.
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Are you seeing all these verbs in your home, in your calling,
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in your relationships? These are all these verbs of
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what it means to build the Kingdom of God on the earth.
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Wherefore let us go to and labor with our might this last time.
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For behold, the end draweth nigh, and this is the last time
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I'm going to prune in my or prune my vineyard.
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And then he says, verse 63, graft in the branches begin at
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the last, that they may be first, and that the 1st may be
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last. So the scattering occurred and
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some of those first tribes scattered from the the northern
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Kingdom of Israel. He's saying now bring those in
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Ephraim, Manasseh and all these other tribes graft them in,
30:57
start gathering them home to the mother tree into that covenant
31:02
that they can be nourished and let's see if they'll bring forth
31:05
this natural fruit again. You're going to dig around the
31:09
the the roots verse 65. You're going to clear away the
31:13
branches according to the strength of the good and the
31:17
size thereof. You don't clear it away all at
31:20
once, lest the roots thereof should be too strong for the
31:24
graft. So in the latter day gathering
31:28
effort, the Lord through this beautiful allegory makes it
31:32
clear that it's going to be a slow, steady, consistently
31:37
growing pattern where he doesn't just wipe out all of the the
31:42
wild branches at once. He only brings in those natural
31:47
branches and takes out wild branches as the roots are able
31:52
and capable to sustain them. Now we jump down to verse 70 and
31:56
it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard sent his servant,
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and the servant went and did as the Lord had commanded him and
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brought other servants. And they were few.
32:09
If you have ever felt outnumbered, either in your home
32:12
and family setting or in a ward or steak or branch setting,
32:16
feeling like there's just too much work to be done.
32:20
The the vineyard is getting overrun with weeds and it it's
32:24
not producing the kind of fruit. And you feel exhausted and
32:26
you're tired and you don't have a lot of support in your in your
32:30
organization or in your local ward or steak, whatever it may
32:33
be. Remember verse 70 that these
32:37
other servants, they were few. It doesn't take very many people
32:41
to make a very big difference for a part of the vineyard to
32:46
become more fruitful. And the Lord of the vineyard
32:49
said unto them, Go to and labor in the vineyard with your might.
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For behold, this is the last time that I shall nourish my
32:57
vineyard, For the end is night at hand in the season speedily
33:01
cometh. And if you labor with your
33:03
might, with me, if you like marking your scriptures, could I
33:09
could I invite you to just consider marking those two words
33:13
with me? Because up to this point the
33:17
Lord of the Vineyards been coming down with his servants.
33:20
But now it becomes even more obvious for our dispensation
33:24
that you're not working with your family and with your
33:29
calling and with your colleagues and with your friends and with
33:32
your relationships. You're not working with them
33:35
alone. His invitation is to work with
33:39
him so that you can have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up
33:43
unto myself against the time which will soon come.
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And now this significant verse 72 it came to pass.
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The servants did go and labour with their mites.
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They stood up. They move forward.
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It's it's like the song Come come ye Saints, No toil nor
34:04
labour fear but with joy. Wend your way.
34:09
Though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as
34:16
your day. I I love that concept of gerd up
34:20
your loins fresh courage take our God will never us forsake So
34:25
it might seem like we're all alone.
34:28
It might seem like the task is too big for us.
34:32
And quite frankly it is too big for me and for you if we're
34:36
working in isolation. But we're not.
34:38
That's precisely the point of this allegory.
34:41
We're working with him. It's his work that he is
34:45
invited, invited us to participate in.
34:49
It's not our work that we're begging him to come and help us
34:52
with. It's the other way around.
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He's the master of the vineyard. We're the servants who have that
35:00
beautiful privilege to labor with our might side by side with
35:05
him. And then that becomes very clear
35:07
in this next phrase. And the Lord of the vineyard
35:10
labored also with them. So in verse 71, the invitation
35:16
was with your might come and labor with me.
35:19
Now 72 reminds us that he is laboring with them.
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It's this beautiful arrows turning both directions.
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We're connected with him, He's connected with us.
35:30
And they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the
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Vineyard in all things. They're not telling Jesus Christ
35:39
how to run things in his vineyard.
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They're obeying the commands he's giving.
35:44
When he says lop off that branch, they don't say, well, he
35:49
wanted me to cut that one, but I think that's a dumb idea.
35:51
I think it makes a lot more sense to cut this one.
35:54
So they cut off their own branch of their own choosing.
35:59
No, we're working with the Lord, which means in all of those
36:03
relationships, we seek the direction and the guidance from
36:07
the master of the vineyard. And we do what he asks us to do
36:12
as we move forward. And the the beautiful process
36:17
plays out over time. And this gathering works, the
36:24
the fruits are produced, they're brought in.
36:29
And then at the very, very end, the whole vineyard is burned.
36:34
It's purged, The work is complete.
36:37
The fruit is gathered. In that there are a couple of
36:41
instances of burning in the prophecies leading up to the
36:46
beginning of the Millennium and at the end of the Millennium,
36:49
when ultimately at the end, the earth will become celestialized,
36:54
it will be changed. It will become heaven for us as
37:00
He has completed His work and we have completed our work with
37:04
Him. So that's just one of many,
37:08
many, many ways that you could work your way through.
37:13
Jacob chapter 5, looking at the verbs and looking at these
37:16
various visits and finding yourself in this allegory and
37:21
likening it to you. And there are many other ways
37:23
you can approach this. This is not formulaic.
37:28
The invitation is to recognize the symbolic power of at times
37:36
you're the tree and at other times you're the servant.
37:41
So sometimes God is doing things to you for your benefit.
37:46
He's causing things to happen. He's creating conditions wherein
37:50
you can now become more fruitful in his vineyard.
37:55
And then there are other times when he's saying, now I need you
37:59
to be a servant and I need you to make this tree as fruitful as
38:04
it can be. And let me teach you how to
38:07
produce fruit with people with these relationships that you
38:10
have, especially beginning with those that are closest to you
38:13
and moving out from there. Then in chapter 6, I love this
38:18
because Jacob finishes reading the allegory, and then he gives
38:23
you his commentary on what he hopes we gain from it.
38:28
Look at verse two, he says. And the day that he shall set
38:33
his hand again the second time to recover his people.
38:37
So they're going to be recovered in from Jacob's perspective.
38:42
When they left Jerusalem, they were a few years away from being
38:45
carried captive by Babylon, the Kingdom of Judah, that southern
38:49
Kingdom, and they would be restored back to Jerusalem by
38:54
Cyrus of Persia. Then they're going to be
38:56
scattered again by the Romans in 70 AD.
39:00
And he says when he shall set his hand again the second time
39:04
to recover his people is the day.
39:06
Yet even the last time that the servants of the Lord shall go
39:10
forth in his power to nourish and prune his vineyard, and
39:14
after that the end soon cometh. So he's just saying this is
39:17
clearly a prophecy leading up to the second coming of Jesus
39:24
Christ. So then Jacob finishes with
39:26
verse 11 and 12 and 13. He says, oh, then my beloved
39:31
brethren, repent. He here's his call to action
39:35
again. And the call to action from
39:36
prophets is never don't change a thing, just keep up all the
39:41
wonderful work. Don't do anything differently
39:44
than what you've been doing. That is not what prophets
39:46
messages usually entail. They usually invite us to
39:50
repent, which is a joyous thing. It's not a painful punitive
39:55
theme. It's a way to more fully embrace
39:59
the Savior's work for us, individually and collectively,
40:04
as families and wards and and so on.
40:07
So we repent enter in at the Strait gate, which we're told
40:11
earlier is that repentance and baptism entering in it into the
40:15
covenant. And continue in the way which is
40:18
narrow, until you shall obtain eternal life.
40:23
And then this beautiful line. Oh, be wise, what can I say
40:26
more? And then he bids you farewell,
40:29
until he shall meet you at the pleasing bar of God, which bar
40:33
striketh wicked with awful dread and fear.
40:37
Amen. And that was the original ending
40:40
to Jacob's book. He didn't intend to write
40:42
anymore. That was his sign off he was
40:44
finished. And then Chapter 7 ironically
40:47
opens with a reprise of something we heard a variety of
40:51
times in the allegory verse one. Now it came to pass that after
40:55
some years had passed away, there there was a passage of
40:58
some time when a man came among the people whose name was
41:02
Sharon. And Sharon is going to go to
41:06
work in this part of the Vineyard for all the wrong
41:10
reasons, for all the wrong motivations.
41:13
But he feels justified. He feels passionate about his
41:17
his work that he's doing. He thinks he's reclaiming the
41:20
people. He's been deceived by the devil
41:24
into thinking that what he's preaching is the absolute truth
41:28
and these people need to hear it.
41:30
So he comes in. His first teaching is verse two.
41:34
He began to preach among the people and to declare unto them
41:37
that there should be no Christ, there is no Redeemer, there is
41:42
no Messiah, and he's trying to overthrow the doctrine of
41:45
Christ. And notice verse three says he,
41:48
Sharon labored diligently that he might lead away the hearts of
41:53
the people. So he's working, diligent.
41:56
He's he's working hard, brothers and sisters.
42:00
The adversary is not relaxing. His servants aren't relaxing.
42:08
They're working diligently with their might.
42:12
They're labouring against the work of God, and I love that it
42:18
says verse four. It describes his his attributes,
42:23
Cherum's attributes. He was learned.
42:26
He had a perfect knowledge of the language, of the people he
42:29
could use much flattery and much power of speech, according to
42:33
the power of the devil. He's not a slouch.
42:36
He's not coming in half baked. He's coming in locked and
42:42
loaded. He's ready to go.
42:43
He's he's got a knowledge of the the people, the language.
42:47
He's he's a good orator. He's able to explain things in a
42:51
way that is convincing. And he's seeking to shake Jacob
42:55
from the faith. And I love verse 5 where Jacob
43:00
describes the second-half here. I truly had seen angels they
43:04
administered unto me. And also I had heard the voice
43:06
of the Lord speaking unto me in very word from time to time,
43:09
Wherefore I could not be shaken. So all of this zeal and all of
43:16
these these diligent efforts from charem could not shake
43:22
Jacob. So now Charem comes in front of
43:25
Jacob, and notice the flattery. Brother Jacob, I have sought
43:31
much opportunity that I might speak unto you, for I have heard
43:33
and also know that thou goest about much preaching that which
43:37
he called the gospel or the doctrine of Christ.
43:41
You can picture him kind of symbolically padding the the
43:45
much older Jacob on the head There there how quaint.
43:49
You've been preaching that what you call these things and you've
43:53
LED away much of the people. They pervert the right way of
43:55
God, and keep not the law of Moses, which is the right way,
44:00
and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being,
44:03
which he say shall come many hundreds of years hence.
44:08
And now, behold, I share and declare unto you that this is
44:12
blasphemy. So now he's even bearing a
44:13
testimony, a false testimony, For no man knoweth of such
44:18
things, for he cannot tell of things to come.
44:21
And after this manner did share and contend against me, you're
44:24
noticing the irony. No one can know of anything
44:28
which is to come. Can you see the logical fallacy
44:31
here? No one knows the future.
44:34
So let me tell you what's not going to happen in the future.
44:38
I know it. There will be no Christ.
44:41
It's fascinating as you picture Father Jacob listening to this
44:46
from Sharon as he then says, verse 8.
44:48
But behold, the Lord God poured in his spirit into my soul, and
44:52
so much that I did confound him in all his words.
44:56
And he He goes on and share masks for a sign, and he gets
44:59
his sign to to bring this full circle.
45:04
If you consider your efforts working with the Lord in the
45:09
vineyard, recognize that there are other laborers in the
45:13
vineyard as well. Some of them are working with
45:15
you and the Lord to produce good fruit.
45:18
And other laborers in the vineyard are seeking to destroy
45:22
the vineyard, are seeking to produce different kinds of
45:26
things in the vineyard, and they're working against your
45:29
efforts. As you see playing out on the
45:32
page here, and as you see in your life, there is an
45:35
opposition in all things you. You rarely, if ever, get a free
45:40
pass on doing the work of the Lord.
45:43
You're always going to have to face these kinds of struggles.
45:47
And I love the fact that Jacob relies on God to help solve this
45:55
problem. He doesn't.
45:56
He doesn't take on Cherum himself.
45:59
And as you read the rest of Jacob Chapter 7, you can find
46:03
principles of how you can better work with people in the face of
46:08
this kind of opposition or this kind of adversarial work that's
46:14
going on inside of your family or inside of an organization
46:18
that you're involved in or in in any setting.
46:21
I had the opportunity to be on the movie set of a variety of
46:29
the the Book of Mormon videos as they were being produced and
46:32
filmed. Aaron Merrill the the producer
46:35
was so kind letting me work with the correlation team.
46:39
Just a very small small part of that correlation team throughout
46:43
the the filming and the script writing process of of a handful
46:47
of those Book of Mormon videos. One of them that that I'll never
46:52
forget was this story of Jacob Chapter 7 when I was on the set
46:57
as they were filming some of these scenes between Jacob and
47:03
Sharon. And it it was an amazing
47:06
privilege to think through the scriptures from the perspective
47:10
of yeah, if if we have to portray it and try to recreate
47:13
it, what does it look like in and how would the characters
47:17
interact with each other and what would the facial
47:18
expressions be in the body language.
47:21
And it was masterful to watch that team of of professionals
47:26
work through that process down to this point where Sharon was
47:31
on his deathbed and the different camera angles and to
47:36
to feel the the story come to life as it was played out by
47:43
these actors trying their best to recreate what it was like.
47:47
This reality hit me. We have one life.
47:52
What were we? What were we born to be?
47:56
What were we born to do? What were we born to produce?
48:01
What fruit was I sent to this earth to produce for the Lord,
48:06
and to watch that scene on the video on the movie set that day
48:11
I left a lasting impression on me, to see Sharon as he was
48:17
about to give up the ghost, as he he says to the people,
48:21
speaking very plainly in verse 18 and 19 that he had been
48:25
deceived by the power of the devil, and that he feared lest
48:29
he had committed the unpardonable sin.
48:32
And as he he recognized what he had done it.
48:36
It was a it was a beautiful moment for me to reflect on my
48:40
own life and to see what God is doing.
48:45
To work with me and to figure out how could I become more
48:48
fruitful on on in my life. And how could I help as many
48:54
trees around me in my little part of the vineyard become as
48:58
fruitful as possible in responding to the the loving,
49:04
nourishing, and grafting and digging and pruning efforts of
49:10
the Lord in our life to trust him?
49:13
He is the Lord of the vineyard, and he knows what he's doing in
49:16
his vineyard, and he knows how to produce fruit.
49:21
I have to trust him in that. And in closing, he Jacob finally
49:27
does another sign off and we finish verse 27 with him handing
49:33
the plates to Enos, his son. And then he signs off again and
49:37
it says brethren adieu. And just as a side note, many
49:42
people have made fun of the Book of Mormon because they say what
49:47
is a French word adieu doing in the Book of Mormon.
49:51
Jacob wouldn't have known that word and they're absolutely
49:53
right. Jacob would never have used the
49:55
word adieu. Jacob didn't write that word.
49:58
He wrote some other word. That was another sign off
50:01
meaning to God. That's what that word in French
50:05
means. It looks a lot like his sign off
50:09
in verse six. I'm bidding you farewell until I
50:13
see you at the pleasing bar of God.
50:16
That's his sign off. And now Joseph Smith, through
50:20
the gift and power of God translating it into our day,
50:24
used a word that would make sense for our day.
50:26
It has nothing to do with Jacob and French.
50:29
It has everything to do with 1829 and 1830.
50:33
English. How do you communicate?
50:36
I'll, I'll give you this, this eternal sign off adieu.
50:40
And that would have made sense to them.
50:42
In closing, I love the Lord. I love his patience with me as a
50:48
branch, as a tree. I love his patience with me as a
50:53
servant, trying very hard, as clumsy and as imperfect as my
50:59
pruning and digging and nourishing and grafting efforts
51:01
may be. I'm grateful for his willingness
51:04
to keep working with me over time, to not just produce fruit
51:09
in my own life, but in the life of my family and people around
51:14
me. And my hope and prayer is that
51:16
we will all cleave unto him as he cleaves unto us in this
51:23
beautiful part of the vineyard in these the latter days.
51:29
And I leave that with you in the name of Jesus Christ.
51:31
Amen. Know that you're loved.