164: Comprehending, Part 5

This is part five of a series where Denver discusses how we can prepare ourselves to comprehend the things God wants to teach us. What has come of the restoration? It's reached exactly the point now that was a dead end at the beginning. What is wrong with us that we can't overlook—based upon the individual experiences, the individual study, the individual's comprehension, even the individual's prayerful reflection and guidance through that—and accept one another, when in sincerity all of us are trying to follow God? Why have we now managed to produce (among ourselves) contention, division, disruption? What is wrong with us? Better yet, what's wrong with me? Because whatever it is, it's wrong with every one of us. It's no different than the mess that Joseph Smith saw in the landscape of Christianity in 1820 when he went to the woods to pray. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed of our division. It should repulse us so much that I should be readily willing to embrace you even if you have some idea with which I disagree. I don't have your background. I don't have your experience. I haven't lived your life. I have to assume that you've reached the conclusion that you have reached because of the life you've lived. And perhaps if you and I were to take a long enough walk with one another, we could reach an agreement. But we don't do that, just like the Christian's didn't do that, because we're unwilling to suffer the slightest variation to pass by without commenting on it, criticizing it, and rejecting it without ever considering that there may be a wealth of information that underlies that proposition. And if we understood that well enough, we might say, "Now that I understand, I see where your point fits in to a larger gospel context, and I need to embrace it. I would like to embrace it, but to do so in this fashion, because let me give you what underlies my experience, my background, and my education. " Why do we do this? The vineyard that the Lord began the restoration in was cumbered with all sorts of strange fruit. (I mean—I've spent a lifetime referring to it as the Jacob chapter 5. In the new Book of Mormon layouts, it's one of the very few chapters that I can actually point you to from memory. It's Jacob chapter 3 in the new layout. So I'm becoming familiar with it.) Talking about the condition of this vineyard, and its cumbered with all sorts of strange fruit—none of it worth harvesting; none of it work keeping; none of it worth laying up and preserving against the harvest—the allegory says: This is the last time that I shall nourish my vineyard, for the end is nigh at hand and the season speedily cometh. And if ye labor with your mights with me, ye shall have joy in the fruit with which I shall lay up unto myself against the time, which will soon come. And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their mights, and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them. And they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things. (Jacob 3:26-27 RE; emphasis added) Well, that's fairly critical. The Lord's going to labor with you, but He's going to expect you to obey His commandments in all things. Have you recently read the Answer to the Prayer for Covenant? Are you determined to obey the master of the vineyard and his commandments in all things? Maybe we ought to read that twice before we berate one another, belittle one another, argue with one another, dismiss one another. Otherwise, we're really not laboring with the Lord of the vineyard to help for the coming harvest. Instead, we're embracing a false spirit, and we're dividing one another, and we're trying— Our ambition, whether we're willing to acknowledge it or not, our ambition is to set this into the same sort of divisive factions as the Lord condemned to Joseph in 1820. They have a form of godliness but they [deny] the power thereof (JSH 2:5 RE). They teach for [commandments] the [doctrines] of men (ibid). They're all corrupt. And there began to be the natural fruit again in the vineyard. And the natural branches began to grow and thrive exceedingly, and the wild branches began to be plucked off and to be cast away (Jacob 3:27 RE; emphasis added). Some of the plucking and some of the casting away is voluntarily done by those who submit to false spirits that stir them up to anger against one another, and they depart from fellowship thinking themselves justified before God, when in fact, all they’re doing is being plucked and cast away. Someone that has been misled by a false spirit does not necessarily mean that they are an evil person; it only means that they have been misled. Recall Christ rebuking Peter and calling Peter "Satan" because Peter was advising the Lord against the determined trip to Jerusalem where he would be crucified; and Peter told him, advised him, counseled him, and objected, [Far] be it… from you Lord. [Don't do this thing] (Matthew 9:2 RE). And the Lord, responding to Peter, called him "Satan." There are many people who are only kept from the truth because they do not know where to find it. The obligation of those who can teach truth is to teach it. Overcoming most false spirits is to be done by gentleness, meekness, pure knowledge, and persuasion not by rebuking, condemning, and dismissing the honest seeker for truth. At some point every one of us has emerged from a cloud of falsehoods into acceptance of some truth. We're no better than others who remain under that cloud, but we have an obligation to invite them to join in receiving light and truth. Likewise, we have an obligation to continue to search for truth. Until you have an understanding of all things, you’re still mislead, at least in part. The Lord has every intention of keeping His promise to Enoch. There will be those who are gathered. There must be people gathered to a place, a holy city that meets the description and fulfills the promises God made. The people must gird up their loins or, in other words, must be living the godly religion that declares things as they really are—a religion founded on truth. Truth requires us to know things as they were, as they are, and as they are to come. Many past things that are hidden from the world must be revealed. God’s people must know ancient truths so their hearts can turn to the Fathers. But it will be to covenant people, not individuals, to whom this outpouring will be given. A covenant body will belong in a New Jerusalem. The City of Enoch will meet them there, and then they and the Lord will receive them [unto] our bosom. This is something more than individual salvation. Those involved will be individually saved, but the community itself must exist as something greater than individuals. There must be a “body” or a “bride” for the Bridegroom to embrace. The focus on community or people in these last two revelations is similar to that throughout the Old and New Testaments. It’s everywhere. It is particularly clear that the prophecies about the last-day’s Zion require a people to belong to God and to be regarded by Him as His. In Isaiah, foretelling the future Zion, we learn: And then shall they say, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings unto them, that publishes peace, that brings good tidings unto them of good, that publishes salvation, that says [to] Zion, Your God reigns. Your watchmen shall lift up the voice; [and] with the voice together shall they sing, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Depart, depart, go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go out of the midst of her; be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. For you shall not go...with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. (Isaiah 18:8 RE, emphasis added) John also revealed how a group must depart from Babylon to be saved: And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, ...that you [may] receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities (John 7:2 RE, emphasis added). This theme is also throughout the Book of Mormon and revelations through Joseph Smith. Christ describes the end-times’ Zion and its accompanying sign in 3 Nephi: And verily I say unto you, I give unto you a sign, that ye may know the time when these things shall be about to take place, that I shall gather in from their long dispersion my people, O house of Israel, and shall establish again among them my Zion. And behold, this is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign: for verily I say unto you that when these things which I declare unto you...shall be made known unto the gentiles, that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the house of Jacob, ...concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them, ...that the gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, and know of the true points of my doctrine, that they [the gentiles] [that they] may be numbered among my people, O house of Israel — and when these things come to pass, that thy seed shall begin to know these things, it shall be a sign unto them that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto [all] the people who are of the house of Israel. (3 Nephi 9:11 RE, emphasis added) “[All] of [them] of the house of Israel” in Christ’s prophecy includes the gentiles who have accepted a covenant with Him. ...