jesus appears to the twelve - edgemontscripturestudy.comedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 bom 1/bom...

Transcript of Edgemont Stake Book of Mormon Classes by John W. Welch, 2007 to 2009

1BoM 11 3 Nephi 27-30

Tonight I feel like we are saying good-bye to a very, very good friend that we have come to know. 3 Nephi, I hope, is a book that you feel much more comfortable with. We have looked in a lot of the nooks and crannies, we have gone down many alleyways, and we have been able to spend some time looking in on many of the events and imagining what it was like to be in the presence of the Lord during the amazing things that happened.

I am sorry that[our study of] this book has ended. So many more things could have been written. If someday we are worthy I am sure we will be blessed to know even more about these things but for right now we will just try to do the best we can with what we have.

Next week we go to 4 Nephi. It is only a few pages long, and then chapters 1 through 6 of Moroni. I remind you that it is not sequential. We are going to be moving around a little bit to try to read these materials as they fit chronologically rather than just the order in which they happen to have been preserved for other reasons, which we will talk about. It is nice to be able to see these as they have come together in the sections, historically, that each of these chapters had.

Today we just have the last three chapters or four chapters of 27, 28, 29 and 30 of 3 Nephi and we have the questions. I think we can just pretty well just go right down these questions and I hope as you read them and read the materials they brought to mind a lot of good feelings and some interesting reactions that I hope you will share with us tonight.

Jesus Appears to the Twelve

Chapter 27 begins with the disciples of Jesus journeying and preaching the things that they had heard and seen. They are establishing the church, they have all things in common, “and it came to pass that the disciples were gathered together and were united in mighty prayer and fasting.” It does not say what they were praying for. You can imagine a lot of things that might have been on their mind. There were many, many people who had not been there for the first two days in Bountiful and now we have the whole land that needs to be converted, and from what we learned in chapter 28 these disciples had some rough times. There were people who mistreated them. Fortunately, they were protected and were blessed in a lot of ways, but this would have been a difficult time for them. After the big catastrophes, most people are going to put their lives back together again; their houses have been destroyed. Their families, many of them have lost loved ones. The economy is down and here come these people saying, “Listen to what happened to us and the reception might not have been spontaneous and positive as you might imagine, and for people who had not been there this might have even been a difficult thing for them to describe.

So I imagine that they were praying and asking for kind of a blessing that would allow them to be the instruments; to recreate in the lives and the minds of the audience that they were talking to even a small fraction of what it was that they had lived through themselves. Now I imagine that they were also praying about what they should call themselves. “Should we call ourselves the Church of Nephi?” Before they had called themselves the Church of ––well, I do not know what they had called themselves before, they were followers of Christ and of Jehovah, and they were Nephites. Mostly they called themselves either Nephites or Lamanites or Lemuelites or Zoramites, but that is no longer appropriate. We learned in 4 Nephi that there were no more ites.

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So they abandoned that type of organization and the old family-base rules that were essential for living the law of Moses. You had to know what family you belonged to in order for a lot of the marriage and land and inheritance rights to make sense under the Law of Moses, but once they have all things in common they have had some drastic changes in their world, and so they have eliminated a lot of those old commandments and one of the questions would have been, well, what shall we be known as?

What Will Ye That I Should Give Unto You?

Well as the Lord appears, what does he ask them? He stands in the midst of them and the first thing he says to them is, “What will ye that I should give unto you?” And what a question! Now we do not know whether that you is singular or plural but I think that in his first question it is plural. What would you as a group like me to do for you? And of course this is when Jesus will reveal to them the name by which they will be known which is a very, very important thing.

Just want to back up for a minute. We know the name by which we shall be called. What if the Lord were to appear in our midst and we are fasting and we are praying and we had him stand and say, alright, what would you like? What can I do for you as a group? What would our answer to that question today be? I wondered if any of you stopped and thought about what you as a group would say.

(Student) Will your Second Coming be in my lifetime?

And he would say, “Not even the angels of heaven.” Next question. Well, or how else might he answer? Will the Second Coming be in your lifetime? You bet! May not be in your mortal lifetime but we all hope to be there in the morning of the first resurrection accompanying him when he comes. Right? So think broadly and maybe he could answer that question. But wouldn’t that be nice to know how that, you know we are getting close, you know that things are unfolding but we do not know exactly.

(Student) Maybe I misinterpret this but I notice in verse 1 he says, he spoke to the disciples one by one saying, I always thought that he was asking each one of them what they wanted…

Well I think - which verse is the one-by-one in?

(Student) It is the first verse of 27. 28, I am sorry.

28 yes. I wonder if that is the second time. So he first -

(Student) I kind of got the feeling that he was asking each one…

Oh I think he does. I have that underlined here, but after he has answered this first question then he goes another step and says, now one by one, what would you like after I am gone? So the first question is “what can I do for you as a group, as a whole,” and this is so typical of the gospel? It is not just that we are a Zion people; we are also individuals. It is not just that we are a bunch of individuals; we are a Zion people. It has to be both and you know there are a lot of political systems and religions that think it has to be one way or the other and in the gospel of Jesus Christ we are able to get both of those together which most people say you cannot do. You are either an individual or you are a member of some society that does not encourage individuality, or “How

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can you be both?” We do not have a hard time with that. I think as Latter-day Saints we are naturally drawn toward the combination of both. I think it is very powerful.

(Student) I loved thinking about this all week long. I think my request would be…some of my friends…one who has been in a wheelchair her whole life, I would love to see her walk…someone who is dying of cancer who is a young mom…see her live…

Make us all whole. That would be a wonderful blessing.

The Word “Mormons” Was a Sound-Bite

(Student) Do we know how the name Mormon got started?

Well, we do. We do not know exactly who the first person to call the Church Mormons would have been but in 1831, there is an article that appeared in an Ohio newspaper in which they called this group that had now suddenly started appearing in Kirtland, and had converted Sidney Rigdon, and had made quite an entry as they arrived, Mormonites. Well the Mormonites then got shortened to Mormons. So it appears to be a name that was given—we do not think that they came in and said, “Hi, we are the Mormonites.” The press does it again. They have to get a sound bite, and this turned out to be the sound bite.

Well, we will come back to this question about what you would ask when we talk maybe a little more when we talk about the individuals, but I think sometimes we do not formulate our requests as specifically as he would like. Here, they have been praying and fasting obviously, they had been asking for certain things. Maybe they were just asking a little too generally. Then he finally says that he needed to know more specifically, precisely what they want him to give them. Maybe there is a lesson for us to learn in that.

The Name of the Church

Well, let us go to the name of the church which is the subject that then comes up and they are saying “what would you tell us about the name whereby this church shall be called for there are disputations among the people concerning this matter.” So I guess they had different newspapers and different reporters and they wondered what to call this church. We are not told what the different options were. You wonder what they might have been thinking, but somebody said we have to be called something. The Lord said unto them, “Verily, verily, why is it the people should murmur and dispute about this thing? Haven’t you read that you must take upon you the name of Christ?” That, of course, goes back to King Benjamin. It was also in 3 Nephi 18 and other places. What is happening here is not only have they taken that name upon themselves individually, but collectively as well, and so be called by that name.

What is in a Name?

I asked you to think why the name of the Church is so important. Why would this be revealed in this way? It is revealed again in the Doctrine and Covenants, the full name by which we are known in this dispensation. Names! What is in a name?

(Student) Well there is a sense of whom you follow. This is our leader. This is the main head, and I think also there is the sense of who we belong to. When we think about a family name or

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taking on the name of your spouse, you become his and I think there is a sense of we become part of that family of Christ.

It is not just something that goes on a billboard or a marquee; it really does tell us who we are. If it is the church of Moses then call it after him. A lot of churches will pick out a particular doctrine, we have the Baptists, because they emphasize baptism by immersion; you have the Catholics because they see themselves as catholic, the universal church, but that is what they emphasize. The Episcopalians come from the Greek word episcopos which means bishop and that is because for them authority resides in bishops. They do not go above the bishop to the Pope, because the Bishop of Canterbury is the highest officer in the Church of England, and that is where their authority resides; Presbyterians from the Greek presbuteroi, which means the Elders. They focus on the ruling Elders in the congregation. The Methodists have a method of perfection that John Wesley taught and so they are known as the Methodists because they follow that particular method, and so on. We could go on: the Lutherans, that is pretty obvious. Of course, there are others that call themselves the Church of Christ or the Disciples of Christ, and so on, but the emphasis here is on this is the Church of Jesus Christ and that is, I think, rather unique and very significantly descriptive. It is nice that the children have a Primary song, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We did not have that when we were going to Primary but Primary songs know how to emphasize what is most important. Any other comments ? What does the name mean to you?

(Student) Thinking about childhood development, a name to a child is a part of the child. When you say to child… “Jackie,” “No, I am Billie!” It really upsets them. A name is as much a part of him as his arms or his legs…

It is very important in our development and our consciousness , in who we are.

(Student) I was just thinking about that Primary song, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; I know who I am, I know God’s plan. I think when we say “I belong.” you know who you are, what you stand for, and other people do too. One’s whole life revolves around that…

So maybe we should appreciate more the fact that we have this as our name.

(Student) It is interesting that enemies of the Church never use the full name of the Church. It is always L.D.S., Latter-day Saint or Mormon.

When we were working on the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, we had a hard time with the Macmillan company because we wanted to use the name of the Church as often as we could. “That is just too many words,” they told us, “This Encyclopedia can have no more than 1300 articles and no more than 500 pictures and no more than 1,200,000 words and we know how to say ‘no’ in every language that is spoken on the planet. If you ask for more, you will not get any.” So we started turning things in with “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” “Look at all those words you are using,” and we did use it quite a few. We cut it down sometimes, and we would use just the Church, with a capital C, but we made a point of trying to use it as often as we could even though we knew it was costing us words.

(Student) President Hinckley really was adamant that we say Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.3 Nephi 27-30, 5 Feb 2009 (file 090205)

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Right. Now I have asked you, should we ever refer to the Church as The Mormon Church?

(Student) Only for clarification.

Yes. So that they know we are the same people.

(Student) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes known as The Mormon Church.

So that they know quickly that the two groups that present, say on the rescue, humanitarian aid, etc. are the same church.

(Student) I was going to say that I downloaded the style guide from the Church publications and it says we can use Mormons…but we can never call it The Mormon Church.

(Student) Why does everybody do it?

Well we do it because it is convenient. It is shorthand, but we should try not to use it. In a cultural setting, the Church will talk about and will use the name the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Mormon Pioneer Trail. That is okay in the style guide, but I think that is because the Mormon Pioneer Trail is not the Church, and believe it or not, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is not the Church either, although for some people out there who listen to that every Sunday morning, that may be all the church they are getting, and what a good thing. Many people are not members of our Church and really are blessed by that. I think that is the reason.

(Student) When I was a missionary in Finland and I would go tracting, “What church do you belong to?” The Mormon Church, “Oh, yeah.”

Well, we do have an uphill battle there and branding, of course, is an art in marketing and so we cannot have ambivalence here. We want to be known, and if people know us as Mormons well then we want to have that used but we would like them to know that is not really the whole thing.

(Student) Years ago, we used to say, What do you know about the Mormons? Would you like to know more? Interestingly enough, the style guide says that it is never applicable to any of the groups that broke from Joseph Smith…

(Student) Different approach here. The idea that whoever tries the fight against the Church will never succeed. So many times in the scriptures it says that evil men will try, will conspire, but the Lord will always be able to turn it around. I think of how our enemies have accused us and used the name of the Church to our detriment, and have been successful in some ways when they accuse us of not being Christian, and yet, that has heightened our awareness of our use of the words Jesus Christ. It has made us aware of the importance, that it is not just a name. That if we are being accused of not being Christian, we have to live so blatantly, so to speak, that it is obvious and that that has turned around to really come to our benefit to make us live up to who we profess to be.

We should never shy away.

(Student) If people accused you of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

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(Student) At various times we used The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but just recently, we have used the Church of - big JESUS CHRIST. We see the emphasis on Jesus Christ…

I think that is right and we are more sensitive now to graphic images and the subtle influence that they have on people.

(Student) Well you see the same thing as we see the Christus statue in almost every information center

(Student) Even the title of the Book of Mormon…

Another testament. Two years ago we talked about that when we just got started on this study of the book. Anybody remember what the word testament means? Another testament of Jesus Christ? Do not confuse testament with testimony. It has the letter a in it and not an i. So it is another covenant. It is like we have the old covenant, the Old Testament, the new covenant, that is the New Testament and then another, which is the New and Everlasting Covenant of Jesus Christ. Well, good. I hope you take away from this question that the disciples asked of the

The Lord Defines The Gospel

Jesus then does what? After he gets the church established, he encourages them to do good works and from verses 13 to 22, he elaborates on the theme that he had raised several times in verse 8, verse 9, verse 10 about being built upon my gospel. If it is my church, they are built upon my gospel. “Verily I say unto you that they are built upon my gospel if they will call upon me and do things in my name. And if the church is built upon my gospel then the Father will show forth his works.” So that gets emphasized several times and then the next thought is “if we have to be built upon the gospel, we have to be clear what we mean by the gospel, and so here in verses 13 to 22 we have a full statement of what the Lord himself thinks the gospel is.

You know sometimes in the New Testament we talk about the Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark and Luke and John. Here, we can really speak of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nowhere in the four Gospels of the New Testament do you have a statement like this from Jesus defining what the gospel is. What a beautiful statement this is. What a precious statement. Of course earlier, back in 3 Nephi 11, he had given us a really quick introduction that the gospel is faith, repentance and no disputations: Let us keep it simple.

My question here is, how does this definition compare with that definition that we saw back in chapter 11? Did any of you stop and flip back and forth and compare those two? It is interesting that we have two definitions. You know they are not exactly the same are they Bonnie? Did you?

(Student) They are close. As I went and looked at both of them side-by-side, there is mention in this one in 3 Nephi about the concept of enduring, and I did not see that as much in the earlier, and maybe as they are just being introduced, we are not ready to talk about, “you have got to endure too,” you have got to get started.

Right. So in chapter 11 it is just, “Let us get started,” You start with some simple things and this tells us that there may even be another definition of the gospel waiting for us as we continue to progress and grow. Here in chapter 27, there is a lot more emphasis on the atonement and on Jesus’ own being lifted that I might draw all men unto me. This is a part of my gospel, this is the 3 Nephi 27-30, 5 Feb 2009 (file 090205)

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gospel that I have given, that they will stand before me to be judged of their works, whether they be good or evil. That is the bigger Plan of Salvation. We would call this in chapter 27 more of the Plan of Salvation of the gospel rather than those first principles and ordinances of the gospel that are mentioned in chapter 11.

(Student) That chapter 11, however, does say, “This is my doctrine”….

That is correct, chapter 27 has the broader word. Good point. I have seen people use 3 Nephi 11to say, “This is my one doctrine, my only gospel” and he makes a big point that this is it, but you are right, he uses a different word there, and that may well be significant with the doctrine as the basic teachings, but now here is my good news - my gospel which is the whole Plan of Salvation.

(Student) It talks about the gospel of Christ in 2 Nephi chapter 31.

I like this one even better. This is such a full account, and back in Alma 33, Alma talked about the word and this is the word or the seed that you should plant in your heart. Do you remember that? That was what we called it the Nephite belief— verse 22, “I desire that this is the word that you plant in your heart that will grow up to be a tree of eternal life in you.” Believe in the Son of God, believe that he will come to redeem his people, believe that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins, believe that he will bring about the resurrection, believe that you will stand before him, and believe that you will be judged according to your works. What we have here is very similar to when Alma summarized it.

I think what we are seeing here can be understood also in the fourth Article of Faith. How does it begin? We believe that the first principles… Have any of you thought that if these are the first principles, we are just getting started, so what would be the second principles and ordinances of the gospel? Maybe what we are seeing here are the second principles and ordinances of the gospel.

Orson Pratt, in 1840, wrote a pamphlet in which he had a number of belief statements, and in them he says, We believe that these principles and ordinances of the gospel are, faith, repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and he goes on, resurrection and there are four or five others that follow after that. It is clear that the four that we have in the fourth Article of Faith are the first, but we have more to come.

(Student) Who was it you said had this additional …?

Orson Pratt. And you can read about that in an article that was published in the Ensign in1979 by the BYU archivist, David Whittaker and his friend. We went through all of the early attempts to come up with a statement of what the Articles of Faith looked like in several before and many after Joseph Smith’s thirteen articles that we use. It is an interesting dynamic.

(Student) We should point out that between 3 Nephi 11 and 3 Nephi 27, the gospel, it starts out with Jesus declaring his beliefs and his love and his obedience to whom? His Father, and that I think, is what gives him the power to be lifted up on the cross to suffer and die because of the nourishment of this love relationship. Is it not that which gives us the power to work out our salvation and go through the refiner’s fire of mortality is to feel the love of God for us and to do things out of our love for him?

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To Bring us all Back to the Father

That is what he wants to do is to bring us all back to the Father. You know, we have seen a progression here, an escalation of spiritual principles and experiences as we go through 3 Nephi. Last week we focused on how Jesus spoke in the first person, so dominantly in that second day in chapters 20 to 23. Remember we circled a whole bunch of I and me and mine and so on.

Did any of you notice as you read 27 and 28 how the shift here is to the Father? You do not have the Father mentioned very often. When Jesus is talking about the covenant in chapters 20 to 23, it says, “This is the covenant that I made with you, and I am here to keep it.” The Father is mentioned but not nearly as prominently as here, where he begins with his allegiance to the Father. In chapter 28 verse 15, he said, “According to the power of the Father, I will draw all men to me.” Where else do you see the Father as you just scan through?

(Student) Gave us the world through the will of my Father…

(Student) Because my Father sent me…

Keep flipping through the end of verse 16, “I will hold you guiltless before my Father,” 17, end of 17, this is “the justice of the Father,” and the best one of all, verse 30 is what is this all about. What is it that makes Jesus happy? “My joy is great because the Father rejoices.” Why? Because none of this generation is lost! His joy is full because he has been able to do this to glorify the Father. Jesus is leading us to understand why he is doing all of these things, and this becomes the last real thing that he will teach, all about the importance of his love and obedience as a Son to the Father.

(Student) If you think about the doctrine of the Trinity, God, his Son and the Holy Ghost, in one, here Jesus is allowed to distinguish each member of the Godhead because his students have become more advanced as they have sat at his feet and listened. We in our Church teach that the three Kingdoms of Glory are governed by three members of the Godhead and that is a concept that will be unfathomable to many.

Yes. For that reason, they do not even believe in different kingdoms.

(Student) The Greek Roman Church where I grew up, we had the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost at first but then it was lost.

Well actually, you can still see icons in tombs depictions of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

I wanted to highlight a couple things that we do not want to miss in the statement of the gospel. Look at verse 19 in chapter 27 and remember that again. Here we see this in a few other places in scripture, but never more prominently than right here where Jesus says, “No unclean thing can enter into his presence.” Of course, this is why he was willing to suffer so he could offer us the cleansing power of the atonement, so we would be clean. That allows us to enter back into the presence of the Father, but it certainly puts the onus on us to be sure that we have washed our garments in the blood of Christ and retained our faith, repentance, and faithfulness unto the end. This is what the gospel is all about.

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Write the Things Which You Have Seen and Heard

The next question comes out of verse 26. After Jesus has taught the gospel, he says once again, “Write the things which you have seen and heard,” everything except things that are too sacred to be written, of course, but look at what he says, “Out of the books which have been written shall this people be judged.” That is verse 25. What do you think verse 26 means. “Behold all things are written by the Father.” Once again, we have the Father as the focus of importance here. Have any of you thought of the Father being up there writing all of these books? You figure he would have a secretary. That is what the Ward Clerk is for! That is not what it says here.

Remember how 1 Nephi chapter 1 begins. Lehi is admitted into the heavenly council and what does he see? He sees a book, and what does he do? He reads the book. Maybe the Father has written that book. In other words, his decrees are eternal. He has written this down.

(Student) What about The Book of Life, a record that we want to have our names recorded in…?

I guess I have always thought that the angels are doing that, and that they might be, but is it not wonderful for you to know that if the Father himself is writing these books, he is that much aware of us individually.

(Student) He probably has many graduate students.

Well he had better be proofreading really carefully!

(Student) It says all things are written by the Father but I have no idea what that means.

(Student) That is hard for us to imagine, but none of us have a hard time imagining that there is going to be some video of our life played back.

That is right so maybe he is just had a transcriber that will take all of the events and digitize everything based on images. I do not know, possibly you are right. I have puzzled over what the all things means here? Does it mean all things that are important, or is there something about this record?

(Student) It does not say that. “It is written...”

Written, I know, but when you record something,

(Student) I used to think that his brain can hold all the videos of everything that has ever happened in the world.

Even today, though, we can begin to imagine that kind of a database. We can put more information in super computers than we can possibly ever consider. It is possible. We go beyond that. I think the important thing is a matter is faith and testimony that the Father is there doing these things that record all that is important.

(Student) The Lord is omnipotent.

He is omnipotent, and in this case, omniscient.

(Student) One thing, he remembers our mortal sins, and keeps deleting some of the things we repent of.

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(Student) Here is a thought: We need the word that is written, and in the beginning was the word and all things were created by the word of power, so there is this connection between the word and written and so…he wrote the world. He wrote the universe, he wrote the Plan of Salvation…at the Last Judgment book will be opened and people will be judged out of the books… and another book…Book of Life…that is your human body. To quote Bruce McConkie on this…every thought, feeling, deed, etc., etc., that this particular individual has had…cleansed by the blood of the lamb…not in the book anymore. Praise the Lord.

That is why Alma says that the physical resurrection is so important, because we have to stand before God in our bodies in order that there can be a righteous judgment.

(Student) That is why we will say, “Lord, thy judgments are just.” Because when our books are open there will be no question about whose fault it was.

That is right. There is also, of course, the other books that are being written here out of which we will be judged and so on. So that is all a part of it but nice to reflect on that.

Here are a couple of quick fill-in-the-blank answers here. What gives the Father and the Son joy and rejoicing or sadness? Have we covered that enough? No one is lost.

Re-Using the Sermon at the Temple

How many segments from the Sermon of the Temple have we seen in these words? Chapter 27 verse 29, “Therefore ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened.” Does it sound familiar? That is the same as chapter 14 verse 7. What else? Verse 32 “moths doth corrupt and thieves can break,” and verse 33, “straight is the gate and narrow is the way.” Why would Jesus use these phrases? You know this is not the first time here. There are about a dozen places from verse 15 on to the end where Jesus will reference back to or quote things that were given in the Sermon at the Temple. Why is he doing that?

(Student) We need repetition.

We need repetition. He can also build on those as things that he knows have been accepted by way of covenant. People agree with those so he can now show how they apply. It is nice to see that he continues to use the things that he has taught. I think it is an obvious point but it is nice to remember and notice as we go along.

What Can I Do For Each of You Personally?

Well in chapter 8, verse 28, we have the question, “What can I do for you personally?” Nine of them ask for what? “Let us live to the age of man.” What do we learn that the age of man is? Seventy-two. Is anybody here seventy-two?

(Student) When I turned seventy-two I got a call from my grandson saying, “Grandpa are you going to die now you are seventy-two?”

There you go, they are probably worried about it eh? Well, what is going on here with the seventy-two?

(Student) Tell us the significance of that number Jack.

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Well it is 6 times 12; it is also the number of some of the Sanhedrin, we have seventy, seventy-one, or seventy-two in the Sanhedrin. I do not know that it is anything more than just a statement that once I have reached this age I have lived long enough. For the ancient person to live to be seventy-two, that was a really, really, full, old age. We have a poem that was written by Solon, who was one of the seven wise men of the ancient world. He was the great lawgiver in Athens, and besides being a lawgiver, he was also a very gifted poet. Brother Kepis, have you read Solon’s poetry? I imagine it is like the poetry of our great American poets, such as Longfellow. He was really reflecting Greek ideals. Anyway, he wrote his poem about the ten stages in the life of a man, seven years each. When you are seven years old this happens, fourteen as well, and he says, when you get to be seventy, you have lived ten sevens, and if anything else happens, it is all just bonus. So there you go. You know it does not say that in your seventy-second year you will die does it? It says here that after ye are seventy-two, you will die. So it is more -

These disciples wondered how long, they needed to work, and he says, “I will bless you that you will live a long time and be able to continue this ministry.” Some of them may have been old at this point. We do not know, but I will bet a number of them continued to live quite a long time into 4 Nephi, which is what we will be talking about next time, and were important in making that wonderful age of righteousness possible.

(Student) In Adam’s time, there was a long life expectancy; however, I read somewhere that life expectancy during this period was 30 to 40 years old. Is that accurate?

Yes. In the Roman Empire 40 was about the life expectancy for a man.

(Student) It really, really changed a lot.

(Student) Sad song…

Do not sing it for us. Well, the age of man represents the fullness of living a good mortal life. I asked you how would it change your life if you knew that you were going to die a certain time? Some people know that because of medical conditions, and so I do not know if you have gone to see the movie Bucket List. If not, go see it. I think we should take our mortality seriously, we should live each of our weeks and years and times, and we know we are going to die sometime and maybe we would live fuller if we realized that things one day would end here so you do not want to miss.

When Jeanie and I were in Paris last year, we knew that we were going to be in Paris for one hundred days, so we started counting down to day one and wanted to be sure we got everything done. We wanted to go to every possible museum; there are a lot of them. We had a wonderful time, partly because we were trying to fill each day with things that were important.

Why Did Mormon Spend So Much Time Talking About The Three Nephites?

In chapter 28, we have the blessings and missions that are given to the three Nephites. These three are blessed that they will never taste death. Mormon explains in verse 39, that there was a change of some kind. They were not resurrected, but they had some power added to them. Now let us ask, did any of you come up with an answer to the question about why Mormon spent so much time talking about these three Nephites? He gives us quite a long chapter, mostly dedicated to them.

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(Student) It was a rather unique circumstance.

The uniqueness. He knew, I am sure, how amazing that was. What else?

(Student) He says that they administered to him.

That is an interesting point. He knew them and he knew they were still around. Why would that have been important to Mormon?

(Student) Because they knew Christ.

They knew Christ.

(Student) They had talked with Christ. They were there with him.

I imagine, as he is editing the texts he might have said, “Have I got this right? Would you like me to include anything else?” They were the ones who knew these words and memorized them, so there is that. Why else?

(Student) He was living in the midst of apostasy all around…

Excellent and they could help him in that crisis he is going through.

(Student) Book of Mormon was written for our day and they had a mission…

That is right, and that mission is described here in this chapter. They will be able to continue to work among the gentiles, especially in this part of the world. Any other things?

(Student) If the Lord came to me and asked me what I would like to do, I was hoping that I would choose to be one of the three Nephites, but I would choose to be one of the nine and I feel badly about that…

It is an interesting thought. What have the three Nephites sacrificed here?

(Student) As I see the pain in the world, they are not going to suffer physically, but the deprivation of the whole world…

I wonder how lonely they are. Do the three of them hang out together? Are they able to go on into the spirit world? We do not know. John, the Apostle John with this blessing came back as what appeared to be a resurrected being when Peter, James and John appeared to Joseph and Oliver Cowdery, but maybe he was just one of these translated beings and not fully resurrected being. We do not know if he is living in the glory of the great world beyond. You know what Joseph Smith said about why our eyes are not able to see what is beyond? We would be miserable here knowing how glorious it is there. However, as Jeanie and I were talking about this, it struck us that the three Nephites have really sacrificed a great deal. Here they are still trying to do a work that they have been called to do. Enduring to the end. What an example.

Three-Nephite Experiences

Well speaking of that, I asked if any of you —actually this was Jeanie’s question— did any of you have any three Nephite experiences in your family history.

(Student) My great-great grandfather was on his way to a mission and he was going up a river and on a riverboat of some kind, and this man came up to him and spoke to him and said, “You

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have some books and those are very important books.” He said, “You also play a flute, may I play your flute?” He saw him many days in a row, and he would come and talk to him about these books that he had, and he would play his flute. Finally, my great-great grandfather asked him, “Where are you from?” He replied, “I am from a land where you can stand on the bank of the river and look across the bank and see the fish that are on the other side.” Now fast-forward to about ten years ago. My nephew went on a mission to Guatemala, and he was with a man who is now one of the First Quorum, but I think he was the Mission President or Stake President at the time. This brother from Guatemala took him out and wanted to show him some things, and he said, “I want to show you one particular spot. You can stand on one side of this river and look across, and you can see the fish on the other side.” My nephew had not read that story, but a couple of years later, he was reading the family books, and here our great-great grandfather tells of that description. I do not know, maybe it one of the three?

.That is the thing. We do not always know, but these sorts of things happen, and I guess I would rather attribute it to them than have to meet them someday and have them say, “You idiot, did you not know what was going on there?” But others?

(Student) I have often wondered how much or how many prophets they have actually visited. I cannot imagine that President Hinckley did not have some kind of interaction. Of course, he would not talk about it, so you n ever know, but you would think that they would want to connect, for example to Joseph Smith.

There are some of those events. There was one time when they are on the way from Harmony up to Fayette on the buckboard with the Whitmers, and there is a man who comes and appears and says, “Where are you going?” Then they turn around and he is gone. It is just one person, and it does not appear to be Moroni, so that could have been one of those encounters.

(Student) Can they be separate.

They can be separate.

(Student) There was a time that Joseph’s fields got plowed by three individuals, and he had absolutely no idea who—on day they had to go to Harmony…

That is right. Good.

(Student) Elaine’s sister and brother-in-law had two little children up in Canada, and the children got sick and they were way out in a small little village, and somebody brought them a big box of food because the children were sick. They had nothing. The person gave it to the wife and the wife set it down, and then the husband came and said, “Who gave it to you?” She said, “Well he just left.” He went running out to find him.

(Student) My grandmother came from North Carolina and lived on a Plantation there, a large tobacco plantation. My mother related to me a story she had been told about one of the workers on the plantation that had been cut severely by cutting the tobacco. Someone appeared and told him how to take the tobacco leaves and wrap it around the wound to stop the bleeding, and he then left. They had a long road that came down the tobacco plantation, so they looked to see how he had left, because all of a sudden he was gone, but they could not see him leaving the property.

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(Student) There is a story about —I think it is the new temple in Europe. They were moving to one of the temples. They were stopped at customs, and the customs guy wanted to see all kinds of things, and some people came up and said, “No, go on.”

There are amazing things that happen in our lives and it would be nice to know more. Someday we will. In the meantime, you might be interested to know of a collection of interviews that have been done by an archivist in the BYU Library that is a three-Nephite archive. There are hundreds of these stories in that collection. Some of them are fourth hand, such as “My Great Grandmother told my nephew this and I heard it….” Others are first-hand stories, so of course some have more credibility. But the important thing, and the reason those were kept, is not just what those stories tell us about the three Nephites, and what they may be doing, but more about us, why we tell these stories, how we understand these experiences. They become a mirror in which we can see things in ourselves that are also very important.

The Transfiguration of the Three Nephites

Let us move to the next couple questions. I want to draw attention in chapter 28 verses 13 to 16, the transfiguration. Just as Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration in the old world, they were transfigured in a way at that time as well. Here are these disciples, after they had been given these promises, being taken up into heaven, and being allowed to see the big, cosmic movie of what is going to happen. Lehi probably saw something like this. The Book of Moses begins with Moses being taken up and shown all things. These kinds of visions tend to come at the beginning of dispensations, to give those people who will establish the dispensation a full understanding of what is to be done and how it is to work. It happened here; it is another very important prelude to 4 Nephi. We have seen several things that help us to understand how 4 Nephi turned out to be the way it did, and this blessing to these leaders is another big factor.

Mormon’s Ending to 3 Nephi

Finally, we get to chapters 29 and 30. They are very short, and I stopped and looked at this and wondered about how would I end this if I were an editor and an author, and I was editing and abridging and writing this record. How do you end 3 Nephi? Mormon, who is usually not at a loss for words, ends with these two very short statements. Chapter 29 is only nine verses long. Chapter 30 is only two verses long, but they are different sorts of things. You wonder whether you would be just at a loss for words. How do you end this? How does he choose to end it? Would you have ended it any other way? Usually, we like stories to have a happy ending. We do not get a happy ending here, do we? Maybe it relates back to the concern that we saw Jesus express back in chapter 27, about the sorrow, even though he is so joyous at things, how sorrowful he is at the fact that there will be a time when even this great knowledge will fade and people will not be true and faithful to these things.

Well how does Mormon end? In chapter 29 he ends with a series of woes. “Wo, wo, wo. Wo to him that spurneth, wo to them that deny, wo to them that shall say to get gain and…”

(Student) He does ultimately say “Come unto me and be baptized.”

(Student) It actually ends with a beautiful promise.

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That is right.

He ends with that great call, “Be numbered among my house.” The woes reminded me of the woes that Jesus himself spoke from heaven when the 3 days of darkness were going on. “Wo to the city of… wo to the city of…” It reflects back to an important echo to remind us that even though there were all of these great blessings, this experience began with a lot of destruction and woe to those who are not righteous when the Lord comes.

(Student) Also throught the Old Testament Several of the prophets, Isaiah and several of them give what I call a wo list….

That is right. In addition, you never have blessings without the curses, and you are right. Deuteronomy chapter 27, the whole chapter, is “Wo, wo, wo, wo.” People had to stand there and have the woes invoked upon them because they were people of covenant, and “if we do not keep these covenants there will be a price to pay.”

In chapter 30, we have the call to the gentiles. Mormon knows that he is not writing this book to his people. They are a lost cause. He knows from mention of the great sign in chapter 21 that this book will come forth to the gentiles, and he knows that the covenant is now being fulfilled. It is interesting, then, that he ends this book with a call to the gentiles because he knows that that will be the crucial moment, and if they will hear it, that will then make this book fulfill the promises and the purposes for which Mormon has devoted so much of his life. That is what needs to happen.

No Unclean Thing Can Enter Into The Presence…

One other thing here struck me, and that is, all those destructions that we saw in the beginning of the book were there to create a pure, clean environment so that Jesus could himself personally minister as he did in full righteousness.

When people went into ancient temples they had a kind of temple recommend requirement. You could not just walk into a temple if you were impure. And remember, Jesus says, “No unclean thing can enter into the presence.” The Ten Commandments were read and were posted in the temple in Jerusalem as a temple recommend list. You cannot come there if you have any other God before me. You cannot enter if you do not keep the Sabbath day holy. You cannot come there if you murder. You go down the list and that is a lot of what is going on. I think what Mormon is giving here at the end, is the same kind of checklist of what the gentiles are going to have to do, what we are going to have to do in order to be worthy to stand and have this holy record effective in our lives.

And so we must repent of lyings, deceiving and fraud, that is two; whoredoms, that is three; secret abominations, that is four; idolatry is five; murder, six; priestcraft, seven; envying, eight; strifes, nine; and from all your wickedness and abominations ten. So we have got a list here of the ten requirements of righteousness that Mormon ends with, and says if we will then do that, repenting of all those things, “Come unto me and be baptized in my name,” and so on, then we may be numbered with the people of the House of Israel. That is really a great concluding statement to say what this whole experience has been all about.

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What think Ye of 3 Nephi?

Now I want to end this last question. If you were called by a major news reporter—okay so here is CNN and they say, “Hey, I understand you have a book there you members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints— do not count on CNN saying that —and I understand it has a book in it called 3 Nephi. Can you just tell us what— how do you describe this book? We need a sound bite here. Did you struggle with that? Did you think? How would you describe this book? Did I tell you that - well go ahead, let us have some responses.

(Student) We had our sound bite at the airport in Phoenix last Saturday. A guy who was there answering questions…in a conversation…his family was a Snow family. He had been out of the Church for two to three generations, and did not know anything about it. We asked him if he had a Book of Mormon. And so we pulled one out of our luggage and we presented it to him and the first thing that we thought to tell him about was Christ’s appearance on this continent and said to him, if you read it you will find every verse is just precious, clear and authentic. And you have to ask yourself could anyone fake this….?

Precious, clear and authentic. Great adjectives. Other adjectives?

(Student) True

True. This book epitomizes true.

(Student) I like President Hinckley’s comment, “I don’t know everything, but this I do know.”

This I do know. Other adjectives. Give me some superlatives. Is this book sublime? Want to use that one?

(Student) Glorious.

Glorious. It is a glorious book.

(Student) [unintelligible]…hot air balloon…this is why being as a convert…power…glorified body…he could go to do whatever he wanted to do…

Wonderful, so this book has lots of powerful evidentiary force to it.

(Student) So many people say…[unintelligible]

That is right. Well on this point that Brother Kepis is making about resurrection, I think one of the reasons that we have so much about the three Nephites at the end, what does the temple all lead up to? Our own resurrection, our own entering into the Celestial Kingdom and I think Mormon would have known the reality of the resurrection because he had seen them, but the great conquest of death that is in an essential part of the atonement of Jesus Christ is encapsulated there in his blessing of those three men that they will not die, that he has power over life and death. That is again, I think, another culmination - climax of 3 Nephi.

Well other adjectives come to mind?

(Students) Inspirational. Dynamic.

Inspirational, dynamic; it is. What is most dynamic about this?

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He is there. This is not just a theological treatise. It really is a very dynamic. It is an action-filled record. Amazing things are happening.

(Student) Healing them and letting them touch him. One-by-one blessing the children and praying for them. Very visual.

Very visual. Tangible. Very good.

(Student) A further evidence of God’s love…a history of his dealings with people in the new world…evidence of his love.

So it has a universal message. Universal love. Wonderful. That would be a great way to describe this book too.

(Student) First person account.

First person. It is personal and more so than any other, I mean it really is quite unique, isn’t it? We will probably want that as an adjective too. Well if you go through a good thesaurus and just look for every strong, powerful, wonderful, positive word, you could probably make a good case that that is a proper adjective for 3 Nephi. I hope you have enjoyed trying to think how we can and we should describe this book. B. H. Roberts once said, “That in order for the truth to be known, it must be articulated, and the better the truth is articulated, or the clearer and the more able will the Holy Ghost be to bear testimony of its truth. The truth must be stated. And if we can state more clearly what it is that we find in 3 Nephi, and frankly, a lot of people who get to this part of the Book of Mormon and they kind of… it does not have a lot of action-packed narrative. Where are all the Gadianton robbers after the destruction? These last 20 chapters start to get full of action, they are dynamic, but in a different way. Unless we switch gears and begin thinking more spiritually, we do not see it.

The Holy of Holies of the Book of Mormon

I have come to describe this as the Holy of Holies of the Book of Mormon. As we progress through the story of the Book of Mormon we are getting closer and closer to the inner-sanctum of the temple of these people, and in the Holy of Holies is where the prophets and the high priest could stand in the presence of God. That is what these people are allowed to do, and all that has gone before is prelude to bringing it to a point where that can happen.

Let me conclude by just reading a few of the statements by General Authorities who have spoken about 3 Nephi. I think we can resonate and appreciate what they are saying.

President N. Eldon Tanner: “Nowhere in scriptures do we have a more beautiful or detailed record of God’s dealings with man. This will do more than anything else to bring peace and happiness to the world and to the individual seeking such a way of life.” And he concluded, “Third Nephi gives us additional information in more detail than the Four Gospels in the New Testament and preserves the doctrines, teaching and compassion of the Lord.”

President Benson: “It is clear that 3 Nephi contains some of the most moving and powerful passages in all of scripture. It testifies of Jesus Christ, his prophets, and the doctrines of salvation.” He encourages us to discuss its sacred contents and to determine how they can— how we can—liken these teachings unto ourselves and apply them in our lives.

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Elder Holland: “That appearance and that declaration constituted the focal point, the supreme moment in the entire history of the Book of Mormon. This was the day that everyone had talked of, they had sung of, dreamed of, and prayed for, that here, he was actually there. The day of days, the God who turns every dark night into morning light had arrived. We have it called the crowning jewel of the Book of Mormon.”

Brother Matthews, Bob Matthews, says, “Third Nephi offers greater insight into the activity and scope of Jesus’ work than that found in the Bible alone.”

Neal A. Lambert, a Professor at B.Y.U., and I think this is a beautiful statement too, “Any study of the Book of Mormon must acknowledge the remarkable complexity and sophistication of this unique book. We must assume that the selection and arrangement of the words and events are not random or accidental, but rather ordered and intentional, giving to the text an integrity that invites careful consideration and analysis, even when it may not follow our usual expectations. To put it in other words, 3 Nephi is not only remarkably complex, but also remarkably efficient.”

Ed Pinegar calls it: “A resplendent portrait of what it means to live the gospel, to enjoy the blessings of bringing souls to him and to know the happiness that can come alone from the love of God and obedience to his commandments.”

Well that is just a small sample of wonderful statements, which I echo, and I hope we all share as we conclude our discussions [on 3 Nephi]. What a beautiful and wonderful book it is. It has been a real blessing for me to be able to work through these chapters line-by-line and incident by incident with you. Thank you for your feedback, your comments, your participation and most of all, your deep desire to sincerely understand and put these practices, to put these teachings to work in your individual lives.

I share with you my testimony of the truthfulness of this book. I know more than ever before that 3 Nephi is the word of God, that it reports truly the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the events that those people were blessed with, and the promises that each of us can equally have in our lives. I know this to be true, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Transcriptionist Carol H. JonesEdited by Rita L. Spencer

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jesus appears to the twelve - edgemontscripturestudy.comedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 bom 1/bom...

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