followHIM - 2 Nephi 26-30 Part 1 • Dr. Joseph Spencer • Mar 11- Mar 17 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Does God work through faith or evidence? Dr. Joseph Spencer explores Nephi’s pattern for quoting Isaiah and God’s plan for expanding the Saints faith and testimony.English show notes: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM11ENFrench show notes: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM11FRSpanish show notes: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM11ESPortuguese show notes: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM11PTYouTube: https://youtu.be/REo6qhPO9w0Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastFree PDF download of quotes from our New Testament episodes:https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookFree PDF download of quotes from our Old Testament episodes:https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBook00:00 Part 1–Dr. Joseph Spencer00:48 What to expect in this episode02:57 Bio of Dr. Joseph Spencer04:56 A marvelous work and a wonder06:10 Structure09:54 Malleability of Isaiah12:56 When Nephi write the Small Plates16:30  2 Nephi 26-30 Nephi’s prophecy18:16 2 Nephi 28 Last Day’s Context19:45 2 Nephi 25-27 Prophecy and role of the Book of Mormon21:44 2 Nephi 25:23 Grace24:27 Jesus lifts27:38 The Lord can do His work28:08 No license to sin and the Law30:51 Striving31:57 2 Nephi 26:1-14 Christ with the Lamanites and the Last Days33:10 2 Nephi 26:15-19 Destruction and likening34:12 2 Nephi 26:20-33 A culture of exclusion36:18 Definition of gentile37:34 2 Nephi 26:29 Whose kingdom are we building?38:04 2 Nephi 26:33 Inclusivity vs. racism42:14 Dale LaBaron “All are Alike Unto God”44:33 2 Nephi 27 The Book of Mormon is the solution48:19 2 Nephi 27:9-13 The book will be sealed50:50 2 Nephi 27:15-20  “A learned man”53:50 Latter-day desire for evidence56:12 2 Nephi 27:15 Gentiles demand proof59:36 God works through faith1:03:10 Nephi addresses the need for proof1:05:36 End of Part 1–Dr. Joseph SpencerThanks to the follow HIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name's Hank Smith. I'm here with the marvelous John, by the way, as my co-host. John, we're going to be in more chapters of Isaiah this week. How are you feeling about this? Wonderful. These are so fun to extract things from and we have experts to help us. Yeah, I've been learning new things for the last couple of weeks in Isaiah and we have yet another lesson in Isaiah. And I'm really enjoying these, John. Sometimes I think Isaiah gets a bad rap, but we should skip it. But I've found a lot of wonderful things so far. I love the old saying that that which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. And when we do a little work in Isaiah, it becomes becomes for a lot of people, it becomes some of their favorite scripture because they've worked at it a little bit.

John, when I think Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, there's one name that comes up automatically, Dr. Joe Spencer, and he's joining us today. Joe, what are we looking forward to in this third lesson in Isaiah? Things get a little more down to earth here. He's been quoting blocks of Isaiah for chapters and chapters, but here he weaves Isaiah's language into his own prophecy, which in some ways will make this, I think, easier sledding than some of the other things. But we're going to see a lot of cool things here. Particularly, we'll want to spend some time on everything that Nephi has to say about Gentiles and how he's using Isaiah to think about Gentile situations in the last days and the challenges that the Gentiles pose to the coming forth of the Book

of Mormon. So we've got lots to think about here. Joe, we've talked in our previous two lessons about Nephi just really thinks Isaiah has the power to convert, that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord, their Redeemer. I read Isaiah to them. It's not to help them sleep. I read them Isaiah. It's I wanted them to believe in their Redeemer. So I read Isaiah. What do you think Nephi sees? I know you can't get in Nephi's head, but of anyone who could do it, I think it would be you. What's Nephi going for with all of these Isaiah chapters? Yeah. In a lot of ways, it seems that Nephi slowly discovered the power of Isaiah and that this was all built on his own vision. He has this long vision recorded in 1 Nephi 11 through 14

that in a lot of ways is the anchor for all of Nephi's prophetic ministry. And after having seen the unfolding of the history of the scattering and the gathering of Israel, and especially the Lamanites, it seems that when he went back and looked over Isaiah, he said, this follows the same pattern, like point by point what I've seen, which I think is what he means by likening. He sees Isaiah as just a clear, confirming witness of the kinds of things he's seen, almost as if he's like, I'm not crazy. Isaiah saw this too, right? And so I think above all, he wants us to hear, as he tells us back in 2 Nephi 11, I want you to see that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, I'm not alone on this. This stuff is going to happen. Scattering, gathering, God will fulfill his promises. Fantastic. I am really looking forward to this.

Now, John, Joe has really done his homework when it comes to Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. Give us some background on what he's done. Yes, thank you, Hank. Joseph M. Spencer, he's a philosopher, associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU. He has degrees from BYU, San Jose State, and the University of New Mexico, where he got his PhD. He's written chapters, something like 50 chapters in different books, been a co-editor of some compilations. But I want our listeners to know about this new book called The Vision of All.

And you can find it on Amazon, wherever, 25 lectures on Isaiah and Nephi's record. And Hank, you were reading some reviews. People are really thrilled about what he's done. Oh, absolutely. I went on to Amazon and looked at some of these reviews for this book. One reviewer wrote, little gems just oozed out of the Book of Mormon chapters. I felt like the pages were three-dimensional. I was diving through layers, finding interesting and arresting insights in every layer. Man, I need that guy to review one of my books. A Vision of All, and it's 25 lectures on Isaiah

and Nephi's record. I think you also have another one coming out called A Word in Season, which the University of Illinois Press did about Isaiah's reception in the Book of Mormon. And can you tell us more about that? Yeah. So that's a primarily scholarly book, though. I hope it's as accessible as possible to most readers. What I'm trying to do in that book is look at not just what does the Book of Mormon do with Isaiah? How does Nephi read Isaiah? How does Abinadi read Isaiah? How does Jesus Christ himself read Isaiah? But also try to put that in conversation with the long history of how Jews and Christians of various types have read Isaiah. Where Abinadi is reading Isaiah 53, does he read it in a way

that's totally unique? Does it sound like other Christians? Trying to put it in a big, broad context and ask how the Book of Mormon sort of sounds in the conversation. Wonderful. John, I know Joe personally, and our offices are in the same hallway. He's good to the core. You can almost feel the light coming out of that office as you walk by. Joe, how do you want to take a look at these chapters of Isaiah? The title of this week's lesson is A Marvelous Work and Wonder. Let me read the opening paragraph of the manual and then let's see where you want to go. I prophesy unto you concerning the last days, Nephi wrote in 2 Nephi 26.

In other words, he was writing about our day, and there's a reason to be concerned about what he saw. People denying the power and miracles of God, widespread jealousy and conflict. But in addition to these latter-day works of darkness led by the adversary, Nephi also spoke of a marvelous work and wonder led by God himself.

Central to that work would be a book, a book that exposes Satan's lies and gathers the righteous. That book is the Book of Mormon. The marvelous work is the work of the Lord's church in the latter days and the wonder, at least in part, that God invites all of us, despite our weaknesses, to participate in the gathering. I love that opening paragraph. So Joe, where do you want to go from here? Well, I think one of the first things I'd like to do is talk a bit about structure, structure of the whole of 2 Nephi, so that we have a place for these chapters in particular.

And then I think we want to dig into exactly that, that moment, these prophecies concerning the last days and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the obstacles that the book faces and overcomes. So I think that's exactly where we want to go, but structure first might be helpful. Well, we are excited. John, you got a pencil ready to go? Got it right here. Ancient device right there. All right, Joe, kick it off. We're ready to go. I think as Latter-day Saints readers of the scriptures, we don't often think a lot about

structure. We tend to read a verse here and a verse there and a verse there and let them flow over us as we reflect on them spiritually, which is beautiful and right. But when we look at larger structures, sometimes it does a lot of work for us. And the whole of 2 Nephi has a structure. It's organized. 1 Nephi is also organized, though that's way behind us at this point in the year. But 2 Nephi has a structure and a pretty straightforward one. The first five chapters clearly function as a kind of introduction. You've got Lehi's final words to his sons, and then Nephi's, what we tend to call Nephi's psalm, where he's reflecting on some things. And then just a little bit of history in 2 Nephi 5,

but the theme running through all three of those things is layman and lemuel and their fate lehi's addressing them directly then he's talking about agency and its uses he's talking about covenant promises in the last days then he's talking to layman and lemuel's children and then he dies and then nephi is reflecting on his relationship to his enemies he's only got two right layman and lemuel and he's worried about his own anger. And then immediately after that, we get the story of the split. Nephites and Lamanites divide. And 2 Nephi 5, it ends on this note of now there's this division. The introduction of these five chapters leaves us with this question, how will God fulfill the promises Lehi has been

making given this division between these two peoples. The Lamanites have been cut off from the presence of God. What now? And there's the question of the scattering of the gathering, just already in a kind of first formula, this question of, here are these covenant people, but they're lost, they're wandering. So now what will God do? And what we get following that is then 25 chapters of prophecy, 25 chapters straight, though in three parts, we get Jacob's voice, then we get Isaiah's voice. And then finally we get Nephi's voice. And Nephi is explicit that these are supposed to be three witnesses. Second Nephi 11, he tells us out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, I'm sending Jacob's words and Isaiah's

words forth with my own words so that people will know I'm not making this up. We get Jacob's prophecies woven through the words of Isaiah. Then we get Isaiah himself in this massive block of text, all predicting scattering and gathering and redemption. And then finally we get Nephi's own prophecy. And that's 2 Nephi 25 through 30, where now he and his own voice with these other two backing him up, he lays out what's going to happen with the redemption of his brothers. Then he ties that all up, and 2 Nephi 31-33 is a kind of epilogue. After all that work has been done, all the prophetic work has been laid out, then he turns to his audience and says, Now, let's get baptized. Come to Christ. Step through the veil into his presence.

And then gives a kind of final farewell. There's a nice structure to the whole of 2 Nephi, and that gives us a place for the chapters we're looking at today. We're looking at 2 Nephi 26 through 30. 2 Nephi 25 through 30 is what constitutes Nephi's own prophecy, as he calls it. And this is kind of the culmination. That introduction sets up a problem. Jacob and Isaiah sort of anticipatorily confirm what Nephi's going to do, and now, boom, we're in it. We're going to get Nephi's prophecy before he gives his final exhortations. I mean, in a lot of ways, this is the kernel, the hard kernel of second Nephi right here.

Jacob and Nephi seem to see Isaiah as very fluid, malleable. Nephi uses the word lichen when he talks about Isaiah. How do you see Jacob and Nephi not just reading the text as kind of a brick, but using it to, like you said, weave their own prophecies through it? How do you see that working? Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, they seem to be very good readers of Isaiah. And that might go without saying, these are prophets. But what I mean by that is that they really have worked hard to understand the structure and meaning of Isaiah's own book. The structure of Isaiah's book is relatively straightforward. Once you see it, it starts with prophecies of judgment,

with little hints of promise. And then about halfway through the book, it turns hard in this direction of redemption and fulfillment and so on and so forth. And they seem to track that carefully. And they see this, of course, playing out in their own people's future history. The Nephites are going to wander and they're going to end up destroyed and just a remnant will be left behind. That's Isaiah's own word, a remnant that is the Lamanites. And they'll be sort of lost and confused. But then redemption will eventually come just as in Isaiah through the assistance of Gentiles so that they can be carried home to the lands of their inheritance and set back in the places that are theirs.

And God will have redeemed Israel according to promise and will have involved the Gentiles in a way that gets them a chance to hear the gospel. And then all of this can be fulfilled. And there are sealed books and all kinds of cool things along the way that I think Nephi, looking at all this, goes, man, this is exactly what I've seen. But he recognizes that Isaiah is talking about Jews back in Jerusalem and about their sojourn in Babylon and about their coming back to their lands in Jerusalem. And he sees all of this as, oh, this is the same story in parallel to what's going to happen with our own children. This is all he means by likening in a certain way is take Isaiah, take what he's seen and envisioned regarding his own people's history,

and then just line them up. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He can sometimes quote Isaiah in a block, but at times he can just weave Isaiah's words into his own prophecy because they're telling the same story happening with Israel in different places. Wow. Let me see if I can restate this. So then 2 Nephi 1 through5 is, here's what happens. Here's how the family splits, Laman and Lemuel.

Lehi dies, Nephi's song. And then I love this. Oh no, how will this remnant be redeemed? And then the next chapters, prophecies of Jacob, Isaiah, and Nephi. I love when you have a prophet comment on another prophet. And some prophets are easier to understand. So Jacob and Nephi commenting on Isaiah helps us go, oh, okay. And then lastly, Nephi's kind of last lecture,

he's going to say goodbye at the end of 2 Nephi. His whole thing, come to Christ, follow him, be baptized, and all of that. I love this kind of 30,000 foot view as you just did that so beautifully, because then we can go in closer, but now we see the big picture. I get that, right? Yeah. Joe, I think as a brand new reader to the Book of Mormon years and years ago, I saw First and 2 Nephi as a daily journal that Nephi is writing from a young age to an old age. That doesn't seem to be the case, does it? Would you say this is written at not one sitting, of course, but at one specific time in Nephi's life towards the end?

We can date it. In 2 Nephi 5, he tells us explicitly when this was written. He says it's 30 years after his father leaves Jerusalem before the Lord commands him to create the small plates. So he's been keeping records, but he doesn't write the small plates, which is what we're reading until 30 years out. And then before that chapter is over, he says, it suffices me to say that 40 years had passed away, which tells us he spends at least a decade writing this thing. Joseph Smith dictates in a couple of weeks, Nephi was receiving straightforward revelations, write this, write this, write this. He could have done this in weeks. The fact that he takes 10 years plus, and this with 30 years of reflection tells us how much

work Nephi has got to put into this to capture what God is after. How many different angles does he take? And by the end, I think the structure's got to matter. He has organized this carefully and systematically and reworked his wording. Every word here has got to matter. It sounds like you're talking about an outline before I go into detail, which I really love that. Here's the outline. They get scattered. They're prophecies of gathering and come to Christ. I love it.

If first and second Nephi were a movie, the movie would probably start with old nephi looking back over his life not a day-by-day journal and joe i don't know if you talk about this in your classes but isn't that going to impact the way nephi writes knowing what happens you would write differently it's got to in a day-by-day journal the things you would say knowing knowing what happens, you might even set up the reader for the future. First Nephi is where this is, I think, on display in full force. He's got a lot of eight years in the wilderness and he's got to choose what stories he's going to tell and how. This is not, well, I went back to my tent and recorded in my journal that night, Laman and Lemuel were jerks again.

But it's him looking back over this. And it's very important that in 2 Nephi 5, he tells us it's after the split between Lamanites and Nephites that he's writing any of this. So he's telling a story about how these people came into conflict. He's setting that up all through 1 Nephi. This story, then this story, so that we watch a kind of crescendo of conflict over the course of first Nephi. And then in second Nephi, it comes to a culmination. And now we need prophetic answers. So Laman and Lemuel are getting worse and worse and worse.

And Nephi, perhaps that wasn't exactly how it went down, but he's writing it that way. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, he tells us moments along first Nephi where they seem to turn in a better direction for a time and so on. And first Nephi ends on a hopeful note before second Nephi sees things get bad again. And I think that's important too, that along the way Nephi is willing to say, boy, this could go in a lot of directions. He's not telling us where it's going to end yet. And when we get to second Nephi four, the very last words he's going to offer before recording the split itself is a Psalm in which he wonders whether his own sins are in the way. That's a really humble prophetic

voice. Yeah. I think that perspective really changes the way you read the book. And it's not something that I would say, well, you should have seen this the first time you read it. It comes naturally over time going, oh wait, he's much older when he writes about his younger years. Joe, what about these specific chapters that we're looking at today, 26 through 30? Would you say they're structured in a certain way? Yeah, absolutely. I mentioned earlier that Nephi's own prophecy here is found in 2 Nephi 25 through 30.

Original chapters make a big difference here for listeners who aren't familiar with that. When Joseph Smith dictates the text of the Book of Mormon to his scribes, he dictates chapter breaks as part of the dictation process. But they're not the chapter breaks we have in today's copies of the Book of Mormon. Those are the work of Orson Pratt in the 1870s.

When Orson Pratt re-divides the text up into chapters, he seems to have been guided by basically the length of chapters in the Bible. Let's get these shorter verses should run to about 30 verses or so. But the original chapters are much longer often. I think we can prove that those chapters are not just Joseph Smith occasionally going, maybe that's good. Let's call that a chapter. These go right back to the ancient authors. If we read the Book of Mormon with original chapters in mind, sometimes it reveals a lot to us. And Nephi's own prophecies here are just two original chapters. Second Nephi 25 through 27, it's the original chapter 11 of Second Nephi. And then chapters

28 through 30 are an original chapter, the original chapter 12. It gives us his prophecy in two sequences. And you can see the dividing line pretty clearly there. In 25, he opens right after all the big long quotation of Isaiah, and he especially is reflecting on the Lehite history. So where Nephites are going to face right down to the coming of Christ, and then where they're going to be left after the destruction of the Nephites, and then lets that open on to the last days and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and what that's going to mean. And and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and what that's going to mean. And he starts to really heavily use Isaiah in chapter 27. And then he'll

give you the longest quotation of Isaiah you're going to get in these chapters. And then he'll break the chapter at the end of chapter 27. And then he'll open chapter 28 with, okay, so now let's back up. We've got the story. And then he starts to just give us a sense, a kind of texture for the last day's context. We've got the story in the first original chapter there, and the second original chapter backs up and says, now, what's that day like? What are the challenges the Book of Mormon is going to face? It does seem to have its two parts very clearly. Let's get the story, then let's back up and reflect on the stakes of the story.

Fantastic. When people go on a church history tour and they buy a reproduction of the first edition of the story. Fantastic. When people go on a church history tour and they buy a reproduction of the first edition of the Book of Mormon, is that how those are divided in that? Yep. Those are the original chapters. You can get those reproductions. Of course, the Joseph Smith Papers website has early editions of the Book of Mormon on there that can be read for free. There are also study editions of the Book of Mormon that will have modern chapters, but they'll also have original chaptering marked in them. So the Maxwell Institute study edition, for instance, has the original chapters marked all through it so that you can track it while you've got modern verses

as well. If you by chance have an original 1830 copy, you could read it there or you could donate it to the Follow Him podcast. We wouldn't mind that. You probably aren't going to use it for anything. So go ahead and mail that. Just put it in UPS for us. Joe, let's take on this first section, 25 through 27. We did cover some of 25 last week with Dr. Olson, but I don't think repetition is a bad thing. Walk us through this first section that you told us, 25, 26, 27. So a couple of things happen at 25. We tend to read that chapter as like Nephi cleaning up the mess after Isaiah. Like he's been quoting Isaiah for a long time.

And now Nephi gives us like some keys to how to read Isaiah. But if we read 25 to 27 as a whole, then 25 is doing, I think, several things rather than just sort of cleanup work. Those first few verses, of course, he is talking about Isaiah and why Isaiah is hard to understand. Starting in verse nine, he gives us what he calls his own prophecy. He's very explicit about that. And when you get to verse 19 or 20, he says, now I have spoken plainly that ye cannot err. He's given a prophecy and said, you were reading Isaiah that was hard. Here you go. This is as plain as it gets. And he's laid that out very clearly. And then he spends the next handful of verses talking a bit about the role of the Book of Mormon in the last days, sort of introducing that theme.

You can see this in chapter 25. So verse 20 is what we were just reading. I've spoken plainly that you cannot err. And then he says, as the Lord God liveth that brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt and gave unto Moses power that he should heal the nations after they had been bitten by the poisonous serpents, if they would cast their eyes, etc., etc. He says, as these things are true, and as the Lord God liveth, there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ of which I have spoken, whereby man can be saved. Wherefore, for this cause hath the Lord God promised unto me that these things which I write shall be kept and preserved and handed down unto my seed from generation to generation about the record he's helping to contribute to. In verse 23, in a very famous passage, he'll talk about writing so that people understand the atonement of Jesus Christ and the role of grace. And then he'll go on to talk about in verses 24 through 30 about ensuring that his children, by reading this record, will know Christ and understand the deadness of the law.

You can see him already sort of setting up the importance of the Book of Mormon for his own children, for the Lamanites, and for Latter-day Readers over these verses before we even get to 26. Before I let you out of 25, we talked about this with Sister Olson, but let's talk about it again because it is a well-known verse. How do you see 2 Nephi 25, 23? We write to persuade our children, our brethren to believe in Christ, to be reconciled to God. And then this statement, for we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do. Very few verses have received the kind of coverage that verse has out of the Book of Mormon. When you come across this with students or other people that you're teaching, how do you take that on? Well, yeah, I've written a fair bit about this and I give a whole day in my class to it. It can be read, I think, in ways that are misleading. I think the very first thing to notice about it is that it states very bluntly that it is by grace

that we are saved. And it's kind of amazing to me that people have taken a passage that explicitly states that it is by grace that we are saved and sometimes turned it into something that says the opposite. That's very strange. The second thing to say about it, I think, is when Nephi says, after all we can do, and people say, well, that's very plain then. I'm saved by grace. Sure, fine. But only after I've done everything I can. But notice that that changes the wording if we think it that way. It doesn't say after we do all we can, but after all we can do. Those are very different ideas. This verse doesn't actually refer to anything I have done. It refers to what I could do.

And that is a very different idea. To say that we're saved by grace after all we can do is to say, even if I did everything right, still grace. Still grace. And that feels to me like King Benjamin saying, if you were to give all the thanks and praise with your whole soul, everything you've got power to possess, and if you were to serve God with everything you've got, you'd still be unprofitable servants. It's the same message. I always think of King Benjamin, like you just said, saying, are we not all beggars? We're in that position. None of us can kind of list our things that we've done and say, therefore I should, nope, nope. We're in the position of a beggar. We can't earn it. It will be by grace. After all we can do, I always think of Jesus saying, I'm the vine, you're the branches,

and without me, you can do nothing. The grace of Christ, to paraphrase Elder Hafen, is available before, during, and after anything we can do. It's not a sequence, that after word. I think we look at it like this and then this, and we get some sort of false sequence in our minds when we're relying on grace before, during, and after everything. It's interesting to me, Joe, that there's so many other verses in the Book of Mormon that say we rely wholly on the merits of Christ. Since man had fallen, he could do nothing of himself, save it through the merits of Christ. Since man had fallen, he could do nothing of himself, save it through the

merits of Christ. Yet this one has stood out to mean the exact opposite, that I rely on myself. I'm hoping our listeners will walk away encouraged by this verse. How might I rephrase it or how should I think about it? And maybe you've already told us this. Tell us it again. How can I walk away from this going, oh, that really uplifts me and empowers me. What's at stake there is simply that it isn't I who has to do it. It's not on me. This is God's work. The discouraging thing is I'm going to fail. The encouraging thing is it's not about me. So it doesn't matter that I'm going to fail. I find in the next handful of verses where Nephi is wrestling with the relationship between the law and the Messiah, I find a really nice way of thinking about this. So verse 25, he says this, for this end, for this purpose, this aim was the law given, which is to say,

to get us to look forward unto Christ. That's what he has just said in verse 24. But for this end was the law given, wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith. I think that's beautiful. If the law is supposed to point us to the coming of Christ, then the law, if it's treated apart from the coming of Christ, is dead. But if I can see that the law, in fact, is always pointing me to Christ, then it's not about whether I fulfill the law. Christ's job is to fulfill the law. My job is to look forward to him in faith. And that, of course, comes with things he's asking me to do, but I'm not supposed to be the one that fulfills it. Whether we're talking about the law of Moses or any law God has ever given, Christ is the fulfiller of the law. My job is to keep the law. That's the way he words it. Protect it,

guard it, ensure its sacredness, make sure that it is recognized as binding. I'm supposed to let that law guide and direct, but not if that law hasn't been fulfilled by me, then it's a disaster. No, no, no, no, no. This is actually deeply encouraging. I will fail. Fine. Not the issue. It's not the issue at all. Christ will not fail. If any of our listeners would like to hear more about this from Joe, we actually talked quite a bit about this last year when we did our second Corinthians podcast. So feel free to go back there. Second Corinthians eight through 13, where we walked through this idea of grace. John, I learned quite a bit about the idea that a celestial life is one that really accepts grace, like relies wholly upon the Redeemer. John, do you remember talking

about that? Yes. And I remember the impression that, and I think we see it here too, that he wants to save us. He wants to. He is mighty to save. As you kind of alluded to, that's his work and his glory. It's not my job and my glory because I'll fail. But his work and his glory, I think he is eager to save, delighted to save. And it lets us exhale a little bit and think, I'm going to strive to keep the commandments, but that I can strive and I can mess up and I can repent and I can keep on striving.

But I'm so grateful. He's so good at it. And he is eager to save and to take us. John, you frequently quote the Lord saying, I can do my own work. I am able to do my work. We can be willing. That's what the sacrament prayer says. I'm willing to take upon me the name of Christ. And I'm willing to keep his commandments, but sometimes I don't do it very well. But I'm willing, and I'm going to come back here next week and try again, take the sacrament again, and keep striving. But he's able.

That language comes from 2 Nephi 27. That's where the Lord says that. You can see how Nephi is setting himself up here by talking about this great stuff. I wonder, Joe, if people are fearful that if we say, look, you're saved by Jesus, then we're kind of giving them a license to sin. And maybe this teaching is based on fear

that I don't want my children to feel like, oh, then I can do anything I want. How do you teach that in a way that persuades, as Nephi might say, people to know we want to obey. We want to follow the Lord's teachings, right? He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. How would you explain that to a student who says, well, if I'm saved by Jesus, then I have license to do whatever I want. This talk of the law in these very verses is a nice model for it. If he's saying the purpose of the law is to point me forward to Christ, then it would be absurd to say the purpose of the law is for me to do nothing.

Right? It's like, no, the law's got a thing it's trying to do. It's trying to point me to Christ. So if I go, oh, grace, I can ignore the law. I've missed it entirely. But if on the other hand, I think, oh, the law, I have to do all of this myself. I've also missed it entirely. But if on the other hand, I think, oh, the law, I have to do all of this myself. I've also missed it entirely. Benjamin's always so good on grace. When Benjamin talks about all of this, the way that he puts it is you have all kinds of things to do. All he asks is that you keep his commandments. He doesn't deny that at all, even though he's saying like, you're unprofitable servants. You'll never accomplish this. You're never going to pay God off. You're never going to get out of debt. They just say, but he asked for you to keep his

commandments. The trick is to get out of our heads the picture in which the whole of the responsibility for God's work falls on me. But to get that picture out of our heads is not to get out of our heads the idea that God has called me to a work. And maybe this would be a good segue into what Nephi does in the next couple of chapters is to point to Moroni for a moment. Ether 12, Moroni is worried about writing books, which is exactly what Nephi is doing here, thinking about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. And Moroni is worried in particular that the Book of Mormon will be weak.

That's the language he uses, right? That we don't know how to write. And because of our weakness, the Gentiles very specifically, they won't believe this. They're going to stumble. I mean, this is Moroni saying like, I can't write and everyone's going to hell

and it's my fault. Just that simple. And God's response to him, I think is quite beautiful in Ether 12, 26. Moroni has been saying the Gentiles are going to mock. And God says, yeah, fools mock. Like he doesn't take that away from him. Yeah, you're not good at this. That's correct, Moroni. You got that. Fools mock, but they shall mourn. Those who are meek, who don't take advantage of your weakness, I think the way to hear that is it's Moroni learning that even a work like the Book of Mormon is supposed to not be the thing that fulfills the whole law. Christ is the thing that fulfills the whole law, and the Book of Mormon points us to Christ. And we're going to watch Nephi wrestle with that very question here in these next chapters. That's fantastic.

Hank, I love the question of, does this giving us license? Let's skip way ahead to King Lemoni's father, who says this incredibly, to me, beautiful poetic prayer. I will give away all my sins to know thee. Look at that heart. That's not a heart that's saying, listen, how bad can I be and still be saved? How good do I have to be to be saved? My goodness, so legalistic. He's not that. He's, I am going to strive. I'm not perfect, but I love that. I will give away all my sins to know thee.. So I think we're looking to it. Christ can change our hearts so that although we will still make mistakes, it's not our goal to see how many we can make and still be saved. I think you're right on. It is by grace that we are saved. Joe, it's

interesting that we've taken that verse that you said that says flatly, it is by grace that we are saved. And yet we've said, okay, so what you're saying is it's not by grace that I'm saying, right? Yeah. Joe, I love what you did with that. That tasted good. We can start moving into these. We'll move quickly through 26 so that we can really dwell with 27. The first 13 verses of chapter 26 focus on the time that Christ comes to visit the Nephites and the Lamanites, recorded in 3rd Nephi. And Nephi gives a few words about that. These are words especially written to his children, as he says. But then he moves on beyond that as he puts it in verse 14. He says,

but behold, kind of hard turn here, I prophesy unto you concerning the last days. So he gives us just a few verses there and really aimed at his children saying Christ is going to come follow him when he shows up. Then he wants to say, what are the last days look like? And I think this is where we want to dwell for a bit. As soon as he makes that turn in verse 14 of chapter 26. Well, a couple of things we want to note, I think right out of the gate. So verse 14, he says, I prophesy unto you concerning the last days, but then he renames the last days

concerning the days when the Lord God shall bring these things forth unto the children of men. That's interesting. For Nephi here, prophetically, the last days are the days of the Book of Mormon. That's how he characterizes the last days. We tend to talk about the last days as the days leading up to the coming of Christ again, or the last days as the days leading up to the coming of Christ again, or the last days as the days of the gathering. And of course, he's going to say things about those kinds of things. But when he characterizes the last days,

it's the day of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. As soon as he does that, in verse 15, it's Isaiah time. And for a couple of verses here, and we won't dwell on these at length, he takes a few verses from Isaiah 29 and he reworks them. But it's almost like he's giving us a taste of what he's going to do in chapter 27. He takes a couple of verses from Isaiah 29, three and four, and he reworks them. In Isaiah 29, they're about Jerusalem facing down Gentile armies. Here, it's about Nephites

getting destroyed and then Lamanites being left behind, Nephites speaking out of the dust and so on. So he's likening. He's doing his classic work of likening, taking Isaiah, talking about Jews, but likening it to what he's seen in vision concerning his own people. But he moves past that pretty quick and gives us a long aside on the Gentiles. This is end of verse 19. Well, verse 19, he says, it shall come to pass that those who have dwindled in unbelief shall be smitten by the hand of the Gentiles and the Gentiles. And off he goes for the rest of what's now chapter 26. It's a tirade against the Gentiles. And I don't know that we want to dig into this in detail for our purposes here today,

because I think we really want to give time, especially to chapter 27, but there's a pattern running through 20 through 33 here. And the pattern is clear. What Nephi sees in the Gentiles is a culture of exclusion and exclusion that is rooted ultimately in a desire for gain. That's what he describes happening with the Gentiles. He speaks of them preaching up unto themselves, their own wisdom and their own learning so that they can gain and grind upon the face of the poor. A certain kind of intellectual culture that allows them to justify their stability that is actually built on the crushing of the poor. As he goes through those verses for the next handful of all the way down to verse 33, he keeps pointing out these kinds of things. This is not how God works. God does not say, depart from me. He doesn't say, come to me for your money, you'll be saved. No,

no, no, that's not our God. God says, all of you, all of you, all of you come to me. And that culminates in verse 33, very famously, right? None of these Gentile iniquities come of the Lord. He doeth that which is good among the children of men. He doeth nothing save to be plain unto the children of men. And he invited them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness. He denied none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female. And he remembereth the heathen and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile. A culture of exclusion among the Gentiles in the last days, by contrast with God's inclusive nature. One thing I think is very worth highlighting as you come to the end of that long sequence, Nephi seems to suggest that there are a couple of particular problems of exclusion among Gentiles. The fact that he has to say God denies no one that comes

to him, black and white, bond and free, male and female, suggests that among Gentiles there's a culture of racism, that there's a culture of economic oppression, and that there's a culture of sexism, of misogyny. That seems to me prophetic. Nephi can see last day's problems with real clarity there coming out of Gentile culture. European culture is really what Nephi seems to mean by Gentile culture. I was going to ask you that, Joe. When he says Gentile and I hear Gentile, what should I be thinking of? Broadly, anyone that's not Israel. But when Nephi in his vision, which he's building on here in his vision back in first Nephi 11 through 14, the Gentile nations he talks about are really clearly European nations. He's talking about

the place where Christianity grows and develops until people come from that place to the promised land. I should probably think of myself or at least say, okay, if I'm one of those Gentiles he sees, can I see some of these things in myself that I'm not seeking the welfare of Zion? The laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion, not for money, for Zion. Would you say that's okay, Joe, for me to look for those things in myself? Yeah, totally. And in fact, when we get to chapter 28, a little further on, that's where Nephi, after having laid out the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, will start to talk about what it's like in that day.

And he's going to circle back to all these kinds of themes. But it's a chapter I think we have to read with exactly the spirit you just mentioned, Hank. We have to read it with a kind of Lord is it I spirit. How do I deny the Holy Ghost and preach up my own learning? How do I stop believing that God is a God of miracles? How do I say eat, drink, and be merry? Rays of the world. Whose kingdom are you trying to build? The Lord's or Hank Smith's kingdom? I see that in myself, and that needs to be more holiness give me. Like John said earlier, about 25, not how much can I sin and get away with, but how much can I be changed by the Lord's work so I can be holy and labor for Zion, truly

labor for Zion. Joe, before we get out of 26, you've got this great verse that you mentioned in verse 33, that the Lord invites all to come unto him. He doesn't deny anyone, black and white, bond and free, male and female. When I read that phrase, black and white, to me, that's all inclusive. Yet I've heard from some that the Book of Mormon is a racist book. I've heard you talk about this a couple of times, and I know you say you're not the expert on this, and I love the humility, but I think you have something you Jacob 1 through 3, that sermon that Jacob gives at the temple when the people are going off the rails after Nephi's death, there are other ways people have read this for sure. But it seems to me that he is calling out Nephites for racism. He talks about them hating the Lamanites and talks about what seems to be developing as a kind of culture of hatred toward the Lamanites among the Nephites. You've got prophets

calling that out. I think the best way to make sense of the Book of Mormon on this score is not either to say, there's no such thing as race here, there's nothing to see here, or on the other hand, saying the Book of Mormon is baldly racist. I think the right tack is to recognize that what you have here is a history of a people who in fact had problems of racism and of prophets struggling from within that culture against it. But I think that's also itself illustrative. It's hard for prophets, even all human beings, prophets included, raised in a culture with prejudices and biases. It's hard for even a prophet to work out of that, to be able to hear God clearly and then speak clearly about what needs to change. I often think when to hear God clearly and then speak clearly about what needs

to change. I often think when I'm teaching this and when I think about this issue in the Book of Mormon, I often think of this passage in an interview with Spencer W. Kimball, where he was asked about the revelation of extending the priesthood to all worthy males. But he says, I wanted to be sure about this. I had gone my whole life with the attitude that black people would never hold the priesthood. And I had much to fight, myself mostly, because I had this idea. And that, I think, is a beautiful statement from a prophet of God. To get into the place where he could hear clearly that God wanted to change the situation. He had to fight his own culture that he'd grown up with so that he could realize what God was calling for. And I

see Nephi and Jacob and other prophets in the Book of Mormon. I think it's wrong to call them simply racist. That's not the picture. But they are working from within a culture that has biases and prejudices, and they are trying hard to hear God clearly. And when they do, man, they say it clearly. God denies none, black and white. Don't hate them. This is a commandment from God, says Jacob. Don't you hate them because of the color of their skin.

Cherry picking verses out of the Book of Mormon to say, oh, look, this is what the Book of Mormon is, is a pretty dangerous way to go. Really dangerous. Because you're not getting a picture of Mormon is, is a pretty dangerous way to go. Really dangerous. Because you're not getting a picture of what that prophet is actually saying. It's funny to me that people read a passage from Nephi and say, this looks racist. I'm like, he also wrote that one in 2 Nephi 26. So there's a more complicated story one way or another, right? There's a lot going on here. And it does take paying the price like you have to really see

what's going on. I call it drive-by scripture study. When I think of Isaiah as a forest, and you have to get the big picture first, but if you drive up, look at one leaf and read what it says and drive on, you're not getting the picture. And in the same way, drive-by scripture study takes one verse and draws a conclusion. Like you just said, we've got to take all of this together. We need to be students of everything in the standard works, and then we get a much better picture, which requires some work on our part, but it's so wonderful and so exciting. John, this is a big reason why we have the Follow Him podcast, is to get people like Joe to come and show us some of the things that we haven't seen.

So I can say, wow, he's seeing a lot here that I had never seen before. Now let me go in and pay that same price to find that kind of depth. Yeah. When I was at BYU Provo, I had an office by Brother Dale LeBaron, and he was mission president in South Africa when the 1978 revelation came. You can find it. It's a BYU devotional, speeches.byu.edu, called All Are Alike Unto God, one of the last phrases there in the last verse of 2 Nephi 26.

Boy, I invite anybody to watch that to broaden their view of all of this that we're hearing because it's so interesting and so exciting about what was happening in Africa before the missionaries even went in. The whole congregations who had nothing but a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet about Joseph Smith were formed and were operating. I like to compare it to the seed growing secretly in the Book of Mark, that God already had this thing going on before we officially discovered it, which was fascinating to me. I just want to give a shout out to Brother LeBaron because among other things, we had the same birthday.

Before we go on from this, one thing I remember from our Doctrine and Covenants year, John, was learning how human these people were. Because what did Elder Maxwell say? Sometimes we wipe all the dirt off their faces and make them saccharine saints with tinsel traits. The miracle isn't the people. The miracle is that God takes these people and does this incredible work. And that gives me hope that he can take someone like me and use me in his incredible work. And that gives me hope that he can take someone like me and use me in his incredible

work. Joe, isn't there a power in realizing, like you just said, that Nephi, Jacob, and all of these people are very human. And yet look at the beautiful book of Mormon that comes out of their lives. Yeah. Again, the Psalm of Nephi, right? You've got Nephi wondering out loud, whether it might be his own hard feelings that have caused this trouble. The fact that he's willing to put that right on the page is something. Nephi, oh, a wretched man that I am. I would love to be as wretched as Nephi. Right. Love to be large in stature too, but that didn't happen. Yeah, here we are. Joe, you've been telling us how great chapter 27 is. So without further ado, let's let you loose in chapter 27. I'm excited to see what you see.

Yeah, this is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. And it's a unique chapter because it's one in which someone in the Book of Mormon reflects on the Book of Mormon and at greater length than we find anywhere else. And so this is, I think, a really remarkable chapter. I'm going to do some close reading here. Interrupt me, but I could easily talk for five hours straight on this. Chapter 27 opens notice by him sort of coming back after his tirade. He had that long tirade on the Gentiles, gets back on his feet here. But behold, in the

last days, he's coming back to, okay, I'm prophesying about the last days. And remember that we saw in 2614, he gave another name for the last days. He does it again, but he's changed it. So chapter 27 opens with, but behold, in the last days or in the days of the gentiles that's interesting in chapter 26 the last days are the days of the coming forth of the book of mormon but now as he reboots they're the days of the gentiles for a couple of verses here we'll largely skip over the next few verses but up through verse 5 he uses more of the language of isaiah 29 he's describing just how rotten things are in the day of the Gentiles. The day of the Gentiles is not a good day. There is bad, there are problems, et cetera, et cetera.

And we've already, of course, been dwelling on some of those in chapter 26. So what's striking is that when he comes to verse six, after reflecting on all this bad, here's his prediction. And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book. So here's God's way of responding to the day of the Gentiles. All these problems, the solution is the words of a book. The solution is the Book of Mormon. What he's going to do here for the next, well, really the rest of the chapter, is he's going to get involved in Isaiah again for the last time. He's going to give us a few verses in chapter 30, but really this is his last serious engagement with Isaiah. And for much of this, up through about verse 20, he's going to be interacting with just two verses of Isaiah. He's going to take two

verses and just blow them up. It kind of goes nuts here in a really good way. The two verses, of course, are Isaiah 29, 11, and 12. Latter-day Saints know them very well. We tend to read them as a straightforward prediction of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. I don't think that's quite how Nephi sees them. I think he sees them as Isaiah talking about things in Jerusalem. But again, Nephi is doing what he always does. He's likening to what he's seen in his own visions. So he takes these couple of lines about words that are sealed and you give it to the learned and the learned say it's sealed and you give it to the person that's not learned and they say, I'm not learned.

He takes those and develops them at great length. We want to read these, I think, really carefully. To do that, the very first thing we've got to do is recognize that there's a distinction running through these verses that's easy to overlook. Notice that in verse six, he says, what's going to come forth is not a book, but the words of a book. All through these next 15 verses or so, he'll keep this distinction clear. There's a book, and there are the words of the book. And you can see over just the next couple of verses, it's pretty clear that the book he's referring to is the gold plates, the actual material, physical artifact that was buried in the ground and dug up

and hauled around and put in a bean barrel and all those things. The gold plates themselves, that's the book. The words of the book are then the words that can be translated off of the plates. So in some sense, the words of the book is the Book of Mormon, the actual text that you can print on the page, you can bring up on your phone, you can read out loud. Those are the words of the book. I think we want to keep that distinction clear because Nephi is going to do some really interesting stuff with what's going on with these two things. Back to verse six. So it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book. He's going to bring the Book of Mormon forth. They shall be the words of them which have slumbered, which is clearly a metaphor for death. These are the words of the dead Nephite prophets.

In verse 7, the book shall be sealed. The gold plates are sealed up, not available. And in the book shall be a revelation from God from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof. That's the sealed portion of the book of Mormon, as we call it, the vision of the brother of Jared. Verse 8, he says, wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and abominations of the people. Wherefore, the book shall be kept from them. The gold plates are not going to be circulated themselves because there's this sealed revelation in it. But verse nine, a story. But the book, the gold plates, shall be delivered unto a man, that's got to be Joseph Smith, and he shall deliver the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered

in the dust, and he shall deliver these words unto another. What we seem to have in verse 9 is a description of the translation process. Joseph has the plates, and he's delivering the words of the book, he's delivering the Book of Mormon text to another. So it's almost like a nice little Nephi's description of what that looks like. He's just giving these words to his scribes. Notice that in verse 10,

the words which are sealed, he shall not deliver. Neither shall he deliver the book. The book shall be sealed by the power of God and the revelation which is sealed shall be kept in the book until the undue time of the Lord. That'll come forth eventually. We'll skip to verse 12 here. Wherefore, he says, at that day when the book shall be delivered unto the man of whom I have spoken. So when Joseph gets the gold plates, the book, the gold plates themselves shall be hid from the eyes of the world that the eyes of none shall behold it, save it be that three witnesses

shall behold it by the power of God. And we go, oh yeah, clearly, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, three witnesses who see the actual plates. They, at the end of that verse, they shall testify to the truth of the book and the things therein. In verse 13, there is none other which shall view it, that is the gold plates themselves, save it be a few according to the will of God to bear testimony of his word unto the children of men. And here we go. Ah, yes, eight witnesses. And Mary Whitmer too.

We've got various people who see the plates, but the vast, vast majority of the human population, no access to the plates. They're only going to get the words. This distinction between the book, the plates and the words of the book, the actual text itself

that's in front of me that I'm holding. Understanding that distinction is crucial to this chapter. Yeah, I think we can't follow it at all without it. And especially what's going to happen starting in verse 15. So distinction's clear. Stage is set. He tells a story. Verse 15.

But behold, it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall say unto him to whom he shall deliver the book. So that's got to be Joseph Smith because he's got the plates. He'll say to him, take these words, which are not sealed, the words, and deliver them to another that he may show them unto the learned saying, read this, I pray thee, the learned shall say, bring hither the book and I will read them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We go, ah, Martin Harris. Martin Harris goes off to New York City. He visits with Charles Anthon, gets a certificate that then Anthon tears up because Anthon wants to translate the book himself. We know the story and we tend to read this as just a straightforward prophecy of that event. But I think it's more than that. Here's why. Notice that at the end of verse 15, the learned shall say, bring hither the book and I

will read them. And now because of the glory of the world and to get gain will they say this. The learned is plural. And that shows up again in verse 20. Then shall the Lord God say unto him, the learned shall not read them for they have rejected them. The story that Nephi tells here in verses 15 through 20 is a story about the learned plural, not just about Charles Anthon, though Charles Anthon is a kind of a good symbol for what he's describing. But what I want to do for a few minutes is read verses 15 through 20 as about all of the learned rather than just the reception that happens in Charles Anthon's office. And that is a question then that I think many of us have to think about. It's not just, I can make fun of Charles Anthon for being too eggheaded and arrogant to listen to Martin Harris. I have to do a Lord is it I kind of thing here too. Where does my learning get in the way? How do I respond to the Book of Mormon given my own, whether it's academic background, if you're a scholar, but also just the fact that you've got Wikipedia in your pocket and more information

than any member of the church has ever had available to you and so on. Like we are the learned collectively. So let's read through these verses carefully and see what happens with the book, the words of the book and the learned. The verse 15 again, but behold, it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall say unto him to whom he shall deliver the book. So again, to Joseph Smith, take these words, which are not sealed and deliver them to another. That could be Martin Harris, but it could be a missionary. It could be whatever way these words are getting circulated that he may show them unto the learned. So now the words come before the learned saying, read this. I pray thee. There's

the plea, the plea to the learned of any form, read, read the words, read the words of the book. So read the book of Mormon. And the learned shall say, bring hither the book, and I will read them. The response of the learned is, give me the plates. I want proof. I want evidence. Show me that there's a material artifact. You give me actual intellectual evidence. Then I'll read your words. I think Nephi has pegged the latter days here to a T. This is the reception of the Book of Mormon for the last 200 years. Give me proof. And even believing members of the church. If you go on social media and say, I really liked this verse of the Book of Mormon, you get two or three likes. But if you go on and post some sort of evidence for the Book of Mormon, it gets retweeted or reposted or whatever. People are excited about evidence in a way we're not about just the words about the words. People would say, why didn't Joseph just show the plates to everyone?

Everyone would have been convinced. Yes, but no one's converted. The words convert. Plates might convince, but the words convert. Yeah, precisely. Yeah. Watch how this unfolds, because that's exactly what Nephi is going to do. Verse 16, you get Nephi's explanation of the motivation behind this demand for evidence. Now, because of the glory of the world and to get gain, will they say this, and not for the glory of God? Here's a gut check moment then. Am I demanding evidence? Am I asking for proof? Am I going through doubt, et cetera, et cetera, about the Book of Mormon because it's for the glory of God? Or is it, as it most often is, because I don't want to look stupid? It's for the glory of the world is it as it most often is because I don't want to look stupid. It's for the glory of the world. It's because I want to make sure I don't look like an idiot who

doesn't belong in the profession. Nephi is holding our feet to the fire on this. Joe, let's stop here just for a second because this is crucial. If I'm taking a Lord as it I approach, I'm so drawn to these arguments of evidence because not for the love of the Lord and his work, but because now I can say, look, I'm smart. Look at all this backup evidence. And that is a gut check moment. Yeah. I think any scholar who's a believer experiences this and will be like, you really buy this stuff? And I have to say, well, you were probably raised in this is what they'll say. I want to be like,

look, I have a PhD in philosophy. I've thought through this. Okay. Back off. Because yeah, you don't want to be cut out. You don't want to look like you're just some fool, but this is Gentile culture. This is what the European dominant culture has done to the world. Evidence first. Science is the lingua franca of the world. Everything's going to be interpreted through that prism. Okay. This is so good. Let me restate. I'm in verse 15. Take these words, the Book of Mormon, deliver them to another, another application, missionaries. They'll take them to the learned, the world, and the learned will say, well, bring hither the book, missionaries, they'll take them to the learned, the world, and the learned will say, well, bring hither the book, the plates, because the Gentile culture demands evidence first.

I love this. It sounds like Korihor who says, give me a sign, then I'll believe. But coming back to the text, then in verse 17, we get this, the man shall say, this is whether it's a missionary or Martin Harris or whatever, the man shall say, I cannot bring the book for it is sealed. That's an interesting response. It's as if God has put a divine seal on all of the knockdown evidence regarding the Book of Mormon, which is true. We've got lots of evidences. They speak to believers. They don't speak to unbelievers. They confirm the faithful, but they're not the kinds of things that prove to the world that the Book of Mormon is true. We've never dug up a sign that says, welcome to Zarahemla, or found a cave where Nephi

scratched in the wall and said, Nephi was here. We just don't have those things. So we have suggestive things, but it's as if, as it's worded here, God has sealed all the evidence for a reason of his own. The learned response to this in verse 18 then is, I cannot read it. That's the learned response. Fine. You won't give me evidence. You won't play the scientific game. Forget it. Then this book is not worth my time. This is blind faith. Then verse 19, which is interesting because now we get the other side of the story. Wherefore it shall come to pass that the Lord God will deliver again the book and the words thereof to him that is not learned. Notice

that the not learned person here, and this has got to be Joseph Smith because he's got the book and the words of the book. He's got every scholar's dream. He's got the plates and he's got the translation. That's what I want. He's got it all, but it's all given to Joseph and he is not learned. And the man that is not learned shall say, I am not learned. Which I take it as Joseph's response saying something like, what am I supposed to do with this? Make a dictionary? Who am I? I'm not a scholar.

In verse 20, here's God's response to Joseph. Then shall the Lord God say unto him, the learned shall not read them for they have rejected them. And I am able to do mine own work. There's the line you say unto him, the learned shall not read them, for they have rejected them, and I am able to do mine own work. There's the line you were quoting earlier, John. I am able to do mine own work, wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee. God's response to Joseph is, yeah, you're not a scholar. Put the plates on the other side of the table, read the words. This is not a scholarly affair. It's not an academic endeavor. This is not a technical translation. This is, I'm giving you the words, you give those words to the world,

and the world won't have access to the plates. They've got to deal with the words alone. So the question I think that leaves us with, and that Nephi has got to grapple with here, is what on earth is God doing? Why on earth would God give us the words without any decisive evidence at all? What kind of crazy move is that? Especially in the modern scientific era, does God not recognize what's going on? Nephi answers this. He's quoting God. Here's God's answer. For behold, he says, I am God, and I am a a god of miracles and i will show into the world that i am the same yesterday today and forever and i work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith there's several things he says there but let's take them in reverse order the

last thing he says the only way i'm going to work with the children of men is according to faith, not science. It's a deliberate rejection of the Gentile culture's model of coming to knowledge. You're not going to do this through evidence. This is not a laboratory experiment. You have got to trust the words of the book first. That's the first question. Then notice what he says right before that. God says, I want to show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. I take it that has something to do with what he's saying about coming to the Book of Mormon in faith. It's not just that we only get the words, it's that we only get the words, but there are witnesses who have seen the book. That should sound really familiar to any Christian. This is exactly the situation with Christ's resurrection.

Early Christians are going around saying, this guy rose from the dead. They're like, really, really familiar to any Christian. This is exactly the situation with Christ's resurrection. Early Christians are going around saying, this guy rose from the dead. They're like, really? Where's the evidence? Well, some people saw the body. It's exactly our situation with the plates. We have 12 men who saw the plates, Joseph, plus three witnesses, plus eight witnesses, 12, and a woman named Mary. Exactly the situation from the New Testament. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's the exact same situation. So God seems to be rebooting Christianity through the plates.

Just as there's an empty tomb, there's an empty box at Camorra, and you have to take these witnesses' words and then go read the book and see what happens. And then the first thing that he said, beginning of 23, is he wanted to show that he's a God of miracles. The question is, if you read this thing in faith and you buy it, what happens? Do you start to see God working? It's the same kind of thing Moroni is talking about in Moroni 10. If you pray in the right way about this thing, he says, then you're going to be knocked flat by the power of the Holy Ghost. And then he goes on to list all the gifts of the Spirit. This is what you're going to see. You're going to see prophecy and tongues and healing. And it's the same kind of picture here. The way Nephi is explaining it, God is deliberately trying to overturn

the latter day intellectual culture. That's the very words he uses in verse 27. Now he's quoting from Isaiah. The people who complain about the Book of Mormon say, surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. The Book of Mormon is supposed to turn things upside down. Or as it's put in verse 27, the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish. It's maybe worth noting there, Nephi quotes that verse exactly as it stands in Isaiah, except that he adds the words and learned. The learned are getting overturned. Wow. I can see why chapter 27 is one of your favorite chapters. It's becoming one of mine. John, are you loving this as much as I am? Absolutely. I'm already wanting to make a chart. Here is a fulfillment of Charles Zanthin, Martin Harris, and so forth, Joseph Smith. Here

is a broader way to apply this. Look at every missionary that goes out and tries to give the words of the book to the learned, and look what happens. And I love the idea of God's going to say, no, I don't do this by evidence. I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. That's really cool that he comes out and says it that way. So Joe, as I read chapter 27, can I become so entrenched in this Gentile culture that I become the learned? I have so much information, like you said, at my fingertips. I am now the learned. And the Lord God says, the learned, this is verse 20, the learned shall not read them because they reject them. So that could be me. Yeah. I'll have experiences on occasion where a student will come to my office and say, I'm in a faith crisis over the Book of Mormon. I read this thing online about this or that issue

about the Book of Mormon that suggests it's not historical. And then I say, so tell me about that issue. What have you learned? 99 out of 100 times, the response is, I mean, I don't know anything about that. I just read this thing, right? Whoa, slow down, slow, slow down. But they're like, well, but it's evidence. But you don't know anything about the, you're not even playing it scientifically yet.

But also then I try to take them back to this and say, careful, Nephi saw this problem long, long in advance. That is not how to read the book. We don't need evidence first. That's to become the learned in this picture. We've got to respond to it with the kind of humility that apparently Joseph Smith exhibits. I'm not learned. What am I supposed to do with this? Read the words. The words. It's all about the words. And if I'm relating this to the Lord, like you said, the two empty boxes, I can reject the resurrection. Once I reject the resurrection, I'm rejecting everything the Lord has to teach me. Same way with the book. Once I reject the book, I'm rejecting all the wonderful things, the marvelous, wonderful things that could happen. I think that there's a kind of ironic implication in all this too, then, that we as believers and defenders of the book have to be very careful about our defense of the book. If we're defending it always on intellectual grounds, trying to show that it's defensible only on those grounds, we have missed the boat. We may need to make those arguments on occasion. It's being attacked and we've got to make a response. Whoa,

whoa, whoa. That's not reading the evidence right. But boy, if we start to think that the task with the Book of Mormon is to show that it's intellectually defensible, why was there a restoration? This is a book that's supposed to change me, bring me to Christ, trigger the redemption of Israel. We can get lost. That's a rabbit hole you can disappear down and never come out of. But boy, we've got to actually read the words. Joe, let me see if I can articulate this then back in 23, where the Lord says, I work according to the children of men, according to their faith.

It's almost as if he'll wait. I will not work with you on the basis of evidence and science in this Gentile culture. I will wait until you're ready to work by faith. I just won't work any other way. And it sounds like Moroni again in Ether 12. Well, why don't we make this book perfect? Why don't we get it? So it'll just knock the Gentiles over, says Moroni. And God's like, no, those who are humble, those who are meek, who will not take advantage of your words. Those are the ones that I want to reach. God is willing to have the book not be scientifically verifiable so that it will

gather the kinds of people who will approach it in faith. Coming up in part two of this episode. Not beginning from a kind of scientific position on the book, beginning instead from faith. And that's very much how it began for me. I felt things about the book. And so I read the book earnestly and seriously. I began from a position of faith. And then the more I have worked on it in an attitude of faith, the more its truth is manifest.