followHIM - Moses 7 -- Part 2: Dr Avram Shannon

Episode Date: January 23, 2022

Dr. Avram Shannon continues to discuss the creation of a Zion people, a God that weeps, and man's redemption through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/episodesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsKrystal Roberts: French TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. I'm excited to get into this vision of Enoch because I think it's so fascinating, especially the idea of God weeping. Enoch's done it. He's built Zion. He had the one heart, one mind. He's what, this is a great success story. In verse 20, and it came to pass that Enoch talked with the Lord and he said unto the

Lord, surely Zion should dwell in safety forever. Like, we've done it. We've made it. But the Lord said unto Enoch, Zion have I blessed, but the rest of the people have I cursed. This notion that Enoch has this confidence statement, we've done it, we've made it. And the Lord says, we're not done yet. There's more to happen. And actually, a lot of what we're going to see in the vision of Enoch is Enoch trying to figure out, when are we finally done?

Can you translate that for me? The end, Zion have I blessed, but the residue of the people have I cursed. Meaning, I don't think the Lord's saying, I'm cursing them. It's, yes, you chose Zion, but there's still a lot of people who haven't. Right. No, that's exactly what he's saying. And we'll see that later on. Again, this notion of agency, verse 33, you know, he says, they want them to choose me, but they chose not.

Zion's taken up, you know, in the bosom of the Father and the Son of Man. And behold, the power of Satan was upon, was on all the face of the earth. That's verse 24. That's 24. 26. And he beheld Satan, and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness. And he, that is Satan, looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced. This is a really, really bleak picture that this vision is painting for Enoch.

But then 28, and this is so key. And it came to pass the God of heaven looked upon the rest of the people and he wept. And of course, this notion of the God weeping. And Enoch bore record of it saying, how is it that the heavens weep and shed forth their tears as rain upon the mountains? As we think about God weeping, one thing that's very intriguing about this is it's framed in Moses 7 as rain. God weeping, Enoch is seeing it as rain. It's worth noting, perhaps, that as Genesis, and therefore probably Moses frames it, it doesn't rain until the flood.

Remember in the creation story, it says a mist came up and watered the earth because the Lord had not yet caused it to rain upon the earth. Okay, so it's not just God weeping that's distinctive to Enoch here, but it's also the notion of rain itself is distinctive. Really interesting things with this notion of rain and things like that. But noting that God weeps and Enoch sees it as rain. How is the heavens weep? Why is the sky crying? Am I going to connect this to the flood? The sadness of God, the weeping of God becomes the flood of Noah? Yes. As Moses even frames it, the flood happens because God is crying over his children.

Yes. Interesting. It's beautiful. Yeah. I just think that is poetry. Shed forth their tears as rain upon the mountains.

And I wanted to ask you because I don't know how else you would interpret the idea of a chain except for, you know, slavery, bondage, something. If he holds a chain in his hand and he's got it wrapped around the world, it sounds like, symbol there of he's got control, slavery, bondage, whatever. But I love that in the imagery that it sounds like Satan is looking up.

It says he looked up. So he was below it. But God, if the rain is falling, I'm thinking God is above and looking down and the rain is falling on the mountains. And it's kind of a frightening imagery, but I like the idea of him looking up and God looking down.

Also, when I've taught this, I talk about Satan laughing. I can't find the Savior laughing. I can find him in 3 Nephi smiling. His countenance smiled upon them twice. But it's Satan that seems to laugh. And it's probably a sound that Enoch probably never forgot. DocCovins88, without much laughter, for this is sin, right? There's this notion that there's a kind of laughter, I mean, obviously joy and whatever,

there's a kind of laughter that the Lord disapproves of. And then, you know, in 3 Nephi, what is it, 9, the devil laugheth and his angels rejoice, you know, you have references to Satan laughing, but it's a, I got you kind of a laugh. It's a, I've got you in chains type of a laugh. Laughing at those who are addicted, laughing at those who are in bondage to sin. But I love that. I mean, we're reading it. Well, I see why God's weeping, but Enoch just, I don't, what?

Yeah, I know. Exactly. And Terrell Givens and Fiona Givens, of course, have written. Yeah, they wrote that book. It's a great book god's weeping but enoch just i don't what yeah i know exactly and tarot givens and fiona givens of course written yeah they wrote that book this great book on the weeping god and they point out this notion that enoch's question is not why are you crying but how how can you cry right enoch said the lord how is it thou can weep, seeing as thou art holy and from all eternity to all eternity? This is very reminiscent of what we saw in Moses 1.

And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, count up all the atoms of this earth and lots like it, it would not even be the beginning of your creation. And the, you know,

courage is stretched out here. We're here. You're picking Zion up. Everything's great. There's naught but peace, justice, and truth in the habitation of thy throne. This is verse 31. And mercy shall go forth by thy face and have no end. How? How can you cry? And this is very, very important. One, because it tells us a little bit of something about the nature of God, but also it tells us a little something about ourselves and about what it means for us to be like God. Because sometimes we get this notion almost that being more like God means suppressing our emotions.

It means that, you know, the people who are most like God, you know, don't, you know, you don't get sad. It's almost this latter-day notion of we have to be happy all the time, right? You know, and smile. And smile. And the gospel of Jesus Christ brings us joy. There's no question about that. But what this shows us here, and there are other places, of course, churches do this. This shows us that as latter-day saints, we do not believe in a God who does not feel emotions.

I mean, our scripture is very clear. The Lord gets mad. And so part of this is recognizing that as we learn to be more like God, it's not about learning to suppress our emotions. I think it's helpful when we're teaching the story of Lazarus and John that Jesus wept. And it's always a fun question. Well, he knew he was about to raise him from the dead. But in Mosiah, what does it mean to become a saint? We mourn with those that mourn.

And I like that idea. Perhaps Jesus was mourning with those that mourn. And I like that idea. Perhaps Jesus was mourning with those that mourn. He felt what they were feeling. And even though he knew he was about to raise Lazarus. And it goes with, should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer. He's got the people divided into, I can't, this is an odd dichotomy, but it's like Zion and the residue. Yes. Zion and the rest of y'all, all y'alls, you know, Zion and residue. But he's so concerned about the residue.

It's kind of cool. Yeah, no, exactly. That is interesting, John, because Enoch's like, we did it. We built Zion. And God's like, that's not the whole story. I care about everyone, actually. Let's talk about the residue of the people and weep about them. Yeah. No, that's great stuff. All the people that aren't in your city, have you thought about them? Oh, are there others? Enoch is very focused on his people,

things that succeeded. And the Lord says, let me broaden your vision here. Yeah. And I most days feel more like residue than Zion anyway. So what do I do with this, with this weeping God here and his explanation in verse 32? It's important. He says, he says, look, behold, these thy brethren. And by the way, Josh Sears, you also had on your show, wrote a very, very good article, Covenant of Compassion, for Old Testament's very symposium. He's got one on Behold These Thy Brethren about Enoch and Enoch's response to God and how that can help us. Okay, so he says, Behold These Thy Brethren. They're the works of my own hands, and I gave them knowledge,ST, he changes it to, and man had agency in the Garden of Eden, rather than I gave him agency in the Garden of Eden, which is again –

Oh, interesting. Whoa. to Joseph's ongoing knowledge about our eternal nature with that. But that's, I think, one of the most significant changes that Joseph makes to OT2 that didn't make it into our book of verses. Okay. But then he goes here.

And unto thy brethren have I said, and also give a commandment that they should love one another, and they should choose me, we're back to choice here, their father, but behold, they are without affection,

and they hate their own blood. And the fire of indignation is kindled against them. With really good reason. We kind of struggle sometimes with the anger of God. But sometimes, as Latter-day Saints, we get so much on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as separate beings. So we can turn Heavenly Father into the mean God and Jesus into the nice God. Right? we as latterly saints we get so much on heavenly father and jesus christ as separate beings so we can turn heavenly father into the mean god and jesus is a nice god right you know we almost want to you know and the book of mormon does some of that work it doesn't quite get there but of course you know it's not like heavenly father is the just god and jesus christ is the merciful god jesus christ everybody's merciful heavenly father is and everybody follows merciful to Heavenly Father is, and Heavenly Father is, everybody is just as Jesus is. I mean, they're... Yeah. They're one.

They're the same. But with this, I had maybe a story that helps as I think about, again, we have both God's sadness, but also God's wrath in the same section here. God not suppressing his emotions. I had a friend of mine

who was teaching for us. Yeah. And he was teaching Jesus Christ cleaning the temple. And I had a friend of mine who was teaching for us, and he was teaching Jesus Christ cleaning the temple. And I had a student raise his hand and say, this doesn't seem very Christ-like to me. And of course – Jesus wasn't being very Christ-like. Jacob says, well, Jesus was doing it, so by definition, this is Christ-like behavior. And then he said, and I think this is so powerful. He said, but what I think I hear you say is, I'm not sure that I could be Christ-like and do that.

And part of, as we think about emotions, we think about anger, we think about even sadness. There is no shame. There is no sorry in having emotions. Being angry is not wrong. It cannot be wrong. God's angry. The question is, what do you think it's key. He's angry with them because they're hurting each other. And he says, I'll send out my floods against them. We talk about the flood and we talk about, you know, why was the flood sent? And we say, oh, it was wickedness. The scriptures are very, very specific about what that wickedness is. If you go to, this is outside of our block for today, but if you go to Moses chapter 8, verse 28, just turn the page a couple of pages there.

And the earth was corrupt before God, and it was filled with violence. The reason, according to the scriptures, that the Lord sends the flood is violence. He says, look, I said they should love each other. They should choose me. But they hate each other. They hate people they should love. They hate their own blood. And I can't take it anymore. The thing the Lord hates more than anything else is his children hurting each other.

In verse 33, next to it, I wrote the two great commandments, and I wasn't keeping track exactly, but I felt like in our October 2021 General Conference, we heard that those two, love God and love your neighbor, half a dozen times maybe, from different speakers preparing their talks independently. But I think they're both in there. Love one another and choose me their father. Both of the two great commandments being violated there. If you were to boil the gospel of Jesus Christ down, that's what I'd boil it down to. Love God and love your neighbor. And of course, when Jesus says that in the scriptures, he's quoting the law of Moses. You know, love God comes out of Deuteronomy and love your neighbor comes out of Leviticus. Yeah.

So what is the great commandment in the law? They mean in the Torah. Yeah. And so it's worth noting, this is not something that Jesus invented. This has been the Lord's standard forever. The Lord's compassion doesn't mean he's not going to send the flood, but that's what's making him cry, right? 37, but behold, their sin shall be upon their fathers. Satan shall be their father and miserable with their doom and the whole heaven shall weep over

them. Even all the workers of mine hands, wherefore should not the heavens weep seeing There are a couple things I think that are powerful about this. One, I mean, you probably know this instinctively, right? The people who are closest to you are the people who can hurt you the most. Right? You know, some stranger says some random comment on the internet, like water off my back. But your brother, your sister, your wife, your children, your friends, that's really what hurts. One of the things I think Moses 7 teaches so strongly is that God loves his children enough to be vulnerable. He loves his children enough that he lets himself cry.

And for me, just the thought that I'm loved enough that when I hurt, again, you look at this, right? And you see, again, I like your point there earlier, John. You know, you see all these people doing bad things and Satan looks up and says, this is the best thing ever. He loves it. He laughs. And you see the Lord look down and see they're hurting each other. And he's like, and it makes him cry. And then it makes him cry even the more that he has to cause more because he's got you know he's got to stop this

he cannot again I said this before but I'll say it again the one thing God hates more than anything else is his children hurting each other I think what Jesus says about what happened his opinion about people who abuse children yeah better than a millstone be

yeah he says tie a giant rock around their neck and throw them in the ocean abused children. Yeah. Better than a millstone be. Yeah. He says, tie a giant rock around their neck and throw them in the ocean. And again, this is the nice God guy, right? You know? Yeah.

I love your point about mourning those that mourn earlier. One of the things I love about Moses seven is this recognition that when you cry, you've never cried alone. It's a lone and dreary world out there. It's a terrible place. There's a lot to cry about. But I love remembering, again, the God who weeps recognizes that,

again, you've never cried alone. And there's real power in that. I think you've got my mind racing. I love how the story of Job starts when the friends come and just sit with them. As soon as they open their mouth, everything goes south. But when they just come and mourn with him that is mourning, what a comfort it must have been to Job. My friends are here. Coming to mind is Hebrews 4, 15. It's speaking about Jesus, but it says, We have not an high priest, which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

He's not a God that is watching from a distance. Wow, look at that. But he feels it with us. He's mourning with us when we mourn. And seeing the wickedness, it touches him and he weeps. Basically, the answer to the question is, Enoch asks, how can you cry? And God says, how can I not? This directly ties to the flood.

You know, verse 40. Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the works of my hand. I never, oh gosh. I know me. Never connected this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the works of my hand. I never, oh gosh. I know me. Never connected this to the flood. This is so good. Moses 7 understands the flood is God weeping and it's beautiful. And it came to pass the Lord's, this is kind of Josh's point in the article I suggested.

It came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch and told Enoch all the doings, part of the whole thing about this vision is the Lord says, let me show you the way I see things. Just for a moment. He's already built Zion, but Enoch has this problem where he's kind of saying, but, you know, but everything's great. And the Lord says, yeah, everything's great. But everything's not great. And I think that's a key thing. Again, it's direct connection, right?

Enoch also saw Noah. And all the posterity of Noah, which this is verse 42. Enoch also saw Noah and his family. The posterity of all the sons of Noah should be saved with temporal salvation. And you've got that nice connection there between the floods and the weeping, but the Lord's smiling. And of course, I mean, there may be rainbow connections there. There's fun stuff with that. But Enoch's convinced, right? In verse 44, Enoch saw this. He had bitterness of soul and wept and said, I will refuse to be comforted. Now, this is really intriguing here because the first thing he says, he says to the Lord, he says, okay, whatever, you know, how can you cry? God says, how can I not cry? Enoch says, you're right. I'm not going to stop.

I cannot be comforted. Ever. But the Lord said to Enoch, lift up your heart and look. And so it's really intriguing here because the Lord very much says, we're going to cry. And it's worth crying about. There's no shame in your tears, Enoch. There's no shame in my tears.

It's worth crying. But that's not the end of the story here. And it came to pass that Enoch looked, and from Noah, all the families, he said, okay, when's this going to be over? When can we have all of this? Now, I want to read, we'll come back to this, but I want to, one of his questions, because he asked these questions again and again. When is this going to be? When are the righteousnesses to come? When are we going to, you know – will they have compassion? When are we going to rest?

And that's the key thing I want to talk about. In verse 58 – okay, we'll come back. We're going to go ahead for a second. We're going to come back. And again, Enoch wept and cried unto the Lord, saying, When shall the earth rest? Okay. And again, Enoch wept and cried to the Lord saying, when shall the earth rest? Okay, what I want to do here for a second is just play a little etymological game here. Okay, Noah in Hebrew is Noach. And Noach means rest.

Later on, Moses 8 and Genesis is going to understand it in terms of nechem, compassion and things like that. But the word Noah, nuch, Noach, means rest. And so when Enoch starts asking this question about when will the earth rest, it's a play on Noah even. And this idea that Noah is sent there for rest, but it's not there yet. Okay, this is one of those that I just heard and and i i've got oh i thought i have got to ask over on this when he comes on because i it's i don't think it's scriptural i think it's a jewish legend or something which you might know about but i have heard that when the um the waters of the red sea swallowed up the egyptians that the that the Hebrews on the other side started to sing.

And the Lord said, how can you sing when so many of my children are drowning in the sea? And they shortened their halels, their praise to half halels. Does that ring any bells? Yeah, so that's going that's going there is there are traditions about that some of the um rabbinic traditions yes um i don't have a source off the

top of my head i can find it okay i've loved i've loved the story because i want it to be true just tell me it's true i want it to be true it's not true it's certainly rabbinic, whether it's true or not. I am all in favor of more people reading rabbis. That's kind of... I love the idea that God would, that it was like this. It's seeing these shall suffer, the end of verse 37. Exactly. That, yeah, he had to swallow the Egyptians. He didn't enjoy it.

And you shouldn't either. You know, you shouldn't be singing over there because I just had to wipe out these Egyptians. And the first place I heard that was in a talk from Elder Marion D. Hanks. And I think he just mentions it as a legend or a tradition. How can you celebrate when my children are drowning in the sea? So, they shortened their songs of praise in half to half Hallel's or something like that. Now it's really intriguing in terms of how the Lord wants us to interact with even when things are bad, right? You know? I'm intrigued that we start with this vision with God weeping and now we've got Enoch just weeping as he comes to know the mind of God more and starts to see the same.

I mean, all of this coming after. Yeah, we got Zion. Zion will dwell safely forever. We're good. We did it. We're good. Aren't you happy, God? Aren't you happy?

And the Lord shows him all this, and now he's like like i refuse to be comforted but again the beauty of it is is that and again i love i love that that enix persuaded but i also love the way the lord continues to comfort him right it continues to say no there's a way out it's okay you know when it's going to happen 46 it should be in the meridian of times. This plays like a really good movie, right? You've got happiness and it turns really dark. And then what's going to happen at the end, right? What's going to be the conclusion? You know, and he says,

Enoch saw the day of the Son of Man, he rejoices. But again, and this is, of course, this is the Christian term, right? The Christian turn. The righteousness is lifted up and the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world. Again, only Christians is excited when somebody dies, right? As long as it's Jesus, right? We're like, he's dead now, guys. Well, I mean, Avram, I see a beauty here in Enoch.

I refuse to be comforted. The Lord's saying, weep not. I have your answer. And who does he see? He sees the Savior. Yeah, I have your answer. Yeah. And again, in terms of types in Christ, of course, this makes Jesus into the great Noah, right?

He's the one who actually – I saw – That can bring rest. They saved the temporal salvation in 42. But of course, Jesus saves both temporal salvation and eternal salvation. And Enoch, he's going to go with this, right? He sees the earth crying in 49. And he says, can you have compassion on the earth?

Please help it. But then, Enoch knows how this works. 50. I ask thee, O Lord, in the name of thine only begotten, even Jesus Christ, if thou will have mercy upon Noah and his seed, that the earth may never more be covered by the floods. You know, he's got these general, please have mercy. And he's like, I ask you in the name of Jesus, no more floods. 51. the Lord says, yep, that's the covenant we'll make. Do you know what I love about verse 47, if I can go back? Yeah, please do.

It's kind of a strange, kind of a time, linear time thing. The lamb is slain from the foundation of the world. I mean, the lamb was slain in the meridian of time, but he's talking about the lamb is slain sounding like in the pre-earth life, the pre-mortal existence, and kind of just that idea that was always the plan that the Son of God would come and die from the foundation of the world. And I'm thinking of our friend Brad Wilcox that said the atonement was plan A. It wasn't plan B because Adam and Eve made a mess of things. It was from the foundation of the world that this was going to happen this

way. So, what do you do with that interesting phrase, the lamb is slain from the foundation of the world? Am I looking at that right? Yeah, that's what it says because you find the similar language in Revelation, right? Worthy is the lamb that was slain. And there, it's before the foundation of the world even, it says there. And part of it, I think, is one, it's a good way for us to sort of rejigger our notion of what it means to be the Lamb of God, right? We talk about the Lamb of God somehow like Jesus is the Lamb of God because he's fuzzy and cuddly and, you know, like lambs are soft and sweet and innocent. That's not the imagery that's being used here.

The picture here is a lamb with his throat cut. You know, where's the lamb? That was slain. And so this idea of the lamb of God, it's sacrificial image. Whether this is what Enoch is seeing or not in Moses 7, as John sees in Revelation, he sees the dead lamb. That's the lamb he sees there. You know, and this is Jesus. And I think that it feeds into this is one of the great distinctive things about being a Christian is our belief that fundamental our religion is bound around the fact that our God was willing to die for us. And as you point out there, that this is the way it's always been. This is the plan. This is the way. This is the goal.

There's an interesting parallel there. You're bringing up Revelation chapter 5 where John is weeping, right? He's weeping because there's nobody who can save the earth. There's nobody. And then one of the elders says, weep not. Just like the Lord said to Enoch, weep not. Look, here's the answer. The lamb is the answer.

There's an answer to this. 52 is intriguing because 52 was one of those places that suggests that the flood could have been understood as a local flood rather than a worldwide flood. 52. It's an unaltered decree that a remnant of his seed should be found among all the nations while the earth should be blessed, while they should stand. Okay?

If Noah is the progenitor of the entire earth, then a promise that a remnant of his seed is found around the earth is not a meaningful promise because all of the earth is a remnant of his seed. There is evidence in scripture, the same thing, right? It says in Genesis, the whole earth will be flooded. But of course, the Hebrew there is going to be eretz, and eretz means land. And so you could translate it, the whole land will be flooded.

I'm not saying that the flood was not worldwide. That's above my pay grade to make that claim. But there are places in scripture, including here in restoration scripture, that are suggestive that it may not have been. Well, it's like the Book of Mormon says, the face of the whole earth was changed. Well, I don't know how they knew that from their, well, from what we can see on top of this here pyramid. I mean, I don't know if they really mean the whole earth. 53. The Lord says, again, bless you who the seed Messiah shall come.

He said, I am Messiah, the king of Zion, and that's distinctive, but that's really actually fun anciently also because Zion, most places in the Old Testament, Zion means Jerusalem, which of course is where the ancient Messiah would be king in. His capital would be at Jerusalem. And so this has nice broad references for us in Moses 7, but it also could just as easily be talking about any Messiah would be the king of Zion. And so there's kind of fun touch with that. Whoso cometh in at the gate and climbeth up by me shall never fall. Wherefore blessed are they of whom I have spoken, for they shall come forth with songs of everlasting joy.

And you've got, again, this emotional rollercoaster almost here in this vision in Moses 7. But then Enoch asks that question. When cometh the Son of Man in the flesh? Let's pin this down. When's this going to be? And then this Noah's imagery. When will the earth rest? Please show me.

And what he sees is the crucifixion. Look, and he looked and beheld the 55, the Son of Man lifted up on the cross after the manner of men. That's when the earth gets to rest. Except that, and this is where it gets even fun, 56. And he heard a loud voice, and the heavens were veiled, and all the creation of god mourned and the earth groaned and the walks were rent which is why in 58 enoch is like this is rest right he sees earthquakes the you know there's like this is rest when will the earth rest 59 and ennoch beheld on the son of man, ascended to the father. And he called the Lord saying,

wilt thou not come again? He sees the Lord before the foundation of the world. This has always been the plan. But he sees the earth mourn and says, what's going on here? Show me when the Lord comes. And he sees the Lord comes and the Lord is crucified.

And there's earthquakes and he says, this comes and the Lord is crucified and there's earthquakes. And he says, this is, when's the earth going to rest? When are you coming back? Will you please come again? And this is a key thing, by the way, as we talk about covenants in the Old Testament, Moses 7 understands the covenant that God makes with Noah, with Abraham at Mount Sinai, and therefore the gospel covenant as being in continuity with the covenant he makes here with Enoch. It's part of this promise he makes to Enoch. When we come again. For as much as thou art God, and I know thee, and thou swore unto me and commanded me that I should ask in the name of thine only begotten that was made me, and give me a right to thy throne,

and not of myself. He says, look, there's, you know, there's... I didn't do this. You did. I didn't do this. But through thine own grace, wherefore I ask again, wherefore I ask thee, wilt thou not come again on the earth? And the Lord says, yes.

Part of why this chapter is so important for the restoration is this notion of the cause of Zion. But the other reason is because this is fundamentally the purpose of building Zion is to prepare the earth for the coming of Jesus Christ. Right? You've got there in 62. Righteousness will come down. Truth I will send from the earth. Righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as of the flood. To gather mine elect from the four quarters of the earth. Unto a place where I shall repair a holy city. That my people may gird up their loins and be looking

forth for the time of my coming. For there it shall be my tabernacle and it shall be called Zion, a new Jerusalem. And there are two things I love about this. One, of course, this is the restoration here. But two, I love this because Hank already pointed us to previously this idea that Joseph Smith says the cause of Zion is the grand object, right? It's the thing that everybody's looking forward to. And President Nelson has said, the most important thing you can be doing right now is the gathering of Israel. What 62 reminds us is, these are the same thing. Fundamentally, the work to gather Israel and the work of building Zion are the same thing. And this idea of coming together and being a holy people and building a holy city. I love the way that the Lord frames this.

And then for us, as we follow current prophetic counsel to gather Israel, we're also building Zion. It's all the same thing. It's all God's work. This is what the church of Jesus Christ is for. But then, it's so beautiful. We talked to the new Jerusalem and the old Zion. And the Lord said to Enoch, then thou and all thy city shall meet them there.

And we shall receive them into our bosom. And they shall see us. And we will fall upon their necks. And they shall fall upon our necks. And we will kiss each other. I just love the fact that as we talk about Enoch, we talk about the restoration, it's easy for us sometimes to kind of,

I don't know, get caught up in our dispensational whatever. But I love that Moses Evans says, no, this is one, it's all the same work. And two, we're going to know and recognize each other and it's going to be great. And two, we're going to know and recognize each other. And it's going to be great. I love it. Yeah. It's a beautiful, I mean, this is a beautiful chapter of, are you going to come again?

Yes, I will. I'm going to send a restoration, a building of Zion. And then I will be there. Revelation again, which of course is also about this kind of Christ's final victory where the Lord in Revelation says, and I'm going to wipe away all tears. You know, 64 first, there should be mine a bow and it shall be Zion, which will come forth out of all the creatures I have made. And for the space of a thousand years, the earth shall rest.

There's your promise, Enoch. There's your rest. And it came to pass that Enoch saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man in the last days to dwell on the earth in righteousness. I love it because, of course, it frames this whole plan of salvation here, right? You know, he begins back to six, right? Six is all about Adam and the fall and redemption. And then this is all about Jesus Christ and salvation. It's just beautiful stuff. Yeah. It's interesting. It starts with a city, right? That Enoch built and the vision ends with the city. Yes.

That we built. That we built. And that these two things are going to come together. It's no mistake we call our Zion also. They're the same city. So caught up in this. And then I'm thinking there's certain phrases here that I'm just, oh, like Joseph Smith made that up, right? His heart swelled wide as eternity, his bowels yearned and all eternity shook. Wow. When your bowels yearn, this reflects ancient notions of feelings. It's your kidneys. Where we think with our head and feel with our hearts, the ancient Israelites thought with their hearts

and they felt with their kidneys. The kidneys were the seat of emotion in ancient Israel. So again, in 3 Nephi, when Jesus says the same thing, my bowels are pained within me, or Jeremiah, he's talking about you're feeling it in your kidneys. When Scripture says, and the thoughts of their hearts were far from me, it's because you think with your heart. We didn't know you thought with your brain.

There's a reason ancient Egyptians threw it away. Yeah, what's that thing for? The Greek medical text talked about cooling the blood. Maybe it cooled the blood. We actually weren't sure what the brain was for. Anytime you see bowels yearning or bowels feeling or whatever, that reflects antique notions of emotion and thought that reference ancient Israel. Hey, Avram, do you think verse 62, Moses 7, verse 62, righteousness, this is how I'm going to, you know, this is how I'm going to bring the earth to rest. Righteousness, I'll send down out of heaven. You could say revelation coming from heaven,

truth out of the earth to bear testimony of my only begotten. To me, a reference to the Book of Mormon. Almost ever in Restoration Scripture. I mean, obviously, they're riffing on Isaiah, who probably has something else in mind here. But as we read this in the Restoration, as Joseph reads the Restoration, as the Lord gives revelation to Joseph in the Restoration, that's what he means. Truth out of the earth. Righteous out of heaven is Moroni. Truth out of the earth – righteous out of heaven is Moroni. Truth out of the earth is the Book of Mormon.

Almost always this is framed in the same way that almost always in Doctrine and Covenants, the marvelous work of the wonder he's talking about is the Book of Mormon. So yeah, that's absolutely a way to read that because, again, this is how we understand it, and especially in verse 62, which is all about the work of the restored church of Jesus Christ. This chapter, Moses 7, reminds me a little bit of Jacob 5 in that we come to a moment of, oh no, it's all awful. What are we going to do? And then this moment of redemption right at the very end. Book. Book of Revelation is the same way. Look how terrible, terrible, terrible. Redemption. And then you have Moses 7 following that same track. This kind of literature, this kind of scripture, I mean, because there's lots of reasons for

prophecy. There's lots of reasons in scripture for prophecy. But this particular kind of prophecy, like Revelation, like this sort of end times, end of the world type stuff stuff is fundamentally designed to give believers hope. That's the fundamental purpose behind it. And we tend to turn to these kinds of things when things are bad. Because it even puts the bad times in the prophecy, right? Satan had a great chain in his hand. Oh, right now, right here, I see this, right? When things are pretty good, there are other scriptures that we focus on. But when things are bad, we say, let's talk about

Jesus Christ coming back and the end of the world. In the church in the 19th century, very much about Zion coming. In the 20th century, when things were pretty good for the church, we spent less time talking about those things. But I think as things have turned bad for us again a little bit, I think we're seeing more of this in our discourse and more of this in our teachings. What a great insight. The only thing is, of course, the end there, this answers the question, right? What does it mean that Enoch was not and God took him? Well, it means translation, right? He was taken up into heaven. Moses 7 answers that question of what happened?

Well, he went up to live with God forever, and then he'll come down again when God comes again. Moses 7 solves the knob and explains what's going on with it. Joseph Smith took a small space between four verses and stretched it. And stretched it out. As wide as eternity. This is one of the places where, as I read JST Genesis, in some places I'm like, okay, Joseph, I see what you're doing there, but I see what Genesis is doing there. I can see, and I'm grateful to have both of them, right? One of the things I think is very key when we read JST to Genesis is read both of them.

Read Genesis and JST to Genesis. Don't do just the one because both of them teach you something. One of the things I love about the Pro Great Price, and I especially love about Moses 7 here, you saw also Moses 1, God delights to teach us. Enoch has these questions. How can you weep? When will the earth rest? And the Lord doesn't say, I don't know. The Lord says, let me show you. Let me tell you. Let me teach you. Joseph Smith was the same way. He had this question. He said, where can I find salvation for my sins? Where can I find the church that will show me Jesus? He continued to answer those questions. What about this whole Bible thing? What can I do

with it? And the Lord continues to respond and reveal. It's beautiful. We have all of this all together. I just love it about Moses 7. The part we just read there was so important. Because building Zion, gathering Israel, building Zion, this is the saints or the followers of Jehovah in ancient days, in the days of Genesis, they didn't need to know that about Enoch because it was not as useful to them. All right. Obviously they're concerned with their own things, but for you and I today, this is what we're here for. We're here to build Zion.

We're here to prepare the earth for Jesus to come again. So it will rest again. And I'm so grateful for this, just the power that we have from Joseph Smith laying it out at the beginning of the restoration here and says, this is your job. And now our job is to go out and do it. Wow. The little break between verses in Genesis reminds me of Abinadi where they ask him a question, you know, who is it that publishes peace? And then five chapters later, he's like, and that it that publishes peace? And then five chapters later, he's like, and that's who publishes peace. Like he takes a small thing and expands it. Joseph Smith took

these little tiny verses in Genesis and threw another hundred verses between them. Joseph Smith's a prophet. And part of why it's so important with the Benedi there is that he's making an argument. The whole thing is a superstructure to his point about, and this is why we're publishing peace, guys. Everything in 53, everything with all of that, Ten Commandments, all of that, he's answering their question. This is really awesome. You talked about us as a people choosing this, and part of Moses 7 is the Lord saying, they will choose this. They will. It'll come, don't worry. Kind of the faith he has in Latter-day Saints that they will do this.

Watch them, Enoch. God trusts us. And that's powerful. But he believes we can build this place. Yeah. He trusts us. And sometimes he trusts us more than perhaps I trust us, right? Yeah.

I'm a firm believer in three-hour church. So I really struggled. I think we need more church, not less church, God. But it turns out that God trusts his church more than I do. Avram, Dr. Shannon, you're so great. This has just been so much fun. I think our listeners would be interested in your story. A mother who's Jewish who converts to becoming a Latter-day Saint. Then you studied Judaism as a career, and here you are believing Latter-day Saint. Can you tell us just a little bit of that journey? Sure. First of all, I always knew I wanted to be an academic, right? I

discovered what a PhD was when I was like eight years old. And I said, those, I want one of those. I transferred here and I was looking for language classes and there was a modern Hebrew class, which is the only one that, because I was trying to middle of semester and whatever. So, I started with modern Hebrew. Again, I blame my mother who named me Avram. She named me Fred. I'd end up in like Chinese studies or something else. But she named me Avram. So, I do Jewish studies. But there's always been a question, I had a long conversation with my wife, did I really want to make my religion, my job, to not have that division? And honestly, it's Moses 7 and consecration that kind of said, well, yeah. And this is, I think this is a key thing about academic study of scripture and whatever.

What consecration says is, is that everything can be made holy and everything needs to be made holy. Even without that, according to Moses, my job, my religion, no matter what I do, if I went into physics, if I went into anything, sometimes you get this notion that as we understand, as we work through, as we try it, you know, this idea that the world's made up of facts. Facts are great. I love facts. I love learning things. I love scripture. I love facts. I love learning things. I love scripture. I love language. I just, it's just, the more I learn, the more I realize how little there is I know. But of course, the world's made up of relationships. And facts about relationships are absolutely meaningless. And so, when I think about what I've learned, what I do, how I do it, how I got here, you know, again, from my first Hebrew classes at BYU, from my Hebrew classes and my Jewish studies classes at Oxford, from my work at Ohio State, are there things I learned that I said, huh, that's a little weird. Yeah. Yeah, there are. The world's a weird place.

Other things I've studied where I say, I don't know what to do with that. Yeah. Yeah, there are. Sometimes as Latter-day Saints, and I had to go through this, we have so many good answers to so many things. We really struggle when we have to say, I don't know. And for me, the most powerful thing that learning what I've learned, getting a PhD, getting a master's degree, studying all this stuff is, man, there's lots. I just don't know. But for me, this is why the cause of Zion is so important. Because fundamentally, it's not about what I know. Zion isn't built by me knowing lots of the Hebrew verbs. I love Hebrew verbs. Zion is not done by knowledge of this scripture or that scripture or this whatever. Zion is built by the Lord's saints working together. And fundamentally, the reason I do what I do is because I want to build Zion.

And so as I think about my journey and things I've learned and things I haven't learned. One is just recognizing that there's so much I don't know. And sometimes I'll stop to say, huh, I don't know that. But what I do know is that the Lord, one, he loves me. I've never wept alone. I had a lot of cause. This has been a terrible year. I had a lot of reason to cry this year. A lot of reason. And I did. But I found solace and recognition in the fact that I didn't

cry alone and that I've never cried alone. I mean, honestly, fundamentally, I'm part of the gospel of Jesus Christ because I need Jesus Christ. I can't do this by myself. And anything I've read, the cool stuff, the hard stuff, the great stuff, always reminds me that in my own life, like with Enoch, when am I going to find rest? The only rest that really comes for me is through Jesus. And I just, there's nothing else I've got. I just need Jesus. So good. So, so good. We want to thank Dr. Avram Shannon for being with us today. Wow, Avram, that was just fantastic. And thank you to everyone who joined us listening. We love you, grateful for your support. We have executive producers we want to thank, Shannon and Steve Sorensen. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen.

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