Christ’s Ministry and Teachings
[Christ Always Appears to individuals]
[Sermon on the Mount Qualifies Us for Membership]
[Law of Moses Not Replaced, But Fulfilled]
[Beatitudes]
[Lord’s Prayer—Some Misinterpretations]
[Power, Gain, Popularity (or authority) Lusts of the Flesh]
84 3 Nephi 6: Turn to 3 Nephi 6, This sixth chapter—isn’t it something? Didn’t it just knock you off the Christmas tree? What’s the remarkable thing about it? I think it’s the most powerful editorial for us in the whole Book of Mormon, probably. I say that about every chapter, but this one really does it. This one covers all the ground. You’ll notice it starts out with a model society. They’ve been through a long war and suffered terribly. They return as a model society. They reform very wisely. They rehabilitate the enemy and all this sort of thing and begin immense prosperity. And then they start becoming spoiled. Then business becomes everything, and they’re divided into classes. Then, lo and behold, you get a secret government, the lawyers take over, and everything collapses. That’s the sixth chapter—what a marvelous cycle! It’s probably the most condensed cycle. Is it the story of American capitalism? Well, read it carefully; it’s very condensed. There’s an awful lot [in it], but the next chapter does just like it. And what is the result of that?
84 The seventh chapter is a different thing, and you’ve studied it with great care, that being the assignment. A remarkable thing happens: A totally new social system emerges from that. And what is it? Tribes. They go back to their original tribal organizations. The tribes had always been in place. The thing was set up and just waiting to take over. They had the whole inner structure going all the time, just as all the Indian tribes do. It’s not the tribes that count—it’s the phratries. It’s the groups inside, the brotherhoods, that always keep the families together, keep the name, keep the clan. It’s the Turtle Clan or the Bear Clan or the Snake Clan. It’s not the tribe. So they’re back to their old tribal system. This is their normal way of existence, but what has put a stop to the whole thing? We’re back to a tribal organization; we’re back to square one now. Have we got to go through that dismal routine again? What happens to arrest the whole thing and start a wholly new ball game? Destruction. Mass destruction. It’s not one of the great world destructions, but it is such as we do have. We’ve had such mass destructions. They talk about the summer of 1983 and things like that, that shook the whole world, changed the whole world. Yes, it changes the demography, it changes the topography, and it changes the culture, too. But only locally. Notice, this is local here. It tells us most cities weren’t destroyed. There was an epicenter where the destruction was nearly complete, but people escaped. Others hadn’t even heard of the earthquake. It wasn’t a sudden, drastic shifting of continents or anything like that—though that was what was behind it.
84,85 Well, then I notice the ninth chapter here. They have the new democracy set up. It hadn’t lasted very long, had it? What happens? Notice, in every one of these chapters, the whole picture changes as if you had to turn off the lights, change the sets, wait between the acts, and have an intermission. You come back and it’s a different scene, after the first one. So now what happens? I would call it the lowering of the shield, or the space shield, or something like that. And you get that in the ninth chapter. What am I talking about when I think of that? Now the people are all gathered here at the temple, and then something happens. They hear a voice. Now, this is out of the world—this is something. I say, it’s just like lowering the screen that they do in these science fiction things, you know. You have a protective screen that shuts you from space. And we do have such a screen around us. We can’t see through it at all. The screen is lowered, and all of a sudden in the ninth chapter here they hear a voice speaking through to them, “Wo, wo, wo.” It talks to them, and there’s rejoicing, etc. The voice comes through out of outer space, so to speak. The earth does have a magnetic shield, and this is very basic. This has become a very strong issue now, of course, the idea of the nemesis.
85 Here I do think it’s relevant to talk about the “cone of time.” That is what this book is about, incidentally. [Discussion Omitted by the Editor]. , time has ceased to exist. You can see in all the space movies that if you go with the speed of light, as Einstein said, time has stopped. And the nearer you get to it, the slower time goes—Fitzgerald’s rule, etc. So here we go out here. The irony of it—what I’m getting at here: What is our experience of reality? You have to be at the time and place to experience that. Any place else this is already happening. If you happen to be here, you will see it, and this hasn’t happened yet. So this is nonexistent for you, and this is nonexistent for you. That’s finished. It’s over and done, and this hasn’t happened. Only this very second that you’re living in [is reality]. This is the well-known philosophical paradox.
86 How long does it take for the future to become the past? Well, we came in here two minutes before the class, and the class was still future. Now, already, five minutes after, it’s all past. It’s as dead as the pharaohs now. It’s past forever and ever. A hundredth of a second [before] it was still future, and there was still brilliant hope. A hundredth of a second after, it’s all past, and there’s nothing you can do about it, you see. So the fact is, we just live in this reality here and only see what’s along here. How thick is this cone? Well, it’s thinner than the thinnest membrane or film. It’s the thickness of time; it has no thickness at all.
86 All we know of life, all we have to show for our existence is what we remember. If you forget from day to day, you don’t exist. That’s the agony of Alzheimer’s, isn’t it? That’s true. Our memory isn’t much good. It’s an interesting game. I play it all the time now to see just how much I can remember. Does it make any difference? The whole thing is all fused together anyway. Now the interesting thing, of course; is that this is a very important part of the gospel, and the Book of Mormon, too. Hereafter our memories will be perfect. They’ll be vivid, which means, right along here your light is shining at present all the time. The time stands still, and you can see this light. If you go with the speed of light, you look back and it’s a steady light, not a hundredth of a second—it lasts forever.
86 It’s the same way with our experiences here. They’ll be eternal, when we shift gears that way. We talk about our vivid memories that we bring back. A good hypnotist can do marvelous [things with memory]. And many times you can hear of people at the point of drowning or some other extreme crisis. Their whole life will flash before their eyes, and they really mean it [when they claim this]. They see the whole thing. Our memories play strange tricks; we are strange beings, you see.
87,88 We have only our memories to show for our existence, and they are a quickly fading vapor trail, as Shakespeare puts it so neatly. So we come to this ninth chapter, and it lowers the shield and shows us that there is something behind it—and this follows then. In the tenth chapter another world really breaks through. It’s interesting that Christian theologians today have suddenly become enamored of that expression, breakthrough. Christianity was a breakthrough in the ordinary lives of men. It was something different. Well, of course it was a breakthrough. How much are they willing to recognize there—a breakthrough, a recognition, an intellectual breakthrough.
88 3 Nephi 10:1-13 These are the survivors here [in chapter 10]. We’re talking about the people at the temple. Notice, the Lord speaks here, and he laments that the whole world has gone wrong. This is the way we should have been. See, chapter 10 is the big breakthrough. There was silence for many hours. They ceased lamenting, and then they heard the voice. And what a calling down it gave! I wanted to do everything for you. I gave you a standing offer, and you would not accept it. I couldn’t force you to do it; I wouldn’t twist your arm. Your place shall become desolate (it means that quite literally). If you won’t be gathered, your place will become desolate [the Savior said]. When they heard that they began to realize what fools they had been. They began to weep and howl for the loss of their kindred. There were three days of darkness and the mourning, etc. The more righteous part of the people, naturally, had gone to the temple, so you had a sort of selective survival here. The destruction hadn’t been so great then. And then it lists the parts that were not sunk and buried; notice from verse 13 on. It tells us the places that were destroyed, but there were a lot of places that weren’t destroyed. In other words, it wasn’t complete destruction. It was just a major earthquake, probably 8.1 on the Richter Scale, or something like that. And notice it keeps saying, “not sunk or buried, not burned, not crushed, not carried away, not overpowered.” This tells us that a lot of them were, you see.
88 3 Nephi 10:18 Well, here it was, you see. In this tenth chapter it tells us something of survival. It gets them ready now. What’s going to happen? It says the people of Nephi were spared, and they had been shown great blessings and great favors “insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them” (verse 18). So the story is not over. There’s going to be another episode. Well, there’s some encouragement for us. We can feel good about that for a change.
88 3 Nephi 11:15,35 Now we come to chapter 11. This is perhaps the most powerful statement in the Book of Mormon. I never can read it, because I choke up every time I try to do it. And it’s very simple—that’s the idea. The stranger is one of their own. You do not dispute. You repent and get your act together, he says. I am pulling the family together, he says. I want to bring you back to the Father again. He appears entirely to individuals. He always appears to individuals. That’s what an atonement is. He greets them one by one, he gives them the signs and tokens one by one, he converses with them one by one, he blesses the children one by one. He gives each person to understand; for example, it comes through here in 3 Nephi 11:15. That’s the one by one. Then verse 35 is another interesting one. He says, “This is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him [notice it’s in the singular—whoever believes in me, I will come to him] will the Father bear record of me.”
88,89 3 Nephi 11:35; 3 Nephi 17:21 Notice, here is the cast of characters, and it’s not the multitude or the mob or the chorus. It’s the Father, the Son, and the individual. The Father also will come unto him, and the Father will “bear record of me [singular], for he will visit him [singular] with fire and with the Holy Ghost.” That’s an individual. He’s not going to visit the church in the abstract or something like that. He comes to every individual there. And then in 3 Nephi 17:21 he says, “And when he had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it, and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them [gave each one a blessing—that’s something, to receive a blessing from the Lord as your own], and prayed unto the Father for them. And when he had done this he wept again.” Well, why the weeping? This enormous contrast. There’s joy also—we come to that.
89 3 Nephi 17:25 And then there’s this one to consider, verse 25. Now we have the multitude. There is a well-known Greek grammatical expression: “The whole multitude rose as a single man and waved his hat.” Of course, it was a single man; he waved his hat. But listen, “And the multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they know that their record is true for they all of them did see and hear, every man for himself.” He didn’t say, well did you see him? You were impressed because everybody else was yelling so they must be seeing something. No, every man saw for himself, even though it was the multitude we’re talking about. They heard and they bore record. There were 2,500 of them—men, women, and children. So this is this individual appearance. This is so very important to us here. And then we have a new beginning. This emphasis on children that we get in chapter 11 here is this new beginning. Only the children are uncontaminated. The angels come down and teach them. They don’t wither in the presence of angels.
89 3 Nephi 12:3,4 Now chapter 12 is very important. This is where we have the beatitudes; that’s the Sermon on the Mount. Notice what a summary. This chapter in these 48 verses summarizes the moral teachings of the Lord here. But what it emphasizes here is there is no rank. The Sermon on the Mount as it’s given here and in the New Testament (I was looking at it this morning) is given to the disciples in answer to the question, “Who are qualified to be taken into the church?” They’re not general statements. They apply at all times. But remember what he says.The disciples came to him, and he just gave it to the disciples in the New Testament. But here he’s not talking to the disciples in an unbelieving world. Here he’s talking to all the believers. They’re all his disciples here, and he talks to them, but still the same thing applies. What are the qualities of a member of the church? What do they have to have? They should have various qualities. He begins with the third verse: “Yea, blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And again, blessed are all they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Now he’s talking to the multitude who have come to him. This is very appropriate, and it applies all the way through here, doesn’t it.
89 3 Nephi 12:40,41 He tells us in verses 40-41 at the end here there is no other plan; no other arrangement will do. This is universal; it’s the plan throughout all the other worlds. Again, you say, isn’t that going to be rather monotonous? Is it as simple as all that, to go on for eternity after eternity? Well, we see the problems of multiplicity here, how you can multiply worlds and things like that. You can do it with the 16 notes of a scale.
90 3 Nephi 12:21-48 Well, chapter 12 tells us that there is to be no rank. The Sermon on the Mount is on the qualifications of membership. Who shall be admitted to the kingdom? From verse 21 on, we’re told that the old law is still in effect. The old law was well nigh perfect in its way. It’s far more humane and covers more ground than our laws today. We talk about the fierce, savage old tribal vengeful God of the Old Testament. Don’t fool yourself. Read the laws he gave them. Our laws aren’t half so kind, half so just, half so considerate of the oppressed. So it [the old law] is still in full effect, and to be taken more seriously than ever before by the individual. Notice, he tells us here that conscience displaces police orders. You have to have your conscience, the Golden Rule. The first and second commandments he talks about.
90 3 Nephi 15:5; Matthew 22:27-40 I’m sure you have all read chapter 12, but notice this is in the New Testament, too. He says, “I have not come to do away with the law but fulfill the law.” You do all this up to now. [For example, there’s the savage old primitive law of the Word of Wisdom. People used to get hopelessly drunk, chew tobacco, and they’d take all sorts of things that were bad for them. They’d misbehave and pass out every night from two quarts of cognac, or something like that. This was the way they’d do. Now we’re going to do away with that law. Does that mean, well thank heaven, we can now break the Word the Wisdom? Of course not. It means we don’t even think of it anymore. It’s contained in all the other laws. That’s why the Lord says to the apostles, two commandments take care of everything. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. . . . Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37-40.) If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, you won’t have to be told not to go out and kill people and not to go out and lie or steal. Even from your enemies you’re not supposed to do that—though with us it’s a virtue, as Antigone says. We wouldn’t have to be told not to do these terrible things if they [the commandments] become just part of our life. We don’t even have to think of them. Do you have to rehearse and say, I have to remember first thing before I go out this morning I mustn’t shoot anybody? Unfortunately I don’t have a gun today. That’s no joke. There have been civilizations that have sunk so low. That’s going to be part of the course.
90 3 Nephi 12:3-48 We know the beatitudes here; we won’t go through them. I’m talking about chapter 12 from verse 3 on. Who shall obtain mercy?: “And blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy [verse 7]. And blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” No impure thing can stand in the presence of God. If you were impure and had to stand in the presence of God, that would be worse than any hell you could possibly suffer, anything you could possibly imagine—to have that guilt with you. They [the pure in heart] can do it without being withered. “And blessed are all the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God . . . [and those] who are persecuted for my name’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom.”
90 3 Nephi 12:21-46 Notice, here are the same old Ten Commandments, but he brings them up and makes them, as he says, matters of conscience. He says, “thou shalt not kill,” but if you’re even angry [you’re guilty]. Fulfilling the law goes further here. If you have the urge to kill, the impulse to kill, there’s where the danger is, you see. As they say, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Well, this is the people-kill-people part of it. Well, guns are a great help, you understand—they simplify matters vastly. [There are] over 30,000 murders a year with guns in this country alone; that breaks an all-time record. Don’t get angry, because when you get angry you shift gears into a totally different mood. You’re devilish and fiendish in things you might want to do. For a moment you have the impulse to kill. If you had the ability, you’d do it, and that’s terrible. Watch the anger, you see.
91 3 Nephi 12:22-24 “And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca [is worse], shall be in danger of the council; and whoso ever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” That’s the worst. Raca is cursing [and saying] may you die. But worse than that is to call him a fool. To despise a person is worse than to hate him, you see. To be despised is worse than anger. The worst thing you can do is to hold a person in utter contempt, and that’s when you say he’s a fool. Don’t despise anybody. “Therefore, if ye shall come unto me ... and rememberest that thy brother has aught against thee,” clear it up. The Jews put it very nicely in the Talmud, when you think that way against your brother, no matter who it is. “I am insulting the image of God,” it says. If that’s the image of God, it should always be treated with respect. And you can’t despise what you don’t know or you don’t understand. So to say “thou fool” is actually deserving of hell fire. If you kill your enemy or have that strong impulse to hit somebody, that’s not as bad, actually, as to despise him. That’s the best kind of punishment. You know how that is—to hold [someone] in complete contempt. First “be reconciled to thy brother.” No matter what, be reconciled to him and agree with your adversary. Never burn your bridges behind you, because we’re governed by impulse, you see, and we do foolish things. The other person may repent and we may repent. There are many stories about the angels pleading to God to go down and destroy the world in the time of Noah, when they were so wicked. And God said no, give them more time. He is long suffering—ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, as the Koran says. He is rahman, gentle. “There is no power and there is no might except to God, and he never uses it.” He is gentle and forbearing. He gives men as long as they want, and then they destroy themselves. That’s very near the truth, too.
91 3 Nephi 12:25,27 And then he goes on here [verse 25]: “Agree with thine adversary quickly.” Don’t get into trouble or you’ll get cast into prison, etc. Brother John Welch will tell you about this verse. He’s a lawyer and has studied this. It has to do with the rules of the ancient law. Then this about not committing adultery. And what’s verse 28? Pornography. They don’t use the word pornography, it’s a new word. Pornography is the same sort of thing, isn’t it—lusting in your mind and the like? Verse 27: “Behold, it is written by them of old time, that thou shalt not commit adultery; But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart.” To look with lust is pornography—the same thing, you see. These things are all bad. This law is going further than the old Jewish law.
91 3 Nephi 12:29,30 “I give unto you a commandment, that ye suffer none of these things to enter into your heart.” To refrain from doing a thing, you must refrain from thinking of it. Then you don’t have to refer to the law books, you see. You don’t have to read the fine print that the lawyers dig up. Then, to refrain from popular vices, it tells us here, takes real restraint. Notice 3 Nephi 12:30: “For it is better that ye should deny yourselves of these things, wherein ye will take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into hell.” This admits, you see, that these temptations are strong. That’s what you’re here for—to be put up against them. To resist them requires great will and strength.
91 3 Nephi 12:30 Question: “What does it mean to take up your cross?” Take up your cross? That you will “take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into hell.” The cross and crucifixion did not begin with the Romans. The SALAB are the oldest sect, “the Christians of the cross.” Well, the carrying of your cross and the bearing of a cross is a very ancient punishment. The Assyrians loved it. They loved crucifixion, and you carry your cross. This is a term with which these people would be familiar, I’m quite sure. And also, you’ll notice there was a substantial percentage of crucifixion [in the New World], If you look at Aztec and Mayan art, especially the Aztec, [you find] crucifixion, posting people up on crosses and nailing them up. [They had] cruel punishments—to be flayed alive, to be eaten by birds, etc. They’re quite common in the art. The cross is very common.
92 3 Nephi 12:31,32 Well, we continue here. Then he talks again about no divorce. It’s very easy in Semitic cultures to divorce a person. All you have to do in Islam is to say to a woman three times, “I release you, I release you, I release you,” and she’s no longer married to you. It’s as easy as that. And it was easy with the Jews, too. But you can’t do that anymore, the Lord says in verse 31, except for the cause of fornication, causing her to commit adultery. That’s all.
92 3 Nephi 12:33,34 “And again . . . thou shalt not forswear thyself.” But don’t swear at all. Forswearing is perjury. But don’t make any oath, because when you make an oath, you promise that you will do something, or else do something else. You have no command of that. [You say] or else you will pay a certain penalty or fee, but you’re not able to determine that fee. For example, people often swore that they would never shave again until they had murdered the Prophet Joseph Smith. Well, they didn’t keep their oaths. But when it’s something the Lord says, you can’t change a single hair of your head white or black. You can’t add a cubit to your stature. You can’t make any changes. How can you swear when you don’t know? You see, I swear to do something by such and such a date, or else I will do so-and-so. You don’t know whether you’ll be in a condition to do that or not. He says swear not at all, for the heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool. You can’t swear by heaven—it’s not yours. It’s the throne of God. You can’t control the earth, and as far as swearing by yourself, your head or anything is concerned, you don’t know what the situation will be. So you’re committing a very grave offense when you commit yourself to a future you know nothing about. To forswear yourself is perjury, but this is to make an engagement you very possibly won’t keep. Notice [verse 34]: “Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair black or white.”
92 3 Nephi 12:33-37 But what do you do in a case like that? You don’t prove things this way or that way. A person swears in court that a thing is so. Well, how do you know that he isn’t lying? You can forswear. Don’t swear at all. You say yea, yea, and nay, nay. That’s all you can do. You bear your testimony. There’s no contention; testimony alone remains. There’s no disputation; there’s no point to it. When you teach, you point. See, the words teach, touch are the same as the Greek word, dactile, and the Latin didactic. Deiko means to show. It means to point to a thing. When you teach, all you can do is point to a thing. You can’t put it inside the person or anything like that. All you can do is point to it and let him react, you see. And it’s the same way here. When you say a thing is so (yea, yea and nay, nay), let him dispute it if he wants to, and you prove it if you want. But you bear your testimony and that’s all you can do about it.
93 3 Nephi 12:38,39 Well, what is our entire obsession? An eye for an eye. The opposite is you shall not resist evil. You can’t eliminate it. What do you do? How do you resist it? By doing good. That will heap coals on the head of your enemy, and nothing else will do it. But you cannot do evil and resist it directly. That alone [doing good] can diffuse it. The classic example in the Book of Mormon again is the people of Ammon. They decided the only way they could resist evil was to do good. They had more effect than all the other armies and everything else. Remember when they refused to fight?
93 And if a person wants to sue you and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. President [Dallin H.] Oaks was in my ward. He was in my high priest [groupj, and he used to teach us. He was a lawyer, as you know. One lesson he used to always drive home. He said any settlement out of court, no matter how bad, is better than any settlement in court, no matter how good. Whatever you do, never go to court. This was from a lawyer and judge. He became a [Utah] Supreme Court judge, and he still believes that. Any settlement out of court is better than any settlement in court. So it says if he wants to sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak. Let him have everything, but don’t go to court about it. Go with him twain.
93 3 Nephi 12:42-44 “Give to him that asketh thee.” If he wants to borrow something, don’t turn him away. The old arguments are no longer valid, you see. Here’s Antigone, that you should love your friends and hate your enemies. That’s the law of the ancient city state. It’s just the opposite now: “Pray for them who despitefully use you.” There’s no way of stopping them from being your enemies, except that. If you don’t accept them as your enemies, you don’t have enemies then. They may be plotting against you, but they’ll have to have some pretty good grounds for action, etc.
93 3 Nephi 12:45 “That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven.” No child of God will hate the image of God, as the Jews say. No child of God is going to hate the image of God, no matter who it is. You have to concede that. And it’s so funny, you see. Here we were [during World War II] talking about the Germans, just as we have talked about the Russians. Then suddenly one day, on May 7, 1945, we signed a piece of paper, and all the German prisoners around me were my best friends. We got along marvelously. No wrong at all, no bad feelings or anything like that. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it that we have to have this enmity?
93,94 3 Nephi 12:46-48 “Those things which were of old time, which were under the law, in me are all fulfilled. Old things are done away, and all things have become new.” So that’s the cycle of life, you see. We’re not going to be stuck forever in this rut. We don’t have to stay the way we’re living—remember that. You say, “This too shall have an end.” That’s true, but better than that, there’ll be something better after it. All things shall become new. “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect.” Well, here’s this we like to quote—be perfect. That’s a simple rule. Any questions? Just be perfect, and all your questions are answered. If I have a question in math, all you have to say is, “Well, what would Einstein do?” Oh boy, I’ve got a solution now! That’s it. It isn’t that easy. As I was explaining last time, what they mean by perfect is TAMIM. That’s used for “the perfect circle.” The TAMIM is a perfect circle. It doesn’t have to be big or small to be a circle, but it has to be a circle. It has to be fulfilled within its particular department and its calling. You can be perfect in ce