Welcome: Joseph

Good evening everyone, and good day to those who are joining us from all around the world. I see that we have a few people here from the Philippines and from Africa. We have a few people from around the world, it is nice to see everyone this evening, and in the morning where you are. Today is a great day, we get to meet together in friendship and brotherly love and speak one with another concerning the welfare of our souls. So this is a great blessing. So welcome to all our friends and visitors and members. This autumn conference has arrived during the Days of Awe, called the High Holy Days in the Old Testament and is a special time of year, the time of year where the Lord reaches out his hand to help us in our endeavours to overcome the world and let us know that He wants us to come home. And He wants us to come home so much that He has come with all the hosts of Heaven to collect His children and bring them home. So we will start our meeting today with prayer, after which we will have a few speakers. Can I have the volunteer to say the prayer come on in and say the prayer?

Opening Prayer: John

O God, the Eternal Father, we are grateful that we could gather together over the internet, that we can hold this conference, that we can discuss that which is in Thy will and that we may learn Thy gospel, that we may share these things for the improvement of ourselves and for each other, that we can be as one, be as Zion as Thou has commanded. Please bless us and touch our hearts with Thy Holy Spirit, so that we may understand the gospel and that we may be one with Thee. In the name of Yeshua Messiah, amen.

Establishing Zion: ~ Kevin Castro

Kevin: Good evening everybody. It’s good to be here with you and as Joseph pointed out, we have Canada, we have the U.S., we have the Philippines and Africa being represented, and that’s awesome. I know that it’s really early in the morning in Kenya, how early is it in the day in the Philippines?

Joseph: It is actually about 9 a.m. there.

Kevin: 9 a.m. in the morning, so it’s morning for them too. Well, I appreciate being here with you today. The Lord tells us that we need to gather together often, and so we do that. We meet in sacrament meeting each week, we meet on Monday night as well, for those that are able to, and we meet in these conferences 4 times a year.

So I’d like to share some thoughts on the building of Zion, and the Lord commands us to do that. Here in Utah, if you stop at a gas station and you ask for directions on how to get to Zion, you’ll be told to take Interstate 15 [inaudible] and then you take that. Just follow the signs from there and it’s very close to where both Bill and I live, as well as Rick. So, of course they’re talking about Zion National Park, which is not quite the same. However, if you go to the scriptures, it’s going to give you different directions on how to get there completely.

So let’s ask the question, what is Zion?

In the scriptures, specifically in the Doctrine and Covenants, tell us that Zion... tells us a lot of things... but one of the big things is Zion is where the pure in heart dwell. So the Lord is telling us to be pure in heart, first and foremost, and what does that mean?

So if we turn to the Book of Mormon, and I’m going to read, you don’t have to, just listen to me ramble on, but if we turn to page 514, this is in the 1830 version, let me set the stage here a little bit. The Saviour has visited the people on the North American continent after a lot of destruction has occurred, almost a year later, after the destruction following his death in Jerusalem, and as he visited the people in North America, He showed Himself to them, they had the opportunity, about 2500 people, to go up to the Saviour to feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet. And He taught them, He taught them something very similar to what He taught in the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount. There were a few minor differences, but it’s essentially the same sermon that he gave. And this is what the Book of Mormon has to say about this time, and this is about 3 years after He had left after He had appeared to the people in the Americas, and the Book of Mormon tells us,

And it came to pass that the thirty and seventh year passed away also, and there still continued be peace in the land.

There had been a lot of warfare, a lot of destruction prior to this, and there still continued to be peace in the land.

And there were great and marvellous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus. And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and the forty and first, and the forty and second; yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second;

So this is interesting, because this is a long period of peace which the Nephites had enjoyed, and he continues on and he says,

Joseph Smith taught:

and the Lord did prosper them exceedingly, in the land; yea, insomuch that they did fill cities again where there had been cities burned; yea, even that great city Zarahemla did they cause to be built again. But there were many cities which had been sunk, and waters came up in the stead thereof; therefore these cities could not be renewed.

And then it continues down toward the bottom of page 515, and he describes this society that developed during this period of time, and he says,

And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor no manner of lasciviousness: and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people which had been created by the hand of God: There were no robbers, nor no murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor no manner of Ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God: And how blessed were they, for the Lord did bless them in all their doings;

And so Zion is a place where complete peace and love and harmony reigns in these people. There’s no crime whatsoever. And we look at the world around today, and we can see the level of crime that is taking place all over the world, and the breaking of God’s laws and His commandments and it’s a terrible thing. But Zion, on the other hand, is a place where these people are enjoying each other, they have great love in their hearts for each other, they’re building a Zion community.

So, the Lord is telling us first to be pure in heart. What a wonderful place Zion has got to be, just an awesome, awesome place. What Zion is not, is a place where we get to have one foot in Zion and one foot in spiritual Babylon. We don’t get to take advantage of each other, we don’t get to practice one of the thousand and one ways to be bad and then on Sunday, we get to be a saint. It’s kind of a you’re all in, or you’re out prospect. Zion has to be within our hearts first, it has to be within each of us. We have to do that before we can physically build it. And it’s true that Zion begins within each of us, but it emanates outward to others. It’s where we learn to become servants to each other, not to be served by others, as some believe. A lot of people think that when you go to Heaven, that you are being waited on, you’re being served, you’re being, you know, this type of lifestyle, but the reality is, is that those that do return back to the presence of our Heavenly Father and the Saviour after this life, become servants, just as they are servants. They spend all of their time doing that, they don’t take vacations, and they don’t sleep, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year from our perspective, they’re focused on us, and serving us, and there’s nothing that is as important as our Father in Heaven.

So if there is such a thing as a set of explicit instructions that are given in the scriptures, and really all of scripture gives us specific instruction on how to live our life, and what we need to be doing. It might be what the Lord taught the people in the Sermon on the Mount, and then again, in North America, following His resurrection, He gave essentially the same lesson. I think for me, that tells us the great importance of the Sermon on the Mount. So He doesn’t just give us the don’ts in that sermon, He also gives us the dos, with pretty much what Moses and the 10 commandments and ancient Israel had a lot of don’ts, you don’t do this, you don’t do that, it’s a bit of a lower law, but it was needed at that time for them. But as the Saviour came, He came to bring a higher law and to teach people the things that we need to return back to Him.

Well, the dos aren’t only important, they’re essential, the dos of obeying the commandments. So this we do to bring glory to Father in Heaven and what it is glory, if you ask the question, and His glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Again, He is focused on us; He is not focused on Himself. He is not sitting back on his cloud or on His throne and looking for accolades from the rest of us; His only concern is for us. So it’s a law that we need to live though, in order to receive eternal life and to enjoy the type of life that He does, because more than anything else, Father wants us to become as He is and as Yeshua is.

Well, it’s pretty easy to live the commandment, thou shalt not kill. I think that’s an easy one for pretty much everybody to obey. You know, He also tells us in that sermon though to pray for our enemies, and those who despitefully use us, and you have to ask yourself, are we living that commandment? It’s one thing to not have to go out and kill somebody, it’s another thing to pray for people that abusing you or persecuting you, but He expects that of us. So some of the things that we’re commanded to do in that Sermon on the Mount are to be merciful. If we want to receive mercy from the Lord, we have to first extend it to those that may have wronged. So mercy is a very important quality. Scripture is given in the New Testament where the Lord teaches that a king brought an individual before him that owed him 10,000 talents, presumably gold, talents is a unit of weight measurement that was used, and he frankly forgave the man. That man then went out and had somebody that had owed him some money, but he was very harsh with the individual and had the officers brought and had him thrown into prison. When the king found out this, he was wroth with the man, because he had been given a tremendous debt. Some years back, I decided to calculate out how much 10,000 talents of gold was actually worth in U.S. dollars and cents, and at that time, it was 4 billion dollars that was owed, we’re at almost $2000/oz gold, so many times in today’s gold.

So He tells us to be meek. He tells us that we must be humble. He tells us that we have to be pure in heart, for those that are pure in heart will see God. He tells us to be peacemakers. There’s a lot of strife and contention in the world, probably a lot right around us, even at work or within our families. It’s a good think to be a peacemaker. We may be persecuted when we share our beliefs to other, Yeshua was. Are we greater than Him? Are we immune from persecution? I don’t think so. We’re told to be a light to other people, to share knowledge and information with them, to help them, to love them, and to take care of them and to bless them. We’re told not to argue or contend with other people, in fact, this is one of the first things that the Saviour told to the people in the Americas, when He appeared to them after His resurrection, was that there shall be no disputations and contention within you. Contention is of the devil, and he does not want us to participate that. We’re told not to commit adultery, not even to lust after a woman, because when we do, if we’ve lusted after a woman, and this applies to women towards men as well, then we’ve committed adultery within our heart, and this is not a good thing.

There’s just hundreds of qualities that we have to practice within ourselves each and every day, and we have to be unified with each other, those who we live with, those who we work with, in particularly, members of our family and those within the church. We have to demonstrate to the Lord that we love him first by obeying all of His commandments and we have to control our carnal appetites and our passions. Second, we have to love each other as the Lord Yeshua showed us how; He led the way for setting the example for us in all things. He said come follow Me. He wants us to become like Him. So if we follow Him in all things, we will become like Him. He has promised us that.

From a personal standpoint, I haven’t been able to come up with even a single commandment that Father has given me, that I cannot live up to. Yup, I still mess up, but then He gives me the wonderful principle of repentance and I can repent of the bad things that I have done.

So, it’s true that Zion has to start within us, in order to create a Zion for the Lord to come to, when He does come back to the earth, but it’s not where He comes down and He establishes Zion, we create it and provide a place for Him to come to. And it may not be easy, but it is worth it, I think, and we have to resolve to start that journey today, don’t procrastinate. We don’t know when we take our last breath. I was faced with that 2-1/2 years ago and almost did take my last breath and I am so grateful for the Lord and thank Him constantly for the additional time that He’s granted to me, and I have a new perspective on what’s important in life and so we just don’t know. When we think we know, if we’re 15, we may think that we’re going to live forever, most teenagers do, especially teenage boys. We just don’t know.

So, seek Him in sincere prayer each day, crack the scriptures open each day, study the scriptures, search the scriptures. The scriptures tell us to feast upon the words of Christ, and when we feast upon something, it’s a great metaphor because it tells us that we have to internalize the things that the Lord is trying to teach us through His prophets. And as we internalize those things and as we live those principles of the gospel, our perceptions, our understanding of gospel truths, our relationship with the Lord gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And it is a process, it’s not something that takes place within a day, this is why the scriptures tell us that the Lord has procrastinated, or He has extended the days of our probation, is the words that the scripture uses, so that we have time to be able to repent of the things that He’s asking us to do. He is here to help us. He has given us all the ability to have the Holy Ghost to guide us and strengthen us so that at a time of His choosing and after we demonstrate the season and love and obedience to Him, He will personally come to us individually and minister to us. It’s His promise; He’s told us that He would do this.

And of this I testify, in the name of Yeshua Messiah, amen.

Keeping Your Environment Clean: ~ Ted Rockwell

I was watching some YouTube videos, you know, as you do, and I came across one, I was looking for nice little stories and what not, motivational stories and the like, and I came across one, a nice one, and it goes like this, I will tell the story first.

It says there was a man who hired a carpenter to help him restore an old farm house. So this man, I guess we will call him the boss for now, and the other guy the carpenter, so on the first day of work, the carpenter came in and he had a really rough day on his first day on the job. His truck had gotten a flat tire on the way in, so he had lost an hour’s worth of work, and while he was working, his electric saw broke down and so he had to use a hand saw and that took him a lot of time, and then when he was finished the day, his ancient, old pickup truck would not even start. So you could say it is a pretty bad day.

So the carpenter’s truck will not start, so the boss offers to give him a ride home and that is what they do, and the whole way home, the carpenter is sitting there in stony silence, staring out the window, and when they get to the carpenter’s house, the carpenter turns to his boss and asks if the carpenter could introduce the boss to the carpenter’s family. The boss says yes, and so they go up and they get out of the car and they are walking up towards the house, and the boss is walking behind the carpenter and the carpenter turns, before he gets to the door of his own house, he turns and there is this little tree beside the walkway, and the carpenter reaches out and he touches the branches with his fingertips, this little tree, and then goes over to the house. The boss sees as soon as the carpenter opens the door, the carpenter’s whole personality, everything just changes completely about him. His face is just wreathed in smiles, he opens the door, he hugs his kids, he gives his wife a kiss, and he introduces his boss to them and everything and thanks him for driving him home.

And then afterwards, when the carpenter is walking the boss back out to his car, the boss’ curiosity gets the better of him and he asks the carpenter about what he saw earlier, with the little tree. The carpenter says, “Oh, that’s my trouble tree. I know full well that throughout the day, I’m gonna have problems and stressful situations, and those situation may be inevitable at work, but they don’t belong in your house with your kids or your family. So every night, when I come home, before I go inside, I hang up all my troubles that I’ve gotten throughout the day, and I hang them up on that little tree. Then when I come back out in the morning, I pick them up again, and I go on my way.” The carpenter smiled and he said, “But the funny thing is that every morning when I come out to pick my troubles back up again, they’re never seem to be as many as when I put them there the night before.”

And that’s the story. And it is quite a good lesson, very applicable lesson. Like it says, in your life, troubles are going to be inevitable, no matter which path you choose, you are always going to come across problems and problems are not always necessarily a bad thing, we need to solve them to work things out, but you end up getting stressed, you end up getting impatient, something I see quite a lot, working around cattle, and a lot of people seem to forget that they have a chose whether to carry those troubles around with them, even me, well, especially me. Doing stuff, something breaks, something does not work, get upset, and you start worrying about it and it kind of ruins your whole. But you have to remember that it is not the end of the world, it is just one problem. There are always problems and always problems that are going to need to be fixed.

Like the story says, it is important to, at the very least, keep those troubles and those stresses out of your family, out of your home or what have you, and even if you just give up the troubles for the night before you go to bed, just a little time, and then you can pick them back up again in the morning and continue worrying or whatever you were going to do.

You know, when I saw that video on YouTube, I noticed there was a comment underneath the video, it said that it is not always easy to just let go all of a sudden, at the snap of the fingers, it is not easy just to hang your troubles up right away and change. It is something that you have to constantly be working with and putting effort into. The person said it is not always easy to hang up those troubles so quickly and so easily, it is not always easy to let go of things like that, especially stressful things, things you have been working out the whole day trying to fix, then as soon as you go home, you are expected or you would expect yourself not to worry about that anymore, and it is a constant effort, but it is also something that gets better with practice, like almost everything. You work at it a little bit at a time, you start with something small, start not worrying for only a short amount of time, and you just work up from there.

You know, there is a proverb I found in the scriptures, it is Proverbs 11:29, and it says,

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.

That very accurately describes a great deal of people, people I have met, people who bring those problems back with them, they bring those problems back into their own family and what not. Those problems may be unavoidable while you are working, while you are doing stuff, whatever you are doing, and they may be very well out of your control, but what goes on in your family most often is in your control, and it is up to you to create that environment the way you want it.

I kind of like that scripture, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” That is funny, if you ask me, because a lot of people, people I have met, people I see stories about, people who you hear about here and there, they never really seem to have that control over their life that they want to have. They are always servant to something else, whether it be a job, whether it be all their troubles they are constantly worrying about, something else. And yet it clearly states here that, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart,” which would mean that the opposite would be true as well, that the person who takes away that trouble from their own house, who creates that peace and harmony within their own house, and that person would not be servant to the outside forces or other people who have already figured it out. There was actually a bunch in those proverbs, that whole list of proverbs was kind of some degree of dialogue as much as proverbs are not that. I am sure in the surrounding proverbs, it did explain it a little more, but I cannot remember what they said, so.

You know, in 1 John, chapter 4, verses 20 and 21, I cannot remember the background that is going on in that story, but it says,

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

And that says it pretty well straight forward. Again, not as many people as I know personally, but you hear a lot of stories and you see a lot of different people, they go to church every Sunday, they behave themselves at least while they are in the actual building in church, and as soon as they go home, they are yelling at their kids, they are yelling at their spouse, they are doing this, they are doing that. They are causing trouble, they are making up excuses. They say, you know I go to church every Sunday, I sit their quietly and I listen to the preacher and I try not to fall asleep, I’m a good person. And yet they do not treat their brother or their family even as kindly as they behave themselves in church. And right there it say, you know, if you do that, you do not actually love God, if you loved God, you would take care of your family, you would not be bringing those outside influence into your own family. You have the options to control the environment that your family is in, you do not have to be bringing in all those outside problems and stress, especially stress, everybody is always stressed and that is something that travels so quickly between people. It does not take any words, it takes hardly any movement, no eye contact, but someone who is stressed can walk into a room and someone else who is not actively trying to be peaceful, could very easily become stressed as well, and that, of course, I have seen happen quite a lot as well. It has happened to me, it has happened to all kinds of people. Someone who get stressed comes in and they are doing stuff and they are impatient and you become impatient, pretty soon everybody is impatient, everybody is worried about something, people start fighting very quickly, getting themselves in trouble, they create more problems.

So, it is important to remember you cannot control what happens to you, the problems that arise and all the different things that happen. You can control what you do about it. You can control your reaction to it, and it takes practice and patience, but it is possible, and the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Also, you can control what happens in your family, in your home environment, and it is also up to you to keep that in good order and to not let those outside influences, and especially not bring those outside influence in with you. Just like the story said, when you go back out in the morning to pick those troubles up again, because you have to go back to work, not nearly as many of those problems are there.

That is it for me, thank you for listening to me.

How To Treat Your Family: ~ Will Rockwell

Hello everyone. My talk actually, you (Ted) almost said what I was going to say, almost, it is a slightly different angle.

The Lord said to love your enemies, but that does not do much good if you love your enemies and you are nasty to your family. It says to be a neighbour, to be kind to someone, to be kind to a stranger, be a neighbour. Again, if you treat your neighbours better than you treat your brothers, than it does not exactly help you. It is easy to be nice to a neighbour because, you know, you see him once a day, you do not have to deal with him, you do not have to talk to him a whole lot, and so it is easy to be kind whenever you see him. With your brothers, sometimes it is a little bit harder, with your family; it can be a little bit more difficult. Like Ted said there, if you cannot treat your family well, if you cannot get along with your family, then what good is helping out everyone else?

If you think about Nephi and his brothers, Laman and Lemuel, now Nephi has, at least in his words, he has tried to be nice to his brothers, but later on, nearing his end of his life, well, after they had landed on the promised land and after Lehi had died, he is talking about his brothers previously, but then he says,

Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in shewing me his great and marvellous works, my heart exclaimeth, O wretched man that I am; yea, my heart sorroweth, because of my flesh. My soul grieveth, because of mine iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which doth so easily beset me.

Now, it is an interesting thing that he starts talking about this right after he is talking about his brothers, and considering he is the one who wrote the book, I believe that he may have regretted some of his actions towards this brothers, because, if you did not notice, Nephi had a bit of a smart mouth, and you know, if Nephi regrets how he treated his brothers, and you know, his brothers have tried to kill him a couple of times by now, what is your excuse! How can we claim to be any sort of a decent person when we treat our brothers far worse than that, or we treat our family far worse than that, and they did not do anything to us.

I mean, look at Jacob and Esau, if you look at them, I mean, Jacob stole Esau’s birthright blessing, and you know, they never really reconciled that, I mean, it is not like Jacob ever gave his brother the blessing back, or anything else along those lines, and you know, even though when they met again, Esau forgave him, they were still never close after that, Esau went one way, Jacob went another, and they never reconnected. If you think about it, what would have happened if Jacob had been a little bit nicer to his brother, you know, actually worked at it and reconnected with him, then, if you recall, the whole reason that Jacob and his family, the 12 Tribes of Israel, went to Egypt was because of a famine, and that led to, you know, however many hundreds of years (400 years) and eventual slavery. Now imagine if he had been on better terms with his brother and instead of going to Egypt, he went over to his brother, went to Esau’s place, who was flourishing, whose family was getting bigger and he was happy and healthy and probably he prepared for whatever famine. I mean, their descendants are still fighting today; Islam and Israel are still fighting all the time, and can you imagine how different the world would be if they did not fight, if they had actually gotten along, if they had actually worked together as a family, then the world would be quite the different place.

It is actually kind of hard to find a pair of brothers that actually work together in the scriptures somewhere. The best ones I could find in the Book of Mormon are Nephi and Lehi, sons of Helaman, and Jared and the brother of Jared, they worked together pretty well too. With Nephi and Lehi, they did all sorts of things together, like one of them died, the other one bringing him back to life, that is pretty good brotherly love. It just goes to show you how much better you can do things when you are working together, rather than being annoyed at each other.

Ted: They say that Moses, Aaron and Miriam, who were all siblings, once they finally got together, to work together, they led a whole country out of captivity.

Will: There you go again. Aaron and Miriam, well, they grew up together, and they were leaders in their community, you know, Miriam was a prophetess and Aaron was the guy everybody went to know what to do next, he is the one who organized everything. Then Moses comes along, he is the crazy guy who comes out of the bush and tells you, it is time to go! But yeah, if they did not have any one of those three, Aaron, Miriam, or Moses, then the Israelites would have never been able to be let out. Without Aaron, no one would listen to Moses, or he would not have been able to talk to anyone, without Miriam telling the Israelites, nope, this is Moses, he is going to lead us out. No one would have followed him; no one would have followed Moses without Miriam there.

It just goes on like that. Every time that family is divided, things go wrong, they have problems. Jacob and Esau, they are still having problems to this day. Nephi and his brothers, Laman and Lemuel, it was thousands of years of war and they both practically wiped each other out. But every time they actually worked together, as in Moses and Aaron and Miriam, they led their people out of slavery. Nephi and Lehi, they converted cities and set things in motion to prepare for the saviour. It says that,

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

And that is very important, because if we want to get to God, like Ted said, if anyone says that they love God, but hate their brother, then they do not love God. So it is a very important principle, that you need to get along with your family, and I am talking about this from the perspective of a brother, as I am not a father yet, or a grandfather, or any of those other things, so just from my experience, you need to get along with your family because if you do not, then you will never be able to accomplish anything, you will always be having problems. It is impossible to hate your brother and go and love your enemies, because it will only ever be a selfish love, it will only ever be selfishness and vanity and “Lord, Lord, didn’t we do all these great works in your name!”

The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: ~ Bill Berrett

I am giving this talk on September 23, 2023. This is the day of the Family of Yeshua Messiah's Autumn quarterly conference. Today, I want to discuss something that happened on September 21, 1823. That date is two hundred years ago plus two days. The thing I want to discuss is the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

But first, I am going to talk about Joseph Smith who was a seventeen year old boy living with his parents and with his brothers and sisters in Manchester, a small town in upstate New York at the time. Manchester, New York is next door to Palmyra, New York.

About three and one half years before Moroni came to Joseph Smith something else of interest had happened. In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith was visited by God, our Heavenly Father along with the Lord, Yeshua the Messiah. Heavenly Father and His son, Yeshua, came to visit Joseph Smith in answer to Joseph's prayer. At that earlier time Joseph was praying to know which church he should join. He was told to join none of them. And Joseph was given good reasons from God why he should join none of those churches.

Joseph Smith tells us his story in the Pearl of Great Price, a record which is treated as scripture by many churches including us, the Family of Yeshua Messiah. Joseph Smith tells his story beginning with some of his family history. Joseph also describes his divine experience with Heavenly Father and Yeshua in the spring of 1820. And then Joseph Smith says this, beginning in chapter 2 of the Joseph Smith History:

29 [O]n the evening of the above-mentioned twenty-first of September [1823], after I had retired to my bed for the night, I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies, and also for a manifestation to me, that I might know of my state and standing before Him; for I had full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation, as I previously had one. [Joseph is referring to his previous manifestation where God and Yeshua came to him.]

30 While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.

. . . 33 He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me [Joseph Smith] to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

34 He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants; (JSH 2:29, 30, 33-34)

Angel Moroni comes to Joseph Smith as Joseph is praying to God seeking forgiveness for his sins. This is roughly fourteen hundred years after the record on engraved gold plates is buried in the ground at the Hill called Cumorah in upstate New York. The Angel Moroni then prepares Joseph Smith to bring forth this American record of scripture called the Book of Mormon.

Here is the time table of Moroni's Visits with Joseph

September 21, 1823 Joseph Smith was first visited by Moroni

September 22, 1823 Joseph was able to go to where the gold plates were buried the next day

Moroni told Joseph Smith to return every year for the next four years on that same day, September 22. These are the dates that Joseph Smith went to the Hill Cumorah to comply with the directions Joseph received from the Angel Moroni.

September 22, 1824 1st year anniversary of the first visit to Cumorah

September 22, 1825 2nd year anniversary of the first visit to Cumorah

September 22, 1827 4th year anniversary of the first visit to Cumorah

Let's discuss some Hebrew Holy Days for this year 2023 which are relevant to our discussion today

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Teruah, Head of the Year or the Hebrew New Year for year 2023

Started Sundown Friday, September 15, 2023
Ended Sundown Sunday, September 17, 2023

Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year for the Jews and the Hebrews for year 2023

Starts sundown Sunday, September 24, 2023
Ends sundown Monday, September 25, 2023

In Hebrew tradition and in Judaism, the Ten Days of Awe or Ten Days of Repentance are the first ten days of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, beginning with the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and ending with the conclusion of Yom Kippur. That means today, September 23, 2023 we are still in that ten day period, the Ten Days of Awe, which will end at the conclusion of Yom Kippur next Monday at Sundown. This is kind of a big deal to meet together today and remember the coming forth of the Book of Mormon 200 years ago.

Day of Atonement Yom Kippur is described in scripture

It is the Day of Atonement—“For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.” (Leviticus 16:30) That priestly offering is obviously symbolic of the great and last sacrifice made by the Son of God, Who is the Great High Priest, Which is the only Way to become holy.

As Nephi describes it in the Book of Mormon:

And now behold, my beloved brethren, this is the Way. And there is none other Way nor Name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the Kingdom of God. (2 Nephi chapter 13 p. 120)

The Way Nephi described is "feasting upon the Word of Christ," with unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of Him Who is mighty to save.

We need a steadfastness in Christ, the Lord Yeshua, with a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men. And we must press forward, and endure to the end. And if we do these things, then we shall have Eternal Life. In other words these are some things we must do to become like God, to live the kind of life that He lives. And we are here to become like Father.

Important Question each of us should ask ourselves

What have I done with the Book of Mormon? Have I really studied it? Has it blessed My life? Or we may ask if we have ignored this great miracle?

Now, what do these Hebrew Feast days have to do with the Book of Mormon coming forth? Well to begin we should recall that the prophet, Joseph Smith is reported to have said:

I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on Earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1957), 4:461.)

Here is a question we might ask ourselves.

Does the Book of Mormon come to us in a pattern following the Hebrew Feast calendar because the Lord is using this pattern to comply with expectations consistent with a recipe or pattern of how and what we must do to become holy? Is this part of His holy formula? Is this part of what we must follow to become as He is?

Let's look at a few of the Book of Mormon dates to see how the Book of Mormon fits with the Hebrew Feast celebrations.

On September 22, 1824 when Joseph Smith went to the Hill Cumorah it was the Eve of Rosh Hashanah also known as Feast of Trumpets. (2nd Anniversary visit)
Rosh Hashanah 1824

The next year September 22, 1825 when Joseph Smith went to see the gold plates, it was Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year for the Hebrews. It is the day when one focuses on repentance and atonement. (3rd Anniversary)
Yom Kippur 1825

On September 22, 1827, the 4th anniversary day when Joseph went to pick up the gold plates it was again on the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah. And so, Joseph actually obtained the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated on the Hebrew New Year, the first of the High Holy Days. It is the first of the Ten Days of Awe. It is Yom Teruah, a day of sounding the Shofar.
Rosh Hashanah 1827

On that exact day when Joseph went to the Hill Cumorah to pick up the gold plates; on that same day the Jews across the world were meeting in their temples and synagogues and blowing the shofar. They were celebrating the New Year. They did not know it but they were also celebrating the great work which the Lord was conducting that very day using Joseph Smith, as a new voice of scripture was being brought forth.

The Book of Mormon was finally brought to Joseph Smith's home on Day of Atonement

There is something else quite interesting. According to the history written by Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith took the metal gold plates from the Hill Cumorah at the time frame we have mentioned. But Joseph Smith did not bring them home immediately. Joseph took them, and had to hide them in the hollow of a decaying birch tree.

Joseph did this for security reasons. Some local folks had learned that Joseph was intending to receive the gold plates on the planned day. Some folks with evil intent intended to take the gold plates from Joseph. They did this for the money aspect but they also intended to prevent Joseph's work from succeeding. And so Joseph hid the plates in the hollow of a decayed birch tree for a short time.

Joseph Smith gets the gold plates from Moroni on September 22, 1827. Joseph hides the gold plates in the hollow of a birch tree that same day. According to another history, an affidavit, written by a man named Willard Chase the gold plates remained in the tree for "about ten days." And then at the end of the ten days Joseph retrieves the plates from the tree and runs home with them. (Affidavit of Willard Chase, Circa, December 11, 1833 Printed in E[ber]. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville [Ohio]: Author, 1834), 240-48.)

Joseph get the plates exactly on the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish or Hebrew new year in 1827. But then they are hidden in a tree for "about ten days." That is the same time frame as the Days of Awe or Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This would be ten days of preparation that Joseph Smith used to further prepare to receive the record which would become the most accurate book to teach us how to secure our salvation.

Oliver Cowdery Gives some perspective on what Joseph Smith was contemplating when Joseph went to get the gold plates

When Joseph Smith was translating what was written on the gold plates into English, he was assisted for the majority of the translation work by Oliver Cowdery. In 1841 Oliver Cowdery writes some of the history about when Joseph Smith retrieved the gold plates. This history was written in a Mormon newspaper called the Times and Seasons. In an article published on May 1, 1841 Oliver tells us some interesting details about the things Joseph Smith was thinking as he retrieved the gold plates.

Oliver reports that on the morning of September 22, 1823 after Joseph was wrapped in the visions of Heaven during the night and later still in vision in the open day, Oliver said Joseph had two invisible powers operating upon his mind as he walked from his home to the Hill Cumorah where the golden plates were buried. I believe it was a distance of around three miles. So he had some time to think. Joseph was tempted with the certainty of wealth and ease in this life. Imagine that: A seventeen year old farm boy from a large and poor farm family who is going to retrieve about forty to sixty pounds of what he believes is gold. This becomes a powerful temptation.

Joseph also knew there was other cool stuff in the stone and cement box where the gold plates were buried. The items in the box had been there approximately fourteen hundred years. Besides the gold plates, there was the sword of Laban, a breastplate and the urim and thummim. I suppose if we had these things to sell at an auction today we would make a whole lot of money. So, Joseph was given some time by Moroni to totally defeat any temptation.

As Joseph was being tempted, Moroni who was standing there told Joseph to: "Look!" And as the Angel spoke, Joseph beheld the prince of darkness surrounded by his innumerable train of associates. The Angel Moroni told Joseph:

All this is shown, the good and the evil, the holy and impure, the glory of God and the power of darkness, that you may know hereafter the two powers and never be influenced or overcome by that wicked one. . . . his ways are to destruction, but the way of holiness is peace and rest.

Moroni also told Joseph that "the knowledge which this record contains will go to every nation, and kindred, and tongues, and people under the whole Heaven." (Times and Seasons Vol 2:241)

So, Joseph was given an important safety tip, for his salvation: Do not use this holy kind of information or material to make money. At least that is how I would paraphrase it. The Book of Mormon itself also counsels against "selling God." Using God to make money is a bad idea.

Conclusion

Let me repeat what Joseph Smith said about the Book of Mormon:

I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on Earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.

I just wanted to say this much about the Book of Mormon for now during this celebration of the 200th anniversary of it's coming forth. We do use the Book of Mormon along with the Bible to witness what God wants us to understand, so we may covenant with Him to become His people. I pray to Father that we can take studying the Book of Mormon seriously in the Name of Yeshua the Messiah. Amen.

Value Of The Book Of Mormon ~ Joseph Rockwell

One of the things I like to see, that I like to think about, about the Book of Mormon is how to use it. Like, we understand now why Heavenly Father sent us this book and what it is for, but how can we use it, and how is it useable for us. I think to answer this kind of question, we must first understand what kind of person that Heavenly Father is; and I think first and foremost, it is very important to understand that Heavenly Father is a father; He is our Father. He is the creator of all things, both in Heaven and in earth. He created this earth so that His children would have a place to come, to rid themselves of all the vices and interact with each other with all virtues. In other words, He has designed this earth to help us to overcome all things; to become his children. Our Father in Heaven has Himself overcome all things, and has all love and knowledge and skills and abilities, and He is absolutely interested in the very best for all of us.

In order to help us most, and for us to fulfil the measure of our purpose here upon the earth, Father has given us the Book of Mormon to provide us with examples of how to live the virtues; how to live them well; how to live the virtues even through good and bad things happening, so that we can also overcome all things. So, the Book of Mormon therefore becomes a most valuable book of scripture in our reach for the Heavens.

To understand a little more about Heavenly Father, we must understand that Heavenly Father has been through this Himself. He is our ancestor; He has gone through this Himself. He has overcome all things. And He does this by following this certain programme, this Holy Order that He follows. And this Holy Order He is willing to share with us, so that we also may overcome all things and become more and more like Him. It is Heavenly Father’s only desire to help us become as He is, that we too may be filled with eternal and everlasting joy. And this reveals that part of His character that is often overlooked and that part of His character is humility and love for us. Humility because He is willing to lay down His crown in Heaven and come to earth to save us, to redeem us, to bring us home, to show us how to come home. And what greater love can our Father have, than to lay down His life, both in Heaven and here upon the earth, to come and show us how to come home.

You know it was prophesied to Adam and Eve that God would provide a Saviour for them, that He would provide someone to come and show them how to come back to the Tree of Life. So, the heart of our Great Father is that He loves us with all his heart, might, mind, and strength, and since He has figured out how to walk this Holy Order perfectly, which has enabled Him to become who He is, and He is willing to share that information with us that we may become as He is.

But like any good father, our Heavenly Father wants for His children to do better than He has done, to go further than what He has gone. And how can this actually be? For us here, it is very difficult to think that we could ever be like our Heavenly Father. Just like when we are children and we look up at our parents and we wonder how we can ever know as much as our parents know. But as we grow and learn and study and practice and get better and better, we can soon enough become like our parents. And our Heavenly Father is like that, He wants for His children to become like Him. And so for this reason, Heavenly Father sent his Son to freely share with us the programme that He follows, so we can achieve what He has achieved. And our Heavenly Father has revealed this way, this Holy Way, and it is found here in this Book of Mormon. And our Father revealed, like Bill just said, He revealed this Book of Mormon in the early 1800s, 200 years ago, and He revealed it in fulfilment of ancient covenants, the ancient covenants that He made to the prophets who were here upon this land. There were several of them. One of them in particular was Enos. You know, He made the promise to Enos the prophet that He would actually bring forth this book so that the descendants may have the knowledge of how to get back into the presence of God. And through these pages, the mystery of Heavenly Father’s Holy Order is revealed, and the Holy Way that He lives His life, and also the results of living that holy way. And He did this so that we can actually use this book ourselves to get back into the presence... Here is my book. It is old and beat up and falling apart and marked up too much I think, but interestingly, this book teaches us how to actually get back into the presence of God.

So, the Book of Mormon though, is not written like other scriptures. It is not full of things that say thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do that. There is a small part that says that where Abinidi is teaching the king about the commandments, teaching the king and his priests about the commandments, but most of the book is written in story form. And it is written in stories, and these stories contain a lot of people living in different ways, and the stories reveal how to live. They reveal people with different problems, people with vices, people also with virtues, and they reveal the effects that these things, the vices and the virtues, have on us.

For example, in the beginning of the book, we find characters like Laman and Lemuel, as were mentioned earlier this evening, and Laman and Lemuel are always complaining. They complain about everything, they always have an excuse or complaint about anything that their parents want to do; and they complain about everything. And we can see from reading the story all the troubles that are caused from Laman and Lemuel complaining, but this is not the only downside to complaining. Their dad has a vision and explains to his sons his vision, but neither Laman nor Lemuel, they could not understand the vision. They both were empty of the Spirit of God. It is the Holy Spirit that actually gives understanding. But because Laman and Lemuel always complained, it caused the family a great deal of problems, and we can see it in our own lives when we complain, how our problems magnify, how our problems get worse. We see how when we complain, it causes more people to complain and more hurt feelings. We see the damage that complaining does in our lives, and here, in this story, we see how the person who complains does not have the Spirit of God. And so we have to look at ourselves, while we are complaining, do we have the Spirit of God with us? We say that we complain because we have a problem and we need to find a solution and all that kind of stuff, but it is the Spirit of God that gives us a solution, so why would we complain?

Nephi was a brother to Laman and Lemuel, he was a younger brother; of course they always leave out poor Sam, you know, Sam is a nice guy; but Nephi here, he is another character in the story that his brothers, Laman and Lemuel, hated him, because Nephi would not complain. He would not complain, he would not whine and everything like they did. Whenever their dad said to do something, Nephi would go and do it. Nephi believed his dad when his dad told his vision, and therefore, the Spirit of God could help Nephi, could help Nephi understand much of his dad’s vision, and also the parts that Nephi did not understand, he went to the Lord in a prayer and the Lord also showed Nephi a vision. And his dad, his dad once told him that you are blessed because you do not complain. You are blessed of the Lord and the Lord will always give you a solution, because you do not complain.

So we learn in this story that complaining causes problems, that complaining loses the Spirit of God, and you have more problems. And we learn from Nephi in this story that as he believed his dad and never complained, he did not have those problems, and as he never complained and he believed his dad, he also had the Spirit of God and was blessed to always have a solution, that the Lord would always lead him.

And so we learn from the Book of Mormon about complaining, and now we can apply that in our lives. Do we want to have the Spirit of God with us, that we can always have a solution, that we can always be blessed with the answer from God as to what to do about our problems? I think this is a good lesson that is taught in the Book of Mormon and the Book of Mormon is full of lessons like this. And it shows the love of our Heavenly Father, to give us this book so that we can learn, we can learn how to actually become better. And this book came forth, as Bill said, at Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur, the ten holy days, the high holy days, the holiest days of the year, Heavenly Father calls these the holiest days of the year, they are the high holy days. Yom Teruah is often called Rosh Hashanah, which means, of course, the head of the year which means the beginning. Yom Teruah is the Day of Trumpets, the day of the announcement of where the Lord is coming, the Lord is coming for the harvest, He is coming to gather His children. And He has these ten days of harvest to gather His children, and who does He gather? Who are the Lord’s children?

In the Book of Mormon, it teaches us who are the Lord’s children. It says that He shall see His seed, and who are His seed? It says these who follow His commandments, those who actually do His will. And what is His Will? Did we not just learn in a story that one of the things that is His will is that we do not complain? One of the things in His will is that we have the Spirit of God and that we are blessed? This is an amazing thing because during the days of harvest, the Lord comes, but He gives us time. When we see Him coming, we are all very excited that the Lord is coming, and yet the Lord gives us time, time to repent, time to stop complaining, time to be happy with things and change our hearts and turn our hearts to Him. And He gives us this time so that we can actually change our lives. But how do we know how to change our lives unless He gives us a book and tells us how, and He has. He gave us this book at the beginning of harvest so that we could actually learn from it, change our lives, and have our lives changed before Yom Kippur, before the Day of Atonement happens. Because at the Day of Atonement, the harvest is done and the names of His children are written in the Book of Life, and they are sealed up, and we want our names written in that book, we want our names written in the Book of Life so that we can go to Heaven. And the Book of Mormon teaches us how to have our names written in that book.

When the Lord came to visit the people here upon the American continent, this was like as Kevin said, after He had died in Jerusalem, this was after that, and He was resurrected, and He came here actually and taught the people here. And He came here and interestingly, when He first came here, after everybody saw Him and learned who He was, He started to teach His doctrine, and He started to teach people what they needed to do to come to Heaven. And the first thing that He started teaching them, one of the first things was that there shall be no disputations among you. So He started teaching them right away, to stop your arguing, do not argue, do not contend, do not be contentious with people, do not be grumpy and angry and fighting with each other. The very first thing is there shall be no disputations among you,

as there hath hither to been

So He tells them, no arguing anymore, no fighting anymore, leave that stuff behind. He says,

for verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention, is not of me, but is of the Devil.

Do we understand this? The Lord’s first teachings are that if we have the spirit of arguing, we are not of God, we are of the devil, who is the father of contention, it is the devil.

and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another

The Lord is coming, the Lord sent this book to teach us how to be good, how to actually live in an acceptable way in Heaven, and he tells us that we are not supposed to be fighting, that that is the devil’s, that is not Heaven’s way. And the Lord says,

this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger... but this is my doctrine,

that that should be stopped,

that such things should be done away.

Fighting and arguing do not please God, and it does not matter if it is with a stranger or with our own family, we should never fight or argue even in our own family. Spouses should not fight and argue with each other, they should talk it out, and make peace.

So what is the opposite of fighting and arguing? Well, if we turn the page, we find that the Lord says,

Blessed are all the peacemakers, for they shall he called the children of God.

The peacemakers, well that sounds like the opposite of arguing and fighting, does it not? And it says there that we will be called the children of God, that the peacemakers are called the children of God. That means when the Lord comes to collect His children, who are His children? They are the peacemakers. Do we make peace with each other, or do we only make peace after we yell at each other and tell each other what we think. So does that not mean we are mixed, we are half of the devil and half of God? I think we are supposed to be all of God, I think we are supposed to be peacemakers. The peacemakers are the children of God, and the high holy days, these days right now that we are in, this part of the year, it is harvest time here in Canada, and this is the time when the Lord, symbolically the time when the Lord will come to collect His children, and His children are the peacemakers. His children are not those contend, not those who argue, not those who fight, not those who are just trying to tell each other why they are right. His children are those who make peace, and that is who He is coming to find.

The Book of Mormon teaches us how to be Heavenly Father’s children and never to have contention with one another, it teaches us to always be peaceful, even on the inside, even in our hearts and minds, it teaches us to be peaceful inside also. Because we cannot think that we can hide anything from God. In the Book of Mormon, it tells a story of Zeezrom, who tries to trick the prophets, and yet, the Spirit of God tells the prophets that this guy is trying to trick and they catch him in his deception. We cannot deceive God. So we need to be peacemakers in our hearts and in our minds, we need to be peacemakers with the things we say and the things we do.

So this is very amazing stuff to me. What better gift can the Lord give at this time of year, at the time of year when our hearts turn to the Lord, when we are looking forward to the harvest. What better gift can the Lord give us except this great book of scripture to teach us how to live in His presence once again. Are we not bored yet of living here upon this earth, do we not want to go home soon, that we can actually, when we go, we can actually go to a nice place. When you move into Heaven... like somebody moving into your neighbourhood, you want a nice people to move into your neighbourhood? Or do you want people to move into your neighbourhood that are troublemakers? Are we going to move into Heaven and be the people on the block that complain? Are we going to be the troublemakers? Are we the ones who are always going to be arguing and fighting, yelling at each other? Or or we going to come out of our house in the morning with a smile on our face? Are we going to come out always having peace? What kind of addition to Heaven will we be? You know, everybody wants to go to Heaven because it is so nice there, but will we fit in? Are we nice? Are we going to be a happy addition to Heaven? Or are we going to give the angels a hard time, that they have to work even harder with us?

So this is amazing, really, that the Lord has offered us this book of scripture to teach us how to live in Heaven, to teach us how to live in His presence. And we can certainly see that the purposes of Heavenly Father are for us. Heavenly Father’s desire is to lead us to greater and greater happiness and greater and greater joy. We cannot always look at going to Heaven as a break for us, but are we going to be a good addition to Heaven? Is going to Heaven, are we going to make it a more peaceful place? Are we going to make it a nicer place? A happier place? Or are we going to get there and try and change it, because we do not like it that way? Are we going to learn from this book as much as we can and actually change our lives to live how the Lord has asked us to live?

So this book becomes a holy book. This book becomes the love of God; it becomes a very valuable asset in our reach for the heavens. And I would like to read a small part of it, actually here. This is taken from the Book of Enos, so I would like to read a small part of the Book of Enos here.

Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father, that he was a just man: for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And blessed be the name of my God for it. And I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before that I received a remission of my sins: behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forest; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, and the words of my father, sunk deep into my heart. And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication, for mine own soul and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came, I did still raise my voice high, that it reached the heavens. And there came a voice unto me saying, Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away. And I sayeth, Lord, how is it done? And he sayeth unto me, Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast not heard nor seen. And many years passeth away, before that he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to it, thy faith hath made thee whole.

Now I want to point out here, Enos says he went to hunt in the forest, but his mind was so concerned and thought of all the things that his dad had taught him and he said he remembered all these things that his dad had taught him many times, and so Enos wrestled with God for his own soul. How often do we wrestle? How often do we hear the words of eternal life, his book, how often do we read it? And how often do we think about it like Enos does? And how often do we pray all day and all night? Is it worth it to us to pray that much? Is it worth it to us? I mean, are we willing to actually give up our sins? Are we willing to actually give up our anger, our contention, our complaining? Or is God not worth it to us? I mean we say we love God, but do we love Him enough that we are actually giving up our complaining? Do you love God enough to stop complaining? Do you love God enough to stop telling everybody what to do? Do you love God enough to make peace? Do you love God enough to stop arguing, stop fighting, stop getting angry, stop complaining?

It says here that Enos loved God enough to change his life, and because of that, God forgave him. Do we want to be forgiven? Are we going to wrestle and get that stuff out of us, that we can actually ask the Lord to forgive us?

It is interesting that after Enos was forgiven of his sins, the first thing he started doing was praying for the rest of his family, praying for his relatives. It says,

Wherefore, I did pour out my whole soul unto God for them. And while I was thus struggling in the spirit, behold, the voice of the Lord came into my mind again, saving, I will visit thy brethren, according to their diligence in keeping my commandments.

In other words, Enos loved his relatives, he loved his family, and he wanted them to be saved also. But the Lord told him, it is up to them, they need to stop the contention, they need to stop arguing and fighting and being difficult with each other, they need to stop complaining. They need to keep His commandments. And He said,

Wherefore, I will visit thy brethren, according as I have said; and their transgressions will I bring down with sorrow upon their own heads. And after that I, Enos, had heard these words, my faith began to be unshaken in the Lord;

And so Enos started to pray and it says here that he prayed with “many long struggling.” How many days and nights did Enos continue to pray? How many days and nights without stopping did he continue to pray because his heart was for, now, it was for the Lamanites, those people who had left the church, gone astray.

And it came to pass, that after I had prayed, and labored with all dilgence, the Lord said unto me, I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith. And now behold, this was the desire which I desired of him: That if it should so be, that my people, the Nephites, should fall into transgression, and by any means be destroyed, and the Lamanites should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a record of my people, the Nephites; even if it so be, by the power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth, at some future day, unto the Lamanites, that perhaps they might be brought unto Salvation.

That is interesting. And the Lord gave him this promise, that at some future day, the Lord would bring forth this book to that Enos’ brethren, the Lamanites, would have that record of how to come back into the presence of God.

And I had faith, and I did cry unto God, that he would preserve the records; and he covenanted with me that he would bring them forth unto the Lamanites, in his own due time. And I, Enos, knew it would be according to the covenant which he had made; wherefore, my soul did rest.

It is interesting. You notice how Enos even after he was worried about himself, that he was no longer selfish, that all he wanted to do was help others, save his family, even save those who have went astray. This is a very interesting thing because this teaches us, are our hearts like that? Do we have a desire to change? Do we love God enough to change? And do we also love our family and our friends and our neighbours and even our enemies, enough that we will help them. And how can we help them more except to be peacemakers and to always make peace where ever we are.

So me, from learning from this book, I myself find that it is important for me to change, and I find that it is important for me to behave well with my family, and then with everyone else that I meet. I would be very selfish if all I cared about was being good and trying to help my enemies or people I only saw once a year or something, if I did not also try to be a peacemaker with my family. Anybody, like the scripture that was read earlier, anyone who claims to love God and yet, does not love their family, really does not love God. If we love God, we will value the gifts that he gives us and the information that is here. We will learn not to murmur, not to complain, not to argue, not to fight, not to control each other and telling each other what to do, but to be peacemakers in all situations and in all things, to always have peace, so that we too may be His children, so that when He comes, He may gather us and write our names in His book, the Book of Life, that we too may go where he is.

These thoughts I leave with you in the name of our Saviour, Yeshua The Messiah, amen.

Conclusion: ~ Joseph Rockwell

Well, I am the last speaker this evening and I would like to thank everybody for coming. I am very happy to see everybody again, although everybody’s video is turned off, but that is okay. We do need a closing prayer, and I forgot to ask anyone if they would like to offer the closing prayer, do we have a volunteer? I do have a little volunteer here, if everybody is okay with that.

Closing prayer: ~ Jesse Rockwell

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that we could have this meeting. We thank Thee for all the speakers. Please bless that everyone will stay safe and that Your angels will be with us. Please close this meeting, in the name of Yeshua Messiah, amen.