King Hezekiah
READ 2 Chronicles 29:2-10
When Hezekiah did “right in the sight of the Lord,
according to all that David had done,” what does this mean?
He was a “righteous” king to
the level of his knowledge, which knowledge he got through his reading of the
record of David and/or through family traditions.
The record does not show that
Hezekiah ever saw the Lord himself (see Isaiah 38:11) but while he prayed to
the Lord, the Lord worked through Isaiah to answer his prayers (see Isaiah
38:2-4).
Why does he command the Levites to sanctify themselves
and the Temple?
The Temple had been desecrated.
They wouldn’t have done it
otherwise – it took a command from their king to repent; or perhaps former
kings had compelled the priests away from the living God.
They cannot sanctify the
Temple unless they first sanctify themselves - as they are temples themselves.
What happened to the people when they turned away their
faces from the Lord?
They had been killed in war.
They had been taken captive.
They had become humiliated as
a people.
The Lord left them to their
own strength - the natural man relies on the arm of the flesh – it is natural
consequence of turning from God (see 2 Chronicles 32:7-8).
Can we propose a covenant to God that He will honor?
No - we can keep HIS
covenants, but He extends them to us - and then they can become a new and
everlasting covenant FOR US (and irrelevant to all others, unless they receive
their own covenant from God).
We can make a vow to Him, but
only we are bound by it - we can’t “bind the Lord” through our attempts at
righteousness (for are we not all beggars anyway? We cannot “score points” on God).
Fast forward to Hezekiah’s
great grandson…
King Josiah the Deuteronomist
READ 2 Chronicles 34:1-3
Who is 16-year-old King Josiah seeking after?
The God of David, his ancestor.
How does he seek after God?
By purging Judah of idolatry.
But not by actually finding
the Lord Himself.
So, he’s not really seeking
after God but is seeking after the religious traditions of the fathers, as he
understands them.
READ 2 Chronicles 34:14, 18-22
What did they find in the Temple?
An old copy of the Book of
Deuteronomy - the Law of Moses.
Why did the King rend his clothes when he heard the
Law?
Because it had not been read
or followed for so long, the difference between what the King thought was right
and what the book said was right was so great that he rent his clothes.
Why did the King ask that group to “inquire of the Lord
for him?”
He really needed to get an
answer and didn’t feel that he could on his own.
The priests stood between the
people and God.
Who did the priest and the scribe go to for the answer
from the Lord and why?
Huldah the prophetess.
Because she actually communed
with the Lord.
She seemed to have “priesthood
power”.
She had the right to say “thus
saith the Lord” because she had an audience with Him and had heard His words.
READ 2 Chronicles 34:23-28
Can the people still repent?
They CAN repent but it sounds
like the Lord knows they will not repent…
Either that or something else
is going on here… the story in the Old Testament as we have it has been
tampered with…
Who will be spared?
The humble, soft hearted,
repentant folk - regardless of station or calling or knowledge of the Lord -
true seekers will be spared.
“Spared” is used in an
interesting way here - it means they won’t have to go through the trials, not
that the trials won’t be caused to happen.
Revisionist History
How might the events of World War 2 have been changed in the history books if Germany had managed to create an atomic bomb first and won the war?
Unfair/cruel/inhumane
sanctions against Germany were imposed by the Allies after World War 1.
Hitler saved Germany
economically in the 1930’s.
The Third Reich was divinely
inspired and blessed.
Either “Jews are inherently
evil from the pre-mortal life” or “reports that millions of Jews were killed
was horrific Allied propaganda”.
Atom bomb technology and use
was needed to quickly end the war and prevent the killing of many more soldiers
and civilians on all sides.
How will descendants of people who have perpetrated
these lies find out they have been deceived and lost the truth?
There are usually artifacts of
the truth left behind, even when it is being obscured, and the truth has a
habit of getting out eventually, for those who know what to look for – especially
if you have an internet, where even the least person can share information; it’s
hard to keep a false “narrative” alive forever – or at least to convince all of
the people, all of the time, that it’s true.
Through a new revelation from
heaven… (see Mosiah 4:9) - God reveals Himself to man or He remains forever
unknown.
How might these descendants react when confronted with
the truth, especially if it is from an un-bonafide source?
Reject it because they don’t
believe the messenger (they don’t know God themselves so they rely on “authorities”
that they hope know Him).
Reject it because it puts
their ancestors in a bad light (pride).
Reject it because it seems foreign
and wrong (contradicts everything they have been taught).
Reject it because “we are the
good guys, after all - we are right, and we are righteous/chosen” (again,
pride).
Reject it because they like
their current state (the truth can be inconvenient; actually, it can shatter
everything you believe, which is very difficult to take, psychologically).
What would have to happen for them to accept the truth?
Be truth seekers.
Be naturally humble
individuals - don’t assume they know it all or that they are right.
Be soft hearted.
Be humbled by the Lord.
They must realize that
scholarship will never be enough to restore lost truth; they must exercise the
faith to go to God Himself and receive direct revelation regarding the truth.
How has Satan used these strategies with regards to the
gospel?
The New Testament
writings/letters between 70 AD and 150 AD - the Hellenist Christians.
The Old Testament books between
640 BC (Josiah) and 539 BC (conquest of Babylon by Persia and return of Jews to
Jerusalem) - the Deuteronomists.
LDS church history: the
narrative and doctrine has changed from the days of Joseph Smith to today.
How do we know that his happened to the Old Testament
between this time period?
The Book of Mormon record is
SO different from the Old Testament in its direct testimony of Christ.
The Brass Plates had not been
altered or destroyed, so the changes could not have taken place too much
earlier than this.
Plain and precious things
about Christ had been removed from the Old Testament such that when Christ came
to the Jews, very few of them understood His mission or recognized Him.
New discoveries show discrepancies
(Book of Enoch, Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag-Hammadi, Margaret Barker research, etc).
When did Lehi leave Jerusalem?
Right before the Babylonian
invasion.
When Judah was ripe for
destruction.
While they were losing the
word of the Lord.
The Plates of Brass were less
prone to change than a scroll due to the nature of the plates.
Why would Satan want to revise the scriptures and
change the ordinances?
“Knowledge saves a man”.
“A man is saved no faster than
he gets knowledge”.
If we change the ordinances,
we break the covenants.
What is knowledge?
Truth is knowledge of things
as they are, as they were, and as they are to come (D&C 93:24).
“Knowledge implies more than
faith” although “through faith they were to obtain this knowledge (of God)” -
see LoF 7:18.
What knowledge saves?
“This is life eternal that
they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”
“And… all shall know me…even
from the least unto the greatest” (D&C 84:98).
“An actual knowledge that the
course of life which he is pursuing is according to His will” (LoF 3:5)…
“requires more than mere belief or supposition that he is doing the will of
God; but actual knowledge, realizing that, when those sufferings are ended, he
will enter into eternal rest, and be a partaker of the glory of God” (LoF 6:5).
READ JST Luke 11:52
How do the scriptures enable us to gain this knowledge?
The scriptures teach us the
way back to God’s presence.
The scriptures enable faith
through the written testimonies of those who have made this journey.
The scriptures teach us that
God is no respecter of persons - all are able to gain these blessings if they
will exercise the faith necessary.
The scriptures contain God’s
invitation to us: “come unto me!”
What is the best way to avoid having the words of the
Lord changed by people with ill intent?
Write them in a way that they
are disguised (like Isaiah or the Parables) OR…
Hide them in plain sight (like
the Proverbs).
Why did the Lord destroy much of Judah and take the
remaining people captive if Josiah was restoring truth to them?
Because
Josiah did not restore the truth but sought to distort it – Josiah is actually
the villain of the piece but because his side “won”, his followers rewrote the
history to make him look like a restorer of lost truths.
His
changes to the Gospel were why Jeremiah, Lehi and all the prophets were called
to preach repentance.
The
Book of Mormon, with its Brass Plates influence and direct revelation from God
is a true account of the religion of the Jews at the time – a religion that
Josiah changed and then used the principles of revisionist history to make it
seem like he had restored the truth when really he had destroyed it.
The
other proof is in the fact that the Lord allowed the Babylonians to come in and
force the Jews “out of their place” as a curse for rejecting the fullness of
the Gospel; God would have protected them otherwise (see D&C 124:27-50).
Why was this allowed to happen?
At
the time, this “Reformation” or “purge” must have caused a great deal of
rebellion, and it did, as there are many tales of groups besides Lehi who fled
Jerusalem and took their more ancient religion with them (see Margaret Barker’s
talk “What Did King Josiah Reform” given at BYU on May 6, 2006).
But
this would never had happened if the Priestly leadership had not been complicit
to one degree or another in the coup; they had something to be gained by aligning
themselves with the interests of the kings – staying in power and perhaps
cementing their power base in new doctrines they could create but pretend they
were a restoration of what was once had or that continuing revelation was
leading them in some new direction despite the unchangeable nature of God;
apostasy is always an inside job, and as it usually wins, it has the power to
rewrite the history and the scriptures, in its favor.
From God’s perspective, He has
given us our agency and what we do with it is completely up to us (see Alma
42:27).
No comments:
Post a Comment