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It's been a wild ride since we left Jerusalem. If you're new here, I'd recommend starting at the beginning with the First Post. Otherwise, new posts are below.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Spiritual or Temporal — Part 2

Wow, that was long! Well, I know who in the family inherited Dad’s ability to go on and on in a talk. Anyway, Sukkot is in full swing, and this morning, Nephi addressed the family as Dad requested for our Hakhel observance. I’ll save you time by hitting the highlights.

  • 600 years from when we left Jerusalem is when God will come down to the world. (Odd that it’s such a nice, round number. Also, at first it seems like Nephi’s putting himself out there to make such a specific prediction, but he won’t be around in 600 years, so not really.)
  • When God comes down here, the wicked people at Jerusalem will kill Him. (Yeah, we all know how you feel about the people at Jerusalem, Nephi.)
  • When He dies, bad stuff will happen.
  • The people at Jerusalem will be scourged, scattered, hated etc. because of what they did. (This doesn’t make sense to me. I thought Dad and Nephi were saying the Jews at Jerusalem were about to be destroyed by Babylon when we left. But now it’s actually not for another 600 years? Why did we leave then?!)
  • God will eventually gather all of Israel
  • Many of the scriptural prophesies about Israel are talking about our family. (Seems kind of arrogant and/or self-centered in my view.)
  • Then he read some of Isaiah’s prophecies about Israel. (I didn’t really understand what he was getting at here. Were these prophecies about Israel and our family meant to be understood as a spiritual scattering and gathering or a literal scattering and gathering?)

So an even more brief summary is that

  • Jerusalem is wicked (so wicked they’ll kill God (not sure how it’s possible to kill God))
  • Good thing we got out of there because it’s going to be destroyed, and
  • We’re special because the prophets were talking about us.
That’s basic Nephi 101; nothing really new here.

Afterward, I was asking Nephi if the stuff he’s talking about symbolizes spiritual occurrences or physical occurrences. See what I’m thinking is how can people physically kill God? It’s not possible, right? So this has to be referring to the spiritual events that occur when someone rejects God. From the point of view of their spirit, God is dead and can no longer aid them because they have cut themselves off from Him. Right?

But Nephi said that what he’s talking about is both spiritual and physical. The prophecies come through the spirit but refer to real physical things that will occur. So yeah, I still don’t get how that works. Again, man can’t actually kill God. It’s got to be symbolic. That’s the only way it makes any sense.

Nephi then said he didn’t dare speak anymore, and we need to believe the prophecies on the plates. But I do believe them, it’s just that Nephi and I understand them differently. Oh well.

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