Jacob 4

(All of my own thoughts are in red type.5/20 Green 2/21 Orange 5/22  Brown 2023)

Chapter 4

All the prophets worshiped the Father in the name of Christ—Abraham’s offering of Isaac was in similitude of God and His Only Begotten—Men should reconcile themselves to God through the Atonement—The Jews will reject the foundation stone. About 544–421 B.C.

  1 Now behold, it came to pass that I, Jacob, having ministered much unto my people in word, This is an important “way” to minister (and I cannot write but a ^alittle of my words, because of the ^bdifficulty of engraving We have no idea how grateful we should be for this record...our words upon plates) and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain; Can't erase! Plus prophesied to be preserved.
  2 But whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon ^aplates must perish and vanish away; but we can write a few words upon plates, which will give our children, and also our beloved brethren, a small degree of knowledge concerning us, or concerning their fathers—we don't know very much about them, even with what they've written. What can I write on that won’t “vanish away”? Digital records can be wiped out in an EMP, and paper fades and disintegrates. I think I’ll have to rely on the fact that “angels in heaven are silent notes taking”...maybe things uploaded on family search will be preserved in the granite vaults.
  3 Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we labor diligently to engraven I should labor diligently to record my history as well not good at this. Need to repent...again...these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children This is the second time this is said. I love how he includes the Lamanites as 'his beloved brethren'. This is more than a family history journal for they know it will be read by others besides their posterity will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first ^aparents. He qualifies that their joy will be over their “first” parents...not the “later” parents that are destroyed because of rebellion and iniquity. In what was could we be tempted to look with 'sorrow' or  'contempt' on Adam and Eve? 
  4 For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we ^aknew of Christ, and we had a hope of his ^bglory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy ^cprophets which were before us. Because of agency, the most I can hope for is that my children know that I knew and pray they will follow. This is a witness that all the Old Testament prophets knew of and testified of Christ. Somehow the Jews miss this.
  5 Behold, they believed in Christ and ^aworshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his ^bname. And for this intent we ^ckeep the ^dlaw of Moses, it ^epointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a ^fsimilitude of God and his ^gOnly Begotten Son. All things must point to Christ to be accounted and sanctified unto us for righteousness. Where is the similitude in the ‘all things’ that we are experiencing now? How is keeping the law of the land (not only a ‘lesser’ law, but a corrupted law) pointing me to Christ? This “even as Abraham” expression...is it saying “just like Abraham was asked to take his own son’s life (against the laws to kill any innocent life, and probably even worse to do it in a sacrificial way), nevertheless God commanded it (though he didn’t have to actually do it) that I am supposed believe God is asking me to follow these laws that go against His other laws; the worst being the vaccine? Where is the ram in the thicket? There has been no divine intervention for lots of people have literally died from it.  I can see why the sacrifice and substitute at the last minute with a lamb is in similitude of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ by His Father. But why the test without the knowledge that a lamb would be offered instead? Why the test of having God ask something that was clearly wrong in man’s eyes? What did Abraham have to believe to follow through? Did he say, “I don’t know why God is having me do this...I was childless and had this son after having a child should have even been possible. I was promised I would have seed as numberless as the sands of the sea. These promises would all be impossible if my son dies. If God has me take his life, He will surely bring him back to life.” Abraham knew of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He would make. Could he not see the similitude like we can? Did he believe that God would stop him? Why did Isaac go along so willingly? What did he also know and understand? I can only think that this current situation is pointing me to Christ because of the absolute need to learn to not trust in the arm of flesh; to not be so dependent on the Church/prophet to tell me what to do without doing my own research and study and receiving my own revelation. The scriptures say, “they that have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide” will abide the day...not those that have relied on anything else or anyone else. In this line of thinking, the Abrahamic test is to be asked by God, through the Spirit, to not follow His prophet on this thing, in spite of all His teachings that we should follow the prophet always and this particular prophet who was preserved to be our leader during a health “crisis” and who’s personal teaching is to not put question marks after anything a prophet says. Why would God ask us to go against his teachings? How is this pointing me to Christ? The prophet has urged us to learn to receive personal revelation. He has urged us to learn to be taught by Christ himself. Is this because Christ will soon literally be here to teach us? Is this because the things ahead of us won’t be such that the prophet will be able to guide us personally through it with some global teaching? Is this our collective Abrahamic test? To do something that seems so contrary to the nature of things? These past few years have been quite the wrestle. Isaiah has some answers for our day. Please study his words, as you've been commanded to do by Jesus himself. I believe we must all "take the Holy Spirit for our guide" in such a way that His companionship is given when we are born again. I believe we have fallen in to a state of unbelief concerning the injunction we receive at baptism to "receive the Holy Ghost". We must truly find our "broken heart/contrite spirit" to offer before we can receive this companionship and have His Spirit to "always be with us". Pray mightily until you receive it. 
  6 Wherefore, we search the prophets, I must do the same and we have many revelations and the spirit of ^aprophecy; because they search the prophets? and having all these ^bwitnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can ^ccommand in the ^dname of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea. Unshaken faith is our goal. To "obtain" suggests an event and not a process to me. There is a 'moment' when our faith is unshaken; when we have the power to command the very trees and they obey, when we have this hope and are not just in the process of obtaining it. Obtain means: "To succeed in gaining possession of".
  7 Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our ^aweakness that we may know that it is by his ^bgrace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things. You don't have to be perfect to have unshaken faith and to do great things by faith. You just need to see your weakness and utterly lost condition without the Savior. It is by His grace that He changes you. Then you will receive a witness of his love and reality and receive unshaken faith.
  8 Behold, great and marvelous are the ^aworks of the Lord. Not the works of man How ^bunsearchable are the depths of the ^cmysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man ^dknoweth of his ^eways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the ^frevelations of God. No matter how much you search, you cannot know God unless He reveals Himself to you. I am trying to understand God’s ways in this current situation with the pandemic and the stolen election. I am praying that God will reveal His ways in all of this; His purposes. 
  9 For behold, by the power of his ^aword ^bman came upon the face of the earth, which earth was ^ccreated by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the ^dearth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure? I love this timely verse. We are in a pandemic and God can command it to cease according to his will and pleasure. He hasn’t done it yet, over one year later. Will He command our bodies to not be hurt by what we are being urged to take? And yet there are people being hurt and even killed. Where is the “ram in the thicket” for them? We were told at April GC that Elder Holland was home sick with Covid and then told he's on kidney dialysis. Where is the "power" of healing for him? Why has he not been commanded to "take up his bed and walk"? Why is "doing all we can do" mean turn to man's medicine first? Why do we believe we are saved "after all we can do" means Christ won't do anything unless we've tried everything else first? I don't think that is the example He gave us. At least not in every situation.
  10 Wherefore, brethren, seek not to ^acounsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in ^bwisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works. This verse tells me not to “counsel the Lord” about how He is handling what is going on in the Church and the world. Seek the counsel of the Lord and His wisdom in what I am to do. Trust His great mercy over all His works and His justice. 
  11 Wherefore, beloved brethren, be ^areconciled unto him through the ^batonement of Christ, reconcile: to find a way in which two situations or beliefs that are opposed to each other can agree and exist together; reunited In these two definitions we find what reconciliation through the Atonement could mean; we are reunited with God only through repentance and the atonement of Christ. It also could mean that we find our way through the paradoxes of God through the Atonement of Christ. How is this last meaning accomplished? Is it that Christ has the power through His atonement to make all things right? To wipe away all tears? To erase even the very “effects” of sin?  His ^cOnly Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a ^dresurrection, according to the ^epower of the resurrection which is in Christ, and be presented as the ^ffirst-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith, and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh. I believe to be presented as “first-fruits” refers to being numbered among those in the morning of the first resurrection. I also believe we have to become his sons and daughters by receiving a remission of sins which He grants when we are born again. That is when we receive a "good hope of glory in him" and become his "first-fruit".
  12 And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not ^aspeak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come? We attain a "perfect knowledge of him" when we are born again.
  13 Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the  understanding of men; for the ^aSpirit speaketh the ^btruth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really ^care, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us ^dplainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also ^espake them unto prophets of old.
  14 But behold, the Jews were a ^astiffnecked people; and they ^bdespised the words of ^cplainness, and ^dkilled the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their ^eblindness, which ^fblindness came by looking beyond the ^gmark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they ^hcannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may ⁱstumble. Hmmm...what is in this verse for us? Are we experiencing this current “blindness” because we have looked beyond the mark? Isn’t relying on the “unapproved product” of greedy men for our health and safety looking beyond the “mark” who is Jesus Christ and beyond His mighty power to heal? Was the plain knowledge of what really happened with the decline of disease taken from man because they desired the solution to be something that would remove personal responsibility from them? Because they had lived in fear and an incorrect understanding of the cause of the diseases that had plagued them? Did God allow it, knowing it would cause us to stumble? Is there a “brass serpent” that will be raised to heal all those “bitten by this current fiery, flying (meaning it is going at light speed to all the world”) serpent? Will people refuse to look to Christ for healing because it is not a vaccine or a medicine created by man? Will they die rather than look to Christ? Why is the church not holding up Christ as the answer to this pandemic? They did a year ago and I think we lacked the faith to bring it about. So God gave us what we asked for; an answer created by our own hands (via Satan) and it will bite us. What will the course correction look like? It says in our Doctrine and Covenants through a prior prophet that God would not allow the prophet to lead us astray. With my current understanding, I have to conclude that being urged to take something in to our bodies that is harmful is not what the statement refers to, but that the prophet would teach no doctrine that would lead us away from our covenants to Christ or jeopardize our eternal welfare. Either that, or this statement by a prior prophet isn’t true and if not true, why allowed to be canonized in our scriptures? 
  15 And now I, Jacob, am led on by the Spirit unto prophesying; for I perceive by the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that by the ^astumbling of the ^bJews they will ^creject the ^dstone upon which they might build and have safe foundation. Is the parallel that by the stumbling of our church on this issue will many reject Christ, upon whom they should have built their foundation...not on the foundation of the infallibility of man, even prophets? Is this what Elder Uchtdorf taught in October 2020 about the experience of the Saints covering up what they had built so far when the government threatened to force a new governor upon them and that when the threat left and they uncovered their work, they found it to be the wrong material to build the temple on. Is this all by design to reveal to us whether our foundation is built upon the church or the prophet -  or Christ? Is our safety in obedience to the church/prophet or to God? The word of God to the prophet is supposed to be considered the same as God. Why does it not apply in this situation? Are the prophets not receiving the word of God on this? Are they not asking? The scriptures are clear that the prophet speaks for God "only when moved upon by the Holy Ghost"...so when he is not moved upon by the Holy Ghost he is speaking as a man and we do not have to follow him as if God had said it. Some say that we should not try to determine when he is speaking as a prophet or not...but if he is fallible, which he says he is, then I think you have a duty to pray for discernment. Joseph Fielding Smith said, " It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine. You cannot accept the books written by the authorities of the Church as standards in doctrine, only in so far as they accord with the revealed word in the standard works. Every man who writes is responsible, not the Church, for what he writes. If Joseph Fielding Smith writes something which is out of harmony with the revelations, then every member of the Church is duty bound to reject it. If he writes that which is in perfect harmony with the revealed word of the Lord, then it should be accepted.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3:203–204. italics in original)
  16 But behold, according to the scriptures, this ^astone shall become the great, and the last, and the only sure ^bfoundation, upon which the Jews can build. Christ is the only foundation upon which we can build. 
  17 And now, my beloved, how is it possible that these, after having rejected the sure foundation, can ^aever build upon it, that it may become the head of their corner?
  18 Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken from my firmness in the Spirit, and stumble because of my over anxiety for you.