Hank Smith: 00:07 Tyler, the ship is built and we add some new characters to our story. Jacob and Joseph, that 1 Nephi 18 verse 7.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 00:17 Yeah, some younger brothers and Jacob particularly is going to have a pretty critical role to play in our Book of Mormon down the road. One of our great scriptural doctrinaires ever. He’s amazing. I think it’s fascinating, this leap of faith as they all get on the ship, launch out into the deep. And if we’re not careful, we’ll put all the emphasis on Nephi being a disciple and putting emphasis on his ship. But it’s really about our discipleship of being willing to launch into the deep, towards our promised land, that kind of getting in the boat with Christ. That analogy is beautiful of entering the covenant path or coming into the church. There’s going to be some stormy seas ahead. There’s going to be some struggle as we navigate this path forward and it doesn’t take long. Verse 9, you’re introduced to his brothers making themselves merry and dancing and singing with much rudeness and he tries to stop them.

  01:17 And I don’t know about you two, but I find it fascinating that in the early chapters of 1 Nephi, especially chapter two, three and four, Lehi is able to pretty much force Laman and Lemuel to do whatever Lehi wants them to do. He’s able to compel them. Their frames did shake exceedingly because he had commanded them to go into the wilderness and they go, they’re obedient, they do it. And now eight years later, they’ve done all of the things that they were commanded to do, but they did it for the wrong reasons in some cases. It didn’t increase their discipleship, it didn’t increase their conversion to the Lord, it didn’t soften their hearts. So now as they’re older and Lehi is weaker, now you get this shift of power where we’re in this wrestle out in the ocean and the storm comes up. We’re about to be swallowed up, and Father Lehi can no longer compel or force or command in such a way that it’ll be obeyed by Laman and Lemuel.

  02:23 It’s fascinating to watch as he now is pushed to the side and Laman and Lemuel are just forcefully taking charge of the ship. It’s mutiny, so the Liahona stops working. They have no idea how to steer it. And again, it would be easy for Nephi to just murmur and complain, but he knows they’re going to make it. It’s going to be okay in the end, but it’s sure miserable for him for these three days with his wrists and his hands and his ankles swollen. And you can imagine the way they’re treating him. But I love how when he’s first released from those bands, he describes the swelling of the wrists and the ankles and the soreness thereof in the bottom of verse 15 and then the very next word. “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God.” So he didn’t look at his problem, he didn’t look at the people who had inflicted this abuse upon him. He looked to his solution, he looked heavenward, “And I did praise him all the day long.” That’s a beautiful pattern for us to look to the solution rather than to the problems.

Hank Smith: 03:33 This seems to be a constant pattern in Nephi’s life and I would love it to be a constant pattern in my own, which would be being able to not just survive trials, difficulties. Even those brought on by other people’s agency, not only survive them, but turn them into experiences in which I get closer to God.

John Bytheway: 03:56 Yeah, I heard someone say once a blessing is anything that moves us closer to God, but it puts the thing on us to say, “See if you can find a way that this can move you closer to God.” I don’t think God causes all of our tragedies in life, like you said, Hank. But I think he can always find a way to help you use it. I like what you said there. If you can find a way to help that move you closer to God in some way, then it could be a blessing to you, just to you.

Hank Smith: 04:28 And isn’t it interesting, Tyler and John that it’s getting more and more difficult to soften the hearts of Laman and Lemuel? In the beginning of our story, it was just Lehi giving them a talk and their hearts were softened. And now look at 1 Nephi 18 verse 20. There was nothing, save their own destruction that could soften their hearts.

John Bytheway: 04:48 And I think Tyler brought that up. First Lehi, this is Dad, you honor your father that’s in the culture. But when it’s your little brother and this birth order thing is so big for them, it appears. I mean for the rest of the Book of Mormon, this birth order thing comes up. Now all of a sudden it’s Nephi that has to move the family and he’s their younger brother.

Hank Smith: 05:10 I wonder why it is Tyler. How does a heart become hard? I don’t think Laman and Lemuel started out this way. I don’t think anybody thinks, “You know what? By the end of my life, I hope I’m a hardened atheist individual.” You can watch them though. Go through this gradual process of fear turns into hatred and hatred turns into evil.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 05:33 Yeah, it’s fascinating because every single part of this story became this decision point. Where they could choose to either trust the Lord, move forward in faith, do the right thing for the right reason. Or give into those natural tendencies that we all experience to one degree or another. And it seems like just like the covenant path is a line upon line, so are the many strange and forbidden paths and roads that lead us away from that tree of life, away from that connection with God. It’s often… the analogy comes full circle when you get over into Alma 31 and 32. I love the juxtaposition there because you end with Korihor’s story where he gets trampled. And at the very end you get Mormon saying that and he finishes by saying that, “Thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell.”

  06:37 That word is so interesting drag because there comes this point in life, if you’ve given enough of your agency over to the devil, you’re wrapped with enough of his flaxen cords. There comes a time when you’re no longer walking towards hell, you now recognize what this is leading to and the devil is now dragging you. Your heels are kicked in and in contrast, right on that same page over in chapter 31 verse five, it says, “As the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just.” I love the fact that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, people don’t get dragged into heaven. They don’t get dragged into the temple. They don’t get dragged into a marriage or they don’t get dragged to the sacrament meeting. The preaching of the word has this tendency to lead people towards heaven and Satan’s efforts are to bind us so that he can drag us. And I think that’s what we’re seeing on the page in spades with Laman and Lemuel, is at this point they’re kind of being dragged.

John Bytheway: 07:40 But that’s really cool. I just made a note. God leads, but Satan drags. I love it.

Hank Smith: 07:45 The Lord never asks us to do anything. It’s really addictive. I’ve never been addicted to fasting or paying my tithing. Because the Lord says, “Yeah, you’re going to choose this.” But almost everything the adversary wants me to do is addictive because one day I’m going to figure it out and by then I’m wrapped up. My agency is almost taken away completely. The Lord works by agency, where the adversary works by addiction. So with that, Tyler, we are in the promised land. We’re different people. Our experiences have changed everybody, some for the better, some for the worst, but the whole family makes it to the promised land.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 08:27 Yeah, everybody has been stretched and some have passed those tests and others have struggled, but we’re here. The whole family’s here.

John Bytheway: 08:36 One wonders how many times they heard, “Are we there yet? How much further is it?”

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 08:43 I love that when they arrive in the promised land, this verse 24 is beautiful. “It came to pass that we did begin to till the earth and we began to plant seeds and we did put all our seeds into the earth.” That’s faith. You’re in a new land. You brought seeds from the other part of the world. You don’t even know if you’re in the exact same climate or the same soil systems. They didn’t hold back any of their seeds, they put them all into the earth and they did grow exceedingly. It’s that principle of some people move around a lot physically and it gets pretty hard to put your roots deep. When you know you’re going to be leaving in a matter of months or a few short years. And I love this idea with those relationships with those locations, put all your seeds into the earth, grow as much as you can everywhere you are today. Don’t wait for the next place to then grow and develop these connections. Build as many as you can today. Don’t wait for tomorrow.

John Bytheway: 09:45 Great application. Love it.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 09:47 But even then, what a beautiful concept of planting seeds that will grow into fruit trees of which you may never partake, but there’s something Christ-like about that. Thinking about those who will come after you in different settings in different ways. Instead of saying, “What’s in it for me?” Saying, “Dear God on high, what can I do to make this life better and easier for people around me?”

John Bytheway: 10:14 Beautiful.

Hank Smith: 10:15 Tyler, I’ve noticed that once we hit the end of 18, the narrative kind of shifts to Nephi wants to do some teaching.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 10:25 Yeah, it’s fascinating. I love the narrative sections of the Book of Mormon where it’s this story, “and it came to pass,” “and it came to pass,” “and it came to pass.” And then you come to the non-story parts, “and it came to pass” goes away. There’s no more story. So the Book of Mormon is very consistent in this. For instance, you get to chapter 19, 20, 21, 22, and there are very few, “and it came to pass” because he’s no longer telling a story. It’s one of those beautiful consistencies within the book that we’ve already talked about earlier. We don’t base our testimony on these kinds of things. For instance, when you come to the Book of Moroni, you’re not going to find a single, “and it came to pass,” not one because there’s no storyline. It’s one of those amazing internal consistencies. So here Nephi now has arrived in the promised land and the very first thing he does is he makes those plates of war. And he’s making the large plates of Nephi, which are all of the details.

  11:20 And it’s not until they get to 2 Nephi chapter 5 that you find out that 30 years after they left Jerusalem, God commands him, “Go back and make a second copy.” We don’t need all that detail. The second copy is the one that obviously is going to go live. He’s making this record and he’s teaching his brothers and his family. How does he teach them? He’s giving them directions about what’s going to happen to the Savior in verse 9. “He’ll be judged to be a thing of naught, they’re going to scourge him and he suffereth it. They’re going to smite him and he suffereth it and they’re going to spit upon him and he suffereth it because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.” It’s easy to lose some of the power of that verse, but if you put it in its context coming from Nephi to his brothers as he’s talking about Jesus Christ. I love the connection that could not have been lost on Nephi as he’s sharing these elements that he’s seen in vision back in 1 Nephi 11.

  12:20 It’s as if Nephi’s saying, “I want to be more like Jesus. So when you smite me, when you spit upon me, when you do bad things to me, I’m going to suffer it too. Not because I’m perfect like Jesus, but because I want to approximate him. I want to be more like him.” And then he shifts into reading them scriptures, Zenos, Neum, Zenock in verse 10, he’s relying on these prophets. And then he’s reading them the Books of Moses, I love verse 29, that moment when he’s reading to Laman and Lemuel and probably Sam and that look of, “Wait, you’re not getting this are you?” An exodus isn’t terribly difficult to understand. And I can picture Laman and Lemuel saying, “We’re not seeing the connections here.” And he says, “Let me make it obvious.” He says “That I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer. I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah.”

  13:14 “You’re not getting it. You’re not making the connection to Christ for Moses. So let me make it obvious and let’s go to Isaiah.” Fascinating place to take Laman and Lemuel to preach the Lord their Redeemer. I guess the message is if it’s good enough for Nephi to teach from Isaiah to Laman and Lemuel, then we should probably give Isaiah a lot more airtime in our own study.

John Bytheway: 13:40 I’m so glad you brought that up, Tyler. This kind of, “Here’s why I’m going to read from Isaiah. That I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer.” Isaiah is going to talk about… Now, Isaiah never uses the word Christ. He uses the Messiah or the Holy One of Israel, but that’s who he’s going to talk about. And the Bible Dictionary is a treasure. Look up the meaning of names and Isaiah meet the “Yah,” at the end of all those names of so many characters in this time period is Jehovah. And the Lord is Salvation is the meaning of Isaiah. And then all of a sudden you go, “Oh, well that’s why Abinadi.” When he asked them, “What are you teaching?” And they said, “The law of Moses,” he would say, “Oh, you’re not getting it. The Lord is Salvation. Let me read to you Isaiah.”

  14:27 One of the things that Isaiah said, and he alluded to this before, “Those that are upon the isles of the sea.” And correct me if I’m wrong guys, but for anybody who left the holy land, they consider themselves on an isle of the sea. Is that right? But when they read Isaiah’s promises to those on the isles of the sea, it sounds like, “Oh, that’s us.” And remember Hank, way back when we talked to… Was it Scott and Casey that talked to us about the audiences in the Book of Mormon? Look at what it says there in verse 24, “Hear ye the words of the prophet ye who are a remnant of the house of Israel, a branch who have been broken off.” We have this chapter in our Old Testament, but here Nephi is talking to his family. “We have changed our area code, but we are still the covenant people and we still have a covenant obligation and a covenant promise. Well, I’m going to read this to you, you remnant.” A remnant is a piece of the House of Israel and that’s them.

Hank Smith: 15:25 And Tyler, don’t you love that this verse sits right before the Isaiah chapters? And Isaiah is going to come up quite a bit in this book so we can come back to this verse, why is this in here? That you might more fully believe in the Lord your Redeemer. Every time you run into Isaiah, don’t think, “Oh, more Isaiah,” think, this is in here for this one reason. To more fully persuade you and I to believe in the Lord our Redeemer. So if it’s not doing it for you, then let’s keep studying. Let’s keep working at it till we can figure out what they saw in this that causes me and others to believe in the Savior.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 16:10 Absolutely. And the other fascinating thing here is that Nephi chose to begin with Isaiah 48 and 49 rather than the first chapters of Isaiah. Now when we get to the big Isaiah block later on in 2 Nephi 12 through 24, that’s Isaiah chapters 2 through 14. So we’re going back to that beginning. He leads out with hope, with redemption, with restoration, with gathering. Because if you look at Isaiah’s whole book, chapters 1 through 66, you can divide it up in all kinds of ways. But the simplest way is into two parts, 1 through 39 are all about what happens when a people say “No, we don’t want you to be our God and we don’t want to be your people. And we’re going to go and find some other God to worship or to give our devotion to this scattering.” And then the consequences that come from that and the judgments that come not because God hates them, but because there are natural effects, there are natural outcomes that come with certain decisions.

  17:13 And then chapters 40 through 66 are all about God reestablishing that covenant, gathering them in. And I love that he leads out with 48 and 49, which are from this hope-filled gathering section of Isaiah’s prophecies. To remind these people that just because you’ve made a covenant with God in verse 1 and 2 of chapter 20; isn’t enough. You can’t just be in name only a member of the church, otherwise bad things will happen to you. And he gives the reasons why he lets those bad things happen. Verse 9, “Nevertheless for my name’s sake, will I defer my anger and for my praise, will I refrain from thee that I cut thee not off.” You’ve broken this covenant, you don’t deserve good things, but I’ve worked with you long enough. And then verse 10, “Behold I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction and for mine own sake yea…”

  18:18 And then he repeats it, “For mine own sake, will I do this, for I will not suffer my name to be polluted. I will not give my glory unto another.” “I’m going to bring you back and I’m going to redeem you and reestablish this covenant with you for mine own sake. It’s because of my love, my everlasting grace and kindness that I’m going to do this.” I just love that. And then Isaiah uses this idea to talk to us in this kind of, “Let’s sit down and reason together sort of a way.” He says, “Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel my called, for I am he, I am the first. I am the last. Mine hand hath also laid the foundation of the earth. My right hand hath spanned the heavens. I call upon them and they stand up together.”

  19:03 This idea of, “Look who else has this capacity? You can trust me.” I love the hope that’s here. And Nephi’s clearly likening all of this to his own people and he’s invited us to liken it to our day too. To be able to see God’s goodness and to come near in verse 16, to listen to him. And by the way, if we’re not careful, we put on Isaiah blinders instead of Isaiah lenses when we read because we’re like, “Yeah, it’s Isaiah. It’s hard to understand.” If we just read this looking for Christ and me and what is he doing to help me find him and to come unto him. Isaiah is not as hard to understand. It’s a lot easier to liken to the situations I find myself in today.

Hank Smith: 19:51 I can see that in verse 2 of chapter 20. “There are those who call themselves the holy city, but they don’t rely on God”. And I all of a sudden think of me, I’m a Latter-day Saint in name. Do I really live the life of a Latter-day Saint? Isaiah is calling someone like that out saying, “Who do you think you’re trying to fool?” Tyler, I like what you said there that if you look at the structure of Isaiah, it really is destruction, darkness, scattering first. And the second half of the book you said is the gathering and the hope. Nephi is choosing to start quoting Isaiah with that second half, that hopeful half. Really like that.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 20:39 Yeah, and you see it more clearly in chapter 49 of Isaiah, which is our Isaiah 21. In fact, just as a fun little exercise, somebody could on their own go back and read Isaiah chapter 40. Because that’s the opening of this new section of hope and the very first concept mentioned there in chapter 40 is, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” Now that’s spoken to a group of people who have said, “We don’t want to be your people and we don’t want you to be our God.” But he’s going and re-establishing and bringing comfort where quite frankly they don’t deserve it. And I don’t know about you two, but there’s never been a time when I’ve tried to repent. Where I’ve said to God, “Oh look, what a good boy I’m being, feeling bad about what I’ve done and repenting, so therefore you have to now forgive me and give me comfort and make everything right.”

  21:33 We don’t deserve anything good when it comes right down to it, and yet he gives us that promise of comforting, re-establishment of that connection. And we get that opportunity very powerfully every Sunday when we go to church and pick up a little piece of bread that is so much more than bread. And a little cup that is so much more than water and we make that new covenant to say to him, yet again, “I want thee to be my God and I want to be thy people.” We’re manifesting it in a very tangible way, making a new covenant, which beautifully is portrayed throughout chapter 21 now, because this is all about the Messiah. Here is Nephi talking to his people who feel like they’re on an isle of the sea because they’ve left the homeland, the motherland. There are so many beautiful things in here about God making us a polished shaft in his quiver about the Lord, the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel that has all these things to give us. And then you come to this glorious triumphant, “Sing O ye heavens! Be joyful, O earth,” the gospel.

  22:40 When you go to church, you should not feel like you’re being beat up. You shouldn’t walk out feeling dejected. This should be the most glorious, wonderful, freeing experience ever. When you go to the temple, when you read your scriptures, it should cause these rejoicings. Why? Because he then points out here in the middle part of chapter 21 about his infinite atonement, the Atonement of Jesus Christ that makes all of this possible.

Hank Smith: 23:11 Tyler, I noticed way back at the end of 1 Nephi 20, which is Isaiah 48. There’s an interesting connection here that I haven’t seen. Verse 21, Isaiah is talking about the children of Israel walking through the wilderness from the Exodus. But Nephi could easily liken this to himself. “He hath led them through the deserts.” He’s probably just seeing himself as you talked about through that-

John Bytheway: 23:39 Empty corridor.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 23:40 Picking up on that desert theme for a minute, Hank, it’s back to what we talked about before. Some people can go through that desert and feel like, “Man, God has forsaken me. He’s so mean. We’re trying so hard to be good and look at these bad things that are happening,” and yet here’s Isaiah. And you’ve got to believe, like you said, that Nephi is seeing very clearly their story in verse 14.

Hank Smith: 24:02 Absolutely. “Behold Zion hath said,” and Nephi or the daughters of Ishmael or even Lehi or Hank, John or Tyler, they have said, “The Lord has forsaken me. He’s forgotten me.” Where are you? I’ve tried so hard to be good, Joseph Smith, “God where art thou?” And then this beautiful statement, “He will show that he hath not,” I have not forgotten you. And then he makes a fantastic analogy. Tyler, you might know about this better than all of us here having 10 children, “For can a woman forget her sucking child, her newborn child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” I don’t know about you guys, but once those children started coming, I kind of took a back seat for a little while in my wife’s eyes. The way she used to look at me with those starry eyes, they became even brighter when she looked down at those babies.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 25:10 This is one of those beautiful moments in Isaiah as this Hebrew poet where he doesn’t just speak in Greek literal terms, he speaks in this Hebrew symbolism. He’s painting a picture and you can almost picture him with stylus in hand, stroking his chin, saying, “Okay, what is the most dependent relationship I could think of that would communicate what I’m trying to communicate?” And he’s like, “Well, it’s a sucking child, this brand new baby who depends so completely on mom for everything and can she forsake this baby? Can she forget this baby?” I love how he then brings us back to the Savior.

John Bytheway: 25:49 That verse 16, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” I don’t know how anybody reading that can miss it. What is sign language for Jesus? And it’s touching the palms of the hands like this one after the other. “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands,” and it’s such an interesting question my students have asked, “Why? I thought when you’re resurrected, those wounds are all gone. I thought that your scars are gone.” Things like that. The Savior, believe keeps those wounds. It could be because of the footnote there. Footnote 16A takes us to Zechariah 13:6 where that prophecy is at the second coming, they will ask, “What are those wounds in your hands?”

  26:41 Section 45 is even a more complete answer in the Doctrine and Covenants, “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends,” and it’s a beautiful image to think that the Savior carries with him a reminder in his hands of his love for us. These are some of my favorite verses in all of Isaiah. That phrase right there, and I always think of the sign language when I think of that.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 27:05 Beautiful.

Hank Smith: 27:06 John, I loved what you shared there. I’ve been thinking about this. These are two very simple symbols that we’re going to see a lot. You’re always looking at your hands. They’re always in front of me. These two hands are always in front of me. So when I see the palms of my hands, I can think, “Oh yeah, how could I forget something that’s in the palms of my hands?” And then the other one, it’s quite common, even though it’s absolutely beautiful, is a woman with a newborn. That’s around all the time. I’m thinking of a woman in our ward, Kaylee. Kaylee Howder who I have watched care for her newborn lately. There she is just holding and rocking and sometimes standing up and walks out.

  27:47 When you look at moms, you can learn a lot about God at that point where we are so fussy and we need and need and need. And there he is, day in and day out. I think of my own wife caring for… We had twin boys and caring for those twins. It exhausted her and me, but exhausted her to the nth degree. According to Isaiah, I can learn a lot about Jesus by watching that.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 28:19 And isn’t that fascinating, Hank? As you describe your wife and we can all think of our own family situations. That when those little babies are born or when it’s in the middle of the night and they’re screaming yet again and you can’t calm them down. There’s never ever a sentiment of, “You better repay us big time for what we’re going through or what we’re paying out for you or what you’re costing us.” Love once again isn’t about what you get from someone. The sacrifice that you make for another person actually increases your capacity to love that person. And the perfect example as you’re describing here from Isaiah, the mother with this newborn baby. She went through so much pain and so much discomfort and so much difficulty just to give that little creature a new life. And then she has to keep going through pain and it never ends.

  29:19 It just changes. It just adapts through time, these sacrifices. But a mother never says, “Now you repay me and what can I get out of you?” There’s something beautifully Christ-like about that and now you see it here with the Savior, with the palms of his hands being marked. Those aren’t signs of the world’s cruelty alone. Those are signs of his love for us and of his sacrifice for us. Once again, I believe the greater the sacrifice, the greater your capacity to love. I think that’s why Jesus loves you infinitely, is because he paid an infinite price to redeem your soul. Most of us would then turn to somebody and say, “Do you know what that cost me?” Not Jesus. It’s not a shaking finger, a wagging fist. It’s open arms. It’s love, saying, “Your walls are continually before me. Can you just come into the safety of my embrace? I’ll take care of you. I will not forsake you. You will not be alone if you come to me.”

Hank Smith: 30:25 I think about a mother, she gives her blood, literally gives her blood-

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 30:30 Sheds her blood.

Hank Smith: 30:31 … to give this baby life and what a symbol of this Savior.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 30:37 Which I have to just say, isn’t Isaiah amazing to be able to take these two totally separate things. And bring them together in this symbolic juxtaposition and teach lessons that are just going to keep, and we’ve only mentioned a few of them here. People who are listening are probably going to come up with dozens of additional connections here as it should be. The Holy Ghost can teach these lessons again and again at deeper and deeper levels. I love Isaiah. I love how he helps me recognize the Savior in my life and what he’s done for us. We then move on here to this next section. I love this concept where he embodies Jerusalem. He embodies that geography, that location, that place in this human character. That’s what a Hebrew poet is going to do. He’s going to be symbolic, so he makes her into a woman and then she feels desolate.

  31:33 She feels like she’s been destroyed. The wasters have come in and taken away her children and taken them captive and she’s left desolate. Her household is no more, and she’s sitting there mourning and then all of a sudden we see that in Isaiah’s time period with Babylon coming to town, in Jesus’s dispensation with Rome in 70 A.D. destroying the Kingdom of the Jews and carrying them away captive. And it often leaves Zion or the House of Israel feeling like, “Okay, well game over. It was a good run, but it’s finished.” And then all of a sudden you see all of these people returning being gathered in after this great scattering and verse 21 says, “Then shall thou say in thine heart, ‘Who have begotten me these? Seeing I have lost my children and I’m desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who has brought up these, behold I was left alone. These, where have they been?'”

  32:34 And all of a sudden then it starts describing the Gentiles, bringing them back. Carrying them on their shoulders and the number being so big, so many, that there’s not room to take care of them. This great gathering effort as we watch with each passing General Conference, as our Prophet announces more and more temples. It’s hard to even keep up with it and we’re like, “Wait, where? How many? Why so many?” And as this great emphasis on the gathering keeps unfolding, our Prophets are seeing things that we may not see. That these Isaiah chapters, these prophecies are going to be fulfilled.

  33:14 People are going to come into the fold of God in numbers that are just astronomically big that we’ve not seen before. The Lord is preparing the world for that. Even though it doesn’t feel like that right now, it feels like it’s going in the other direction and people like talking about how many people are leaving the church. That’s not the message we get from reading Isaiah. There will be people who struggle along the way. We’ll lose some battles along the way and some struggles, but this kingdom is going to roll forth. It’s going to fill the whole earth eventually, and I love the hope that Chapter 21 gives to us in this effort, in our gathering effort. It matters.

Hank Smith: 33:57 That seems like the Lord, Tyler, is things look like they’re heading in one direction and they end up going another. Coming to Jerusalem, things look like they’re going to be great. Then they end up going the exact opposite to terrible and you think, “Oh, it’s terrible.” Then he turns it around and it’s actually even better than you’ve thought. Kind of a similar thing happening here.

John Bytheway: 34:17 Losing the 116 pages. Well, translate that other part. It throws even greater views. So you thought this is a problem. Actually, I have something that’s even going to be better.

Hank Smith: 34:28 Tyler, we have one chapter left in our lesson here and we want to give it a little bit of time. So what would you want our listeners to get out of the last chapter of 1 Nephi chapter 22?

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 34:39 Chapter 22 is beautiful because what you get is this concluding commentary from Nephi on what he just got through reading to you from those two chapters of Isaiah. So chapter 19 is where he is introducing it. He’s kind of telling us why he’s going to read Isaiah. Then he reads Isaiah and then he tells us what he hopes that we got out of his reading of Isaiah. If you had a struggle with understanding anything in chapter 20 or 21. Then strong recommendation is go to chapter 22 and see what Nephi, the prophet who’s quoting Isaiah, what he tells us he got out of it. And what he hopes that our takeaways might be.

  35:17 He opens up the chapter by saying, “Now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had read these things which were engraven upon the plates of brass. My brethren came unto me and said unto me: What meaneth these things which ye have read?” And our students and our children probably ask the same question of you. “Behold, are they to be understood according to things which are spiritual, which shall come to pass according to the spirit and not the flesh?

  35:40 It’s basically them saying, “Wait, are we supposed to understand this literally or symbolically?” And now Nephi jumps in and says, “Behold they were manifest unto the prophet by the voice of the Spirit; for by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets, which shall come upon the children of men according to the flesh.” He’s saying, “Look, this was given to Isaiah. It’s not just a great writer, not just a great historian. This was given to Isaiah by God through the Holy Ghost.” And then he clarifies verse three, “Wherefore the things of which I have read are things pertaining to things both temporal and spiritual.” I love that. He’s saying, “Don’t pick a camp. It’s both.” So you’ve got to do your work on both sides when you read Isaiah to find both the physical manifestations of how these prophecies have come to pass, as well as the spiritual likenings that we can apply. You get the scattering, the gathering, the Restoration, the latter days, the establishment of the new world. It’s all in here in the rest of chapter 22.

Hank Smith: 36:46 To me, Tyler chapter 22 is a place where I remember in my own Isaiah wrestling when I first started saying, “You know what? I really want to understand this.” I don’t want to just love a phrase, a three word phrase. I want to understand his argument where he is going. Chapter 22 is one that is kind of… I wouldn’t say a beginner’s Isaiah, but you can see what Nephi does. He says, “Okay, here’s Isaiah. Now let me explain it a little bit.” And all of a sudden you go, “Oh, I can see that,” as I move forward. So I don’t know, kind of a Nephi helping you read this in a way that will bring it out like you have for us Tyler.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 37:29 Yeah, it’s beautiful to have his tutelage, his mentoring along the way. The invitation he gave you at the beginning also applies to not just Isaiah, but to everything Nephi himself wrote. It’s, “Liken all scriptures unto us.” Why? So that it might be for our profit and our learning today. The power is when we liken those stories, so our own journeys and our own wrestles and our own struggles in life. I love it.

John Bytheway: 37:56 A few recordings ago, our wonderful Lisa, she was trying to say scattering or gathering, and she said, “scathering.” And it’s become my favorite word now because it kind of tells us that there’s going to be a scattering, but there’s going to be a gathering. So a “scathering,” they are two sides of the same concept. When the Lord scatters, he gathers. Or when people scatter themselves, the Lord gathers them. It’s spiritual and it’s temporal because you kind of get scatterbrained. First you lose your testimony, then you lose your real estate and then you get gathered to Christ in your heart and in your spirit and then you gather to stakes of Zion. What President Nelson has told us is we can be part of the greatest work ever gathering on both sides of the veil. I love that he said that too, but we can help people gather to Christ in their hearts and souls and minds and then gather to stakes of Zion.

  38:52 So I hear Nephi saying that we kind of got scattered not for the same reasons the Lord was preserving us, but the promise is there. We’re all going to be gathered and the Gentiles will help in the gathering. I read verse 8 and I go, “That’s like a good summary.” “After our seed is scattered, the Lord God will proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles, which shall be of great worth unto our seed. Wherefore, it is likened unto their being nourished by the Gentiles and being carried in their arms and upon their shoulders.” Isn’t it nice when you have a prophet commenting on another prophet. Nephi’s going, “This is what Isaiah meant about that shoulder thing.”

  39:32 “And it shall also be worth unto the Gentiles and not only unto the Gentiles, but unto all the House of Israel, unto the making known of the covenants of the Father of heaven unto Abraham saying: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.” And there we go again. Here’s that Abrahamic covenant. Title page covenants, last page covenants, and here we are.

Hank Smith: 39:57 Yeah, as everybody reading, go into 22 and just walk through it slowly verse at a time and watch for that scattering and gathering. And it’s same thing for us. Watch for that, “Oh, we make mistakes and God prepares a way for us to find our way back to him,” a scattering and a gathering.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 40:17 I love this hope that comes as you’re talking and as you’re sharing these ideas and as we’re studying these chapters. I love how he uses the word the righteous. He doesn’t ever say the perfected or the flawless. He calls them the righteous. Why? It’s because they want to. Their desires are right. They’re doing the right thing to the best of their ability. They’re messing up, but they’re repenting when they do. As you turn the page over to these final verses of chapter 22, I hope it’s not lost on people. The hope that God gives to those who are just striving to be as good as they possibly can and realizing they’re not perfect and they’re not their own savior. So verse 17, “Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by,” not by their righteousness, not by their goodness, not by their actions, but, “by his power.”

  41:11 “Even if it so be that the fullness of his wrath must come,” which it will. We read the Book of Revelation, we read the scriptures. We know there’re calamities coming in the latter days. So bad things are coming, but the “Righteous shall be preserved even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear.” That’s three times in that verse that you got the righteous, then you keep going down. You’re going to get the righteous in verse 19. They shall not perish. You keep watching for it. 22, “The righteous need not fear for they are those who shall not be confounded, but it’s the kingdom of the devil that needs to fear.” And then verse 24, “The time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion and might and power in great glory and he gathereth his children.”

  42:01 It’s beautiful. And then 26, “Because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power.” And then he repeats more of the righteousness, “And the Holy One of Israel reigneth,” in the bottom of verse 26. Let’s just finish with verse 28. But behold, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people shall dwell safely in the Holy One of Israel if it so be that they will repent.” I love that. He didn’t say if it so be that they’re perfect. It’s just if they’ll just repent, then they can dwell safely with the Holy One of Israel, and numbered among the sheep of his fold.

Hank Smith: 42:39 That’s fantastic.

John Bytheway: 42:40 I feel like when you start reading this, Nephi, he’s answering his brother’s question. And then as we spoke Hank, audiences, all of a sudden he’s talking to everybody, he’s talking to us, he’s talking to the Latter-days. And then he kind of brings it back at the end. So thanks for asking. Verse 30, “My brethren consider that the things which have been written upon the plates of brass are true. They testify…” Now it’s for you. “A man must be obedient to the commandments of God and ye need not suppose that I and my father are the only ones who have testified about them. Be obedient to the commandments, endure to the end. You’ll be saved at the last day and brings it back to them.” So I like what Nephi did there. I feel like he’s talking to us in the middle, the Latter-days.

Hank Smith: 43:20 Yeah, I really appreciate what you’ve both shared here. I had a great stake President Dale Monk, who one day, just as we were talking, he said, “After all this time reading the scriptures.” He said, “I think I can define righteousness now.” He said, “I think righteousness is repenting. The righteous are those who are repenting, and the unrighteous are those who are not repenting.” I like that you said that Tyler, it’s not the perfect, it’s the righteous or the repenting person.

John Bytheway: 43:54 I love President Nelson’s definition of Israel. It’s not his, it’s what it means. It says in the Bible Dictionary, “One who prevails with God” or “Let God prevail.” And he pled with us to be the type of people who are willing to let God prevail. We’re going to make mistakes, but we keep repenting showing we’re willing to let God prevail in our lives.

Hank Smith: 44:17 Tyler, this has been a fantastic day. Really just fun to walk through these chapters with you, and I knew it would be having been friends with you for so long. Before we let you go, tell us why you’ve planted your roots, your life in the Book of Mormon.

Dr. Tyler Griffin: 44:33 That’s a beautiful question. And by the way, thank you very much for the privilege to come and spend this time with you talking about these incredible chapters. I’ve long admired what you two have been able to accomplish. It’s mind-blowing how far the reach and the impact of many of my own family members, myself. I just have to say before I answer your specific question, I’ve heard people say things like, “Oh man, you guys have a lot of competitors out there in this market.” And I always look at those people and I say, “Are you kidding me? There is no competition in this market. God is pouring down knowledge upon the heads of his Saints across a variety of channels, a variety of ways, and there’s something out there for everybody.” And I just love what you two have done. You have a way of doing it that just speaks to a lot of people. Many of my own family members and me included. So thank you and it’s been a privilege to join you in this effort.

  45:29 In answer to your specific question, there are literally a million ways I could answer that question and all of them would be valid. But I think the most important one is why do I love the Book of Mormon? What would I say to somebody who’s contemplating, “Should I really jump in?” I have read a lot of books in my life. I have experienced a myriad of learning opportunities in different settings. But there’s never been a set of words that have helped me feel more truly connected with the Savior Jesus Christ and with God the Father. And to feel the comforting, directing, guiding influence of the Holy Ghost more than within the 531 pages of the Book of Mormon. I almost wish that we could rename the book and reverse the title to call it Another testament of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon.

  46:28 I have found him on every page. I have found myself on every page, and the amazing thing is, you two both know this better than I do. We’ve taught this and we’ve read this, and we studied this book our whole careers, our whole lives. And yet every time I begin a new semester or a new cycle of, in this case, Come, Follow Me. And it’s now the Book of Mormon year. I am more excited now than I’ve ever been before to rediscover this book, to dive in and to find covenantal connections with the Savior. And to try a little harder to move his work forward more powerfully than any other time in my whole life.

  47:13 And the book is that deep and that broad that we’ll never get to the bottom of it. There will never be a day when I say, “Okay, moving on. We’ve exhausted that book.” Because I am amazed every single time I… I can flop it open to a random page and stick my finger down. And I find new writings from time to time very similar to the Liahona, and it points the direction I should go in the wilderness today. It’s relevant for us today. My testimony and my invitation to all of us is don’t just read the book, immerse in a serious study of the book to find your connection with the Savior. He’s on every page.

Hank Smith: 47:57 Tyler, thank you. What a treat it has been for us to have you with us on followHIM. We love it and we support you.

John Bytheway: 48:05 I’m just so glad there’s so many out there, faithful voices. We’re on the same team for crying out loud and we need each other.

Hank Smith: 48:14 Yeah, Elder Holland said, “The race is against sin, not against each other.” That’s what we’re after, helping people. We’re all on the same team trying to help people. Tyler, thank you for coming across to our channel. We’re grateful.

  48:28 We want to thank Dr. Tyler Griffin for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and we always remember our founder Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We get to start 2 Nephi on followHIM. Today’s transcripts, show notes and additional references are available on our website, followhim.co. You can watch the podcast on YouTube with additional videos on our Facebook and Instagram accounts. All of this is absolutely free, and we’d love for you to share it with your family and friends.

  49:04 We’d like to reach more of those who are searching for help with their Come, Follow Me study. If you could subscribe to rate, review, and comment on the podcast, that will make us easier to find. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra and Annabelle Sorensen.

President Russell M. Nelson: 49:25 Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to him. Follow him.