What About THE GATHERING? Part 2

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. You're entering Outer Brightness. Welcome, Fireflies, to this episode of the Outer Brightness Podcast. Thank you for joining us today. We will be talking about the gathering of Israel.

What does that mean? How does that affect Latter-day Saints today, and how does that affect us as Christians? From your understanding, either as a Latter-day Saint studying in just church, in Sunday school, or maybe in your private study when you studied the history of the church, was it your understanding that Joseph Smith prophesied that the return of Christ was imminent, meaning it was coming very soon, you know, 1800 sometime, and that the literal gathering of Israel was to be quick? Or did you see this as, or understand him as teaching it as more of a long process, which is basically what the LDS Church teaches now?

So, Michael and Brianna, do you have any thoughts on that? I kind of saw as like this long process that would kind of happen, that maybe there would be at some point where like there would be like a moment, an event where, you know, like when the second coming happens. But it was unknown, so it was all just kind of a preparation, like a long-term process. Yeah, so it seemed like a lot of the prophecies that Joseph Smith did make that weren't directly related were really imminent. Like, I feel like he made a prophecy that, you know, he would see Christ by the time he was a certain age.

I don't remember what that age was, but, you know, fairly soon in the future, and the gathering of Israel was supposed to happen before the coming of Christ, so it does seem like it was initially supposed to be imminent. But then, like we've talked about as the decades roll on, you know, the church's position changes, and when the church's position changes, oh well, Joseph Smith must have meant that it was going to be far in the future the entire time. So, I kind of started to take that line that Joseph Smith was not intending this to be imminent, but some future date way out, way far away. Yeah, I think there were at least two prophecies, right?

There's the one that you mentioned, Michael, where it says if you reach the age of 60 or 70, you will see the Lord. And a lot of LDS apologists will say, well, it was a conditional prophecy, you know, Joseph Smith died, so Jesus didn't return. And it's like, well, doesn't God know when Joseph Smith would die?

I don't know. Paul, what do you think about this? Yeah, I think Joseph Smith did believe that it was imminent. If not in his own lifetime, I think he believed it was very soon. One example of that is a statement he made in February 1835, where he said, according to B.H. Roberts, History of the Church, quote, it was the will of God that those who went to Zion with a determination to lay down their lives, if necessary, should be ordained to the ministry and go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time, or the coming of the Lord, which was nigh, even fifty-six years, should wind up the scene. So, yeah, I think it's clear he believed that it was very soon from that statement and other prophecies that he recorded. Dr. Nicomendan's 87, which many take to be a prophecy of the Civil War, which I don't think is true.

Once I studied American history and how long that political issue was brewing, I don't see that prophecy as kind of remarkable, but he does kind of, in D&C 87, it is kind of also kind of put forth as a precursor to the return of Jesus. When he said 56 years, Paul, I'm pretty sure he was talking about Jupiter years, and that's a lot longer than our Earth years. Well, I mean, maybe Kolob years, so that's like, you know, that's like 56,000 years.

Yes. Better get started on that food storage. Wait, wait, wait, no, no. 55,900 something years left. I'm bad at math, that's way more than that, because one day is as a thousand years on Kolob. So it's a long ways off, like 5 million years.

Yeah, you got, you got to get 5 million years worth of food storage, guys. So the passage also that I was, I think I was referring to is D&C 130, 14 through 15, where he wrote, I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the words of the Lord, a voice repeat the following, Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore, let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter. So that was given in, let's see, 18.

When was this? Forget, I forgot the year was, but if he was 85, right, so I'm going to get into some dispensational style chronology. Okay. I got, I need a whiteboard though. Like dispensational is always have a whiteboard and a timeline. And like the thing just gets cluttered with notes and stuff. Like, I love, I love our dispensationalist friends, but you got to admit, just go on YouTube, type dispensationalist timeline.

And there's always a guy at a whiteboard with 5 million things and arrows and, you know, like it makes John Madden have a seizure. But I'm 85 years old for Joseph Smith. That would be 1889, 1890, 1891 period. And then that other prophecy that you're talking about, the 56 years should wind up the scene. That was in 1835. You add 56 to that, you get 1891, like the same time period, like they converge. Right.

I don't know. It seems like he had it figured out. So then when 1890 and 1891 passed and Jesus didn't return.

Oh man. So to, to kind of extend on my story about the Seventh-day Adventist pastor guy from my mission. So he was in that meeting, he was simultaneously like giving us like the, the Tumor and I would love anti-Mormon spiel and also like pushing LNG white prophecy.

So he was like, he was going through all this stuff and doing the passages, doing the whole dispensational thing. And I'm, and I'm sitting there trying to make heads or tails of it. Right.

Not 20 year old kid. And I'm like, okay, wait, he's, and he's ended up with like 1844. And I'm like, Oh my goodness, the Nauvoo temple. I'm like making all these connections in my head. I left out of that, out of that meeting, like with my head, just like spinning on, on prophecy and like, okay, Mormon has got to be right.

So this has to fit somehow, you know, this has to bolster my testimony somehow. Yeah. Wasn't that the great disappointment was 1844. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what he was talking about. Well, you know, what's funny is another big day in terms of the end of the world, it was 1914. Cause there were several religions that predicted that Jesus would return in 1914. Right. One of which I think was Jehovah's witnesses. I think that was a big day.

Yeah. And there were other groups too, but I forgot who they were. I think that was also there's a, there's a cult in like a legitimate cult in Korea where they believe that God, the father would return to earth in 1914. And I think that was the year that one of their leaders was born. And so they believe that because Jesus had to come to earth and take a body, this Korean man came and he took on a body and he was heavenly father and his wife was heavenly mother. Now the man he's since passed away, but the woman is still alive. So you can literally take a plane and go talk to God, the mother, I think they should be marketing this towards latter-day saints.

They can make a ton of money on come see God, the mother. Yeah. Yeah.

I have an in-person anyway, he set up shop in Missouri. Yeah. You can, you can really get your head spinning. Like I was, he, you know, he was talking about 1844 and the great disappointment and there's the seven years, right. And all that plays into it. And I was trying to make sense of, I was like, man, 1844.

Okay. So Ellen G. White was just a little bit off 1844, take away those seven years. Does that, does that line up with like the appearance of Elijah or something?

Elijah in the Kirtland temple. Yeah. I was like trying to make that line up. Like, Oh my goodness.

They were close. You know, you know, we're going to start having to call you now. We're not going to have to start calling you Paul Gregerson.

I gave that up a long time ago when I realized things didn't line up. You look, you watch Paul Gregerson's videos and that's pretty much how they all start out. He's like, check out this versus nine through 11. They all point back to the same stuff.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's interesting to talk to that kind of stuff. But what I've always come back to is the amillennial position because we see themes start scripture going.

We see, we see more patterns of what's happening rather than trying to pin down everything to a specific instance. It's like, we see the themes of God's people being persecuted. You know, there's the countries of the world combat, the people of God, that kind of thing.

So I think it's fascinating, but yeah, it's, I'm kind of getting into the weeds now a little bit, but, but it's, it's kind of inevitable when you're talking about this, right? Because it is the eschatology of Latter-day Saints. It's, it's like, it's like hard coded into their religion, this gathering of Israel. So yeah, let's get into actually being a member of Israel. So how do you believe that this view of the gathering of Israel related to the obvious belief that their members are literal descendants of Israel, either by blood or by adoption? So is there some kind of connection there or do you think they're just kind of tangentially related? Does anybody want to go first on that?

Okay. So my patriarchal blessing, let me just throw that in there. When they started that off, they said we named you of the tribe of Ephraim. The first thing they said after that is either by blood or by adoption. I'm just like, wait, like, you don't know, like, which one is it? It kind of bothered me my whole life. I'm like, how can you say, you know, prophetic blessing either by blood or by adoption?

Like, is it, is it both? Can you be blood and adopted into a tribe? But then why would I be adopted if I was blood?

It just didn't make sense. But I just, at the time I thought it was just super spiritual. I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm double Ephraim because, because I'm blood and I'm adopted into it. But, but the point I'm trying to make here is I don't think that all Latter-day Saints believe that they were literally descendants of Abraham.

I think that a lot of them believe that they are, because with the scattering of Israel, I actually had a companion on my mission who told me he didn't understand the scattering of Israel. And so what I did to kind of explain it to him as a Latter-day Saint is I got a glass of water and I poured a glop of syrup in there and I said, that's Israel. And then I took a spoon and I stirred it all up so that you couldn't see the syrup anymore. And I'm like, now it's, it's scattered. It is gone and, and it's mixed with everything else. And now all of this is Israel.

And he's like, oh, I understand now. So I think a lot of Latter-day Saints would say that they are literal descendants of Israel, but not all of them are. And that's not really necessarily the make it or break it point. The real point is that they believe that they are spiritually Israel, that they are in that covenant. And I think what really muddies the waters is that they don't really differentiate the old covenant with the new covenant so much that they believe that there were always, you know, moments of apostasy or a dispensation where the full truth was on the earth.

And so I think that they believe that there's kind of a continuation of that covenant as opposed to a whole new covenant that we are under now. I don't know if that makes sense. Do you have thoughts on that? No? No, I'm sorry. Does that even answer your question?

Yeah. I was, I was kind of getting at like, because to me, when I see, and maybe, and I think it ties into what you answered, Michael, but when I see this gathering of Israel, I think of it as kind of like Smith synthesizing different ideas and different views of the Bible and trying to make it all fit together. Like, so both the spiritual and the physical, because I think he wants to say, well, Israel, it's Zion. It's the pure in heart. It's all believers. But at the same time, there should be a physical gathering. One, one thing that I pointed to as Latter-day Saint, I know others did too, to show that we're literal descendants of Abraham was Galatians chapter three.

So I'll just read part of that real quick. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ, Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There's neither June or Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ, Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham you are Abraham's descendants heirs, according to the promise. So I kind of use that as showing if you're baptized in the church, then you are a descendant of Abraham. So the promises that God gave Abraham belong to me as a Latter-day Saint. And I think Joseph Smith took that and he said, Oh, okay. Well, that must mean that we somehow become physical descendants of Abraham.

Does that make sense? So did you actually believe that your DNA changed at the moment that you were baptized? You know what, I was actually Googling that just now that the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith, because he does say in there, he does talk about literally becoming adopted. Let me try to find that really quick. Yeah, because I think I've heard that a long time ago. But it's one of those things I just kind of dismissed as speculation and not really being the official LDS church position.

But I'm sure he did say that. You're entering. Yeah, sorry, I wish I had this earlier. I know I found it before.

I've got my physical copy somewhere. Let me just go find it real quick. Oh, man, I was just trying to put my hands on my patriarchal blessing. And I can't because what you said, Michael made me curious.

I wanted to see what it's like. I know it says I'm of the tribe of even but I wanted to see if it said anything about my blood or by adoption. This is from Matthew. I couldn't find it.

I thought it was just right here on my table. But Paul, do you remember, we're talking about being literally, literally adopted as children of Abraham. And there is a section where Joseph Smith said in the teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith, where he actually did say that the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and he literally changes your blood to become a descendant of Israel. Trying to find what that is. If I can find it.

I can Israel in the index. So it reminds me of that Catholic belief that communion literally changes. What's that called that doctrine?

Transpantiation. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, there was a website.

I think it's archive.org where it was like, you could just look up books online, but I'm not sure why I'm not finding it now. Play that funky music. Somebody should have played this for the prophecies of Joseph Smith. Yes, I'm not finding it. I do know what you're talking about, though. I remember my dad one time trying to explain this to me in our kitchen when I was younger. The whole thing about adoption and by blood and the Holy Spirit changing your blood so you would be a literal descendant of Israel. But yeah, I'm not finding that passage in the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I did find an AskGramps article where he talked about that though. Yeah, what does he say?

Let's see. Man, I thought about this and I forgot to look it up and I was like, I'll look it up later. But yeah, no, it's something I looked up because a lot of the saints didn't believe me.

He's like, Joseph Smith never said that. And I looked it up and I was like, no, I remember reading it. It's gonna drive me nuts.

It's gonna drive me nuts if I don't find it. Give me like two minutes. Time me. Use it as a bathroom break if you got to.

Smoke if you got them. I might have. Well, I mean, I think I found something actually. It doesn't give like the source though.

That's what's killing me. But it does say Joseph Smith said this. He says, thus after this chosen family had rejected Christ and his proposals, the heralds of salvation said to them, lo, we turn unto the Gentiles and the Gentiles received the covenant and were grafted in from whence the chosen family were broken off. But the Gentiles have not continued in the goodness of God, but have departed from the faith that was once delivered to the saints and have broken the covenant in which their fathers were established and have become high-minded and have not feared. Therefore, but of them, but few of them were gathered with the chosen family.

Have not the pride, high-mindedness and unbelief of the Gentiles provoked the Holy One. This is not what I was reading a second ago. Hold on. This is what I meant to read. Cut that golf. Outer brightness, outer brightness, outer brightness. This darn phonograph.

You're entering outer brightness. Okay. This is what it says. There are two comforters spoken of. One is the Holy Ghost. The same is given on the day of Pentecost, that all saints receive their faith.

Oh my gosh, I thought it right before you did. Repentance and baptism. The first comforter or the Holy Ghost has no other effect than pure intelligence. It is more powerful in expanding the mind, enlightening the understanding and storing the intellect with present knowledge of a man who is the literal seed of Abraham than one that is a Gentile, though it may not have half as much visible effect upon the body. For as the Holy Ghost falls upon one of the literal seed of Abraham, it is calm and serene, and his whole soul and body are only exercised by the pure spirit of intelligence. While the effect of the Holy Ghost upon a Gentile is to purge out the old blood and make him actually of the seed of Abraham, that man that has none of the blood of Abraham naturally must have a new creation by the Holy Ghost. In such a case, there may be more of a powerful effect upon the body and visible to the eye than upon an Israelite.

Well, the Israelite at first might be far before the Gentile and pure intelligence. So he did teach it. Yeah, that was the quote I was looking for. As soon as you started reading, I'm like, yep, that's it. I just didn't have the source. Well, I don't troll you guys and play Jeopardy music and actually like trying to find stories. And that's it. That's it.

I remember, like I said, I remember my dad trying to explain this to me and just being totally confused. And if you think about it, it's a really interesting thing that Joseph Smith said, because, you know, what's the kind of the line from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today about the fruit of the Spirit, right? What missionaries teach. You're going to feel it's going to be peaceful. It's going to be serene. You know, it's going to be all of the things that the Galatians passage says, you know, is it Galatians or Ephesians?

Galatians 5. So that really contradicts what Joseph Smith said should be happening to us as Gentiles as the Holy Spirit falls upon us, right? But maybe that's a separate experience. Maybe after you have hands laid on your head for the gift of the Holy Ghost, then that's when you should have this really, how does he explain it? Purging of the old blood.

Yeah, that's got to be some experience. Yeah, you know, it's interesting though is I guess I just use the I word. I guess God keeps all that old blood for when you apostatize from the church and puts it back in because I guess we're not Israelites anymore. Yeah, it also makes you wonder like what was Joseph Smith describing there? You know, was he describing the experience of kind of the charismatics of his day? You know what I mean? Oh, they're, they're Gentiles.

They don't have any of the pure blood of Abraham. So they have this falling down experience when the Holy Spirit falls upon them, you know? Interesting. Yeah. And it makes you wonder, you know, the experience of King Lamoni where he falls and looks like he's dead to the point where his wife is worrying about his body stinking.

You know, but he was, right? According to the narrative of the Book of Mormon, pure Israel, pure blood of Abraham. So why would, why would he have an experience like that? It's interesting. I don't know. The other thing that's crazy is, I mean, he said right there that you, you can see the change with your eyes and you go to any ward and you're not going to see a bunch of Hebrew people in the pews.

I mean, you've got mostly Caucasians. So either Joseph Smith was way off or these people aren't really getting the Holy, the second, that comforter, you know, it's not really doing anything in their lives. So either it's not working or Joseph Smith was way off, but either way, it doesn't really fare very well. Well, I think your comparison, Michael, earlier to transubstantiation is actually a good one because Roman Catholics do believe that the actual substance of the wine and bread is completely trans, trans substantiated. The substance has changed from the wine and the bread to become the body, the blood and body of Jesus. And what is leftover that still looks like wine and tastes like wine and same with bread, those are what they call the accidents. So that's just the appearance as the appearance, basically of bread and wine, but it's not bread and wine anymore. It's body and blood. And so I could see Latter-day Saints kind of making that same distinction.

You know, if I were a Latter-day Saint, that's probably what I would do. I would say, well, we don't see any outward change in the person. We don't see their blood boiling in their veins or, you know, like some kind of crazy thing happening. It appears on the outside that there's no change happening, but in reality, we have to take it as faith that their blood did transform into that of a legitimate, literal Israelite.

So the substance changed, but the accidents didn't. I don't know. But then at that point, it's like, well, how do you really verify other than just through faith that that's what's actually happening? Yeah, I am kind of sensing an article coming on for Michael comparing transubstantiation and this passage from Joseph Smith. What do you think, Michael?

Yeah, I think it'll be out here in the next two or three months. So be watching for that on fromwatertowine.org. But yeah, so like, this just raises some questions in my mind. You know, why do you think there is such a focus in Latter-day Saint theology on the kind of literal changing of blood, right? Because isn't there also the teaching that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, that blood flowed in their veins for the first time, right? And then there's this teaching of Joseph Smith that, you know, when you have that second comforter come upon you, if you're a Gentile, it literally changes your blood to the blood of Abraham. Why do you think there's such a literal, like such a focus on these ideas of change and stuff being literal with Latter-day Saint theology?

Well, I had a thought that just came to mind. You know, we see all the sacrifices tied to blood. They know there's, and in scripture, it even says there's no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. And so there's this connection between blood and sin with the shedding of the blood representing the punishment for our sins on that altar in the Old Testament, and then the shedding of Christ's blood on the cross for our sins. And Latter-day Saint theology also believes that when we're glorified persons, that we will no longer have blood, but we'll just be glorified persons of body and flesh or body, flesh and bone, so that we won't have blood anymore. So, and one thing that just came to my mind is maybe what he's saying is, you know, the idea is to become like God or to become like Christ, basically completely, right? To become just like Jesus in every way possible. Well, what was Jesus? He was an Israelite. So maybe in Joseph Smith's thinking, he said that not only do we have to become like him and have our sins sanctified and cleansed from us, but we need to literally have the same physical blood that Jesus had.

We need to become an Israelite just like Jesus was. I don't know. That's just speculation on my part, but maybe that's something that came across his mind.

Yeah, I don't know. And I just think, you know, they kind of view Israel as being God's chosen people. And so they want to throw themselves in there and say, we are that. We are literally Israel. And so we are just a continuation of God's chosen people to kind of prop up the church and make them look more valid.

That's my short answer on that. Well, going back to what you had said about Hebrew Israelites, I think that's what they usually prefer to be called, although commonly they're called black Hebrew Israelites because they believe that only black people are the literal descendants of Israel. And when you were talking about how they tie, how was it when you were talking about them or someone else, were you trying to tie specific tribes of Israel to different groups of people? Oh, you were saying like the Mongolians, right?

Yeah. Well, that's what black Hebrew Israelites also do. They try to say some of some groups, not all of them, some groups tried to say to include all people of color, not just African. So they'll say, well, if you're from sub-Saharan Africa, you're part of you know, the tribe of Joseph. And if you're from they probably say Judah, because I think Judah is the best tribe. And if you're from the Caribbean islands, you're from the tribe of Jasher.

Isn't that another one? So there's, you know, from all the different tribes, you know, they're like all these different group people groups. They try to tie that in because when they read the Bible, they see all the fulfillment is literal. So if you're not in Israel, you're not going to be getting any of these spiritual blessings. And so maybe that was also something Joseph Smith thought is like, you know, if you're not part of some tribe of Israel somehow, then you aren't going to be connected to the promises given to Abraham.

You know, we were talking about patriarchal blessings and and how those declare which tribe of Israel you belong to by adoption or by blood. We're all Ephraim, correct? We're all from Ephraim. Yeah. And have any of you ever met a Latter-day Saint who is not of the tribe of Ephraim?

Yeah. So my ex-wife was from Manasseh, which I think that's why the marriage failed actually, because you know, we're from different tribes. But the funny, the weird thing too is she was like one of the only people in her family that was from Manasseh, which like, does that mean you're adopted? Like, but yeah, I met a few from Manasseh and I think I did a poll on my group online, Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints, just to kind of ask them. And there were a couple of, I mean, most of them were overwhelmingly Ephraim, but then I think I saw a couple of like a Zebulun and you know, a couple sparse ones out there, but it's super rare for a Latter-day Saint to not be Ephraim.

Yeah. I mean, I was just wondering, you know, like, is it, is it like rogue patriarchs who don't understand the passage about the 10 tribes coming back from underneath the ice in the North Pole? Like you can't be another, you can't be one of the 10. You have to be Ephraim or Manasseh only.

Anyway, just a thought on that. I was just going to add in there too. Another thing that's interesting is that the 10 tribes that were taken away, Manasseh and Ephraim were part of those 10 tribes, right? That were lost.

Yes, they were. Yeah. The only ones, the only ones that remained were Judah and Benjamin.

Judah and Benjamin. You're right. Yep. Hmm. So, wow. So it makes you think, does that mean there's only going to be eight tribes that come back? Yeah. Where's, where's Benjamin?

What happened to the time of Benjamin? There's, there's a lot of inconsistency in this. Hmm.

I'm going to have to think on this some. No, but I think the church isn't true. Don't say that, Michael. Don't go there. You're hurting my testimony. I also wonder though, what millennial, well, you know, Gen Z Mormons will think if they listen to this episode, because I kind of sense that a lot of this is kind of gone by the wayside. Don't you?

Brianna? Well, I mean, you're Gen Z, so. Right at the edge of that. Some argue that I'm a millennial. Some argue I'm Gen Z. I'm right at the, right in between.

You're like your husband. He's a millennial who wants to be a Gen X-er. No, no, no.

I did until I met you, Paul. Wait a minute. That means we span, we span four generations. We got Gen X. We got millennial. Millennial. Oh, no, wait. No, I was wrong.

I thought it was four, but no, I can't count. We span three generations. Yeah. I'm actually a Xenial guys. Or X-ennial.

Xenial. Brianna, were you, were you saying something and we cut you off? I can't remember. Sorry. I was asking you if, cause Paul said it's gone by the wayside with the new generation. So all this stuff about like literal blood.

Yeah. I didn't really hear about that specifically growing up. So I might've been like, I probably grew up at the time when we kind of stopped talking about it. Or it might just have to do with where I was, where I grew up too. Cause I actually grew up in Minnesota for most of my childhood. And then we moved to California and California was a lot less serious about doctrine than, than the Midwest.

I was going to say, I actually read an article on the LDS website. That's recent it's 2019. Maybe now's the time. Good time to just quickly go through it. Can I share my screen? Is that okay? Yeah. Oh, it says it's disabled. Could you enable that Paul, please? Sure. Well go for it. Okay.

Thank you. I thought it was a good thing to share because a lot of times you know, a lot of times you can get into the really deep theological works and it gets kind of muddy and it's quote unquote, not official, but a lot of what's official is what you teach your kids. You know, like you're not going to teach heresy to your kids. You want to boil it down simple points, simple doctrines so that your kids can understand it.

So a lot of times the most honest teachings are found there. And that's what this kind of appears like. I'm not sure what it's from. It's from one of the church magazines. Can you see this screen right here? Yep.

We can see it now. The 12 facts about the gathering of Israel. So this is from 2019.

See July of 2019. And so it looks like it's made for kids the way with the graphics are kind of set up and they're really simple bullet points. So it gives 12 points. Point one being God made a covenant with Abraham promising him that he would have a numerous posterity. His seed would have the gospel and the priesthood that's from the book of Abraham and all the earth would be blessed through his seed. The covenant was passed down through Abraham's son and Isaac and Isaac's Jake son Jacob, who was also called Israel. It's point number two.

And then point number three. Ultimately the Abrahamic covenant also includes temple ordinances, which allow us to inherit eternal life with heavenly father and be sealed to our families forever. So I think we'd all agree that that's pretty core to LDS teachings and kind of what they've taught since forever.

And then it gets to the core ideas about the scattering. So it says ancient prophets, including Moses foretold the scattering of Israel because they were unrighteous, rebelled and killed the prophets. The Lord punished Israel and scattered them, placing Abraham's seed throughout the earth. Israel split into the northern and southern kingdoms and in 721 BC, the 10 northern tribes of Israel were carried captive to Assyria and then were scattered and lost. The remaining Israelites, mostly from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, swung back and forth between righteousness and wickedness. In 605 BC and again in 597 BC, Israelites were carried captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. In 537 BC, Cyrus of Persia, who had conquered Babylon, allowed them to return in AD 70 and again in AD 135, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, scouting the Jews among all the nations. So there is kind of like a lot of historical facts here that I think will line up pretty well.

I didn't fact check all the specific dates, but I think they're pretty accurate. So it's interesting when you point that out because they're talking about bringing the 10 tribes back, but from this timeline, it seems like all the tribes of Israel are scattered, you know? So why only the 10 tribes are we focusing on? It seems like you would want to focus on all 12 tribes of Israel to bring them back. So it continues on point six. Did you have something you want to add, Paul?

Yeah, yeah. I think the reason for that is that, you know, the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom were carried away by Assyria, right? And then later you have the Babylonian captivity of Judah and Benjamin, but you don't, so you have a return from Babylon, but you don't have a return from Assyria. So that's why they're kind of, the 10 tribes are kind of viewed as lost.

But then Judah and Benjamin kind of got scattered again after the destruction of the temple and all that, right? Yes. Yeah. So it's kind of like everybody's scattered now, really, if you think about it. Yeah.

Good point. So, yeah. So then they go on to point number six with the gathering. They say, both an agent and modern prophets from Enoch to Joseph Smith have foretold that the Lord's covenant people would be gathered again in a future day, first spiritually and then temporally. So I thought when we were talking about spiritual versus literal, I thought it was interesting because I thought it was previously, it was like, you know, a literal gathering of everybody physically to Zion, you know, but maybe he's saying, maybe it's saying here first spiritually in terms of like bringing people in through the gospel and then temporally, meaning the literal descendants who are outside the gospel.

So it's not quite clear there, but it says first spiritually and then temporally. And that has a picture of, I think, Joseph Smith, Moses, I think, and a really creepy image of President Nelson. Yeah. I'd hate to have this artist try to make a rendition of me.

I'd probably look super creepy. So the gathering is a prelude to the second coming of Jesus Christ is point number seven. I think that's, I mean, that's pretty evident. The gathering is part of the restoration that has priesthood keys associated with it, which were restored when Moses delivered them to Joseph Smith. And that's another thing I wanted to bring up too is because I think in that section, it talks about how basically he was, Moses was giving these keys because the ending is like right at the doorsteps.

Yeah. This is in doctrine, covenants one 10 verse 11, after this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us and Moses appeared before us and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel and the poor four parts of the earth and leading of the 10 tribes from the land of the north. And then Elias, which they thought was a different person from Elijah, but Elias and Elijah in the Bible are the same person.

I wrote a small article or a small little blip on my Facebook about that. But basically, Elias is from Greek, Elijah from Hebrew and Joseph Smith didn't know that. So he thought there were two different people. So after Elijah, he says he came to give the keys to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, the children, the fathers, lest the whole earth be spent with a curse. And this goes along with what we said earlier about how Joseph Smith thought that the ending was just right at the doorsteps, says Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands. And by this, you may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near even at the doors.

So that's another confirmation that he thought that the return of Christ was just coming very, very soon. Step so going back to that article number nine through the Lord's people, though the Lord's people may sometimes be asked to gather to particular place, people today generally are gathered when they accept the gospel, receive ordinances and make covenants. So that's, it's more reinterpreting it to say, you're gathered when you receive the ordinances when you join the church.

Whereas you look at the early LDS Church, 1830s 1840s, people were moving from the UK, in particular, they're moving from France, from Germany, from Canada, they're moving from all over the country to come to Zion in the US. And now they're saying, as you've said, stay where you are, all people can be gathered to Israel either by direct descent or by adoption, which happens when they are baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So I wanted to bring that up, because I think that confirms Joseph Smith's quote, right, where he said that your blood is changed literally to become a literal descendant of Abraham in baptism.

So maybe they're not specifically talking about the blood transformation. But I don't know, I thought that was a pretty clear connection there, that when you're baptized, you become a literal descendant of Israel, those who have been baptized can later receive a patriarchal blessing, which declares their lineage in a tribe of Israel, that's point 11. And then point 12 says, the Book of Mormon is written to the remnant of the House of Israel and to the Jew and Gentile, and is a sign that God is fulfilling his covenant to gather Israel in the last days, as well as a major instrument of that gathering. So I thought, sorry to take the time to go over this.

But I thought it was good. Because like I said, sometimes with little kid books, or you know, articles made for young kids, they boil down a lot of the extraneous details and get to write the core issues. And that seems kind of like what we what I've been taught as Latter Day Saint my whole life. Does that ring true for you guys also? Yeah, yeah, I think just a couple of points there within there that I think are are indicative of the kind of the shift on on these doctrines are what you noted, Matthew, where it talks about it first being spiritual gathering and then temporally. And then the other one being the idea of you either being a literal descendant of Abraham, or by adoption, through baptism and reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Because like you, like you were saying, like, if it's by adoption, then there's no literal change of blood, like Joseph Smith was talking about when the Holy Ghost comes upon you. So yeah, I can see that. Grant or Michael, do you have anything to add to that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's pretty consistent with what I was taught growing up as well. So I'd say that's pretty good. Pretty good way to explain the earliest teachings. Yeah.

So let me let me rephrase number eight. So did believing that you were either literally or by adoption, you were a descendant of Abraham, you're one of the tribe of Israel's one of the tribe of Israel, did that make you feel special in some way? You know, like, did it have some kind of significance for your spiritual life?

Being thinking? Well, I'm a literal descendant of Abraham. All these problems, promises are made specifically to me. Did you have any feelings like that?

Yeah. I felt super elitist, because I was a member of the House of Israel, and the rest of Israel, they're all lost, but but I'm here and I'm in the Lord's church. And I'm found not only am I found, but I'm part of the group finding the rest of the lost tribe. So I felt really special, because I was a member and I felt really proud to be a member of the tribe of Ephraim too. You know, you look at you guys probably did this too, because you're all from Ephraim. So I'd go and look at the blessings that that Jacob gave like, oh, Ephraim is greater than Manasseh. And I read the blessing about Joseph and his seed, you know, he's a fruitful bull, and his vines go over the wall.

I'm like, oh, that means that his seed will go over the ocean, that they're going to be here on the American continent. And it's funny, because I just, I idolized the tribe of Ephraim. And it's like, I go back to the Old Testament now, and I read the tribe about the tribe of Ephraim. I'm like, what? These guys were a nightmare for Israel to deal with. Like, why would I be proud to be from this tribe?

Like, forget that, you know? And it's like, somehow I had the blinders on that Judah was really the tribe that was so special that Christ was coming from that line. I just always focused on, oh, Ephraim has the birthright. And that means that I'm part of the seed that has the birthright. I'm going to have the best blessing. So yeah, I think it's almost an understatement to say that I felt like I was special because of this lineage.

What do you think, Rhi? Yeah, I mean, for a time, I thought I was really special too. I had to look over my patriarchal blessing and read it over and over. And my parents, they were both converts to the church when they were adults. So I felt like I was kind of one of the pioneers of my family, so that we could lead other members of my family extended family into the church. And yeah, the people you saw the fulfillment of the calling to be a missionary in the tribe of Ephraim, like in your family, is that kind of higher?

Yeah, I did. Like my parents would talk about like, how they had like, my dad would say he had this feeling that someday he was going to convert his parents and his family, like his brothers and sister to the church. And he would be like, this little leader. I kind of idolized him that way, too.

I thought he would be like, some prominent, like, leader in the church someday, because he was super spiritual. You guys have a lot more thoughts on being a member of the tribe of Israel than I have, apparently. I didn't really think about it all that much.

How about you, Paul? Yeah, I mean, I did. Because of my patriarchal blessing and because of the teachings that, you know, Ephraim holds the keys of the gathering, right. But in terms of making me feel special, I don't think it did. Because there was a sense in which a lot of the stuff we're talking about tonight for me, when I was growing up in the church and a missionary, I just kind of looked at this stuff and thought, you know, what does this mean?

You know, I couldn't make heads or tails of a lot of it because of some of the kind of inconsistencies that we pointed out tonight. But yeah, I don't know that it really made me feel special, per se. I just, I wanted to understand it and I didn't.

But yeah, no feelings of special. And really, I didn't think that I was a literal descendant of Israel, right. And maybe, maybe I never went through the great spiritual change that Joseph Smith said I should have. But I kind of, I was like, I'm a Gentile, right.

My family's German and Danish. So yeah, I didn't have any kind of great feelings of spiritual elitism. But that's just because I'm a better person than Michael is. Well, my descendants were actually Israelites. I mean, because they use the word adieu in the Book of Mormon. So the French were obviously one of the last tribes.

So I reject that you are a better person than me. He admits to being an elitist and then says, yeah, I'm French. Yep.

Makes sense. If you think about it, one of the tribes of Israel is Gad, right. And the, what France was called before it was called France is called a gall.

Oh, yeah. Oh, it could be like the Gad, the Gadites, they moved to gall. And then the language changed, you know, and slowly changed to gall. And then now it's France. So yeah, that could be the Gadites.

Yeah, plus Len, Len. Well, right. Isn't that a French name? And sounds more Spanish to me. Yeah, maybe so.

Yeah. So my thoughts on it are, it was, I never really thought a whole lot on this whole being a descendant of Israel kind of thing. I, well, my focus on was like being a priesthood holder, you know, and like the responsibility that comes with that. But also, before my mission, I kind of came back into the activity in the church. And I received my patriarchal blessing then when I was 19 or 20. So, and then I felt kind of a sense of responsibility. I felt like, well, if God gives me your testimony of the Book of Mormon, that means I need to serve a mission. And then that was just reconfirmed to me even more when I was receiving my patriarchal blessing. And I was told that I was part of the tribe of Ephraim. So I felt like, okay, there's even a more confirmation that God wants me to go on a mission, because he's saying that you're part of Ephraim and part of their responsibility is to primarily be part of the gathering of Israel.

So I didn't think of it as much as like, what does it mean? Or how my special mission is? And then I felt kind of a sense of responsibility, which is like, what does it mean?

Or how am I special because I'm an Israelite? It was more just feeling more of the sense of urgency or responsibility on my shoulders that I had to fulfill that I didn't have before. All right, Fireflies, that's a wrap for this topic. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Outer Brightness group on Facebook. Is there an aspect of this topic we missed? Something you'd like to see us discuss in the future? Let us know. Next week, we'll be discussing the topic of morality and the 13th article of faith.

Until next week, we'll be discussing the topic of morality and the 13th article of faith. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Outer Brightness Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit the Outer Brightness Podcast page on Facebook. Feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking send a message at the top of the page.

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