'The Loss of Christ'
A quick history of the Israelites and Lehi's environment in Jerusalem shows us why the Book of Mormon came to be.
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Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families
all right
this cwic media episode is an
introduction to the Book of Mormon this
is not part of the come follow me
curriculum but I thought it would be
important to start off with some context
really understanding how the Book of
Mormon is launched what is in the heads
of Lehi and Nephi as they begin to write
and to preach where is this coming from
so we want to back up a little bit and
do a very quick little rehearsal of
Israelite history remember that when
Moses brought the twelve tribes out of
Egypt and then Joshua ended up bringing
them into Palestine that they divided up
the lands into these different tribes
that twelve different tribes now it
worked a little bit differently because
the Levites the tribe of Levi was not
given any land so there were eleven
tribes left they were just given places
among different cities around Israel to
act as the priests well to make up for
that what they did is they gave the
tribe an additional tribe to Joseph and
so that the two tribes the additional
tribe now the tribe of Joseph was now
made two tribes under Ephraim and
Manasseh now Manasseh was actually the
older of the two sons of Joseph but the
birthright was given to Ephraim and they
are mostly up in the northern parts of
the kingdom of Israel and so they go
through a period of judges and then they
finally are brought together in a United
Kingdom under King Saul and then Saul
passes away and then you have David
right and then after David you have
Solomon well that's as far as things got
in terms of a unified
Israel it was just under those
three kings what happens is that toward
the end of Solomon's reign at least by
then he had laid on a very heavy tax to
the other tribes and they were not happy
about what was going on they were not
happy at all with Solomon
well Solomon's son Rehoboam takes over
the throne after Solomon passes away and
and there was a man in the Kings Court
named
Jeroboam now Jeroboam was an III might
he was from the tribe of Ephraim and he
had been put in this high position of
administration and had gone around all
of Israel had his ear to the ground he
knew what the issues were and so he had
kind of advocated after that with the
son of Solomon Rehoboam to lower the
taxes on the people well he Rehoboam
wouldn't do it the king of Judah the new
king of Judah wouldn't do that and so
what happens is Jeroboam ends up going
into exile down into Egypt of course
strong relationship with Egypt and
eventually comes back with some others
and the meantime he's gotten married
down there he is married actually
according to the Septuagint he's married
to a an Egyptian princess and he comes
back with an entourage advocating again
for lowering the taxes Rehoboam is not
going to lower the taxes and so Jeroboam
unites most of the other tribes in fact
almost all of them outside of Judah and
starts a new kingdom that breaks off
which is the majority of the Israelites
the vast majority of the Israelites and
that new kingdom has a few different
names one is just the northern kingdom
and Judah where Jerusalem is becomes the
southern kingdom and Jeroboam has made
king of the northern kingdom also called
Ephraim also called the kingdom of
Israel and there is a very canoe
elected history between these two
kingdoms a lot of bloodshed that goes on
between the two of them but Rehoboam of
Judah the southern kingdom is never able
to bring the northern kingdom under his
reign again well what happens in the
northern kingdom is that their theology
changes even a little bit
Jeroboam did not want all of the
Israelites to continue to go down to the
Temple in Jerusalem so he sets up a
sanctuary in the southern part of
Ephraim in the southern part of the
northern kingdom in bethel and that's
where they have a golden calf there as
well and then up in the north
way north in the tribe of Dan's land
territory there he sets up another
sanctuary and another golden calf so
their theology is a little bit
different it changes a little bit but
they actually do hold on to a lot of the
Torah and a lot of the teachings of the
prophets so we have now these two lands
that have split apart
well Lehigh's tribe Manasseh
is in the northern the northern kingdom
now there is Benjamin which is the land
is right next to Judas land they end up
siding with Judah and they stay with
them and that's kind of how you get like
the two tribes that are together here
there's a few others a lot of especially
of Simeon and some other tribes that
you've got some of their people still
here some of the Levites as priests etc
but basically it's those two tribes
Judah and Benjamin and the other ten are
in the northern kingdom there was also a
time in the latter half of the ninth
century BC where under King ASA of the
southern kingdom he had been a righteous
King and there were a number of
defectors from the lands of Ephraim
Manasseh and of Simeon and so they came
down into the kingdom of Judah kind of
as spiritual refugees to be under a king
that they
felt was doing things right in the
temple Indian and in their theology it's
another chance where Lehigh's family may
have come down
well eventually what happens is that
the Assyrians to the east start gaining
a lot of power and dominance over the
Middle East and they come in with the
beckoning of Rehoboam the southern the
Judah’s king who pays Assyria a tribute
they come in and they battle with the
Northern Kingdom and they end up taking
a few of the territories one of them is
a portion of Manasseh at this time there
were several refugees that moved into
other lands and even move down into
Judah that's a possibility perhaps of
where Lehigh's family may have come from
and why he ended up in the Land of
Jerusalem well only about ten years
later in about 721 722 BC the Assyrians
come in and they completely conquer the
northern kingdom and that's where we get
the lost ten tribes right those ten
tribes are scattered now there's only
actually a portion of the northern
kingdom the people of the northern
kingdom that are taken out they're
exiled out of the land they're put into
other lands and other people's from the
Assyrian Empire are brought in to the
land of the northern kingdom well at
this time there's also refugees from the
northern kingdom that end up coming down
into the land of Judah and we can read
about these events that had to do with
the tribes the tribe of Manasseh in 2nd
chronicles in a couple of different
places so plenty of opportunities for
Lehigh's ancestors to have come down
into the land of Judah and so after the
Assyrians had removed a number of the
members of the northern kingdom and
brought in others from other city-states
into the northern kingdom
plus the number of Assyrians coming into
the northern kingdom you had a mixture
of Israelites and foreigners and
Assyrians in the northern kingdom well
this is by this point the capital oven
of the Northern Kingdom is Samaria these
become the Samaritans of Jesus's time in
fact Samaria is south of Galilee and
Nazareth and between Nazareth and
Jerusalem
so through various events there is a
mixing of the pot again down in
Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judah a
little bit later a couple decades later
after the Assyrians come in and wipe out
the northern kingdom so to speak they go
after Jerusalem and this is where Isaiah
is at the time right this is more around
700 ish a little before 700 BC now they
lose a lot of the territory but they're
able to hold off in Jerusalem right
we're not going to go into that story
right now but they're able to hold off
and that's where Isaiah yes and so
they're going through a lot of
tumultuous time here and there are a
number of changes that happen eventually
with one of the Kings that is there with
Isaiah what whose name is Hezekiah and
there are reforms in the temple and
actually things taken out of the temple
at that time there's a lot of change but
what we can see here is that something
very similar to what we're going to see
in the Book of Mormon and I think it's
why Isaiah is so well liked in the Book
of Mormon by Nephi and others because
it's very a very similar situation it
looks like the doctrine of the Son of
God the doctrine of Christ was under
attack and Isaiah is there as the
Prophet as a messianic prophet to fight
against this and I believe that's what
he was doing and so we get all of these
quotations in the New Testament from
Isaiah because the writers of the New
Testament are reaching back to Isaiah
who is reacting to his own time period
and putting in the narrative and the
testimony and the support for the
doctrine of Christ and of course in the
Book of Mormon
it's everywhere the whole Book of Mormon
is built around Isaiah and if you
haven't read any of the works of Joseph
Spencer you ought to read his books this
year a couple of them are a little more
technical and a little tough but he does
a fabulous job of showing how the Book
of Mormon is written around the Book of
Isaiah now we're going to get down to
the time of Lehi and Nephi here about a
hundred years later and so why they're
in the same situation in 621 622 BC
there is a king named Josiah in
Jerusalem now we go back to the Old
Testament we read a rap about King
Josiah and we see everything is very
positive about him and maybe it was
maybe it was but we need to take some
things into consideration at this time
because we're getting into Lehigh's
period here of time and look a
little bit closer as to see what's
really going on we get the clarification
from the Book of Mormon that's the job
of the Book of Mormon is to help clarify
the Bible so at 6:21 622 BC there are
massive reforms from King Josiah in the
temple and he wipes out a lot of the
high places you've probably read about
that or had a lesson on that he
centralizes the priesthood and worship
he kills off a bunch of priests so that
all the control the theocratic
controlling
in his hands basically and under him in
Jerusalem now a couple of things about
him his father was assassinated and King
Josiah became basically a puppet King to
the court because he was put in when he
was eight years old and so he's not
really ruling a whole lot at that point
but somebody is or several people are
somewhere and eventually when he is 26
so 18 years later there is a book
supposedly found in the temple we're not
really sure how to interpret this
because it's very odd there are a number
of discrepancies in the account about
fixing the temple and when that actually
happened what was the book a lot of
biblical scholars believe it was the
book of Deuteronomy or a portion a new
portion of the book of Deuteronomy or a
revised book of the book of Deuteronomy
some very strange things happen here
when that book comes out all of a sudden
there's widespread change in the record
the religion and the practice and the
sacrifices and the temple itself is
changed and it's all done under the name
of Yahweh it's all done in a way that
says look what we're really doing here
is we're getting rid of idol worship
well that might be true that there was
idol worship that was being removed but
we need to consider a couple things here
with idol worship
first of all apparently what they are
doing is they are trying to be
extremists in their monotheism in other
words it is Yahweh to begin with Yahweh
in the end all is Yahweh there is no
worship of anybody else there is no
other God right and in what they're
saying there is there
is no father there is no Sun there is no
mother in heaven there are there's
nobody else in heaven there are no hosts
of heaven the heavenly hosts are taken
out so what they do this is this
theocratic party are called
the Deuteronomists and they basically
take theocratic power at this point and
they're the ones responsible really for
a lot of the books in the Old Testament
at least the resulting books the way
that they're written in the New
Testament or in the Old Testament and
they basically shrink the hierarchy in
heaven down to nothing there is no
longer a hierarchy in heaven it is just
one single God and his name is Yahweh
well think about the temple drama what
would have to change with the temple
drama quite a bit because there was a
son that was born and that was gone into
the Holy of Holies sat on the throne
born coming out of the veil acted
as Yahweh as Jehovah but he was the son
and there was a mom and there was a
father who was L or Elohim
so you have to change everything if
you're gonna do that and those are
things are some of those things are
represented in the temple or they in
that temple drama
the hosts of heaven now we look at that
today and if we just art and take a very
cursory look at the hosts of
heaven we can think of more of something
like the myths of Greece and Rome right
where there's a heavenly or star like
gods and goddesses that are being
worshipped and that could very well be
the case right we that could be that
that was part of a problem but it also
means that if you're going to it's like
us saying today you know there should be
no other gods before him before God and
then getting rid of Jesus Christ and
getting rid of a heavenly
mother there might exist and getting rid
of any of the Angels in a hierarchy that
are in heaven there is nothing there
right what does that do that takes away
the pre-existence that takes away a lot
of what we're looking at as far as who
we are and who we can become and it's
all centered in the doctrine of Christ
you don't have a father and you don't
have a son while there's no son of God
right you've changed everything and that
appears to me anyway to be what has
happened here with the Deuteronomists
they have flattened the hierarchy in
heaven they have changed the temple they
have changed the temple drama and even
its imagery they got rid of some things
in the temple that would have
represented individuals in heaven so
this is just about 24 25 years before
Lehi leaves Jerusalem and then we have
that 24 25 years and whatever happened
during that period of time where there's
a succession of Kings after Josiah he
reigns for thirty years or so now
something to realize that's important at
this time is the political makeup in the
power game that is going on in the
Middle East
the Assyrians have lost power by this
time they have lost almost all of their
power and what has risen is Babylon with
and especially now under King
Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon is now
basically taking tribute from the land
of Judah from Jerusalem and they've got
their own puppet king in there and then
they change them out and they change
them out some flee to Egypt well what
happens is the people the majority of
the people do not want to side with
Babylon they want to betray Babylon and
King Nebuchadnezzar and they want to
align themselves with Egypt now it used
to be thought that that was just
ridiculous but the truth is that
there are a lot of strong
between Egypt and Jerusalem the land of
Judah the Egyptians had brought in a
lot of people when they had basically
had Palestine as a vassal state previous
to this a lot of the accounting that we
see and business transactions and
documents from those things that we see
in this time period were actually
written in Egyptian and so the people
had a stronger affinity over to Egypt
than they did over to Babylon well
finally one of the sons of King Josiah
being Kent King Zedekiah is put into
pull into the throne and he's there for
in his first year and this is the
environment that they're in this this
political triangle between Jerusalem
Babylon and Egypt and then this crushing
of the doctrine of Christ in their
theocracy and in the temple and here's
Lehi now we don't know much about Lehi
and what his background is but there's
some things to consider there he's from
Manasseh
at some point it sounds like his
ancestors came down or maybe he did but
at some point his family had moved down
into the land of Jerusalem and we don't
know if he was really on board with what
he eventually gets on board with
the doctrine of Christ we don't
know where he's at
spiritually earlier in his life with
Sarah he may have bought into the whole
thing with the Deuteronomists he may
have been a lower law kind of guy at
first and it was all about Moses and all
about the law of Moses and the Torah and
doctrine of Christ is something that is
a blasphemy thing and they're not gonna
have any part of it we don't know it may
not be until the very beginning of the
book of Mormon where we see he has his
vision and that he ends up changing
right that's a possibility
now this is he is contemporary to
Jeremiah who is in Jerusalem at this
time and the interesting thing about the
Book of Jeremiah is a lot of biblical
scholars will say that that was written
by the Deuteronomists or at least that
there are several elements that look
like they were edited by the
Deuteronomists and they have changed
things but here's some things that we do
know that are in the Book of Jeremiah
there are people in the temple that are
fighting against Jeremiah so Jeremiah
the Prophet is in direct conflict with
several people here in the temple he is
fighting off false prophets all the time
those that are in Babylon at the time
when they get taken out to Babylon and
the in Babylon has not yet conquered
Jerusalem but they have taken some of
the court maybe Daniel for example maybe
Ezekiel but they are but Jeremiah is
fighting off these false prophets he
hammers the priests several of the
priests he fights against local prophets
and what they're prophesying about that
there is peace and not to worry about
things and oh go ahead you can go with
the Egyptians and everything will be
dandy no problems there and so he's
fighting all of these things off it
seems like with his preaching all around
him all around him he is surrounded by
people that are against him and again
that is the environment the theocratic
environment that he is in it is not just
an evil place right when we talk about
Lehi and Nephi and they're looking back
at Jerusalem and it's going to be
destroyed it's not just because it's an
evil place and they're doing bad that's
of course a big part of it but they are
in an environment in Jerusalem where
they have crushed the doctrine of Christ
it's gone it is a whisper it is a shadow
right now
of course there would have been a number
of people that would have held on to
things they're not just going to give it
up but not in Jerusalem right you're
pushed out if you're going to believe in
the older ways you're pushed out if you
believe in the things that Isaiah was
talking about so that's where Jeremiah
is and that's what's happening in
Jerusalem and that is what we need to
understand as we start off with the Book
of Mormon just as Isaiah was in an
environment that was fighting against
the doctrine of Christ and he was
sticking up for it left and right and
warning the people and preaching about
Christ about the Son of God the
suffering servant
that's what Lehi is doing and we're
going to cover that you're going to see
that right from chapter one you're going
to see a prophet a man that is fighting
for his life and that is fighting for
the doctrine of Christ he's not just
preaching repentance that's not the way
to look at this we want to see why he's
leaving why is he going to be killed
like all the other prophets
what were they preaching about why do
his own sons Laman and Lemuel despise
him and want to kill him it's not just a
power play
it's a theocratic issue that knee fie is
bringing us into this is how things are
in Jerusalem
we are leaving all of this we are
starting something new where we can make
sure that not only Lehi saves his life
from those that want to kill him but
that we can start a civilization built
built on the doctrine of Christ
that's the Book of Mormon we're going to
see this in the interplay between the
brothers we're going to see this in the
vision of Lehi in his very first a very
first vision of in Chapter 1
where he sees the Son of God and he sees
the horse of heaven like we already
spoke about this is immediately Nephi is
putting this out there to let us know
that this is a refuting what has
happened and transpired in Jerusalem
we're going to see this in the end
Lehigh's dream in his vision of the tree
of life you're going to see it
completely differently we're going to
see this with King Benjamin when he
gives his speech at the coronation of
his son Messiah we're going to see this
with Abinadi and King Noah and those
priests the fight the fight between the
doc those that would hold on to the
doctrine of Christ and those that want
to push it away we're going to see it
with the Antichrist of Korihor and
cherem and Nehor what Lehi and Nephi
do is build an entire legacy of people
built on the doctrine of Christ they
have seen what happens when you remove
that they have seen the corruption of
the church and the corruption of the
temple and as they pass on the records
to Jacob and then to Enos and Omni and
Jarom and then all the way down the
road here there is a legacy that is
built on the doctrine of Christ and they
can always reach back and pull back with
an understanding of how they are being
contrasted against Jerusalem and what
the condition that Jerusalem is in there
are many copies of the chapters of
Isaiah throughout the Book of Mormon why
there is a focus on Isaiah and chapter
52 verses 7 to 10 in the whole struggle
with Abinadi and the end King Noah
and his priests
this is all about Jesus Christ the whole
book is written on this and therefore
what is it doing for us we can see the
words Jesus and Christ throughout the
Book of Mormon we don't see that in the
Old Testament again why how is it that
they have this deep knowledge of these
things and yet we can't extract that out
of the Old Testament
not precisely only by implication right
we can infer several things from Isaiah
and all of the prophets and we can tie
them to prophecy and that's what the New
Testament writers do but specific
clarification on the son of God on
Jehovah as the suffering servant of
Jesus Christ is not in the Old Testament
that is why we have the Book of Mormon
because it is a check on the Old
Testament and on the New Testament when
we talk about the Book of Mormon in its
subtitle another testament of Jesus
Christ the entire book is written on
that and the Bible was - originally
right and still in a sense is but it has
had many errors editing errors
translation errors and probably a lot of
changes that were there on purpose well
we know that we know there are several
changes in the Bible especially the Old
Testament so as we get ready here for
the Book of Mormon and go through it I
know that as we go through this series
you're going to have a completely
different view of this book of its focus
of what it's trying to teach you and me
and you're going to see it in a
different way we're going to apply the
four interpreters of the higher in the
lower laws we're going to have a temple
imagery and drama we're going to have
authorship and then
Nehor principle and you're gonna see
how those all play out throughout this
book you'll see the characters of the
Book of Mormon in a different light and
understand where they're coming from and
you'll see the importance of the book in
our day as it fights with everything
it's got to protect and uphold and
preach about the doctrine of Christ I'll
talk to you next time
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