another fascinating conversation with Todd mclocklin last time we did the temple this time we delve deep into the
priesthood as I was getting ready for this interview of course I used scripture notes to do the research
because it is the best study tool you can have if you are looking to upgrade
to better scripture study a greater knowledge better fluidity an unparalleled search capability and a
tool that is going to turbocharge your scripture study then go to scripture notes.com this is the
application that I use and it has made a world of difference in my scripture study again scripture notes.com here we
[Music]
go all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we brought back Todd
McLaughlin uh to talk about priesthood Todd welcome to the show hey it's great to see you
Todd we're gonna talk about all things priesthood what is the priesthood uh
what about ordinances what about the monistic priesthood the ironic priesthood women and the priesthood so let me start with a very basic question
what is the priesthood I'll talk about let's just eat the elephant right let's
uh walk him in and eat him um you know and I'm going to try to make a big
effort to kind of not be dogmatic and just sort of invite an expanded way of
thinking about something so I'm not I'm not asking anybody to like discard a current view but maybe perhaps invite
people to to S to look to kind of be open to an expanded view of understanding of something what if we
what if we were sort of a little bit open to the consistency of the scriptures and and thought of pried in
the way that it's described in DNC 107 and places like Alma 13 where it's
referred to is an order and then we sort of lean into what an order really is and
one way to think about not one way but maybe the primary way to think about an order is like think of it like an order
of the Boy Scouts or a doctor being a doctor you're part of an order or a
pattern of somebody who possesses or fulfills a pattern of something that gives them the right to do something or
or they become a certain type of person like a Boy Scout a a doctor a
lawyer um in the military a military is an order and so a priesthood is what's
uh you can probably quote this better than I can Greg it's after the order of the son of Jesus of Christ right of the
Son of God Son of God right the priest is the order after the Son of God other words it's a pattern of those
individuals who who fulfill and manifest the pattern of Jesus
Christ in in an Ascension order so
sometimes we locate priesthood at one particular spot in that order which is there's an ordination or an invitation
into the order and we call that priesthood but ordination and we can you
know we can unpack this if you'd like to ordination is really an invitation into the order and immediately gives you
certain rights in an order like you the right to like officiate in outward
things but the order after the son of of God um and maybe this is getting aead of our
ski tips quickly is the path of Ascension from The Rebirth of
baptism growing in states of sanctification and obtaining the power of God through faith and
sanctification until you are brought into the presence of Jesus Christ and receive the words of eternal life which
is kind of one way to sort of explain what that order is and as you ascend in
those transformative ascensions that are that are patterned in the temple
endowment you obtain the power of God to manifest his works and bring others into
the same pattern and salvific pattern so I'm not sure that's the clearest and
most concise way but let's maybe let's frame priesthood as an order more than maybe the traditional
ways we talk about it that's that tastes good to you I don't know yeah that tastes good I think last
time we talked about this and I said yeah that goes right along with a lot of what my audience has heard before with my concept of dbr because that's that
talks about the the order as well I like the idea of the Ascension I think there's a couple things there one
is an Ascension to me requires a hierarchy yeah number one and and I
think that when you think of an order right even if let's let's say you're talking about the Boy Scouts well you
can become uh a foot and then you can become uh I don't remember what second
class first class life and Eagle those are the ones I remember really militaristic right yeah yeah it's like
okay well there's there's an order there that has levels to a certain degree but it is a hierarchical structure and then
of course there's those that actually have the authority to actually give that
out your scoutm and then there's people that he has to turn to and make sure
he's the one put in that position and has the authority to give those things out so there is a
hierarchal structure with the Ascension yeah and and it reminds when you say Ascension it brings me right to the
temple yeah right and the idea of okay well I start with baptism with the or so it's the
ordinances that go along with that priesthood and and and ascending as you
say starting with baptism and then going on to let's say being sealed in the temple there's
second anointing also but there's you know this that Covenant path would be the ordinances of the
priesthood that go right along with Ascension is that right yeah I mean the the Covenant path so to speak is the
order of the priesthood it's the it is the oath and Covenants of the priesthood so like when you when you obtain the
Covenant of the remission of your sins it is part of that priesthood you're
part of that order so there's a lot to it so I don't like
to say hey it's this or it's that it's it's all of these things that's why the endowment is a pried endowment so when
you go through the endowment starting in that celestrial and you pass through the terrestrial and into the
celestial we can map that against second Nephi 31 we can map that against Lehi
Nephi's dreams and Visions we can map that against Alma 32 to the word to to
the from the from the perspective that you're really good about bringing out um
so the the Ascension itself is the order and this is why like in the
endowment men and women are invited to all of the covenants and to obtain the
Oaths of the priesthood and they're dressed and clothed in the Garment of the Holy pries in the robe of the priesthood they received the name signs
and tokens and all of those things pertaining to the holy priesthood and so
it is the order of the priesthood and the endowment that's that's actually what it is is a priesthood endowment
yeah and it's I think let me bring up a scripture here right this is DNC
21 okay and and this is how to give some context to what priesthood is it says
behold I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah yeah
the prophet before the coming of the great and Dreadful day of the Lord so you know Elijah comes he gives the keys
for the ceiling and for the ordinances of the temple but before that happened well there was already the
ordination of the ironic priesthood by John the Baptist there was already the ordination of the mesic priesthood to uh
uh Oliver cry and Joseph Smith from Peter James and John so here he they're still saying I'm going to reveal unto
you the priesthood and I see this as I'm going to reveal unto you the
ordinances I'm going to give you the keys yes or the
ordinances and that is in this context anyway the priesthood yeah yeah and the
spirit of Elijah is a topic that you and I could talk probably over two or three hours we it would take a long time to unpack it because there's so much into
that in that um but to this point I don't know I don't know if this is a scripture thing where you and I can talk
about scriptures or you know go to real quickly but if one of the one of the
keys in the DNC that unlocks a lot of this is in DNC 95 and it's 5 through S and I just pulled it up here if you
don't mind be okay if I kind of read this real quick yeah go ahead this is a
this is a fascinating section because he says behold the verily I say unto you that there are many who have been
ordained among you whom I have called but few of them are chosen so
immediately has this word linkage this this word linkage to ordination and being called so you know you know we
talk a lot about being called and chosen like DNC 1221 is many are called few are chosen so the
ordination is um sometimes I think people undermine this sometimes people
overstate it the ordination is is a critical component to being um
authoritatively invited into the order and
so he says many are ordained but few of them are chosen and then he goes on to
say something that sounds kind of harsh he says they who are not chosen have sinned a Grievious sin in that they are
walking in darkness at noon day and so he's making this distinction
and he does this certainly in1 where many are ordained to the priesthood they're invited into this
order but they don't move into let's call it a chosen sort of Ascension or
chosen status and we can kind of talk about what that might mean which means that your
ordination has the ability to Dam you as much as it has to bless you it's an
invitation into an order and what it really does um is it immediately gives you the ability and rights to officiate
in the outward ordinances of the priesthood whether it's an ironic or a mestic ordination um right you're 19 going on a
mission one second you have the right to lay your hands on someone's head for the gift of the Holy Ghost the next second
you know you don't now you do you know you can you can administer in that um but you're you can admin in these
outward ordinances and part of the order of the priesthood is moving into higher and higher structures of faith and
Ascension where you can actually manifest the power of God on Earth which is this what this order is designed to
do so the fullness of the priesthood or the priesthood order is the ability to
actually manifest the powers and works of Heaven on the earth and it's to draw
those things here and to U manifest them here and that's why this this pried
order is is quite unique and we need to learn and understand what exactly we're being invited into I've heard you say
before something along the lines of even in the mesic priesthood the outward ordinances are kind of under an ironic
order or or they're part of the ironic priesthood I I don't know I'm not convinced of that honestly
I don't know what does it mean by the outward ordinances then because to me what my
mind is is the split between the ironic priesthood and the mesic priesthood is
the ironic priesthood administers the lower law and that law would be uh the
law that we follow to reach to God and
the mesic priesthood is what man manages or
administers those things that are brought down from God so it would be kind of like you know as it's stated in
84 I think it is it's the it's the carnal priesthood yeah right it's it's
for what we do and that makes it that that kind of makes it the letter of the law type of thing as compared to the
spiritual priesthood which would be the mesic priesthood yeah yeah you know this
is a really hard distinction to make in sort of like this kind of format you
know if I have some slides and kind of can walk through it because it's a really it's a weird paradigm shift to kind of think through this way so it's I
I usually don't usually like L A launch into it's kind of hard let me give it a shot and and bring up two points that
might be helpful for the listener to kind of kind of formulate what I'm kind of
suggesting instead of calling it ironic and Mez let's call it just lesser the Lesser and greater priesthood like how it delineates in 84
d84 and the Lesser priesthood is the pries of the outward ordinances and the greater PRI is the ability of the
spiritual aspect and so the question is can we do quote unquote mestic
ordinances that don't have the actual ratifying spiritual aspect of them and
let me give you three examples of how that there's there is a there is a distinction that that does actually
happen and the first is in the marriage ceiling so we all run down to the temple we get married the ceiling we get sealed
and sometimes we don't really think maybe about what's being said because it says the sealing is predicated upon your
faithfulness right so are you sealed or not well it's like well I was sealed but
the actual ceiling is predicated on something happening later or fulfilling something it's a really good way to
think about how like when you got sealed you received the outward ordinance
invitation the authorative thing on earth in that invites you into a
Heavenly superstructure of an actual ceiling but that ceiling hasn't really taken place yet we know that by the
virtue of the wording that they use in the ceiling okay so Point number
two when elder bedar stands up in general conference and he says this this
radical radical thing and it's so radical I don't know if I didn't get a lot of
attention which kind of surprised me when he says something like when you give the gift of the Holy Ghost when the
priesthood puts your hands on their head it is I'm going to paraphrase them because I don't have it in front of me he says it's an injunction to to the
receiver to go and obtain the gift of the Holy Ghost remember when he makes this
distinction in general conference M that's a radical radical thing to
say because he what he's making a case for is that just because you receive
this ordinance doesn't necessarily mean that you receive the spiritual outpouring or the spiritual change of
that ordinance he makes a distinction between the two he says now it's an injunction for you to go out and get it
meaning that the ordinance and the spiritual result are not happening at the same time and what I'm suggesting is
that's a delineation between lesser and high greater you receive the outward ordinance and now you are to obtain the
greater the third point is is that the Nephites in third
Nephi um kind of does this rejoiner this postcript I think yeah or Morman when he's talking about
the Nephites in third Nephi and he's talking about giving the gift of the Holy Ghost and I don't have it in front
of me so I'm going to paraphrase it but he says something to the effect of when you want to give the gift of the Holy
Ghost to somebody go and pray to the Lord for first before you give
it right am I paraphrasing that close enough I I'm not familiar with that so
I'm not sure I got I'll Trust you yeah he says something to the effect like Moroni is saying he's giving an instruct
the Lord's giving an instruction pray unto me first so that you can give the gift okay which is a kind of an
interesting thing to say to arguably some of the most righteous powerful disciples those 12 disciples in
Bountiful at Christ appearance so even though that they have quote unquote the mesic priesthood the
Commandment is to go and do something else on top of that in order to be able to transmit that gift of the Holy Ghost
to them it's not enough that they're ordained even though these are really powerful really powerful
disciples okay so with these three examples hopefully it starts to kind of frame out this concept that a mezic
ordinance is an ordinance that is both physically done and in a spiritual
transformation or manifestation also occurs in that thing and when a when an ordinance is
done in its full completed turning of all the keys involved in it when the
ordinance is done the spiritual thing happens at the same time and this is why
Paul and uh sorry Peter and John are going into the temple and they're laying
hands on heads and giving the gift of the Holy Ghost and people are offering them money for that power
because they're manifesting something at that time and so when all the keys are turned that are required for a mestic
ordinance you find that the spiritual manifestation occurs at the same time that the physical manifestation is
happening but if if all the keys aren't being turned at the same time there's
space and mercy and Grace given where the Lord says okay you've received a physical thing and which quote unquote
I'm calling a lesser the the formal ordinance and I'm I'm going to give you
space for the real thing to happen now so that that ordinance can be
completed so this is what an endowment is we receive a quote unquote mestic
ordinance of an endowment well no one's getting endowed I mean when you're going in
totality like when you're going through the veil in the endowment that represents the calling in election made
sure in the second comforter experience well no one's no one's getting that out I mean maybe someone is
but the common experience is no but what you are receiving is a formal
authoritative outward form ordinance invitation that manifests a pattern to
you that if you awaken to it and you figure out what's going on and you hearken to the spirit and you fulfill all the keys of that pattern then that
ordinance will fulfill itself and you'll be endowed in reality which is to be
fully prepared to receive the ministering angels and the Lord in
mortality which is Jo how Joseph Smith describe the actual definition of the
fullness of the Gospel is to be able to obtain the fullness of the reality of Jesus Christ in the flesh now would you
say that uh you are though endowed with um
knowledge and with power through the Covenants
to whatever you obtain sure like if you're if you're a 19-year-old kid who hasn't thought 5 Seconds about it and he
goes and he learns something new then he got it a little endowment and if you're if you're 60 years old and you've done
this for 20 years and you just fasted for three weeks straight to obtain something and there
is a manifestation that's beyond anything that you actually thought was possible in your life and that's an
endowment so the question is is yeah like there's a lot in there
and there's a fullness available through it so the endowment is just what you're endowed with and and if all it was is
you showed up and you saw a pattern and you said okay this kind of weird you know like my temple prep was
on the drive to the temple my dad said this is kind of weird thing don't worry you'll get used to it just you know and
I'm probably I'm selling him short he's pretty awesome but you know this kind of how I was prepped in then mid
90s yeah and my Bishop said uh well it's kind of getting baptized you know you
make a covenant it's that's about all I got um but so so my my my my my my
reasoning for bringing up the idea of knowledge is is in DNC 8419 it says this it says and this greater priesthood the
mesic priesthood administer the gospel and holdeth the key of the Mysteries
that's a temple word of the Kingdom even the key of the knowledge of God yeah
that's right right right so and I often wonder about that because knowledge
there are different types of knowledge right I can have the knowledge in terms of intellectual and factual
knowledge it's not that but I can also have a knowledge through my experience when I say experience for
example actually going through the ordinance in a physical body that that is a knowledge that I
have gone through and that is necessary um for salvation right it's a
priesthood ordinance yeah that make sense in terms of of understanding knowledge or is there more to it than
that um well this is an incredible topic to explore because this invites us to reconcile
certain things that Joseph Smith said like um a man is a man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge this is
not these aren't like you said these aren't data points this isn't zero and ones it's not information it's a spiritual endowment
that gives us a knowledge of God and at the same time display is
Darkness so it's salvific and um one of the one of the
places we can jump to there's a lot of them in the scriptures but what a great place to start with this is in Alma 12
he says um I can RI can kind of quote it but I can kind of read it here um he says this
is going to be this is going to be Elma speaking to those at ammona correct
that's right yeah and so this is Elma 129 through like 12ish 9 through 11 MH he says many it is given unto many to
know the mysteries of God now a mystery is a knowledge that must be obtained
through faith and by Revelation and and also repentance and
whatnot but like it's it's something that God endows you with gives you as a
as as something to know him in all the intimate ways that we do that has a
salvific effect on the transformation of your being so he says it is given unto
many to know the mysteries of God nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of
his word there's your word right it all comes together um his word which he doth Grant
unto the children of men according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him and therefore he that will
harden his heart and now notice that knowledge and the hardness of your heart are inextricably
connected he that will Harden his heart the same receiveth the Lesser portion of the word and he that will not Harden his
heart to him is given the greater portion of the word until it is given
unto him to know the mysteries of God until that he knows them in full and they that will harden their hearts to
them is given the Lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning the Mysteries and then they are taken
captive by the devil and led by his will down to destruction now this is what is meant by the chains of hell so literally
the extraction of light and Truth out of you the word out of you the loss of knowledge is is um analog to being um
captured in the chains of hell and then he says um I know read this already he
says he will not Harden his heart to him as given the greater portion of the word until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in
full and so this is a definition of the of that Ascension that process of Salvation you come into the knowledge of
God and it's it's a fully comprehensive intimate knowledge of um of the totality of that
experience and this is represented in the endowment you're going in mystery now Joseph Smith called the keys of
prayer meaning the true you know the true orderorder of prayer he called that the Keys of the Kingdom a number of
occasions which is really interesting to unpack because one of the core parts of
our endowment is learning how to obtain the word like you say Greg all the time like you know we see the pattern of the
father sort of cascading from his presence light and Truth through the sun
through Michael through Peter James and John this this this hierarchy of ministering spirits that the word
Cascades to you as you repeat the words that are given to you so that you begin
to resonate and obtain the same word in syn chronicity Sanctified resonance with
the father and that's a transference of knowledge that's not just data it's a
transformational Ascension of knowledge and that's why the he called the Keys of
the Kingdom because it's kind of like establishing the word on Earth that transcends into heaven and that way the
the transformation of Heaven Can Happen on Earth and Earth can start to look like heaven because that that word is
placed here and you establish Zion and you EST Z within yourself talking a lot
here but um it's the endowment that prayer is the pattern of
obtaining this knowledge that is salvific there is a
uh there are a couple things here that I wanted to go off a couple tangents off of what you said one one was the
hardening of the heart yeah I I don't tell me what you think of this um as I
read hardening of the heart I see this at the beginning so much with you know the Book of Mormon is full of this term
yeah uh that is to me something that is prevalent in Jerusalem at the time uhuh
and prevalent with Layman and lemel who follow those at Jerusalem
and it goes right along with the term murmuring yeah right it seems to go
really closely with the idea of murmuring and hardening your heart it's murmuring it's this is the vo the the
vocal manifestation of the hardened heart yeah and uh this is what the
children of Israel did at SI yeah they murmured and they had hardened hearts
and uh they had the higher law at
first uh Moses comes down with the tablets he breaks them and he has to go back up and come
back down with just the lower law right with an ironic law essentially the law of
Moses and the difference between those two laws the major difference is I
believe a fullness of the doctrine of Christ yeah in that higher law that they
reject they do not want to see the face of God putting that in Temple terms they do not want to go through all the
ordinances and and get to the veil and see the face of God yeah that that Ascension sanctification path is intense
yeah so whenever I see the term Harden heart I understand the prac IC ality of just saying okay this is you're you're
callous to this okay but I can't help now in studying the scriptures in seeing
the term hardened heart and not associate it with knowing Christ yeah
and and that in turn it's my second tangent
um brings me to the term uh or the phrase that Jeremiah at
first goes through where he says in the the New Covenant they will know God and
God will know them and it's like what does that mean yeah because it's brought up again in the New Testament it's
brought up I think in the Book of Mormon again yeah and and and it's like there we get we're back to that idea of
knowledge again and and and it's what do you mean do I know him you know I I just
I I just wonder if again I it seems to me like there's more of a I wonder if that is a temple term oh man is it
brings you right into the knowledge received through priesthood ordinances as we get here in
uh section 8419 yeah man you just like so yeah you
just hit like so many notes at once um yeah you'll see um Hardness of Heart and
blindness of Mind always almost always coupled together in the scriptures like
you your the condition of your heart will always affect the condition of your understanding and then you bring up
murmuring because you will always give voice to or give word to the condition of your heart so like you if your heart
is hardened and your mind your mind is blinded you're going to give those you're going to spread that seed that
word um and that's why that's why the Lord says you know test the word you
know take the seed plant it deep in your heart and see what kind of fruit it produces and he says if it's a good seed
your understanding will begin to enlarge this is Elma 32 right he you can't
disconnect these things your my he says it's delicious to me and my understand my understanding begin to become
enlarged so the hardness and softness of your heart is tied to your knowledge and
this and you brought up Jeremiah and it's you know he writes it in your inward parts and it's also he is it in
Ezekiel that he talks about the fleshy the new and Everlasting Covenant will make a fleshy heart I think that's still
Jeremiah is that Jeremiah yeah I might be wrong but I I I want to say that's Jeremiah still so um the the softest and
hardest of heart is the great way it's the it's almost the singular best
Paradigm you can see that you can look at this whole thing through so you get into ether four three and four and Roni
is commenting on on the brother Jared's experience and he's telling the Gentiles he says if you come
forth in the same way that the brother of Jared did you will experience the same things that the brother of Jared
did at the Veil which was to obtain a fullness of the knowledge of of the Lord
right and he says if you come forth with a broken heart and a contrite
spirit right so he's hard heart yes which is which the way to think about a
broken heart perhaps is not like like a romantic breakup like that's how I
always thought about it because I got dumped all the time when I was a kid um
it's more like a broken heart is a perfectly softened heart one that is
completely softened By the Light Of Truth so that you are you are capacitated in your heart to obtain a
the light and know the light and truth of God and so um it's a receiving heart
it's a receiving heart it's open it's a heart that is letting go of the resistance of distortion darkness and
sin and so this is why this is the fundamental Covenant of sacrifice and I'm really glad they verified this in in
the endowment recently the law of sacrifice is a broken heart and a contrite spirit so this this stuff comes
full circle again like it's the beginning of that path which just let me just say this real quick sorry sorry
yeah no this is great which has always existed and been required yeah right there's this there's this idea that we
even hear sometimes from the pulpit that it's well the broken heart and the contrite spirit replace the animal
sacrifice it's like no it's all over the Book of Mormon and the old Testament
yeah it's in Proverbs it's in the Psalms it's it's in the Book of Mormon Nephi talks about it this is not after the law
of Moses this has always been required yeah the new and Everlasting Covenant
was the The Covenant that the the father gave adam in the
beginning and we call it the New Covenant in re in in sorry relevant to
Moses which was they call that you know the old like right like the Mosaic Covenant they call it the New Covenant
in in relation to that but it's not a New Covenant it's the ancient original Covenant and the ancient original
Covenant is to come forth with a broken heart and a contrite spirit and he will baptize you with fire and the Holy Ghost
and and this is what you get in Moses 6 with Adam you know he's outlining this
this is where you know where you get like by the water you're um you keep the law by the spirit
you're um sanctified by the blood you're just you justifi in by the blood you're
Sanctified which is the completion of a broken heart and a contct spirit and um
I don't know we're bro we're jumping around a lot I think because all of these things interconnect
so elegantly right yeah one Eternal round yeah yeah
it's it's all connected so it's easy to like just start jumping around and making all these connections but the broken heart and a contrite spirit is
the primary sacrificial Covenant that brings you into possession of everything
so if you want to if you want to complete your baptism which you have to have a broken heart and a contrite
spirit to receive that first endowment of the Holy Ghost that makes you justified through the remission of your
sins and then you and you continue in the straight and narrow path you one way
of thinking about a straight and narrow path is you're continuing and enduring in the state of having a broken heart so
that the spirit can can move through you and transition you into a state of
sanctification until you are prepared in all things to um have the full
experience of Christ which we learn from the brother of Jared is a result of a
broken heart and a contr spirit also I mean it's one of my favorite scriptures by the way three
ether 3:19 and it says Moroni says this he says and because of the
knowledge yeah of this man he could not be kept from beholding within the
veil and and he saw the finger of Jesus which when he saw he fell with fear for he knew that it was the finger of the
Lord and he had Faith no longer for he knew nothing down wherefore and I love
putting this along with Elma 32:21 right he says wherefore having this perfect
knowledge of God right is the experience is there it's not just some
factual knowledge of a historical event or anything else yeah formula or whatever it might be right wherefore
having this perfect knowledge of God he could not be kept from within the veil yeah it's it's so tied and okay so you
brought up Moses and and Moses is the great archetype of
what of all of this um in Dean c84 he literally says the purpose of the mezic
priesthood is to bring you into the fullness of the glory of God In the Flesh that's the purpose of the mil it's
it's the Ascension into the presence now um the brother Jared shows up in the
Book of Mormon and he starts saying like things that are tied to this that are incredible like you can't make this
stuff up and in Jacob 1 Jacob is saying things like let us not bring upon
ourselves the same condemnation that the children of Israel did with
Moses right he's saying let's not do that too let's press forward and why not
obtain a perfect knowledge of Christ so he he he's he's offering up
the invitation and the pattern himself to do this as well so this is why the fullness of the Gospel is in the book of
even in the even in the non- unsealed portion is because it's giving you the pattern of how to obtain the
fullness through this it's powerful so here here's another point and tell me what you think
about this so we've talked about this Ascension um
and and coupled that with the mesic priesthood which is the after the order
of the Son of God and again to me in my study I see that title of the Son of God
meaning condescension I think that means lowering yourself I think it's charity
yeah um and so going through the
temple and the mesic priesthood is required right to be able to have all of
these things plus the keys of Elijah um to go through this Covenant path as we go through the ironic
priesthood ordinances and then we go through the milisic priesthood ordinances and the
ceiling uh of man and W woman in the
temple that is an order of Christ that
is an order of the Son of God and this is why I say to people especially in our day and age where identity politics has
pulled us so far away from certain truths and yeah it is the doctrine of Christ cannot be
separated from Marriage right this is this is this is
part of that Ascension this is part of that order in order in other words the
order of Christ the order of the Son of God is the order of exaltation yeah
identi Politics the idea I mean my goodness Greg you know this better than anybody what there is a doing is there's
this casting down of hierarchies and and this is this is like become like the
most offensive thing to people let's let's some they call it patriarchy let's
cast down hierarchies and we kind of gotten into this for lack of a better
technical term and Antichrist view that if there's a hierarchy
that is that is the innate wickedness or evil and the the reason for that is is
because hierarch like dominance hierarchies are and boy this I'm going to say too much very quickly but
dominance hierarchies can be very very Wicked meaning that like you have the top feeding off of the bottom and the
way you ascend a hierarchy is by consuming that which is under you and I believe that's actually like a covenant
structure called Murder to get gain like you you you you you you consume the
lower thing in order to Vault yourself to a higher thing right so rightfully
self serving yeah like rightfully so this we we innately know we unat know
there's there's something really evil about a dominance hierarchy that's consuming off of the
bottom that doesn't NE that that actually doesn't negate the idea of a hierarchy though because what the Lord
does and he establish is in the in the Ascension orders is the way that you ascend is through the order of
sacrifice so those who are above you it's not really that they're above you it's that they were willing to go way
lower than you were yes so it's this Paradox which again is to me is the idea
of the Son of God title it's it's exactly why this is the order after the Son of God the other orders are after
the orders of murder get gain yes the order of the Son of God is the order of sacrif and so this is why like in DNC 50
you get this this this really precise language even though it sounds like it's more flowery than poetic he says he that
is ordained of God and sent forth the same is appointed to be the greatest notwithstanding he is the least and the
servant of all and the Order of Heaven like we were talking about you have the
father and then you have Jehovah then you have Michael and you have these ministering servants that the Cascade of
of light and truth comes from the father and bestows upon you through this order of prayer the order is those who are
ministering in sacrificial ascendancy so um if you want to ascend
in the order of God it's it's according to your faith in ability to sacrifice
for the Salvation of other people so that's where you get an Enoch and a Noah and you get these these prophets that
are that are um recorded in scripture is because of the great sacrifices that
they were willing to go through in order for light and Truth to come into this
world so I think it's a key point to draw yeah I I like and of course Jesus
says several times just that one phrase that that tells you how the hierarchal a spiritual hierarchal structure works or
a melisi priesthood order works and that is the greatest among you is the least
among you yeah right it sounds like a paradox but it's an understanding of the role
of the person who's at the top of the hierarchy or higher in the hierarchy yeah it's exactly it like it you know he
says in 88 something like um he descended upon upon high so that he could like so
he descend upon high and he descended below all things so that he could
comprehend all things here goes back to the knowledge that he might be in and
through all things the light and truth of all things so no one no one descends lower than
Christ and that's why he it's after fact it's not even possible for us to descend that low because of the nature of an
atonement that's why we're after the order of Christ yeah
um but you think of the knowledge then that is gained by him in Gethsemane and
on the cross when we talk about that experiential yeah right knowledge it's
like okay that the greatest event in the infinite universe is is a an event of
sacrifice of condescension and of knowledge yeah at
that point right yeah I mean so much so that when the spirit interviews Nephi in his in his vision he says dust thou know
the condescension of God and he says I don't he but I do know he loves us like it's because it's so
beyond it's it's not that he was ignorant it's said he he knew that it
was beyond anything that he could actually comprehend is that condescension yeah so the true
priesthood of God if you Vault this is why DNC 121 is so important he says if he says if you for a moment I mean
paraphrasing if you for a moment a serpent unrighteous Dominion or think you have
dominion you lose your priesthood in that moment right Amen to your priesthood in
the moment you think that you are above something it's a sacrificial order and it you lose
your authorities I think as you supposed he says you supposed you had something that you didn't even have because
because being called into this order don't confuse that as you have the priesthood of God in the sense of like you have it all it's you're you're being
invited into a sacrificial pattern that if you fulfill you will have power to
draw your children to you and draw your wife to you and draw Maybe reward to you
so that you can bring them to Christ because you can manifest that order of Jesus Christ it's extremely powerful but
it's it's sacrificial yeah I love what you're saying there too and like you're saying I mean what we're talking about
here in in how would you draw them you bring them to Christ and you're doing the same thing as Christ to do that yes
right you you go through the same process in a smaller uh manifestation right to to get
there to to do that and and that to me is much more I gave a talk recently on this in sacrament meeting and it was um
we were talking I I did it on the theme of The Ward and the theme of The Ward was uh the primary song um I'm trying to
be like Jesus uhuh right and so my point in the talk was how do you do that and
and it's to me it's you know I think we often times think of the lessons the par
ables the teachings but that is secondary to me
yeah right if you want to be like Jesus you do the acts of Jesus yeah which is
service healing watching out and offering charity the well-being of those around you and most importantly even the
atoning sacrifice now we can't do it to that level right but that's the model is
is you're going to condescend yeah below others and serve
them and and care enough about them yeah to pull them up yeah because everything
in God's plan is by invitation and persuasion and the way you persuade is through sacrifice that's why like every
knee will bow it's not because there's a force kicking in the butt and they fall to the ground and someone's stomping him
saying bow to him it's because they become aware of the level of sacrifice
and the most hardened amongst us when they become aware of that awareness it'll penetrate them in a way that will
compel them to worship Jesus Christ and you know like you're saying you did this
presentation for this Ward and I've never served as a bishop um probably for a lot of different different reasons but
I think if I were to be called as a bishop I think I would like to think that what I would do is maybe go to the
Lord and say what sacrifices can I obtain or Commandments of Sacrifice from
you because you can't declare your own sacrifice like true sacrifices are always commanded like you can't kind of
come up with your own um I don't think you go to the Lord and say what sacrifices can be required by me so that
through that sacrifice I can soften the hearts of the people in my Lord so that they'll
hearken to my words and I'm willing to go through whatever you want me to so that they
will look at me and say oh I can trust him because of the sacrifices and then maybe I can deliver
the word of the Lord in a way would that would bless them in their paths I think that's the order and
pattern of the priesthood are those who say I will sacrifice anything so that
their hearts will be softened and they'll hearken to me and hearken to the spirit as I as I can deliver the words of the Holy Ghost soy
weird really powerful I think um all right let me move on to our last top
subtopic here on on the priesthood um women in the priesthood yeah um we've got a one Spectrum you
know uh those that would Advocate right uh act be activists
to change things so that women have the priesthood they hold the priesthood and have keys in the priesthood offices Etc
right you've got on the other side of the spectrum saying well women will never have the priesthood and that's the
man's role Etc but there's a couple things I think here that we we need to consider first is if you've been through
the temple then you understand at least from an outward ordinance right that that you
as a woman are called to
become to be in a position to be a priestess right eternally and so there's
some type of priesthood there that she would hold yeah and and that would she
would act through right um I don't know that that really puts you in the middle of the spectrum
necessarily but I'm just saying for both sides that are looking at that there is
a this is my first point I'll come up with a second one later here but it's there there is there certainly going
through the temple when you receive your when you go through the endowment and and well precisely when you are going
through the washing and anointing yeah you're you're called to these things so to speak so that you can eventually have
them yeah that's that's right like the initiatory the initiatory and the second
anointing are the bookends of the endowment and um like the whole thing is the endowment
and oh man I'm kind of taking a leap here of deduction so you know if this
doesn't taste good to your audience they can just freely discard right but um in the initiatory
you're being initiated into the priesthood um and the male is you have an
ordination I believe that the ordination is really like um it's a office in the
priesthood but but the office is not the priesthood itself like DNC 107 and Bruce
mcon were really clear when they said no office is above the priesthood meaning
that the priesthood itself is the super structure and offices are contained within it for particular reasons but
it's not the priest itself priest itself is the order of coming into the presence of God and obtaining all that he has
so do women have the priesthood yeah women are initiated in the endowment
into the order of the priesthood which is they're initiated into the order of Ascension to come in and to singly and
separately obtain the presence of God and be prepared to be sealed to a husband who has done the same
thing um men in the initiatory are declared clean contingent upon them
coming clean through their faithfulness and I believe that's why men receive offices in the priesthood because there
are vehicles to come clean women are declared clean and so I believe that if
men if men and women look at offices in the priesthood as like a dominance hierarchy and women desire that
dominance hierarchy because they believe it gives them power then they're guilty of the same sin that invalidates the true order of priesthood and the men who
look at the orders of of of office as a dominance hierarchy they're both going they're both in a state
of contrary to the priesthood um men are to come clean and men are to be single-mindedly focused on
that you get that in the Book of Mormon everywhere you get Jacob and and Roni and and Alma and all of these saying I
must say these things to you so that I can come clean from your blood and sins it's it's the predicate for them to
obtain their order of the priesthood women are declared clean and that's a
whole other conversation but both of them are invited into the same order they obtain the same Oaths and Covenants
of the priesthood they're dressed and clothed in the Robes of the Holy priesthood there's not anything
different about both of them only in that men are are charged becoming clean and women are declared clean it's the
only really difference in the whole endowment so I'm gonna say something radical Greg and your audience can kind
of get mad at me if they want but I'm just gonna invite them to another Intrigue they're they're definitely gonna listen lean into this a little bit
and think about this perhaps let me invite the oath and Covenant of the priesthood is not actually in DNC 84
it's just being referenced in 84 it's being talked about it's a it's kind of
like a little dissertation about the oath and Covenant it's not the actual oath and Covenant the oath and Covenant
of the priesthood are the Oaths received in the covenants made in the
endowment that's the oath in Covenant of the priesthood and that's a keep saying this
but it's a longer conversation but like if if if you can kind of like see that
it makes a lot more sense because in DN c84 it says weird things like whoever receives this oath in Covenant and turns
all together their away from it will not receive the Forgiveness of sins in this life in the world to come well that's a that's a son of predition warning that
one only obtains if they have the fullness of the call their second comforter blessings well no one's getting their
second comforter blessings in their ordination in the mesic priet you have to kind of think through this like what's going on here right he's actually
just explaining it but if you fulfill the actual pattern of the order of the
priesthood if you fulfill and receive your actual endowment which is to obtain
the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ and the ceiling power and for
your audience maybe like if you want to go run and look at like Helman 10 and Moses 1 and two and you know ether like
that's the sealing power the fullness of the priesthood um that's when you are the
warning is given if you turn away from from this oath in Covenant because the Covenant the oath of the priesthood when
we say oath and Covenant the oath is the oath you receive from the father that you have that you have obtained eternal
life it's the calling and election nature sure so a once but and that goes back I
I like that description that's uh some people think that the oath and Covenant is what we do the oath is not
what we do the oath is from God yeah right it's like we're told the Lesser the ironic priesthood does not come with
an oath that's right it does not you can't just have the law of Moses so to speak or the lower law and have the
ability to be exalted because the the law the lower priest the law of Moses is not salvific it cannot say cannot save
you it just it just carves out space that protects you that if you kind of
wakeen up and repent you can go and obtain like that's what Lehi does like he's in the law of Moses he wakens up he
repents and he actually obtains a fullness even though he's in a mosaic structure yeah um yeah you're right the
mesic prood comes with an oath the ironic prood does not yeah well that's
awesome stuff Todd I really appreciate it I really like talking with you about this you're obviously very knowledgeable about all of these topics so it's nice
to be able to go off on these tangents and have you be able to respond to all this well I love talking with you and sorry I'm a little emotional I just it's
just a feel of Burning Man we've got to come to Christ we've got to repent and exercise Faith there's a lot yeah
available app appreciate that appreciate your testimony and your knowledge and um we'll do it again I appreciate you
coming back thank you my friend all [Music]
right
