Walk On The Nile - Peace Is NOT Compromise

Years before President Nelson gave his talk on "Peacemakers," the word "Peace" had already been hijacked. Peace in the scriptures is not what you think it is. Peace is "Shalom" which is comparable to the Egyptian concept of "Ma'at." That is, order, truth, justice, and harmony. As Jesus is described in the New Testament and Book of Mormon, it is "Grace And Truth." Both are necessary. Without both, we end up with Untethered Empathy and Malevolent Compassion.

 Raw Transcript

all right let's take a walk uh here I am
in lexor Egypt this is home of Temple of
carac Chapel of opet which we'll go over
a little later not in this episode but
another one uh this is also the Temple
of
Luxor the Avenue of the sphinxes which
is kind of ties those two together with
the Festival of opet uh really
interesting stuff now you can see where
I am here this is actually our hotel
back here the the eating area in the
back of the hotel right behind me here
you're going to see a marsh or or Reed
area so very similar to maybe what uh
the thickets of of reeds that Moses was
put into or ended up in here when uh
perhaps hat shepsut the the daughter
daughter of the Pharaoh or a daughter of
the Pharaoh ended up drawing him out of
the water which is what Moses
means and uh this is the Nile right
sitting here right on the Nile in Egypt
here which is pretty cool
uh this episode is brought to you by
scripture notes I just created a new
collection note which is on the topic
I'm talking about right now which is
peace and
righteousness and Shalom right in in the
uh in in the in the old test and the
reason I'm distinguishing those is
because I want to say that you know what
was brought out of the Old Testament as
peace is actually brought into the New
Testament that Jesus often times talks
about there was a covenant of Peace in
the Old Testament um something very
important and and that collection note
then I'm bringing all these phrases
together again I love using AI the
Daniel assistant uh with scripture notes
because it brings in much more than just
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actually get a much more uh robust
search result when I'm using Daniel as a
search so that's something if you do use
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using that it it really helps out
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every day would be lost without it all
right so as I walk along the Nile here a
little bit I don't know how much room I
really have so I'm going to go pretty
slow but you know there's a lot of talk
about peace lately when you have uh The
Peacemaker talk from president Nelson
which is very important very appropriate
we're going into a time where things are
getting more and more heated in the US
especially we're getting more and more
polarized I think that's going to spread
stronger and stronger we're starting to
see this in Europe and and other areas
where you're getting a strong division
there is a shift right now that is
definitely moving to the right um and
and so this is now a time of of new
division where people are moving
demographically from the left to the
right and from the right to the left uh
based on their value structure and their
World
Views and um so I think it's something
that's very appropriate our our dialogue
from social media is is lowering
dropping in intelligence quite a bit as
we sit back as anonymous
commenters on uh on social media and it
just naturally to a default because of
human nature is going to become more and
more vitriolic so it's an important
thing I think uh Elder Stevenson at BYU
talked a little bit about peace but I
want to bring something up about this
because it's been weaponized and not
just since these these Brethren have
given talks but quite a long time ago
right peace is something that is
weaponized and and changed into a
different meaning I want to go anciently
here we are in Egypt right sitting here
on the Nile walking along the Nile I
want to talk a little bit more about
what this I think this means I've done a
lot of research recently on the
parallelism the comparison between the
concept the Egyptian ancient Egyptian
concept of mat mat was a goddess she's
the goddess of order Justice
truth and Harmony right so it's it's all
things that are good it's all things
that are right living the the the the
right life and and and and well beyond
this and and this is something that is
very similar to what peace is or shalom
in the Old Testament when you combine it
especially with zedek right zedk is is
righteousness righteousness
righteousness is aligning yourself with
that truth and that order and that
Justice and that Harmony and really that
is
God's God's uh uh
structure it's not just nature it it is
God's structure and when you are aligned
with that then you are you are in
harmony you are you are participating in
mat and Shalom is very similar to this
the Covenant the ancient Israelites had
an a a covenant of peace and this was
very important to them uh and everything
had to be peaceful it had to do with
blessing the temple had blessing the
people blessing the land so that there
was a a binding of peace within the
Israelites now a lot of you are going to
say well Greg you're comparing the evil
Egypt with the righteous Israelites
that's silly silly right they came out
of Egypt Abraham taught in Egypt and
wrote in Egypt Joseph of Egypt ran the
country essentially as Vis here and
spoke and wrote in Egyptian and probably
did since he was little boy by the way
before he was ever there that's my guess
and of course you've got Moses who's
writing an Egyptian right he's set up to
be the next Pharaoh
possibly and is in an elite position and
of knowledge and and
education an Egyptian education along
with Hebrew right his mom is is bringing
him up as well within the palace so we
don't understand typically how this
really works these things that come out
with the Israelites out of Egypt are not
left behind other than the loss of the
Pagan
worship and um the uh uh the pride that
is kind of represented by the Pharaoh
and moved over into what you would say
this is Moses and though we don't see it
in the Old Testament it would be a
Christian type of world right out
pulling them out into the Wilderness now
they don't quite fully get there they
they reject the higher law the mesic law
which is the law of Christ The Gospel
full the full gospel of Christ they
reject it and they're given the lower
law but that's what they're pulling and
when you look at the and again a lot of
people think that this is heretical but
when you pull and under when you look at
Egypt and you compare it to the Jewish
Israelite temples right the Temple of
Solomon and the tabernac
you're going to see very very similar
things I was just a Carnac yesterday
you've got three different stages that
you go through in the temple there is a
holy of holies there is an altar uh
there is what you would consider
something like an ark uh which is where
where the or there would be which is
what the bark would be uh which is a
mobile Throne comparable to
the uh uh The Chariot the Chariots The
Chariot Throne that we hear about in the
the Baba right that we get in uh the Old
Testament it it's it's very very similar
so they are pulling a lot from Egypt and
they need to pull from Egypt it's kind
of like Joseph Smith pulling a little
bit not all of it but a little bit from
masonry for the
temple okay it's corrupted but it's it's
something that's there and we can make
it better and and restore it and that's
kind of what's happening now of course
Egypt is pulling these ideas and these
Concepts from the Patriarchs the ancient
Patriarchs from the time of Noah right
and Enoch and Abraham's probably got all
of these writings when he goes into
Egypt he's got all of this so it's uh
you look at these balloons I don't know
if you can see those back there there's
a lot of balloon riding out
here looking down at the temples and the
ruins
Etc uh we've got a boat coming in here
hopefully that's not too loud I'm here
fairly early in the
morning um so they're pulling a lot of
this from Egypt what I'm trying to get
to you here is saying don't dismiss the
Egyptians don't dismiss the Egyptian
culture it lasted for thousands of years
and was extremely strong not just
because of the resources of the Nile but
because of their belief
system which was founded originally on
the religion of
Noah the religion of Enoch right it was
Christian originally I me look at the
myth of Osiris
so the idea of
mat is something that is gives us I
believe informs us a lot more and gives
us a lot more context on
the idea of what peace is because I
think that that's the same idea and what
they're pulling in the rituals that they
work with and the idea of Shalom and
sedc which is the second half of
melchisedek right king of
righteousness has to do with peace and
so we weaponize this and I've seen so
many books written within the church and
by Scholars that are talking about you
know the idea of peace and they untether
it
completely from these ideas of Shalom
and sedc
righteousness and from
M and and that is look there is an order
there is a truth there is a Justice and
if you're going to have peace you have
to follow those things you have to be
Tethered to those
or there is no peace it's a lie to
untether yourself from these
things um and and what you end up with
and this is what you're seeing a lot
right now with the visitor visting
speaker a couple weeks ago at BYU a lot
of the books that I see written here is
is peace becomes a word substitute for
compromise now I'm not saying you don't
ever compromise and you have to
compromise in a secular world with with
faith issues that are going to let you
move forward but not your principles and
not
truth you don't you don't sacrifice
principles and truth and that's when you
read these things that's what they're
asking and it's the same idea as you
heard me talk so many times about
critique peace becomes this substitute
for critique which is to break
down and to
change and uh it it's it's very very
similar is how they're putting this in
it's always the same break down order
and truth and Justice and and and sweep
in something else and that's what I see
as this as peace uh being how peace is
often times being used today and it's
very unfortunate now of course I don't
believe that that's what Elder Stevenson
or um what uh certainly not what uh
president Nelson has done I mean they're
very clear on what they're talking about
the problem is that word has already
been weaponized for a couple of decades
or more into something else and so it's
very easy for those that follow a
religion of Academia to to twist this
into something completely
different and and it's not right so you
think about uh you You' got John valon
who kind of represents mercy and in L
Miz and you've got ja who represents
Justice on the other side and and of
course his Mercy comes on to jav and he
experiences it he just can't handle it
and he's overcome and Justice is beaten
in a sense as he throws himself off the
wall uh not not beaten but it's overcome
right but M and peace and righteousness
are both because otherwise you're out of
Harmony so there's two sides of the
sword right there's two sides of the
swords of Truth you you've got to you've
got to have both often times we get this
phrase in the New Testament and in the
Book of
Mormon you know about Jesus Christ being
full of grace and truth it's both
sides it's both sides and you can't
remove one or the other and we are
moving into a culture quickly of full
Grace and no truth and that is out of
harmony with God that's completely out
of harmony with God
and and so my point here
is when you hear peace especially within
the
church understand what it really means
think of the the the parallelism it's a
par they're parallel titles to
melchisedek you know melkisedek is the
king of Salem which means peace he's the
king of
Peace but his title is king of
righteousness that's what melchisedek
means mey right that that's that's a
variation on on mik which is King and
sedc which is
righteousness and then what is the other
title kind of a a he hebraism that goes
along with that it
is Prince of
Peace milisic king of righteousness and
Prince of
Peace and then of course milisic is one
of two that we at least that we know of
uh who led a society into Zion that was
lifted
up and uh
translated but think about how you get
there what is the difficulty of getting
there is it just that you just
compromise with everyone you just put
your arm around everybody and you you
say we tolerate all of this no that's
not
peace that is not peace it has to be
tether to truth so there are going to be
some that are going to say no I don't
want
this right want the compromise I want
the high levels of Tolerance here that
are
um allowing for iniquity that are
allowing for falling out of the bounds
of
order and and jav jav's
stars
uh that that that you know he's so
focused on just Justice it's not that
that's evil
it's that he doesn't allow Grace
in now you can go to the opposite end of
the spectrum and you can say well it's
it's we're all Grace and we're not going
to allow any justice in we're not going
to allow any truth well you're out of
Harmony that is what they are saying
when when they talk about Jesus being
full of grace and truth you have to have
both so
peace is a combination of Grace and
Truth don't allow yourself my suggestion
don't allow yourself to
infer that peace is compromised we are
moving toward that quickly that peace is
a level of Tolerance that tolerates
iniquity right charity does not tolerate
iniquity grace and truth peace
righteousness
shalom
ma thanks for listening