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Jason and all
“This is accomplished by the "great and marvelous work" He will bring fourth.” Quote from Jason.
As most of you know the best book on the great and marvelous work and the first book to bring forth correctly, this concept and linking word was The Last Days types and shadows from the bible and the BOM by Gileadi. They have this book on sale for $13.95 and free shipping for Christmas. buy
This week I have been thinking of what a revelatory chapter two is from above book Last days.
Anyone who has read chapter 2 “A great and marvelous work to come forth” and understands it will know what I am talking about.
Who has eyes to see in our group?
Who will recognize great knowledge when it is revealed?
Who can get revelation?
And who will scoff and harden their heart in our group?
Watch and you will see the division in our own group, between those who can read study and ponder and get revelation in the group (have oil in their lamps) and can testify of it and those who scoff and cannot understand the great and marvelous work and will be cut off.
For example here are some of the things I have been thinking about this week. Some of the amazing revelatory truths that I noticed in chapter 2: and I have been pondering about this all this week.
1. Before 1998 everyone in the church that I knew and read believed that the restoration of all things was all ready done by Joseph Smith.
2. Before 1998 no one was considering that the Great and marvelous work was yet future.
3. Before 1998 no one was teaching that the terms Great, Marvelous, and Work were linking terms and that the BOM writers when they saw something in their history, that was a type of the Great and Marvelous Work, they would use these words to describe their history so that you would know it was a type of the future Great and Marvelous Work.
4. Before 1998 Legrand Richards was teaching that the Great and Marvelous work was going on in his day, and he wrote a book about how the missionary work and work of the church was Great and Marvelous… ( I read that book twice and enjoyed it, and I remember hearing him give the same basic talk at conference over and over about it, until the red light would come on, and he was asked to stop going over time, every conference.) Love him but… Wow did he miss the boat, on the true meaning of the Great and Marvelous Work and the servants that would do this work in our future!!!
5. Before 1998 no one understood the great structure, of Nephi’s prophetic Sequence ( totally missed the hidden message that the angle forbade him to say directly) That Christ would come to the earth and lead the exodus to the promised land just like Nephi…
6. Before 1998 no one understood that Lehi’s dream, Nephi’s dream.. Nephi’s 1st prophetic sequence … the Journey narratives of Nephi’s family to the promised land … Isaiah 48,49 and Nephi’s 2nd prophetic sequence were a amazing structures, that was what the angle forbade him to say directly… and was all about the Great and Marvelous work that Christ would do. This is the most amazing literary structure, and if you do not understand it… you are really missing out on how the BOM will help someone recognize the coming servants and their mission.
7. Before 1998 no one considered how important, the learning of the JEWS were to understanding the BOM, except Joseph smith at the beginning of the church, who hired Jewish teachers… Without this understanding no one would recognize the great literary structures that were hidden in Nephi’s and Christ teaching.
8. Before 1998 no one considered, that Isaiah 48,49 were placed in the literary structure, to tell us LDS, what the angle forbid to say directly. It was like a safety key, to hid this knowledge until, the it could be revealed to the world right before it happened.
9. Before 1998 Nephi’s journey Narratives were just that… (history and not prophecy of our day the day of the lord).
10. Before 1998 no one had the knowledge of the JEWS, to make a rhetorical-Typological analysis of the book of Mormon.
11. Before 1998 no one was teaching that the Lord’s work a work like Moses did, was in the future, and that a prophet would come among the LDS and teach that the terms great, marvelous, and work, also suggest that the Lord’s work is preeminently revelatory in nature. It brings to light knowledge hidden up from the foundation of the world because of unbelief.
12. Before 1998, most people consider the day of his Power to be his second coming in glory… no one considered that he would again (just as Lehi saw the condensation of God in the meridian of time) which was a type of his 2nd coming Again in the last days… he would come back as a humble man (condonsation of God) and be a prophet to his people.
13. Before 1998, no one understood the great chiasms that Christ gave in 3rd Nephi Even as Nephi presents two versions of a prophetic sequence in relation to the great and marvelous work, so Jesus speaking to the Nephites, gives two recapitulations of essentially the same events. Whereas Nephi’s sequence are chronologies, however, the two, Jesus gives are not. Each is a discourse possessing a chiastic structure and deals with events conceptually rather than chronologically. ( a Chiastic structure, or chiasm, is an ancient literary device that sets off the words of a passage in climactic parallels leading to a central idea). Even still after 20 years these literary structures are not taught to the LDS and are considered a thing of no worth.
14. Before 1998 no one knew that Nephi’s Sequence and Christ two structures of Jesus discourse is the oneness of the coming forth of the words of Christ and the great and marvelous work. This oneness sheds much light on Nephi’s prophecy. In his first sequence, Nephi too speaks of some Gentiles hardening their hearts and others repenting. He says “If the gentiles repent it shall be well with them” But “wo be unto the Gentiles if it so be that they harden their hearts against the Lamb of God”. This dichotomy of some Gentiles hardening their hearts and others repenting occurs when the Lord performs his great and marvelous work. For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of men; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the harness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity, and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually according to the captivity of the devil.
15. Before 1998 no one knew the two center pieces of Christ structures… The thing that was the MOST important to the LDS… They did not understand why Christ quoted Isa 52,54 and left out 53 in this amazing structure. (which points one to 53)
A summary of Christ’s first discourse (3 Nephi 20:10-46) follows: A summary of Christ’s second discourse (3 Nephi 21:1-29) follows:
g—Moses testifies of Jesus Christ (20:23a-c)
g—The Father performs a great and marvelous work among the Gentiles (21:9a)
h—All who will not hear the words of Christ will be cut off from among the Lord's people (20:23d; compare Deut. 18:15-19)
h—Many among the Gentiles do not believe the great and marvelous work when it is declared to them by a MAN… (21:9b)
g—The prophets from Samuel testify of Jesus Christ (20:24)
g—The Lord heals his servant after he is marred by the Gentiles (21:10)
16. Before 1998 no one considered Isaiah to be a model for the book of Mormon. The relationship between the book of Isaiah and the Book of Mormon and the importance to us of both these books in the latter days. Not surprisingly, all of the ideas associated with the terms great, marvelous, and work that have emerged in our rhetorical study appear as well in the two Isaiah chapters that Nephi quotes. When we compare the Isaiah material with definition of great, marvelous, and work in the book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Convents, moreover, we find that for the most part these bodies of scripture duplicate and expand upon what chapters 48,49 of Isaiah express in brief.
Conclusion
Literary evidence all points to the same result: the Lord’s great and marvelous work of which Nephi speaks by and large consists of a dramatic future event. It comes as an eye opener to the Lord’s covenant people but as a point of controversy to the wicked whom it condemns. Indeed, scriptural definitions show that the very coming forth of the Lord’s great and marvelous work rests on our receiving the Book of Mormon for what it is, not for what we think it is. Moroni may have meant that when he said “Whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these. Behold I am Moroni, and were it possible I would make all things known unto you.
If you want to understand the Book of Mormon for what it really is… I would buy this book… and study it… looking up every reference and proving to myself by study and prayer that (inspired people) prophets are here on the earth… I have looked up every reference in this book twice, and I know, it is a gift for those who love Christ and want to find him…
What more can I say other than
Don’t ask me ask the Lord.
I fear I have said to much.
Dewey
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