WEEK 48 [JONAH; MICAH] INSIGHTS

“He Delighteth in Mercy”

November 21 – November 27

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Welcome back you guys.

This is week 48 of Creative.

Come follow me for the Old Testament and we have two new minor prophets to

study, but probably not too new to you.

In fact, one of the most famous stories in all of biblical history

is this week cuz we're diving into Jonah and Micah and Jonah's only

four small chapters, but oh my word.

Power packed for chapters, um, that were really powerful for me to study.

Mike is a little different.

It's a little more, it feels a little more like Isaiah, but I felt like there was

a common theme between them and that was this incredible mercy and patience of God.

I felt like the more I studied both of these books, the more I appreciated

God's continual forgiveness, his.

His character that allows us to continually make mistakes

and reach out to him and have.

Say it's okay, Maria, let's, let's try that again.

That's what you're gonna see in these prophets and it's so good.

It's just so good.

So let me break down a little bit.

So just so you know where you are in time when it comes to Jonah, he is someone who

taught before the Assyrians conquered.

So his story's a little bit different in that it's a story.

So we don't have any of Jonah's sermons or his words to the people.

What we have is his life and his choices, and that is the sermon.

It's written in poetry, so it's, you know, you have to kind of take it all with a

grain of salt, but there's a lot to learn.

I think it teaches us a lot about forgiveness.

I, it, it helped me understand why there are such a invitation

constantly from the Lord and from our prophets and apostles to set aside

grudges and to find the power to.

Jonah's story will just beam that out at you.

Uh, and it's good.

It's so good.

And I also think it teaches us a little bit about profits and how they need grace

and they repent and they make mistakes.

And I think that's something that we need to teach our kids really well.

So Jonah's a good example of that.

Um, I also think it shows you how much God loves his people

cuz Jonah's message is not to the Israelites like we've been study.

Almost all the prophets of the Bible so far.

His message is to the Gentiles.

To the Pagans.

And what I love is that the Pagans or the Gentiles that he ends up

being around are the ones who.

Shift his heart and uh, you just see how God loves all of them and how he's

a God of second chances for all of them.

Uh, Jonah's story is really powerful.

The second one is Micah.

He's gonna teach later, so he'll teach the north and the south.

He's going to be around the same time as Jose and Ams and Isaiah.

So, you know, time wise, that's probably where he's at.

Um, but his message.

Similar to Isaiah in that it's written a little bit tricky at times, so I'll

help you guide you through it, but also because his message is one of.

Look how far off you are.

Look at the wounds that your idolatry and your lack of charity have created.

You need to regroup.

You need to change, and if you don't change, you're gonna get destroyed.

And then ultimately he preaches about the gathering, but probably.

And ultimately, like the biggest thing he preaches is about the Messiah.

The same thing you could say about Isaiah.

He gives us a glimpse into the savior who will come, who will bring about this

piece, and not just where he's born, but how he'll bring about this piece.

All of that's gonna be in those seven chapters of Micah.

So settle in you guys.

It's gonna be a really good week.

Grab your scriptures, grab your notes, and let's get.

The story of Jonah is one of conversion, but not just of the big city of Neva

where he's called to preach, but also a conversion that has to happen.

For Jonah, just like any missionary, right?

You're, you're sent out to preach and teach the word to the people,

but you're also sent out so that you yourself can gain a more solid

testimony of, you know, the gospel and service and all those good things.

I think that happens with Jonah too, and I think he must have had some,

I assume he has some personal wounds when it comes to the Assyrians.

I think lots of Jews did in his day cuz they.

Awful to them.

They dominated them in a way that was torturous.

So whether Jonah had experienced something personal in his own family

that made his heart hurt, or if it's just his people, generally he is.

He's got a wound that is hard and he is, it's, I think, a little bit

scabbed over at this point where he's, he doesn't wanna have a soft

heart toward the Assyrians or to the Ttes, which is a little city in Assy.

So he just doesn't want it.

So when the Lord invites him, in fact, in two, the Lord calls him

and he says, arise, go to Niva, that great city and cry against it

for their wickedness has come up.

the phrase that jumped out at me was a rise.

You're gonna see that same word a few times this week, and I think it's

the imitation that all of us get, not just specifically about a call,

but anything that the Lord asks us to do where we have to step up above

the natural man tendencies in us.

And.

A rise to a higher level.

And that's hard.

We all know how hard that is.

I mean, have you ever been in a fight with your spouse or with one of

your kids and you know you're fully justified in your anger and frustration

and so there's tension, right?

And then you get a prompting as you're praying for how to get through this.

And the prompting is go and make.

Whether or not it was your fault, go and make amends and

you don't want that answer.

You know, like there are times when that's the prompting I'll get

like, go and make, make it right.

And in that moment, instead of walking into the bedroom to talk to Jason and

resolve things, I will say, you know what?

There's laundry that I need to, or I gotta go do the dishes.

Or maybe I'll go paint that wall in the kitchen.

That's been like, you come up with a hundred different things to do instead of.

Go and resolve the fight because you want to hold onto your anger for just a

little while longer and you're not ready.

And that's, I think, where Jonah is.

But what I love about the Lord is his promptings there anyway,

he knows Jonah's gonna resist.

He, he has a plan laid out for how Jonah resists, but he's going to,

he's gonna plant these seeds of.

Hey Jonah, I need you to arise.

This anger and bitterness that you have towards these people needs to change.

And so I'm gonna give you all these invitations to arise, step up,

and it's just gonna take Jonah a little bit to get there, . But I

kind of love studying the process.

It was really helpful for me cuz you know, we all tend to get grudges and feel.

Infuriating unfairness as elder RAs called it.

So I think his message is a good one.

So you see what he does when you flip the page.

You can see that in three.

He does rise up, but he doesn't go to Niva, he goes to tars.

Here's what you need to know about that.

Tars is exactly the opposite direction.

We don't know exactly where this town is, but most of the scholars I read think

it's somewhere in Spain, which means.

He didn't just stay still.

You know, he, he didn't get the call in whatever city he was

in and then just stay there and say, no, Lord, that's not for me.

He actually leaves and goes the exact opposite direction.

This is when you go to Home Depot to buy paint for the kitchen instead

of go to the master bedroom to solve things with your spouse.

That's where he's at, and he leaves, and I don't know if

he's just trying to buy time.

I don't know where his head is at, but he gets on a ship and sails away.

And the, the phrase that's used in the.

He's trying to flee from the presence of the Lord.

He knows what the Lord wants him to do.

He can feel it, and he just isn't.

He just isn't on board yet.

So he gets on a shift.

And then of course, the Lord being the kind of God he is,

he hedges up the way, right?

He knows that for Jonah to ultimately have happiness, he's gonna need

to repair this breach That scab on his heart is gonna need to soften.

So he is not gonna let Jonah just go.

He's.

Hedge up of the way.

So the storm comes, right, you know the story.

So he's on the ship with all these other sailors who are gentiles, right?

They're not part of his religion.

We know that because when the storm comes, they say, we've all prayed to our God.

Who's your God?

But what I love about it is they have to wake him up first.

And this reminded me of me too, cuz if I don't flee, like it says in three,

sometimes I just go to sleep . You know, like, I don't mean like physically

sleeping, I mean, Check out, you know, you go numb or you stop talking to

your kid or your spouse or whoever it is that you're gonna fight with.

You just kind of go to sleep and you don't care about the ramifications

that happen to other people.

That's what's happening with Jonah.

He where, where all those other gentiles are worried about his

safety and the safety of the ship.

He just says, I'm gonna sleep.

And so they have to shake him awake.

And when they do, he acknowledges that this is a result of his poor choices, that

it's his God that's causing this storm.

And I think it's interesting cuz like we think of Jonah's missionary power as

what happens in Niva cuz a whole city converts, but you also see these sailors

convert, which was fascinating to me cuz even in these moments of I messed this

up and I didn't do things the right way.

The, the Lord can work through that and teach.

So all of a sudden he talks about how he needs to be thrown overboard.

Here's what I loved, okay?

So if you go on the verses, it says, he, they ask him, who are you and

what's, what's causing this mess?

And he says, in nine, I'm a Hebrew, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which

has made the sea and the tri land.

So he is saying, I know the man who controls all this

and I've, I've upset him.

It's my fault.

And so he says, basically, throw me overboard.

What I thought was so fascinating about that is if it were me in this

spot, I think my gut instinct would say to tell them to turn around.

I wouldn't think I need to throw myself into the water

I would think, okay, if you guys turn the ship in the other

direction, take me back towards Japa.

I gotta get to Neva.

That would calm the storm.

But he is, I think this says something about Jonah's character.

In fact, I read a quote from Lorenzo Snow that helped me understand this.

It's in the notes, but he said, basical.

The character of prophets is such that in these moments when they have

made a mistake, because remember, we don't believe in infallible prophets.

They're men who do the best they can, and when a mistake is made, you

can see their character beam out.

And it's not a character that's born in a second.

It's character that's built up over a lifetime of repenting and

needing grace, just like the rest.

And so he says, throw me overboard.

Be safe.

I think that says something remarkable about Jonah's heart,

even if he's not perfect yet.

So they do, but what's important is what happens before they do.

That's in verse 13.

It says, nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to land, but they could not.

love that piece there so much of Jonah's story and his conversion that

happens in his heart, I think happens because of the unexpected compassion

he gets from all these people.

Remember, the Lord wants him to get to Niva and want to help the

people, so he's showing him all these other Gentiles and pagans who.

Or around him who have compassionate hearts who soften and take

care of him, but it won't work.

And Jonah knows that.

He knows there's only one way out of this, and so they

eventually throw him overboard.

What was interesting to me is that there's a conversion that happens cuz now in

the last three or four verses, they're not praying to their pagan gods anymore.

They're praying to the Lord.

In fact, it says it multiple times.

We beseeched the oh Lord, we beseech the let us not perish.

Don't put this man's blood on our hands.

We didn't want him to die.

And they offer sacrifices and they pray to the Lord.

In those moments, when they cast Jonah into the water and they see the storms

be still, They know who the real God is.

The God who controls the sea and the land.

They have a witness now.

So even in Jonah's worst moment where he made a profound mistake, the Lord

can work through that and cause a conversion of a whole ship full of people.

I just love that part of his story.

So as where that chapter ends is, of course there is a way prepared, God

has hedged up his way, but he's also created a way to cushion Jonah and

give him another chance to succeed.

So he prepares a great fish, but we gotta go to chapter two to find out more.

You're gonna get total Alma, the younger vibes when you read chapter two, cuz

he basically has an experience that's really similar to what we studied with

Alma, the younger three days where his soul is racked and he struggles

and then he catches hold of the grace and mercy and goodness of God and it.

Saves him and I, it's just, it was so fun to me to read those in parallel.

So go in the notes and you can find some links there, but I wonder sometimes,

we always, I always pictured Jonah getting thrown overboard and immediately

there's a whale , you know, or a, a great fish, whatever that means.

Um, the more I read it, the more I wondered if maybe there was a space

between those moments where he.

Had kind of, it almost seems like a near death experience.

So it, if you look past those first two verses where he's talking about

being in the belly, he talks about what sounds like almost a near drowning.

So he talks about being in the midst of the seas in three in the deep, and

that the floods compassed me about technically all this could happen in

the belly of whatever the creature was.

But it, to me, I started to picture.

The creature, whether it's a whale or a great fish or something else as the

thing that delivers him from the depths.

The same way when Alma, the younger talks about when his mind catches

hold about his father's teachings, he remembers his father's teachings,

and then he's immediately.

He feels the joy and the peace, like all that pain pushes away and he feels peace.

That's how I picture this whale.

So I wonder if there was a period of time first where he had to struggle.

Maybe he was on the water for a time.

Kind of like any castaway, right?

Maybe he had to struggle.

So he talks about being encompassed about and how he has, and he couldn't

see anything and he's struggling.

And then he talks about in.

The waters compassed me about even to the soul or to the point of death.

The depth closed around me.

The weeds were wrapped around my head.

Like, can't you just picture that, that struggle and the sinking and the.

Weariness that hits you after struggling at sea for a time.

And it talks about how he went to the bottom.

In fact, if you look more in the footnotes, you can learn

that this idea of that you went to the bottom of the mountains.

This is the ultimate depths.

This is not just physical mountains.

He's talking about the depths of hell.

Um, there's a lot more you can learn in the notes, but this is

him seeing the depths of hell.

And that's what Elma talked about, this understanding.

What he deserved, you know, that he, not only had he thrown away his

opportunity to lead a good life, but he'd, he'd led so many others

astray and that was racking him.

And that I think is where Jonah is.

And so he's struggling.

And so it says insects.

Um, the bars was bought about me forever, yet thou brought

me up my life from corruption.

Oh Lord, my God.

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my

prayer came in unto the and nine Holy Temple, and I found myself

thinking like, what did he remember?

You know, an alma story.

We know that he remembered.

The teachings of his father.

And I thought, what does, what does Jonah remember that catches hold?

And I think what he remembers is the goodness of God.

That God is gracious and merciful and forgiving.

And he was sent to teach people all about that, which means if

you're gonna go teach nva, these.

Wicked Assyrians who've done terrible things about the grace and mercy of God.

Don't you think it applies to prophets too?

And so you see that when you look in an eight and they that observe lying,

vanities, forsake their own mercy.

That's his message.

If I'm gonna cast aside forgiveness for other people,

then I can't access it either.

It's an all-encompassing forgiveness.

If I expect to use this grace of God, I have to extend it

to everyone else as well.

And that's what I think his mind catches hold of.

And you can go in the notes and learn a little bit more.

So he shifts, he repents in this moment.

I had doubt.

Sometimes I'm like, did he repent?

Cuz later he struggles again and he gets angry at God again.

And then the more I thought about it, the more I'm like, no, that that is repent.

You know, the idea that he's not a perfect prophet, he doesn't go

from this point forward and do everything perfectly the same way.

I have to repent of things and then a week later repent again.

And you know, I think.

This is the repentance process.

It's the same for profits, and so yes, I think his heart was repentant.

In fact, I read some quotes that said it.

It for sure was, but it doesn't last forever the same way.

It doesn't last for me.

But what I thought was really cool is that as soon as his heart is repentant, as

soon as he is softened to, oh, I know God.

I know his mercy.

I know he will give me another chance.

As soon as he has that hope catch, then you see what happens in

10, the Lord speak to the fish and it vomit a Jonah out on dry.

He's not left back in the middle of the sea.

He gives him an immediate birth onto land and says, okay, let's go.

I think what we learned about the 116 pages last year and Amulek from Book of

Mormon year is that we believe in a God of second chances that you can be in a.

Big position, like a profit type of position, make mistakes and get

another chance to course correct.

And that's what happens with Jonah.

So he is invited to yet again arise.

If you look in verse two of chapter three, it's the same invitation.

Arise, go to Niva, teach them what is coming.

And so he does.

And I can't even imagine how scary it must have been to walk into those gates.

Remember, this is what anybody else would describe as a very blood

thirsty, angry Jew, hating city.

He has to walk in and teach them, and it's a big city.

So the idea that he could somehow canvas all on his own must have been scary.

Add to that, that he made mistakes with the Lord.

So he's got that baggage on his shoulders like I was supposed to be here days ago.

Here I am.

Let me give you my message.

And the message he gives is really clear.

It says at the end of four, yet 40 days, and none of us shall be overthrown.

That's really all we have of Jonah's sermon to the people, which is remarkable

because the entire city converts.

So I, I found myself kind of wrestling with this a little bit cause I don't know

if there's actually much more, and Jonah, like Alma, the younger and Emich went

and taught, or like Amon and his brothers who went to the Lamanites that went and

taught individually and hearts turned.

Or if this is something.

God was just waiting for the opening.

You know, Jonah created an opening and then he could flood

the heart of the king somehow.

I imagine there's much more to this story than we, than we have.

Well, what I love is how it plays out because what's interesting to

me is Jonah's not really mentioned in the rest of the chapter.

He gets his message out 40 days.

You have 40 days.

It kind of sounds like Sodom and Gamora.

Do you remember when those angels came and they said within a few days, Sodom and

Gamora or this very day it's gonna burn?

And so they were telling a lot to get the family out.

I wonder if that was more Jonah's message and I'll, it'll make more sense as

we go further into the chapters, but.

You know, I wonder if he was trying to say to the people like, this city's

going down and you guys need to go.

I, I wonder if he even.

Expected that they could repent or thought they might cuz he's not mentioned.

Again, the person that's mentioned is God.

So you look in four or five.

So the people of Niva believed God and proclaimed aas.

They don't say the people of Niva believed Jonah, they believed God.

So whatever Jonah did, it opened up a gateway for God to teach them

directly to teach the king directly.

And then he proclaimed this fast for all the people and all the animals and

they all dressed in Ack cloth and they.

Got this hope.

In fact, if you look in nine, who can tell?

This is the king who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from

his fierce anger that we perish not.

This is hope, right?

He's got a glimmer of hope and he's going to jump on it.

I love this cuz I feel like this is God's invitation to us all the time.

Like catch hope that you can be forgiven, that you, no matter how

far down this road you've traveled.

It doesn't go farther than the light of Christ Giants, right,

that Elder Holland taught us.

That's his invitation is hope.

And I don't know if Jonah taught that or if they learned it directly

from Revelation, but it catches and immediately God's heart turns.

I don't think God was ever angry at them.

He just has consequences for their choices.

And just like every sinner he dealt with in his mortal life, like the woman taking

an adultery and all those other moments, he says, Your heart's in the right spot.

Let's go.

And he turns away.

This is, there's JST translations on this cuz God doesn't repent of his decisions.

What he does is he relents, he takes, he shifts.

This is why I think it's so good to teach our kids about the understanding of God

as the author and finisher of our faith.

Because when we choose to turn to him, When we have opportunities

to go one way or the other and we turn to him, he rewrites the path.

Right?

It's, it opens up a whole new gateway.

It's kind of like if you're playing video games with your kids and you happen

into the, you know, like I played Super Mario when I was a kid, , and we didn't

have, we didn't have an Nintendo, but my mom would rent one now and then, and

so we would play intensely for those three days that we would have one and

there would be like, A pipe that you could go into and that would open you

up to this whole nother world, right?

If you happen to find the right pipe.

That's kind of the same idea that's happening here, because they

went into this pipe of, I'm gonna turn to God in this key moment.

A whole new world opens up for them.

They're not gonna honor this perfectly.

They're not gonna be great at this forever.

But in this moment, God says, okay.

I'm gonna grant you space to repent.

And that is a remarkable thing for a whole city to accomplish.

But they needed this profit to come and open that floodgate.

So I just love that in this tiny little chapter, you get this big understanding

about the grace and mercy of God.

He's just waiting for you to, to find the opening, to choose obedience so that he

can open up this whole new path for you, a path of righteousness that works you

back to him and all that's in chapter.

Jonah story takes a bit of a surprising twist in chapter four because he's angry.

He's angry at the Lord for extending this.

Mercy.

In fact, that's what you read.

If you read in verse two, he says, I prayed the, or.

Lord, was this not my saying.

In other words, when I was back, before you gave me this call

and you initially said, I want you to go teach the Nena bytes.

Is this not what I said to you?

And then he tells you what he said.

He said, therefore, I fled before athar.

I knew that thou aren't gracious and merciful and slow to anger and of

great kindness and the repentancy of the evil, meaning he knew how

God would react when the people.

And isn't that just like powerful?

I, this is how I felt when I listened to Sister Ye talk, that there's a part of

all of us, especially when we're, when we really have been hurt, we really have

been betrayed or wounded that you, you don't want to repair the breach because

you know God will forgive and you hurt.

And what I loved so profoundly about her message was that she basically said, you.

Bridge that gap by yourself.

You need the atonement of Jesus Christ.

And what she said is, as you tap into your covenants, as you dig deep

and you come to know and love Jesus Christ, he will repair the breach.

You're not supposed to do this alone.

Sometimes I wonder if that was what Jonah's problem was, that he was trying

to repair all these wounds that he had from the Assyrians and their wickedness

on his own and he couldn't get there.

And it, what the Lord is trying to say is, you need to use me.

I'm the one that can heal the unhealable.

I'm the one that can write the wrongs.

In fact, one of my favorite things, I read this.

I think it was from President Packer, but he, he talked about

Alma, the younger, and that what he caught, what he caught, hold on.

In that moment when he said, my mind caught hold, it wasn't just about his

own possible redemption, it was also the understanding that God could make right a.

All the things he had messed up.

Cause remember it was understanding the damage he had done to others.

He even called it like murder, right?

He's like, I have killed people spiritually.

How can I fix that?

And that racked his mind and then his mind caught hold of the atonement

and that the atonement could heal his own heart and also close all

the wounds that he had opened.

And I just, that's what came to the surface for me as I was

studying this message in Jonah.

He ran from the Lord because he knew the mercy wasn't gonna be given it.

It's like the parable of the laborers and the vineyard.

He, he knew they were gonna get paid the same amount and it was hard to him.

So he needs to use the atonement of Jesus Christ in order to access a deeper

power, something that's not his own.

If that strikes a chord with you or that's something you're wrestling with

as well, go listen to Sister Ye talk and.

There's an incredible doctrine.

It's in the notes if you wanna go there, but I love the Lord's response to him.

He says in four, then the Lord said, do style well to be angry.

. Isn't that a great soft, it just sounds like the Savior in his

ministry where he basically says, are you doing better by yourself?

Do you feel happiness in your grudge in.

Misery in your anger towards these people is leading you to joy.

Because remember, his whole goal for our life is our joy.

He wants us to have eternal life and endless joy.

And if our anger or bitterness, or resentment, even if it's justified, is.

Causing a, a bridge there, you know, like a, a dam that we are blocking ourselves

from the joy that he wants us to just pull it down, get rid of it, access his

power, and find a way to dig deeper.

That's what he is inviting Jonah to do, but Jonah's not fully.

Ready for all of that.

And so he goes off, he leaves the city.

I wonder sometimes if Jonah was worried about his reputation, because he's just

been teaching them that in 40 days the city's gonna get destroyed, and in 40

days the city doesn't get destroyed.

You know, because they repented.

So I wonder if he would see himself as like a.

Not that good of a prophet or like he was teaching something wrong.

I'm not sure.

But he's angry.

And so he goes off to watch and wonder what's gonna happen to the city.

And there's this sweet object lesson that literally grows in order to teach

Jonah about the compassion of God and the compassion he should have for the nites.

So you know the story, it's like a gor or a bean plant that grows up

next to him kind of miraculously.

And it gives him shade.

He tried to build his own shelter and what the Lord does is give him shade.

And there's all kinds of cool parallels for that with the atonement,

I think, where we try to create our own shelter from the these storms

and he can create something so much better in a moment if we turned him.

So I love that visual of the plant with these big, wide

leaves creating a covering.

I think there's just cool references back, even back to

like Adam and Eve's story when.

Pull that one apart, but I love this leafy plant that grows.

And then what happens is he's grateful for the plant and then a storm comes.

So where he's experienced a storm on the sea.

Now Jonah experiences a storm on the land for the same reason, right?

He experienced a storm on the sea because his heart was turned against the presence

of God and he didn't wanna forgive.

And now he's in that same spot again.

And just like us, when we have to repent for the same thing again

and again, the Lord teaches us again and again and invites us to.

Find mercy, find peace, and so he teaches him.

The Gord withers away, the plant withers, and then the storm increases.

He doesn't have the covering anymore, and he's exposed and vulnerable,

and he feels that he gets to the point where he says, I want to die.

It's better for me to die than to live.

And the Lord says, isn't that interesting that you are so

sad about this plant withering.

You didn't plant it, you didn't cultivate it, you didn't do anything

to make it happen, but you're so sad about this plant leaving.

Can you get that same amount of mercy and extend it towards my children?

Because that's how I feel.

These are my children.

Remember, we learned from Ezekiel that he doesn't relish in anyone being destroyed.

He always wants to give them second chance.

He cares about the worth of all these souls.

So he's asking Jonah to extend forgiveness.

Show peace, show comfort.

People in Niva have already converted.

They're okay.

Jonah's heart still has some work to do, but what's interesting is

that's sort of where the story ends.

Jonah's, we don't know if Jonah's story is like a rich, young ruler story where he

turns away from God and never goes back.

Or if he's someone like Alma, the younger, that has a moment like this and.

Teaches the rest of his life.

We don't know.

So I guess what you have to wonder is who am I?

You know, in these moments where the Lord asked me to extend forgiveness where it

is so hard or to make amends when there is so much damage done, will I choose to

tap into the atonement of Jesus Christ and let him help heal my heart and

anyone else's, or will I hold onto my.

Phase, will I eventually be asked by the Lord?

Do I style well to be angry and then have to decide.

So I think it's this open invitation to choose for thyself,

how you will handle these moments.

And Jonah's life gives us a framework to understand where it goes.

I, I just thought it opened up really cool insights and revelations for how I

could live my life a little bit better.

So hopefully it does that for you as.

Remember how I told you that Micah sounds a lot like Isaiah.

He is a prophet who teaches around the same time, but he'll teach the

north and the south and his message is similar the way Isaiah talked about how

there was gonna be a controlled burn, that the damage was so extensive and.

There was gonna need to be a burn

That's sort of the imagery that Micah uses.

But he talks about a wound, an incurable wound, an infection that's growing.

And just like we talked about in Isaiah, I kind of picture this chapter as

one of those war movies where there's a doctor that comes on the scene

when the soldier is finally brought in after, you know, being on the

battlefield for days and having thrown together a bandage situation on his.

The doctor peels off the haphazard bandage and sees the extent of the damage and

basically says, we gotta take the leg.

That's chapter one to me, because he's essentially saying that.

He says, this is incurable.

Once he's stripped and pulled back all the.

Excess coverings, it's the damage is too deep.

And I just thought that was so interesting visually for me, cuz I think I do this

right when sometimes when I know I've made a mistake or I know I'm off course,

I try to bandage myself instead of turning to the Lord instead of repenting

in the way I know we'll actually work.

I come up with all kinds of other ways to either numb or distract myself.

You know, kind of what we saw with Jonah on the ship.

I come up with other strategies and eventually.

Those get pulled away in a moment of hard, those have to

get stripped bare, and it's hard.

In fact, I love the way it's phrased in six where he says, I will discover the

foundations thereof, meaning he'll peel back as many layers of dingy bandage

as we've put on, and he'll get to the foundation of the problem every time.

And in, in this, The infection's too deep.

It's caused too much trouble.

So he, they talk about feeling stripped and naked, meaning they're exposed.

They're without the protection of the covenant.

They've set aside their Abraham Covenant and now they're.

Exposed and their wound is deep and their infection has spread from the north where

they started worshiping idols into the south where Jerusalem is, and it's gonna,

it's gonna cause damage everywhere.

So he says in nine, for her wound is incurable.

For it has come unto me, it has come unto Judah, it's come from the north, all the

way down into Jerusalem and it's too far.

We gotta take the leg.

And then at the end of this chapter, he'll talk about how it's a wound

that is spreading not just into the children of Israel, but all

the surrounding areas as well.

A community issue, and so he's gonna take some drastic measures to fix.

Mike has a little bit like Amos in that he seems to be more of a

boots on the ground kind of prophet.

He's not like Isaiah, who was in the court of many kings and was able to teach there.

He has a different assignment and you get the feeling that like

Amos, he's worried about the social ramifications of the wickedness.

That's everywhere, and that's sort of what you're gonna.

Pull out of chapter two.

As you read it, you'll see his concerns that there's people

devising inequity in one in two.

He talks about how they're oppressing the poor and cutting

people off from their heritage.

There's people taking advantage of interest and, you know, debts

and their, there's gonna be big ramifications of those choices.

If you go in four, you can see that he's worried about the blessings

that they're losing when he won five.

They're starting to lose their rights.

I think he's trying to help them understand that it's not just

about being destroyed, that the profits are warning about it.

About the destruction of their dignity that will come.

They're going to lose their ability to have freedom of choice.

They won't have land anymore.

They won't have opportunities to have the blessings that they're

used to in the promised land.

Those are all gonna be pulled away.

So you look like in five.

It says, therefore thou shalt have none that cast a chord by lot.

Meaning like if they're, if they're zoning out the land property where they live,

like they would do, remember when they first came to the promised land and they

figured out which tribe was gonna live?

They won't have those options where they go next cuz they're

gonna lose all dignity.

They're gonna lose their ability to stand as a peculiar people in God's light.

They, they don't have that anymore.

So he says how that happened.

You stop listening to the prophets in six, which means you have no vision.

You have no sight.

Um, in nine it talks about how they, they're gonna get cast out of all

their lovely houses and they're gonna.

What they thought they held onto tens, where you sort of hit a pinnacle point.

This is when they realize they don't fit in the Promised Land anymore.

It says, arise and depart for this is not your arrest because it is polluted.

It shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction, meaning they

created damage to the promised land and they don't fit there anymore.

So the great physician comes in and says, we gotta get this tumor out.

So, Take it out.

He, he removes them from this place so that it can become healed

again and get ready for what will happen way down the road.

So when you flip the page, It's that, that he's preparing things for.

He's taking out this tumor that exists now so that they can have

a clean place to gather later.

So in 12, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.

This is when things come back together again.

Now that the land is clean, now that there's been a change, and now

that the savior has come, they can.

Be gathered again.

So that's what he's referring to in 13, I think, is this idea of a breaker.

The breaker has come up before them.

They have broken up and have passed through the gate, and they're gone out

by it, and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.

This time I'm gathering God will be the breaker, and I just love that visual.

I'm not sure entirely what it means, but we often think of

Jesus Christ as a joiner, as a, you know, repair of the breach.

But I think a big piece of him is also this idea.

He will break through barriers, not just the cleansing that will have to

happen, but also like the barriers of death and hell, he will break them.

He is like this battering ram that bursts through the veil and creates it a wide

opening for everyone else to pull through.

So I, I love that title.

The Breaker.

This Sickness and Infection didn't just come from ID worshiping.

It came from the priests and the teachers and the leaders in the.

Pulling people towards sin.

And so that's what chapter three is focused on.

He says here, yeah, I pray you heads of Jacob, you princes these

people who are supposed to lead.

Supposed to lead people towards the Abraham Covenant.

Instead they've become corrupt.

So he says, I those who hate the good and love evil, and they pluck off the skin

of them, like they're taking advantage of those who are weak and vulnerable.

Don't know much on their own.

And it felt a little bit like the way the Savior describes, describes, and

the Pharisees in the New Testament time.

It's those who should have known better, who should have taught the

law of Moses in with its original intent, and they're manipulating it

and turning their backs on the poor.

And Mike has some strong words for them.

So you'll see, he says, you're gonna cry into the Lord and he won't hear you.

That's in four says in five.

Thus say the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people.

That you are going to lose your connection to God.

You'll have no vision.

That's what it talks about in six.

You shall have no, you shall not have a vision, and it shall be dark unto

you that you shall not divine and the sun shall not go down over the prophets

and the day shall be dark over them.

This is not just a physical darkness, this is a spiritual darkness.

They will no longer have a connection to revelation, to understanding

what needs to happen next, but I love that it doesn't sit there.

He opens it back up by talking about where the true authority is.

So if you look.

But truly, I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord and of judgment and

of might to declare and to Jacob, his transgression and to Israel his sin.

He as a prophet is an authorized servant of God who can come and

he can diagnose the wounds and he can say what needs to happen next.

He is authorized.

I love Anthony Sweat, talks about this time out for women.

He talks about what really makes our church distinguished from all other

churches is the authority that it.

That our prophets and apostles have keys.

There is authority.

It's real.

Jason and I just took the kids to the new premier of the chosen, and it talked

about this as well as he's passing the torch to the apostles in that the first

couple episodes he talked about authority, that he is giving them authority to

heal, and I loved that connection.

I think that's what, that's what.

Mike is trying to get across.

I am not just someone who's coming here to, to speak to you words

that you should think about.

I am coming with power and authority and you should listen, and it just made

me want to listen to our prophets even more because that's exactly the same.

Power and authority and keys that we have on the earth today.

It's a profit who's here to teach us where we've gone wrong and what, what

his diagnosis is and what the prognosis is if we listen or don't listen.

So it made me wanna go back to conference and hear, present

us just a little bit more.

I.

You can feel a shift in momentum when you go into chapter four.

Cause this is where he starts to talk about Zion and how all that

time that they had to spend in order to get things healed and ready.

Will lead to this incredible phase of growth and renewal

that will come when Zion comes.

So this isn't gonna sound just like Isaiah, in fact,

word for word like Isaiah.

Some people think that Micah is quoting Isaiah or vice versa, that Isaiah is

quoting Micah, or that both of them are quoting somebody completely different.

Either way.

It's all about the mountain of the Lord.

This idea of coming up that in the latter days people will want to come up.

What I thought was really cool, I don't remember if I noticed this when Isaiah

said it, but I loved how he says they will flow unto it because nothing flows up.

at least not in our natural man's state.

We flow down and we go like on the path of least resistance.

What's great about is in the latter days, the promise is that

people will voluntarily flow.

You know, if you look in verse two and many nations shall come and say, come and

let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.

These are people who say, I want the hard, I want the struggle.

I want the progress it gives me, I want the muscles, it builds with me.

It's what I see when my ysa show up to class, right?

As they're.

They want to come up.

They want a deeper testimony than they had before.

Nobody's making them go.

They don't have parents forcing them.

They just want to come closer to him.

And so they show up and study and I just think that's what Zion is, right?

Zion is the momentum that comes from being with people who want to go up, want to

flow up, and when there's enough of us.

In that same struggle together and living off that spiritual

momentum, that's what happens.

You flow up together and I just think it's one of the most profound,

exhilarating pieces of the latter days, and I think we're right in it.

You guys, I, I just feel the surge of spiritual momentum from our

prophets that is inviting us to like, Come up and bring people with you.

Let's flow up to the mountain of the Lord.

And as you go a little further, you can see some of the other promises

designed that there won't be war anymore.

They won't learn war anymore.

That famous George Washington line about that every man will sit under

his vine and fig tree, that there will be an independence and a dignity that

comes at this point in time because you don't need to be afraid anymore.

So there's independent thought and that we're all aligned under this great king,

but we all have our own space and our.

Understandings and thoughts.

It's, it's a very independent, dignified way of living, and

that's his invitation in Zion.

He also says that you in five, that you're gonna walk in the

name of the Lord forever and ever.

I love that piece too, cuz it's, it's the continuity of it that is so

hopeful that there will never be a backslide like we've seen over and

over again in the Old Testament.

Forward trajectory, and you go a little further, he says that

he's gonna gather them together.

It's, it almost has a military victory kind of sound to it.

But for me, the best part is the very last verse where he talks

about consecrating their gains.

He invites the daughter design to start threshing.

This is an invitation to gather to.

Bring those sheets in and let the, you know, let people be gathered in.

And I love the promise of consecrating their efforts.

So he says, I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord and their substance

unto the Lord of a whole earth.

To me, this is the same thing that happens with the brother of Jared and his stones,

that he did the best he could and then he asked the Lord to touch them, which is

basically saying, consecrate my efforts.

I love this cuz this is how I feel all the time, especially this week, you guys,

Jason was in the hospital this week.

This was a.

Week we had some heavy weights and I couldn't get myself in all

the places that I needed to be.

I never, I felt like I was juggling and dropping 90% of the balls.

And what I love is he can take the 10% that I was able to juggle and say, let

me consecrate that to your gain because those other 90% don't really matter.

I can take the 10 that you were able to do and I can concentrate them.

I can make.

Better than you think it is and that I can witness too.

He will consecrate your efforts.

You just have to show up.

You have to keep juggling and keep trying and he will consecrate it.

So I love that promise At the end of four.

The New Testament when the wise men come to Herod seeking this king of kings, I

think it's probably Mike, a five that he turns to, or at least that his advisors

turn to, cuz this is pretty clear, prophetic direction that the savior,

this king of kings who will come, will be born in a town called Bethlehem.

And that's how the wise men know to search for him there.

And you see that in those first couple verses.

You also see this promise that he will be a man of peace, which is

interesting cuz he's also described as this almost military leader who

will purge the land of all wickedness.

And I think it's sometimes hard to see those two things at the same

time, but I think that's what we're invited to understand about the

savior, that he actually creates space for peace by being this person who.

Take out what is unclean, what doesn't belong.

So he creates space, and I think that's the same thing we're invited to do

when we are asked to be peacemakers.

It's not necessarily to make everybody get along, but to create

structure in our homes and our families so that peace can happen.

You know, we create curfews and jobs and expectations of our kids,

and then we enforce those so that there's space for peace, and that's

what we see with the savior as well.

You also learn that there's some incredible.

Story of the Restoration Con verses in here that are quoted

in the doctrine covenants a lot.

This idea of the remnant of Jacob gathering in a lot of this gathering

talk is used by the savior in their nei when he comes among the ne fights.

He talks this same language of.

Gathering the remnant back in and that that's his purpose and that's

what he's setting in motion and that that's what the Book of Mormon will

help to accomplish is that record will come forth and it will gather people.

So some of these verses will sound familiar cuz you've actually read

them almost verbatim in the Book of Mormon or the doctrine in government.

If you've ever heard a coach give a really good pep talk at halftime during a really

intense game, maybe a game that you're even losing . That's what I think of

when I read chapter six, cuz this is when Micah is like, dig deep, you guys arise.

It's the same message the Lord is giving to Jonah.

Arise, step up.

So he says here.

Now that's the first one here ye.

Now what the Lord has said, if you look in five, oh my people remember it.

Now he wants them not to delay, not to wait but to step up now, own these

opportunities to be part of this covenant.

It's the same feel I get when I read President Nelson's message

from conference where he's like, take hold of your testimony.

Step up now this.

Best time to be alive in this church.

Let's go.

And so he reminds them why they should do it.

If you're looking forward, he says, I brought you out of Egypt.

I was that God that helped you.

I've been there all along.

Come now.

And then he tells 'em how he wants 'em to come.

Because remember their defaults, they, they're struggling with idol worship,

so their default will be, okay, I'm feeling something when Micah speaks.

Maybe I should do more and come closer to God.

I should go and make an offering.

I should go kill some rams.

I should go, you know.

So in the six he says, where with shall I come before the Lord and bow myself

before the high God shall I come before him with burnt offerings with calves?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or tens of

thousands of rivers of oil?

He's basically saying like, do you want my first born?

That's gonna be their.

Their knee jerk reaction when they're supposed to offer a sacrifice.

Lord, they think it's a sacrifice.

And what, what the Lord has been trying to teach them through these last

several prophets all the way through from Isaiah, I think they're trying to

say, that's not the offering I want.

That love of Moses type offering is designed to help you do

something in your heart, and that's what he guides them towards.

So in eight he says, oh man, what is.

And what did the Lord require of the but to do justly, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God.

There's this beautiful talk from Elder Reland that's got that same title,

and he breaks down all of these.

So he talked about doing justly is acting honorably with God and with other people.

It's basically the first two commandments that you're honoring those first

two commandments, that loving mercy is dealing honorably with others

and delighting that they get mercy.

I, I love this after we read Jonah, right?

This is if I love mercy, that means I love it for.

And I love extending it to others.

I love that the Savior loves everybody else as well as me.

So love mercy.

And then the last one to walk humbly with God.

He says, this is intentionally withdrawing our hand from iniquity,

walking in his statutes with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

That's his invitation.

It's the same invitation I feel like we get in the Book of Mormon when we're

invited to press forward by Nefi, right?

He says, press forward with the perfect brightness of.

The love of God in all men.

It's the same faith, hope, and charity that we've been invited to partake of.

That's what the Lord wants for his offering, and that's what Mike is

trying to get across, that they need to set aside all this ceremony

and false faith and dig deeper.

You know, it's this.

Halftime PEP talks like, let's dig deeper than what you showed me in the first half.

Let's go.

And it's an open invitation, right?

So he says, if you don't look what happens.

14, you shall eat, but you won't be satisfied.

In 15, you will show.

You will sew, but you will not reap.

That's the warning, right?

You're gonna go through the motions, you're gonna exhaust

yourself finding rams and making offerings and finding the right oil.

But you'll miss Mark, and he doesn't want that for them.

So he's, he's trying to pull them up again.

We get the invitation to arise.

Do something different and deeper than you've done before, and see the

change that happens in your life.

In the margins of chapter seven, I wrote Micah's, Morona, moment, , cuz it sounds

like moron, like there's just no one left.

He's done everything he can to try and teach and help the people and no

good men are left and he's struggling and he teaches you in this chapter

what to do when you feel like this.

And to me, this was some of the most beautiful scripture that we've.

All year long guys, it's in mic A seven because he says when

darkness is creeping around you and it seems like nothing is left.

I mean, the way he talks about it, he's like, people are mischievous.

You can't trust friends, family members are turning on each other.

There is darkness.

And then when you flip the page, he says seven, eight, and nine.

So seven.

He says what he does when he feels that darkness and that loneliness.

Therefore, I will look under the Lord.

I will wait for the God of my salvation.

My God will hear me.

His invitation is when you feel.

When you feel hemmed in by things you can't control, turn to God.

Look to God, he will hear you.

I like that in this verse.

There's no promise that he will answer you or take you out of your

adversities, or he just is promising.

He will hear and isn't there great comfort when you're in struggle and darkness to

know for sure he heard, because sometimes when I don't get an answer, I wonder if he

even heard, and I think Mike is promising.

Oh yeah.

He hears every single time he hears and then he gives you more advice in eight.

Rejoice not against me.

Oh, my enemy.

Like all the darkness that's around me don't, don't overwhelm me.

When I fall, I shall arise.

When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me.

He is so grounded and so centered in his own testimony that he's like, it

doesn't matter to me what you do to me.

I know who I.

And I know and whom I've trusted.

That's his promise.

It's a solidifying promise that he wants everyone to feel.

It's just this inner strength that I just, I think it's what President

Nelson talked about when he says like, you're not gonna find joy

in the circumstances of your life.

You're gonna find it in the focus of your life.

And Mike's focus is pretty clear.

In fact, he adds to it in nine where he says, I'm gonna make mistakes.

Basically, he's like, I'm gonna realize that I've sinned, that I've made mistakes.

I'm gonna repent and I know the Lord's gonna be there for me.

I know this about the Lord.

He will bring me light.

So that's how he says He will bring me forth to the light and

I shall behold his righteousness.

His his understanding is not so much about being perfect as it is.

He trusts in.

Redemptive power of the atoma of Jesus Christ that when

he falls, he'll rise again.

When he's in darkness, he'll find light.

What I loved is there's a great talk from Elder Udf.

It's in the notes, but he talks about how the Lord doesn't just cast bright

light out on us when we're in darkness.

What he does is he lights us from within.

He gives us a portion of his light and it.

Ignites in us.

I was just teaching about ysa about this, how the, the savior strategy,

when he had this tiny three year ministry in a tiny part of the world,

and that he could only walk on foot.

You, you would think he would've taught to thousands all the time so that he

could reach as many people as possible.

But instead, what he tried to do is ignite the hearts of others around him

one at a time, because I think he knew.

For real ignition to happen between one heart and another, you

needed this one-on-one connection.

So a lot of his ministry is this one-on-one.

Talk to his apostles and ignite their hearts and then send them off to different

parts of the land to ignite other hearts.

That's what I see in this verse, that Mike is inviting you to know

for yourself so deeply that when you speak of Christ, it ignites in others.

They feel hope, they feel a connection to him, an invitation to come, to

come up that mountain of the Lord.

That's why he's asking and Mike is inviting you to do it in those verses.

So I just, I highlighted seven, eight, and nine with a lot of highlighter, cuz.

It was so warm to me.

It was warm and inviting, and maybe invigorating is the right word.

I found myself wanting to, wanting to press against the struggle that I'm

dealing with, wanting me wanting to lean in and say like, I'm all in that.

That's the feel I got when I read those verses.

When you go a little bit further, he talks about how the

gathering will be this miracle.

It's what President Nelson's talked about as well, but he says,

those miracles that we had in Egypt, that's just the beginning.

The gathering that will happen is even greater.

The most powerful verse to me.

Is in 18 where he says, who is a godlike unto the that pardon?

With the withy that passes by transgression of the

remnant of his heritage.

He retain it, not his anger forever cuz he delighteth in mercy.

That's what we learned from Jonah too.

Even though Jonah didn't grab it quite the same way Mike did, did he knew that

about God, that he was a God of mercy.

He was a God who would continually reach after his children.

The gathering is evidence of that.

So the fact that despite all their flaws and all their mistakes and all their

lost first chances, there will be an epic second chance where they will be gathered

again and invited to come onto Christ.

And it's the same invitation he extends to us as well, to come onto

Christ, to be a part of this great gathering work and be ignited by it.

And uh, I just thought it was an incredible way to end this