Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

22:1-4 - The kingdom of God is on the celestialized earth and the righteous are here living with Heavenly Father and Jesus. The angel that is giving John the tour now shows him “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” On either side of the river “was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits.” I’m not sure if this means that there are several trees or if the river is positioned differently than I imagine. I’m not sure, but the point is that the river of pure water that flows from the throne of God is what waters the tree of life. That’s an interesting image. The fruit come “every month” which I think probably means that there is no on or off season, but the fruit of the tree of life grows constantly. It’s also noted that the “leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Maybe it’s supposed to be thought of as a tea, I’m not really sure. The curse of the fallen world is gone and God and the Lam...

21:1-8 - Everyone has been set in the place that they are going to spend eternity, and John “saw a new heaven and a new earth… and there was no more sea.” I read something somewhere that suggests that this is reference to Satan because of the “abyss” or something like that, I’m not sure if I agree with that. I think that this “no sea” thing is probably some sort of metaphor because I don’t want to live on a planet that doesn’t have an ocean, that’s my favorite part, and all the animals that live there, etc. I also never really understood the earth “passing away” and being resurrected because isn’t the earth already perfect. But then I think about the whole “everything was made spiritually before it was made physically,” then it makes sense that there is a perfected earth. Also I’m reminded of all the trash, pollution, and bombs that are left scattered all over the place, in a perfected earth, those all need to go away. On this new earth, “the holy city, new Jerusalem,” comes down out...

20:1-3 - After the remaining of the wicked are slain, “an angel (will) come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand,” and will bind Satan and his followers “a thousand years.” A significant teaching that is implied from this statement is explained by the IM saying, “’The bottomless pit’ is a term for the realm of Satan and those who follow him. Even there, God holds supreme authority, for it is God’s angel who has ‘the key to the bottomless pit.’” I’ve often wondered what exactly it means for Satan to be “bound” for 1,000 years and honestly, my question has always been, if he could be bound then, why couldn’t he just have always been bound, why let him go at all? Ever since I thought it through a couple of weeks ago to where for whatever reason, Satan has to be allowed to do his stuff here now because if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, then it would just make God cruel to let him do it anyway. I think that’s always been one of my problems wi...

19:1-6 - After the woman representing Satan’s kingdom is destroyed by God, there is great cheering in heaven and glorifying of God, “For true and righteous are his judgment.” The 24 elders who were seen sitting on chairs and the four beasts fall down and worship God. I’ve always struggled with the concept of being happy when God deals out justice to the wicked and I think that’s because the wicked being punished doesn’t make any suffering they caused me any less severe. I understand that that punishment has to happen, and if it didn’t then I would have a problem with that, but I just can’t imagine myself being happy when that time did come. Those suffering doesn’t lessen anything that happened to me, it doesn’t bring me happiness. Maybe some aspects of the judgment of the wicked in the last days that I will be happy about is Jesus’ takeover of the political systems throughout the world and his subsequent reign as King of Kings. That will be amazing because then the people can be ruled ...

18:1-3 - Chapter 18 is very much an abstract piece of work, akin to Isaiah with rich imagery, but for me, I found it to be kind of hard to follow. An angel comes and “he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils.” The angel continues that “she” has influenced kings and leaders and societies all over the world through “fornication… (and) the abundance of her delicacies.” The IM notes that the descriptions of the great wealth of Babylon “highlights the lust for wealth and lavish possessions that define Babylon. These riches will be destroyed, and those who have placed their hearts upon them will lament.” It’s interesting, I was reading an article earlier today about politicians and their desire to gain power and wealth through appeasement of corporations instead of doing what’s best for the people, and that really made a lot of sense. This fits in with this sentiment here, the “do whatever it takes” to gai...

17:1-2 - After all seven angels poured out their vials and God’s judgment of the wicked was finished, one of the seven came over to John and told him to go with him and “I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.” I just want to stop here and note what a problem I have with the word “whore” when it comes to describing women or wickedness, basically I hate the word all together. I’m sure it’s my own personal trauma that comes with being called a whore for most of my formative years, but it’s always really bothered me that this word is used so much when talking about wickedness. In my mind, the Church of God is male because we only know about Heavenly Father and Jesus who are both male, and males hold the priesthood, so it’s never been anything other than male in my mind. Conversely, the kingdom of the devil is portrayed as female in these types of descriptions. Just the male/female contrast between righteousness and wickedness has always just ...

16:1-21 - Here are the seven angels standing outside of the temple of God holding these vials of plague, and out of the temple comes a voice telling the angels “Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.” The first angel pours out his vial on the earth “and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men” who worshipped Satan, or more likely refused to repent because they liked their wicked lifestyle too much. The IM refers to one of the plagues called down upon Egypt by Moses as recorded in Exodus 9:8-12. The second angel pours out his vial “upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.” I don’t know if “soul” means person, like all those who were on the sea died or if it’s referring to all the animals that were living in the sea, but probably animals. The third angel pours out his vial “upon the rivers and fountains of waters: and they became blood.” This angel is particularly eloquent because he ...

I have to be honest, I’ve really lost where we are as far as what is happening when and I was really tired last night so I don’t remember anything about what we talked about. Before getting into chapters 15 & 16, we have to go back to the end of 14 when there are two harvests. The IM says, “John described two harvests in Revelation 14:14-20, which are reminiscent of those described in the parable of the wheat and the tares. The first harvest gathers out the righteous from the wicked. This gathering began when the gospel was restored in the latter days and will continue into the Millennium. This is important because when I initially read about the 7 plagues that are discussed in chapters 15 and 16, I thought that maybe it was talking about stuff that was going to happen after all the righteous got taken up to meet Jesus, but it appears that that probably won’t be the case. Another important point to note here, and I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me earlier, but Revelation is...

14:1-5 - The IM points out that while chapter 13 is gloom and doom highlighting all that Satan can do, chapter 14 gives hope. John looks and sees “a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.” I would imagine that these are the 144,000 that were called, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, to preach the gospel. Then a loud voice is heard from heaven, like rushing waters and thunder and harps playing, and it’s a song I assume being sung by the 144k because “no man could learn that song but” them. There’s some stuff about “virgins” and “not defiled with women,” which I’m not exactly sure the significance of and don’t have the energy to speculate, so I’m just going to say that these 144k men (I assume) are righteous, living chastely with “no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.” The IM reminds us of D&C 77:11 which answers the question about who these guys are, which say...

13:1-10 - As the dragon (Satan) chases the woman and her child (the Church and God’s political kingdom on earth) trying to destroy them, John sees another sign “in the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth; a beast rise up out of the sea.” This beast has seven heads as well as ten horns and each horn has a crown, “and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.” We learned yesterday that the horns represent power and the crowns can represent human created nations on earth but it’s interesting to consider why these nations are called “blasphemy.” I didn’t understand it until I thought about how the rulers of nations thought of themselves, as god emperors, the sun king, appointed by God to hold their positions, deified after death, etc. These kings and rulers considered themselves to be gods which is blasphemy by itself, but then the horrors they perpetrate in the name of God adds even more condemnation. This beast has the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, the mouth of a lion, as well a...

12:1 - The JST is in every verse throughout chapter 12, which fits because here we change gears a bit and the question of why this information is brought up at all is explained nicely by the article written on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com saying, “The winding up scenes must be understood in the context of the history of the conflict between good and evil. The last several chapters have been describing apocalyptic events, mostly plagues and destructions. One of the greatest events associated with the Second Coming is the destruction of Satan’s kingdom and the Fall of Babylon. Before we can appreciate the greatness of Satan’s fall, we must understand the history of the war which was waged since before man inhabited the earth.” If we are to truly consider our experience here on earth to be the second part of a three act play, then we have to accept that there is more to the story than we know right now. There’s a whole storyline going on here that spans the entirety of the three...

11:1-2 - After eating the book and being commanded to prophesy to the world, John is given “a reed like unto a rod” and the angel (not sure which one) commands him to “measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” I’m not exactly sure what this means but it could be many things. The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com reminds us “Ezekiel saw an angel with a measuring reed. In a grand display, Ezekial was shown the Jerusalem to be built in the last days. For nine chapters, Ezekiel explains in vivid detail, the Temple, its dimensions, some of its ordinances, the temple workers, the feasts to be re-instated, and Jerusalem itself. John sees the same temple already built before the second coming.” I just listened to a series of youtube videos that explained that the Jewish temple at Jerusalem is not only now built but functioning with some of their ordinances. John is not supposed to measure the outer court which is the court of the gentiles, “for it...