Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Don, I have such a cool quote. You don't know. I'm going to surprise you with this. It is from an early 1800s Methodist minister.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: His name is Joseph Benson and he is from England. And he wrote something about the Urim and Thummim. And this is what he had to say about it.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: This is so fun. He says, whatever they were and whatever the will of God was made known by them, they were no more than a shadow of good things to come.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: And then he says, wow. And the substance is Christ.
He is our oracle. By Him, God in the last days makes known himself and his mind to us. Divine revelation centers in him and comes to us through Him. He is the light, the true light, the faithful witness. And from him we receive the spirit of truth who leads us into all truth.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Wow. I love it.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Is that so fun.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Great quote.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Good job, Joseph Benson, wherever you're at. There. Thank you.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Excellent quote.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I love that quote because it made me think about our discussion today, our continuing discussion of the Urim and Thummim. And I like the idea of it of being a shadow of good things to come and specifically focusing on Jesus Christ. So we are going to talk about the connection that the Urim and Thummim has to our Savior, Jesus Christ. And it is going to be awesome. Welcome to Jesus Christ in Scripture. Finding Christ on every page. I'm Tammy usalak Hall with Dr. Donald W. Perry, and we are excited to be here to talk to you about the Urim and Thummim. So grab your scriptures and something to mark them with. And Don, let's dive into the Urim and Thummim being a shadow of Christ.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Okay. I'd like to begin by testifying.
Jesus empowers the Urim and Thummim. He's the light of the world.
So they're not run with a battery. And I'm not being disrespectful. And they're not some man made or woman made. They're divine items that are empowered by Jesus Christ.
So who possessed the Urim and Thummim? This is a partial list. The brother Jared, Abraham. We looked at him last time. Aaron. And the high priest Mosiah, Seers and prophets. And of course, Joseph Smith.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: I was surprised to learn that there were two Urim and Thummims. One on the American continent and then one Old Testament time. That was pretty cool.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. Now, the Urim and Thummim, during the time of the law, Moses was kept in the Breastplate. So I've got one right here.
But this is a Spanish. A span square from here to here and from here to here. Span square. Every person's hand is different, but about approximately from there to there. That's how big this is. And there's a pouch, and that's where the Urim and Thummim was kept. Inside there. Is that fun or what?
[00:02:34] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: And here's an image of the high priest with all his priestly vestments. All. All eight pieces.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Like, this is going to be so fun when we get into the Old Testament and we get to talk about these.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: We're going to talk about that.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah, we are. And I love this idea. Like, all of the names of the tribes are on each one of those stones.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: So I love it.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: This would be fun. But how neat to think that then the Urim and Thummim was kept inside of a pouch that he wore. I love that.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Okay, so walking in the tabernacle, Moses was a high priest with the Urim and Thummim. The Urim and Thummim was found in shiloh for about 400 years in the tabernacle of Moses. I love it. So there's an image of me walking, and I'm with the archeologist, by the way, Abigail. She's great. And she's from Idaho. Another Idahoan. But another reason I love Shiloh. It still has the fill of sacredness because the Urim and Thummim were there, the high priest. Now, here's some insights from Mosiah 28.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: And now he translated them by the means of those two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow. And now these things were prepared from the beginning and were handed down from generation to generation for the purpose of interpreting languages. And they have been kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord that he should discover to every creature who should possess the land of the iniquities and abominations of his people. And whosoever has these things is called a seer and the manner of old times.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Thank you for reading. So notice these truths just in these verses.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yes, I was trying to mark them.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: For example, kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord. They're so important that he kept them and he preserved them. I mean, all of these are powerful.
So where do they derive their power from? What?
And it's from God. Remember, we began with saying, the Urim and Thummim are empowered by Jesus Christ. This is what we mean, I want to emphasize.
It's God's power.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: That's what I love about God.
It is his power. You don't plug him in and everything. Today we plug in and we need power to do it. And so the thought of these two things working strictly by God's power and the wonders that they can do is blowing my mind. I like that.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: I went through and I found 11 significant scientific innovations that deal with light. And I think this is my opinion, and I might be wrong. My opinion is that God revealed these things to us on Earth for our blessing. And I'm just choosing 11 that pertain to light. There might be 20 or 30 or 50. I don't know. I'll start with the first one. Spectroscopy. It identifies the composition of substances.
And how does it utilize chemistry and astronomy in other ways?
[00:05:10] Speaker A: I mean, this is way out of my wheelhouse, John. I can't even think like that.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Mine too.
But let's just look at 11. Okay.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Microscopy. Microscopy. What are we gonna do?
[00:05:21] Speaker B: I don't know. That's why I gave you this one.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Well, thank you very much. This is for cell biology. Microbiology. Oh, I know microbiology. I took that class twice at Ricks College because I did not pass it the first time.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: And I'm grateful that I got to be able to learn everything I did twice around. It deals with laser surgery, medical imaging, but this is a big one. I sur tumor removal and cardiovascular imaging.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's. Number three is laser surgery.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: So. And I experienced that earlier this year.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: You did.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: I've had double eye surgery, and the doctor said we're using laser surgery. I don't understand it, but it was a gift and it helped me.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: So when you said earlier that you think, and I wrote this down, that God reveals these things for our blessing with light.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Would you then. Would it be safe to say that everything we're talking about right now is to testify of Jesus Christ, who is the giver of light?
[00:06:08] Speaker B: I love it.
Yeah.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: I mean, that's kind of what I'm thinking. If all things testify of Christ, then it would make sense that he would then inspire men to create items with light who testify of him. Wow. Okay. Solar energy. And this is for renewable energy systems and powering satellites. This is a crazy fact. It would take 44 million large electric power plants to produce the same power of the sun over the course of a year. The sun is the major source of energy for Earth's oceans, atmosphere, land, and biosphere.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Number five are fiber optics. And this deals with Internet and telephones and so on.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Six satellites and remote sensing. And this is for climate monitoring, agriculture, disaster response, planetary science.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Number seven is photosynthesis research. And that I learned in school. I didn't fully comprehend it, but it's where plants convert light to energy and. And it's used throughout agriculture and so on.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Number eight is holography and the utilization data storage, imaging, security, holograms on credit cards.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Number nine is timekeeping with atomic clocks. It measures time precisely. We use this in GPS and other times.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: The next one. 10 is quantum optics and computing. The utilization is for cryptography computation, fundamental physics and research.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Now, number 11 is a surprise. I did that on purpose.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Okay, this is fun.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Number 11 out of many more. But number 11, a blessing to us.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: And it's the light bulb.
So I have a picture of Thomas A. Edison and light bulbs. What a blessing. Right here in this studio, we have several bright lights that Sister hall and I are looking at and that are in our face. And we have some lights up here. And this whole video is. Uses light to broadcast this. And this is from section 130. And it deals with the Urim and Thummim. The angels do not reside on a planet like this, but they reside in the presence of God on a globe like a sea of glass. Now, it's not a sea of glass. It's like and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest past, present and future, and are continually before the Lord. This, the place where God resides, is a great Urim and Thummim. The earth, in its sanctified and immortal state will be made like unto crystal. And now, like unto crystal, I have a sibling who said, heaven means we'll just live on glass. A sea of glass. And it's crystal. No, like unto crystal. And will be a Urim and Thummim to the inhabitants who dwell thereon, whereby all things pertaining to an inferior kingdom or all kingdoms of a lower order will be manifest to those who dwell on it.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Then the white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17 will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one, whereby things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms will be made known. And a white stone is given to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom, whereon is a new name written, which no man knoweth, save he that receiveth it. The new name is the key word. You have to explain this to us. Then what are we talking about? What is this white stone?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Well, Revelation chapters two and three, give seven Blessings to those who overcome the world. And each one starts out like this. To he or she who overcometh, meaning overcometh the world and will, will inherit the celestial kingdom. To he that overcometh, I will give. And then there are seven different blessings. They coincide with the seven churches that are mentioned in the book of Revelation.
Five or six of the seven pertain to the temple. If you've gone through our temple and you've studied it, you'll see these are temple related. And notice this one, the last one, the new name is the keyword.
So everyone who goes to the celestial kingdom will get white stone says verse 11. To repeat it, white stone is given to each of those who come to the celestial kingdom. And that will be a Urim and Thummim. We'll all have a Urim and Thummim, each of us in the celestial kingdom.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Well, thank you, Dawn. Wow. I mean that was incredible to connect this, then this idea of all things connect back to Christ, specifically light. That was a beautiful way you set that up so that anytime we see light to think of Jesus Christ. I know in my family we do that with sunrises and sunsets. Mostly sunsets. We'll text each other. Did you see the sunset tonight? And there have been times when I've seen a beautiful sunset and I have thanked Heavenly Father for the beauty of that. But now I might thank him for other things like this light or these lights that are making me sweat. I'm so thankful for those lights. I want to end this with a quote. And this is by Elder Holland and he talks about how the word light is a moniker of Jesus Christ. It's one of his names and he says in Easton's Bible dictionary it states all the more joyous emotions of the mind, all the pleasing sensations of the frame, all the happy hours of domestic intercourse were habitually described among the Hebrews under the imagery derived from light. I like that idea where he just talks about this imagery that comes from light. And so it just when I read that and when I thought about this discussion today, it's going to make me think more about the light in my life and giving credit to all light coming from him.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: And especially how awesome it'll be when we get this kind of light, the light from the Urim and Thummim, where we'll know all things and that the beauty of that. So thank you, dawn, for teaching us that and for connecting it to Jesus Christ. Have fun having discussions about this. I think we, I mean, dawn, you've said before you've got hours worth of material that you could teach us about the Urim and Thummim. So there's a lot more to talk about. So we encourage you to continue this discussion. Talk to your family members and friends, especially to people that you love. What is the light that is significant in their life and how they can connect it to Christ. So thank you. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week and have fun looking for light. Shalom and goodbye, Sam.
