Saturday, January 3, 2009

33g - The Resurrected Jesus Christ's Ministry in Ancient America. His "Sheep" Continue Their Preparations For His Eventual Visit Among Their Descendants.

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Jesus the Christ -by Del Parson

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John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
This scripture is very beautiful and deeply meaningful to me. It is perhaps one that can help us all as we seek to understand why some groups of people are classified by the Lord as His sheep and others are not. This following scripture offers keen clarification:
John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
We can assume that these two scriptures, which were written by the same apostle of Jesus, inform us that Jesus' sheep are those who truly love and believe in Him and most significantly, they keep His commandments.

In this blog I have emphasized fairly recently that a strong, core group of prophets who testified of the future coming of Jesus Christ to visit their descendants, after His death and resurrection, lived over the centuries, from 600 B.C. to 34 A.D., among the posterity of Lehi, who was led with his family out of Jerusalem to their promised land in the Western Hemisphere in what is probably known now as Central America.

They were ancestors of the people we will continue to study in this series of posts whom Jesus termed, "His sheep" when He visited them in 34 A.D.

These prophets not only testified of Jesus Christ, but also kept His commandments. They served Him by serving others.
In reading the writings of Lehi's descendants, it is clear that a good number of them followed the example of Lehi and his fourth oldest son, Nephi and fifth oldest son, Jacob and Sam too, in choosing to believe in the future coming to earth of Jesus Christ, the son of God to atone for the sins of mankind and to bring about a universal resurrection in due time. They lived true to their faith in Jesus Christ.
Father Lehi, Nephi and Others View the Liahona -by Arnold Friberg
All of these prophets starting with Lehi, testified that Jesus Christ's birth in Jerusalem was to occur in about 600 years from the time Lehi and those with him left Jerusalem and while journeying received direct guidance from the Lord along the way through an amazing device called, the Liahona.

Please see my Post 8, entitled: Way Before Computers, The Lord Provided Something Better.

Below is a list of these prophet-record keepers I have come up with along with the approximate years they were living and prophesying of Jesus Christ.

The books listed below in which these prophets' writings can be found, are all sub-books of The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
  1. Lehi (between 588 and 570 B.C.) See II Nephi 1-3,
  2. Nephi (between 559 and 545 B.C.) There are many of his writings in I Nephi. See I Nephi 11. Also see much of II Nephi.
  3. Jacob, (about 544 to 421 B.C.) See Book of Jacob. See II Nephi 11:3
  4. Enos (544 and 421 B.C., See Book of Enos
  5. Omni (279 to 130 B.C.) See Book of Omni
  6. Abinadi (148 B.C.) See Book of Mosiah, Chapters 11-17
  7. Benjamin (about 124 B.C.) See Book of Mosiah 1-6.
  8. Alma the Elder (147 B.C. See Book of Mosiah, 12-26.
  9. Alma the Younger (about 92 B.C. and 76 B.C.) Book of Alma.
  10. Amulek (92 B.C. to 76 B.C.) See Alma, 16 and 34.
  11. Samuel the Lamanite (6 B.C.) See Helaman, 13-15.
There were others, but these I have listed were those whose testimonies of the coming of Jesus Christ to the Nephite people are perhaps the best known and most often referred to from the Book of Mormon, to my knowledge.

Joseph Being Sold into Egypt -by Ted Henninger
 Lehi and his posterity were descendants of Joseph Who Was Sold Into Egypt. That Joseph, like his father, Jacob, who was also named, Israel (Let God Prevail) by the Lord, chose to follow the Lord.
They prophesied of the coming of the Lord by The Gift of Prophesy and Revelation, which is the testimony of Jesus according to the apostle, John. (New Testament: Revelation: 19:10)

As promised at the end of the previous post, (33f), I will now make some comments about the scripture I suggested that you read and listen to.

Here is that scripture again, in case you would like to re-familiarize yourself with it.

3 Nephi 15:1-24

After having read that scripture once again, why do you think that Jesus chose to visit the Nephites over all other nations of people on the earth after having lived His mortal life among the Jews in Palestine?

Could it possibly be that He chose them because they and their ancestors before them had, as a group, chosen Jesus Christ, and labored long and hard, going through much tribulation, to teach their people (Jesus' followers) and keep His commandments even before He was born into mortality?

Are there those in our day who are listed as His sheep? Are you and I part of His flock? Please read this next scripture thoughtfully and prayerfully in order to prepare to to answer those questions in post 33h.

III Nephi 16: 1-20

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