2.62 None Shall Be Weary or Stumble

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends.

Great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Welcome to an exciting week as we go forward with our readings inside of Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon.

We're going to be reading Doctrine and Covenants section 19 this week, which is awesome. A lot of people associate Doctrine and Covenants section 19 with a very insightful look at the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which we will get to in a moment. We're going to be talking about the Book of Mormon reading this week.

And actually, I thought something inside of 2 Nephi 15 would be worth kind of framing this week. And so we're actually going to pull our verse for today out of 2 Nephi 15 as we get into the juggle between the two of them. I don't think it's going to be tennis style like it was a couple weeks ago, but we are going to start inside of 2 Nephi 15 this week.

Our verse for today comes in the tail end of 2 Nephi chapter 15. It is verse 26. And what's happened here is the world, the Lord's vineyard, has been described as being overrun and it's in a state of decay.

It's chaotic. And then we get to verse 26. It says, "And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth.

And behold, they shall come with speed swiftly. None shall be weary nor stumble among them." Now there's some cool pieces inside of this one that I wanted to dive into. First, this ensign to the nations from afar.

Now, *Ensign* for a number of years, for decades, that was the Church publication magazine, right? Now it's the *Liahona*. I love the symbolism between both of those.

But when you go and look at *Ensign* and the footnote inside of it, you see that there are a lot of references. One, there are references to the preparation of the millennial day, right? The preparation of the coming of Jesus Christ.

It also has the mission of the Latter-day Saints on there, which is cool. But as you glance through the different ways that *Ensign* is used, you come to a couple other words that I really loved. There: "banner." There: "standard," right? "I'll set my standard to the people." And so this image to me of these things the Lord is going to put forward, and it's going to be something that's like, I envision like the Title of Liberty, right?

But then I paused and I thought, wait a second, we have those. There are Ensigns all over from the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

That's what got me thinking about Doctrine and Covenants 19 and 2 Nephi 15. We have the development of the Book of Commandments, which is going to become what we have today, the Doctrine and Covenants and translation of other scriptures through the Pearl of Great Price. We have living apostles and prophets that speak to the world every six months from General Conference.

It has been going on now for over 100 years, 130-plus years, whatever, right? We also have these proclamations that at certain times have been sent forth to the world. "The Family: A Proclamation to the World." "The Restoration." These are proclamations that living apostles and prophets have sent forth. So my friends, I get excited about this.

He will lift up an Ensign to the nations because the backside of this—if we see and acknowledge these Ensigns to the nations, this standard, this call, this beckoning that is happening—look at the back end of this verse: "They shall come with speed swiftly; none shall be weary nor stumble among them." That's almost a promise to those that hear the clarion call. That's letting us know that those of us that answer that call and heed that Ensign, that we're going to be able to gather swiftly and that we will not be weary nor stumble among them. Friends, the gathering of Jesus Christ brings with us power and authority.

And I love that. And I hope that you're feeling that in your life as you're answering this Ensign call. As you read the scriptures daily, as you pray to your Heavenly Father, as you seek to repent on a daily basis, I know my heart and my life is changing for the better.

I hope I'm becoming. I hope that you are experiencing it as well as we both go down this journey of increasing our savory salt. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave into the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt. For more information, visit us at www.savorysalt.org.