2 Chronicles 14-20; 26; 30 Part 2 • Sister Heather Farrell • July 20-26 • Come, Follow Me

There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him. Sorry, sorry. Wow. Okay, Mark that one in red, right?

For he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil. The same is Mikaya, the son of Imla.

And Jehovahfat said, "Let not the King say so."

“We can go ask him, but I don't like the guy. You never said anything good to me, right?”

Don't sugarcoat, what do you really think? Ahem doesn't have a lot of friends in the prophets, does he? In verse 14, they go to Mikaya, they want to know if they should go to battle. They're wanting to know if they're going to be prosperous in battle. Mikaya and verse 14 says, "And he said, "Go you up and prosper."

They shall be delivered into your hands. But then the king, and I'm thinking this is a habit, it doesn't say which king. But I'm guessing it's a habit. He pauses him after this. He says, "How many times shall I endure thee?" That I'll say nothing but the truth of me in the name of the Lord. He's saying, "Okay, you told me that.

But tell me the rest. What's the bad part that's coming? I know there's going to be a bad part." And there is a bad part. So in verse 16, then he says, "Well, I did see all Israel scattered upon the mountains. A sheep that have no shepherd," and the Lord said, "These have no master.

Let them return there for every man to his house and peace." And the king of Israel, that's a habit. Set him to your host, fat. Did I not tell me that he would prophesy good until me, but evil, see? What did I tell you?

Sometimes we can have the attitude about leaders or prophets. Now they're going to call us out again on that one. I remember one time when I was a young woman, I came back. He was doing President Hinkley's time. I was at my aunt's house.

My older cousins were a lot older than me, and I came back from priesthood session. I remember she asked him, "Well, what did they tell you?" Oh, President Hinkley just told us about pornography again. Don't do it. This is like again.

And again, and again. I feel like we can sometimes have that same attitude.

“I think I want to read the living Bible again.”

Didn't I tell you the king of Israel exclaimed to Jehovah? He does it every time.

He never prophesied anything.

He could even against me. He does it every time. Yeah, especially because he helps not the best dude at the moment. He's not again anything that he wants to hear at this point. He's only getting little stuff like, "Hey, you gotta shape up."

Oh, that is funny. Didn't I tell you? Hello. Then let's get ahead to chapter 19. They go on to have their battle.

Is it just me or does war seem like a national past time? I think the battle is going, but it looks like he gets wounded. And he gets taken back home to his king and drew some... The prophet comes out to him and tells him chapter 19 verse 2. And Jay, who the set of Hannah Knight, the seeer, went out to meet him and said to King Jehovah.

Should it still help the ungodly? I love them that hate the Lord. Therefore, is wrath upon me before the Lord. He's saying, "These are all the ways you fall short. Shouldn't you have done this?"

I call like me and my car another day. I should be doing this. I should be doing that. But this is the part that when I read this, it almost brought me to tears because it was speaking to my heart.

He says, "Never the less, there are good things found in thee."

I love that. And that spoke to my heart. You know you're falling short. And you know you're not living up to your potential. But nevertheless, there are good things found in thee.

And then the last part. And now has prepared that heart to seek God. We know those things are falling short of. But the Lord is seeing his heart. He knows where his heart is.

And that's really what matters to Lord. And that's what he's counting there. You know what that reminds me of. Is it zenith? But I saw some good among the layman nights.

I wanted to go and live there. Yeah.

“Is this saying you shouldn't have lined yourself with A-hab?”

Why would you do that? But you're a good guy. But don't align yourself with people like that. Your heart is in the right place. But maybe in practice sometimes you fall short.

But I love that line is like underlined and started. Never the less. There's good things found in thee. I just underlined mine. Yep.

Thanks to you. So let's go to chapter 20. We get another war. Another attack. Yes, John.

I think the ancient world. There was a lot more fighting. Which is one reason why we have all these stories about them calling on the Lord so often. They're living in crisis situations all the time. And if they're not in war, they're in a famine.

Or the war brings a famine because they trample all of the agriculture. All the real estate growing the agriculture. So it was hard time to live. Yeah. And glad we're not switching places, right?

Just how's the fact? And the kingdom of Judah know that there is this big force coming from Syria to fight them. And they know that they are outnumbered.

They try to align themselves with Israel.

They don't work.

“They just know there's no way that they can come back.”

That they can come back this attack. They've done everything they can. There's nothing else except for the Lord to fight for them. We have in chapter 20 verse 5 through 9. We have this beautiful prayer that Jeho Safat prays in front of the congregation of Judah.

He begs the Lord to come to his temple to see them and to fight for them. The last verse of this prayer is verse 12. Chapter 20 verse 12, "Oh our God.

Without not judge them, we have no might against this great company that come with against us.

Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee." The next verse is that they stand forth with their children and their wives. They go out with everybody. The prophet comes to them and in verse 15 he tells them, "Thus say at the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude.

For the battle is not yours, but God's." For 17, you need not to fight in this battle. Set yourself, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord God with you. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established, believe his prophets, so ye shall prosper. So he's telling them to stand still, don't fight, and the Lord will fight for you.

And they do this, they stand there instead of fighting, they sing.

In verse 22 it says, "They begin to sing, praise to God. The children of Amin and the Moe Bites come against them, and the battle is miraculously won. Without them, even having to do anything, the Lord fights this battle for him." The bad guys turn on each other. He would they come over the hill like, "Oh no!"

And then there they are, they're all death. Can you imagine you're like, "We're going to put our choir in front?"

“This is our battle for us here, and your children, right?”

They're standing for us with their children, like, "What faith to stand there and to have faith at the Lord will protect you?" I had a really beautiful experience when we lived in Jerusalem. We went to Jerusalem with six kids. We couldn't afford to have a car, because I was expensive and we couldn't get one. We had bikes. My husband blessed our bikes, that they would be protected.

I had an electric bike, and I would ride my bike up to the university, which is kind of up towards the amount of olives every day. If you've been in Jerusalem, you'll know that the streets in Jerusalem are not designed for bikes or pedestrians or cars. They're skinny, tiny, narrow, little streets, and they're often filled with huge buses, huge tour buses. I was riding my bike down one night, and I almost got side-to-side by this bus.

I had a prayer in my heart like this. I was like, "Have I father? There's not a lot I can do. This is my only way back and forth. Protect me. Let me get home to my kids." As I'm saying my prayer, I had this feeling, and I know it's honestly,

“but the only way I can think about it is that I felt like I had these two wings pop out behind my back.”

And I felt presences there. I heard these boys say, "We're here." And I was like, "What?" I felt like I had these angels that were flanking me on both sides. I asked them, I was like, "Really, you got me?" And I was like, "Yeah, we're here to keep you safe." And I was like, "Okay." And I even asked, "I'm having this conversation on my bike." I'm like, "Do I know who you are?" And they said, "No, you don't know who we are."

But we're here to protect you. After that, I started whenever I got my bike, I would say, "Okay, here we go, angel squad. Are you there?" And I would feel these little wings pop out in my back. And I would think, "Okay, they got me. I'm here." And that wasn't until I, this had been going on for a couple of months. I have this journal, what every day I write in it, but it's like a five-year journal.

So you write a little bit, and then you can see what you wrote the year before, and the year before that. I got to the entry from the year before, and I was reading it, and in this entry, our branch had gone to the temple in Rome, because I was a closest temple we could go to. And we had done baptisms, and when I was doing baptisms for a woman, just a temple name, she was Italian. As I came out of the water, I had this voice in my head say, "We will protect your family."

And at the time, I was like, "Oh, okay, great. That's nice." But when I came back to that after this, it hit me, I thought, "They are protecting my family. I have Italian angels like watching me. They're flaking me. I ride my bike down this hill. We will protect your family coming from an Italian." I was like, "Wow!" This is great. I have so many experiences, and it's to me to tell just the other way that our family was protected.

How I stood forth with my little children, and how they were protected, and how the Lord sent angels. And I know that there is something that happens in the temple that unlocks power, that unlocks people to help us. There is something that happens where the Lord is enabled to give us more strength than we could before. I haven't felt the presence of those angels since I got home. I feel like they were sent to me to make sure I got home to my children.

I love it. That's beautiful.

Well, like Elder Holland said, "Do not underestimate your family on the other side of the veil." I just love that. In the last, what would you say? Decatur 2, it is so much easier now to get on your phone, get a family name, that fast, not just a family name, and take them to the temple. That are interested in you, the way you are interested in it. Hearts turning to fathers and fathers to children, and mothers to children, and children to mothers. That's pretty cool. Heather, talk about likening the scriptures. Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of all these buses for the bicycle is not yours.

God.

“Oh, I love that. And can we insert so many different things in there?”

Like, this is not your fight. God is here. He will do this for you. There's really hard things. He'll be there. I had another friend that she also wrote her bike and Jerusalem. She said, "Sometimes all you can do is sing primary songs and pray." She's like, "God's got to do the rest." And I was like, "Sometimes all you can do is go through those hard things. You turn off the Lord and you stand for it. Then you'll be still." And you say, "Okay. Show me what you can do." Having been there many times, I don't feel safe on a bus sometimes. A lot of long on a bike.

I love the humility of the prayer. I think that is part of it. We have no might against this great company that come against us. Neither know we what to do. We're stumped, we're outnumbered, but our eyes are upon thee. That's a great prayer. I got that one, Mark, too. Did you mark that one, Hank? I did. And I wonder how many of us as parents say that sometimes, I don't know what to do and the Lord responds with. The battle is not yours. These children are not yours. They're mine.

Be not afraid nor dismayed. Standy is still and see this how they should not God. Watch what he can do. Believe in his prophets. They're going to come up to the cliff of Ziz. That was their mistake. Or 16. Think the cliff of Ziz.

Second Chronicles 20. What a great story. It's so applicable. Believe in God and believe in his prophets. I know I marked that one too. I thought that's good. There's power in believing. We often forget that when the list of spiritual gifts is given, believing is a spiritual gift. Just like we think we could easily see like, "Oh, if I can talk in tongues or heal people or work miracles, we see those of spiritual gifts." But to believe is a spiritual gift that brings power with it, believing it to the actual power that we can bring to the table.

Doubt not that be believing. Also, this is a guy who did not always make the best choices.

He had a line himself with a tab and the words like, "Oh, what are you doing?" But there's good things in you. And he got a miracle, even not being perfect and not having done everything that he could have lived up to his potential.

“He still was a living of a miracle and I think that's true for all of us.”

I think you're right. We're not perfect people and we think, "Oh, not worthy of this miracle." The story of Josephette can give you hope there. I just think that prayer tells you where his heart is. Give that kind of a heart, get to answers, I see. John, you frequently remind parents. The battle is not yours, but God's. This is my work and my glory.

This is your work and you're glory and you're saling. The Lord doesn't say that. He says, "This is my job. I got this. I'm able to do my work." And the generations change, too. Even if we have a wicked child, sometimes we have a righteous grandchild, here in the dividate line, we see that. Like it's not that it's all from here on to eternity, this whole line is now due to it. Because sometimes we can think that way, "Oh, what's happening?"

But the Lord is always working, always working in people's lives and our family's lives.

We have to hold on to that promise of the power that can go forward into our generations. And I'm amazed they put the choir out front. We're going to battle. Tenors. Okay, sopranos. Tenors. Yeah.

Maybe they were really terrible. They're like, "Run!" [laughs] That's funny. They're like, "What is that noise?"

“Can you imagine coming over that hill with your choir out front?”

And all you have is riches and spoils to take from these armies that had turned on each other. Wow, what a story. Can we move up to a failure? The next story is one that actually is not included in the company chapters. They kind of pick and choose because we can't do everything in Old Testament or it would take us like three years.

It's a story of two women and it's my very favorite story of women in the Old Testament.

“I speak a lot about women in the scriptures and people are always asking me, "Who's your favorite woman in the Old Testament?"”

My favorite woman is found here in second chronicles.

Her story is also told in second King's 11. And it's told a little bit more clearly in 11. So I might skip back and forth with some of the things or take details from second King's 11 and put him in here. The woman's name is Athalia. Her son is the King of Judah, his name is Ahazia.

It says here in second chronicles 22 verse 3, that he also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly. Here we're seeing that power of the Gabira of the mother in the King's household. That she's influencing him. Athalia actually is a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.

So she was a political alliance. Back when Jeosephat is aligning himself with Ahab, she gets married into the family as a political alliance. She is a northern Israelite marrying into the kingdom of Judah. And there's one scholar that says that she brought the poison of Israel into Judah. She brings what there's some of those traditions into the house.

And so she is influenced in her son and teaching him.

And we see here that she's his counselor to do wickedly. We've talked to a lot about that power that the woman had in the household religion and that family. Even at the same time, the temple is still doing its thing. What we're concerned here is what's happening in the King's household. How he's living his religion and he's not doing so great.

Like so he dies. Instead of the throne moving onto his son, Athalia takes control. Again, this shows us the amount of power that this Gabira had in the Judean household that she could step in to being king. She could take it without a whole lot of battle or fight. In doing this, she kills all of the other claims to the throne.

So that means she killed her grandson and her nephews. This is her family she is killing. In chapter 22, verse 10, it says, "But when Athalia the mother of Ahasia saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah." She is wiping out that dividic line.

The line through which the Messiah is supposed to come. Athalia is trying to completely wipe that out so that she doesn't have anybody to contest her role as queen here. Enter Jeho Shabah. And she is my favorite woman.

“Once you hear a story, I think you'll know why.”

Chapter 22, verse 11, says, "But Jeho Shabah." And here she's called Jeho Shabah. But in King's she called Jeho Shabah. I'll probably call her Jeho Shabah.

The daughter of the king took Joash, the son of Ahasia, and stole him from among the king's son that we're slain. And put him and his nurse in the bed chamber. So Jeho Shabah, the daughter of the king Jeho Ram, the wife of Jeho dea the priest,

for she was a sister of Ahasia, hid him from Athalia so that she slew him not. And he was with them hid in the house of God for six years, and Athalia ran over the land.

What an incredible story of this woman of Jeho Shabah.

She's a sister to Ahasia, so she's a princess. We don't know if she's Athalia's daughter, because it says she's a sister to Ahasia. She could be Athalia's daughter, which means that her grandmother's Jeho Shabah,

we have Jeho Shabah and Athalia, and then somehow we get Jeho Shabah, who's married to the priest of the temple. She's aligning herself. She's pointing her eyes on her heart towards the correct worship.

She's anchored in that temple in that official religion, as well as in her home religion. She sees what's happening to these children. In my mind, I have it like this. There's a little movie that plays out,

which I'm sure I just made up, because we don't get all those details. I mean, you can imagine what this would look like if she's killed these children. Body's blood, all of us have,

and she finds this baby who is not quite dead, who has been tried to be killed. Athalia has attempted to kill this baby, but he has not quite dead, and she finds one of the sons of the babies,

and she takes this baby with her and hides him for six years in the temple. This baby whose name is Joash, they are able to present him to the people and overthrow Athalia as the queen

and reinstate the Dividic line.

“I thought she could be one of the most important women”

in the whole Bible, because without her and her willingness to go and to find this baby and to save it and to teach him and to raise him in the temple, the Dividic line would be completely erased.

It would have ended. Jesus would not have been able to be born through the line of David. If it had not been for Joash,

doing what's right and not being like her mother or her grandmother,

“like breaking that chain in that cycle of unrighteous women,”

she's my favorite.

This is an incredible story.

This could be the granddaughter of Jezebel, and when you think evil women, Jezebel is a murderer and her daughter, Athalia is a murderer

and then comes this Jezebel. This is a beautiful story. I think you said earlier, Heather, that your family history doesn't have to define you.

It doesn't matter where we've come from or even how we were raised or what our past is like. Like we each have that choice to turn our eyes to the Lord.

It's beautiful to see, maybe if Matthew had more room, he would have put Jezebel there and Jezebel's Christ lineage. We could have stuck him in there some place.

She's one of those ancestors. She's one of the matriacs in Jezebel's Christ lineage of that David King. Yeah, and as you read on it,

it looks like a failure

doesn't know that all of a sudden

they're praising this new King. And she comes running out. This is quite a drama. The next chapter she runs out

“and the people are all praising the King.”

And she runs out and she runs for the altar and the temple. And she grabs onto the horns of the altar because that was the way you could claim sanctuary.

If you wanted to claim sanctuary, Jezebel had the priest. He comes and says, "Pull her off there. Get her out of there.

We can't kill her in the temple. Get her out of the temple. And then kill her. So they pull her out. And they kill her."

Wow, what a story. And all the people of the Rentland rejoiced in the city was quiet after they had slain Athalia with the sword.

I love that we talked about that. I mean, the Bible could have ended here. Yeah. Because everything that comes after is dependent on.

And look at it. Stole him from among the King's sons. That were slain. She came and rescued him. But I love the idea that King

Noah's son, limb-high, says he was not ignorant of the crimes of his father. He himself being a just man. You, as you said, Heather, get to the point where you can say,

"My parents went this direction. I'm going to go this direction." And I would love to see Jehoshibah story. Be one that's like the story of Esther.

Such an inspirational story. I love it. That's one of my new heroes. Jehoshibah. What do we do next, Heather?

All right. Let's jump to Hezekiah. Hezekiah is living in a time that is very scary because the northern tribes of Israel

are getting attacked by a Syria. This is when the scattering of Israel happens. Is the northern tribes are attacked. They get scattered to all corners of the earth. Because remember the Syrians,

their philosophy is deport everybody and break up all the families. He sees this happen in Israel and gets scared. He's remembering this covenant.

The one about the temple and the one about the Dividic line and he's like, "We've got to turn again to the Lord. The way that He does this is that He focuses again on that temple.

He's emphasizing the temple and turning away from those false teachings. Then he also institutes the Passover as a bigger celebration that it had been. Hank, will you read verse 5 of chapter 30?

They established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel. From Bershiba, even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover onto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem

for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written. They had not been keeping Passover for a while. And maybe even they'd been keeping it, but not how was supposed to be kept.

If you think about Passover, that's a family affair. If you've ever been to a Jewish Passover, you know, it's a family thing. This is not something that was celebrated

in the official religion and the temple or this is something you did in your home. Interesting here that we see has a kaya get those traditions in place because they're so important.

It's interesting that when people ask

“what's the most important Jewish holiday,”

usually people will say Passover, which is true.

It's probably the most important one.

A Jewish friend said, "No, it's not Passover. It's the Sabbath." The Sabbath is the most important Jewish holiday. It's so important we celebrate it every week.

And there are certain rituals and things that they do that help that day become so meaningful and so important. And the Passover is very full of rituals, things you read and things you eat

and certain foods, different practices you do that are all based on that household religion. Here, I see when he has a kaya is watching people be destroyed

and he's thinking what do we do? And he prays to Lord to know what to do. The Lord's answer is focus on the home. Focus on what the people are doing in the home. How are they living their religion in the home?

What traditions do they have? What are they doing that is turning their heart to God not in our official religion here? But in their home, that's so beautiful. And we see that it does change the people

when I start living and practicing this Passover. It changes them and they make a deeper commitment

The Lord's solution is to take it home first to take it back to those home-based practices.

And I think that's powerful.

And I see our church doing that. And so many ways, let's say, hey, the teaching is to happen in your home. What are you doing in your home to make this happen? I think that's a spot where all of us

could do a little bit of the examination of our homes and our personal lives and our personal worship of how are we prioritizing that

“and how we put it out forth in making an important?”

I love the little speech as a kaya gives to the Levites. My sons be not now negligent for the Lord have chosen you to stand before him and to serve him. That's great.

He's like, we're going to turn this around and I need your help. Hank, I was just thinking if they had not done it of such a long time in such sort, filling a little bit of guilt,

are there some things that we haven't done very well in our family for a long time that we need to fix the way it was designed? Yeah, and how cool it has a kaya to go ahead. We're doing this, but we're not doing as well as we could.

Let's fix this. Isn't it interesting that the Passover is all about remembering? Yeah, I think we did that a little bit with Easter where we started to lose the way it was designed feels like we've come around to that.

I like that done too, because I feel like sometimes in your family can think, oh, we haven't done family prayer for years or we haven't done this and oh, we just can't start doing it all of a sudden.

But the truth is you can.

It's okay if you haven't done it for a long time to start. And it's like Hank said, be honest.

“Heavenly Father, we haven't done this for a long time.”

Or you could even use these sorts. We have not done it enough a long time in such sort. As it was written. But we're going to do better. I think that's a great thing.

The best time to start was yesterday. Let's go now. Right. And you might regret it. In the future, if you hadn't started already, right when you were prompted to.

That's great. I love it. I want to finish discussion about second chronicles with the story of Holda. Some people might not have ever heard the story, but she is one of the central women in the Old Testament.

She is one of the ones you can hold up as a role model for young women and for women. Her story is told in second chronicles 34. This is maybe a generation or so. Pass the time of has a kaya that we just talked about with the Passover.

This is a generation or so in the coming. And there's a key name, Josiah. He begins to reign when he is eight years old. He probably is not raining himself when he's eight years old. He's having advisors or regent or somebody.

This says that while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father. And I love that that when he was young, he may have had an awesome father as well. But that could have been his mother's influence right there.

As we've seen this influence of the Queens of Judah, that when he was young, his heart was turned towards the Lord. I like to think that that's because there's a woman in his life directing that heart. And when we were in Israel,

we went to go visit the tomb of King David. It's a little tiny tomb and it's split in half. A lot of tombs of these famous people are people in the Bible or places of worship now for the Jews. His tomb is split in half, one half is for the women,

one half is for the men with my family. The girls went in the girl's side and the boys went on the boy's side. And it's a little tiny space. And there was people praying in there. And we walked in and my daughters and I were talking,

"Oh, we don't really feel comfortable in here. Let's just go out." So we went out. We just stood outside the boy's side, waiting for the boys to come out.

And they were in there a long time. I was thinking, "What are they doing in there?" As we're waiting for them, all of a sudden this line of like so many, like for your old Hasidic Jewish boys.

So if you think about them in their cute little sweaters with their ringlets, and they're all walking out so reverently. And I was like, "There are 40? How did they all fit in there?"

And I was on the women's side and I did not hear anything. They're just like a veil in between. I did not hear anything from those boys. How are they? All those little boys,

like for your old on that side, the men's tomb, coming out with them are these illustrious looking rabbis. I was thinking, "Oh, maybe there's some babysitters with something,

“but these are really important Jewish men."”

You can just tell these are revered rabbis type men that are coming out. And our lenient guiding this little group of boys. My husband came out and he was like, "Hather,

I have never seen anything like that

in my entire life. There were all those little boys in there and every single one of them was being taught how to go up to the David's tomb, how to respectfully approach it,

and then move back." And they were all reverent. I read these men, these rabbis. These men are teaching them and I've never seen anything like that.

I was talking to a friend about this, and I was telling about this experience. He said, "Oh, yeah." He's like, "In the Jewish culture, the highest position you can have

is the teacher of young children." He said, "That's the highest position." He said, "That's where they put their very best men." The very most illustrious rabbis, the ones who know the most.

People we would think of the stick presence

they're the ones that teach the very youngest.

“That has just stayed with me, the power of teaching young children.”

Sometimes we see the nursery or we see primary as a lesser calling, or sometimes even women can feel like, "Well, why don't the men ever do this?" They just give it to women

because the men don't want to do it. But I feel like after seeing those rabbis and seeing my experience, it's really reinforced to me that that is where real power and influence

can come is in shaping that younger generation and shaping those young children in their hearts. I love this verse here, that he taught when he was young to seek the Lord has got.

That makes all the difference in the story. Just recently a friend of ours was called to be in the primary presidency and I'm thinking, "Oh, I've want her to hear that story. Thank you."

Yeah, you're welcome.

This story goes on that Josiah is fixing the temple.

They find a book. They can't really read it or understand what it says and they don't know if it's from God and they're not sure what to do with this. But they know that it's scripture.

“They know that this is something important.”

It says verse 14, "Hilkiah, the priest found a book of the law, the Lord that was given by Moses." And Hilkiah answered and said and to shop on the scribe.

I found the book of the law and the house of the Lord. And they take the book to the king and they ask like, "Well, what should we do with this?" And he says, "Well, can we find somebody that can read this?"

So verse 21, "J Josiah says, "Go and choir the Lord for me." And for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, considering the words of the book that is found.

For great, it's the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord and do not all that is written in this book. In Judea, this time, Jeremiah is alive here

and so is a Prophet Zechariah. Even this could have been the time that Lehigh. He might have been young at the time, but Lehigh is also. This is his time period.

This is the end of the Bible.

“We're moving into the book of Mormon story here at this point.”

He could also have been here at this time. So they have all these options for prophets, but who do they take the book to? They take it to a woman named Holda who's called the prophetess.

It says that she's the keeper of the wardrobe, which there's lots of different ideas about it, but it could have been that they're talking about the priestly wardrobe. Think about the temple worker that takes care of the clothes and the temple or something.

And she dwell in the college of Jerusalem, which is not a college like we think it's a part that was added on to Jerusalem. So when the northern kingdom was destroyed, there was a ton of refugees that came from the north

down into Jerusalem. So Jerusalem added on a whole other part to it. That is called the second part. And that's where a lot of those refugees settled. And so she's in that part of Jerusalem.

That's interesting because we know Lehigh's family is from Manasa. I mean, one theory is that part maybe where his family was. And also, it reminded me of you, Heather. She dwells in Jerusalem in the college with her bison.

I love that application.

I had never put that together.

It has to be easy. I might need a shirt or something the better. I love here that she was called a prophetess. That I did have a prophet. It was a little bit more ambiguous back in the day

than we saw in the stories we had multiple prophets. The person who was kind of like what we would consider the prophet was the high priest of the temple in this time period. He was the leader of the eronic priesthood. The high priestess, the official religion leader,

the one that's in charge. But there are other prophets that show up like Jeremiah and all these people that are moved by the spirit of the Lord to speak truth. I love that she's called a prophetess because I feel like that's something that women can embody that idea of being a speaker of truth,

of testifying of Jesus Christ, of standing for what is right, of giving predictions of the future. All those types of things that we kind of think of of a prophet can do. Incidentally, they also believed that women could hold that.

This was really driven home to me again when we lived in Jerusalem because my very favorite spot in Jerusalem is a place called the Holdigates. Okay, you could say, like, "How are you? It's your favorite because it has the word holder in it

and you love holder." Yes, that's one reason too. But the holdigates are where the main entrance into the temple in Jesus' day. They're sealed up, but you can still see the outlines of where they are

and they have excavated the stairs that come down from those gates. If there was one place in all of Jerusalem or all of Israel that you could be almost 99% sure that Jesus actually touched his foot too, it would be those stairs because they're the original stairs

that go up to the temple and we know that Jesus went to the temple. He went up that way. They're called the Holdigates because the hold is too and was believed to be right outside them. But the thing that just really hit me

as I standing on the stairs is that when you're there, you feel like you're up in the sky that you're just ascending to the Hill of the Lord

You're moving up the stairs and the temple mount

is high up on the mountain.

“It just feels like you are ascending to the house of the Lord.”

In my heart, I was imagining what it would be like to be a woman in Jesus' day. And what it would feel like to walk up those stairs in through the Holdigates. Gates, this big beautiful main entrance

to the temple named for a woman who was a prophetess. Imagine if we had a huge gate at Temple Square that said, this is the Emma Gate and it's beautiful and it's huge and that's where everybody goes in. Your idea of Emma and women would be like,

whoa, I am important here. This is where I belong. Welcome Heather to the Temple Square through the Emma Gate. Here I am. That must have been how women felt going to the temple

as that they were walking through the Holdigate, the gate of the prophetess into a sacred place where they were invited. Even within the temple, we see Anna, the prophetess, a prophetess in Jesus' time,

the Anna that's there. She's described as a prophetess. I love that imagery and that feeling in my heart when I was there and standing of what that must have felt like.

And how empowering and how beautiful that would be to have been a woman in Jesus' day and to have walked in through those gates, named for Holda. Oh, that's beautiful. When I go there with my group,

I tell them that Neil Armstrong said, when he was taken there,

“to stand here means more to me than standing on the moon.”

Yeah.

It's the most incredible place.

And to get a picture with the Holdigates right behind you. Yeah. That's going to mean even more to me now. It meant a lot before.

Another name that a lot of folks call that is the south steps because it's on the south part of the temple. I wanted to sit there for hours because I knew this was that spot and probably also the spot where

Jesus sent the man who was born blind in John chapter 9 down those stairs to the pool of silence to wash because that's where it goes. That's where those steps go.

The Holdigates. I had no idea the first time I went there that that would become one of my favorite spots, ever in the world was sitting there on the south steps.

Blow a piece of heaven for sure. Yeah, it is. Thank you for telling us that. What is her message? She reads this book and she sees it

“and she declares that it's scripture that it's holy”

and Kenneth Frank Olson always makes a great point

about she's the first person to declare a written text a scripture. We could just read her words. And do you read second cockles 34, 23 and 24? And she answered them.

Thus, sayeth the Lord God of Israel. Tell you the man that sent you to me. Thus, sayeth the Lord behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof

even all the curses that are written in the book, which they have read before the King of Judah. So not good news, right? She's like, oh, sorry guys, not looking good. She's telling them that there's going to be

destruction coming. She's prophesying the end of the temple and the end of the Jewish people. She's prophesying about. She sees that coming.

But she also gives a promise to Josiah. We have these two promises. And we see those two promises even here when she's talking. We have this promise to the people

that's around the temple. And we have this promise to the dividend King so that Jewish line. And she speaks to him here to, hey, would you read verses 27 and 28?

And this is her words to Josiah. Because that heart was tender. Hey, John. That's you. And now did humble thyself before God.

When thou hurtest his words against this place and against the inhabitants thereof and humble thyself before me. And it's rend-by-close and weep before me. I have even heard they also say at the Lord.

The old I will gather thee to thy fathers. And thou shall be gathered to thy grave in peace. Neither shall thy nice see all the evil that I will bring upon this place and upon the inhabitants of the same.

So they brought the King at word again. Yeah. And verse 28 we have that eyes. I'm seeing that theme through all this about the eyes. Even though she's prophesying that there's going to be distraction

that it's almost too late. They're going to be destroyed. She says, but I've seen your heart. I know what you have done it personally. Even if the people haven't done it,

like I know you as a king, I can see your heart. The Lord is saying, I will gather thee home to your fathers. Like I've seen what you've tried to do. And I love that emphasis there again.

How we worship in our hearts and how we worship personally. The Lord cares deeply about that. After this, it does. It happens. This is the destruction of the temple

and the Babylonians come in and they destroy the temple. And they take all the kings of Judah. They carry them off to Babylon. This is a time when Lehigh would have left.

This is what the end of the Bible story and the beginning of the Book of Mormon, which if we think about this, this one is not the end in our book. But it is the end in the Hebrew Bible.

the Book of Mormon picks up. It's like, okay, we're done here.

“And now the Book of Mormon, we're keeping the story going.”

Here's another line. It's tragic. It really is. It's one of those ones that you read this after going through and you study these people and you love them.

And at the end, it's all gone. It's all destroyed. And that's a hard end to a book. Without promise at the end, that we read before at the beginning of Cyrus,

that promise of going back to the temple, going back and that theme of turning your heart and your eyes. Remember way back in Solomon's prayer, he asked, "Even if we're in captivity, and we pray to the land where the temple is,

will you hear us?" And God says, "Yes." Even then, so that yearning and that desire and that forward looking for the temple and for the Messiah, I love that that's the end.

And the end of the Hebrew Bible ends right there, without looking forward to the temple and the promise of the Messiah. The fact that the book of Mormon steps in right there and answers it, that's like, "Hey." Here we go.

You want to know about the Messiah. You want to know about the temple. Here we go. Here's where it goes. And I love it.

In my mind, it's a beautiful continuation that continues on points as towards Jesus Christ, and towards the true Messiah and towards the true temple.

Right when we get to the book of second chronicles,

we can think about, here comes Lehigh, contemporary of Jeremiah and Lehigh's told, "Take this part of the house of Israel of the seed of Abraham. I'm going to move you."

Sometimes they get scattered because they're wicked, but in Lehigh's case, it was get scattered to preserve. Right. You have these exact same name.

Do you remember our first Nephi chapter 1 verse 4? It came to pass in the first year of the reign of Zedakaya, King of Judah, that Zedakaya is in second chronicles 36 verse 10. Made Zedakaya his brother King over Judah and Jerusalem. That is a beautiful connection.

Thank you, Heather. Heather, you have showed us quite a journey here.

“I think our listeners, those who are still with us,”

would love to hear a little bit of your journey. As John and I have gotten to know you, you have an interesting journey. You called it not the standard or not the norm. Yeah, non-traditional.

Yeah, tell us a little bit about that. Like, read in my introduction.

I always love the script.

I feel like that's a spiritual gift. I brought with me from the pre-existence. It's just in my heart. Maybe I am a prophet. It's like, hold that with that.

In my heart. When I was at the IU, I took the seminary teaching courses and wanted to be a seminary teacher. And I actually got accepted into the seminary teaching program.

But at that time, I found out I was pregnant. It was like the week that they asked me, I just found out I was pregnant. At the time, the rule was that you couldn't teach seminary if you had children.

And it's struggle to get pregnant. And so I was really excited. So I was like, okay, I'm going into this. But there's a part that was really sad that I was passing it was opportunity.

Because teaching is such a part of my heart and my soul. And you're a gift to teacher. Thank you. So I told God. I said, I know that I was supposed to stay home with this baby.

It was after that that I got the inspiration really to start writing about women in the scriptures. I had taken a class that I knew from Camille Funkelson. I started writing about what I learned. I was just writing about what I was studying.

And people started reading it.

“And I was like, I remember one time somebody even commenting like,”

I'm really surprised that a blog. This is back in the day of blogs. A blog about women in the scriptures has this many followers. Who would have thought? Like, this is like, but I just realized that there are so many women like me that we're hungry for these stories of women.

Because the women's stories are in there. But so often we just don't take the time to think about them or find them or to dissect them or sometimes like we said they're really messy. And so we're like, ooh, that's day away from that one. I really started digging into these stories and loving them and finding them

and connecting with women in all different types of ways. And realizing that there's no cookie cutter stereotypical way to be a woman and a righteous woman. There's so many women that blow every stereotype out of the water. There's just so much diversity in God's women. For me, it became a testimony that God really does love his daughters.

And that we're not forgotten that we have a place.

And we've always had a place finding those ancient

evidences of powerful women and influential women. And the scriptures has been really meaningful to me. With this process of writing my blog, I was able to write the books, walking with women at the Old Testament, walking with women at the New Testament,

and walking with the women of the Book of Mormon. I am working on a doctor in Covenant's one as well. I'm taking you on time. I'm going to slow on that one. A couple years ago, I wrote a blog post. It was actually something that I wrote fairly quickly.

It was not even something that I like spent a lot of time on. But I'd had a conversation with my friend. We'd had a conversation about how God comes to women. And we were feeling, well, actually came out of angst if I'm honest. Because I was watching the Book of Mormon videos.

And there's a video of Enus.

And he, though, all his kids sleep on the floor. And he takes off to the forest to hunt. I was just like, filming inside. I said, you know what? It's not fair. Is that he's going off.

I know he's going to have this amazing experience. Because I'll buy himself. He's going to have time to pray for a whole day. And she's home there with all those kids.

She's never going to see ever going to have time to pray.

I was really feeling like angst.

“And this is also during COVID, so just add that layer on top, right?”

And I was just, oh, when the women have these times to do this. Because there's so much that's expected of us. This friend, she's like, oh, Heather. That's why God comes to women. That just blew my mind.

I was like, whoa, they did the God will meet us. And I think he does it for men too. I don't think it's just women. But I think it's especially meaningful for women. Sometimes our lives are so confined by our biology,

by our physical, female bodies. And they're sponsored lies to come with that and children. And I think that God sees that. And he sends messengers to us and he comes to us. And there's lots of examples of that.

Yeah, there's tons about we have the woman at the well. Like Jesus was there waiting for her when she was doing her work. Even Mary and Martha, like he's in their house. We have Heygar, who the Lord comes to her finds her in the wilderness. The men go up to the mountain.

Moses goes up to the mountain. Abraham goes up to the mountain. But God comes to women. I love it. Yeah.

My husband actually when we were engaged. He was down on one knee. He said, well, you married me. And I said, yes. But I have three conditions.

Which girls? This is the time to ask up to like just negotiate for anything you want in life. What a guy is down on his knee. That's a time to know what you're going to ask him. Because he'll be ready to say, yes, there anything.

I told him that I need to go to Israel. This was something that the Lord had planted my heart years before. Honestly, if I was Jewish, I probably would have immigrated to Israel. And moved to Israel. Because it was just that strong, like, drive there.

But I just did not do with it.

“I'm like, so you have to take me to Israel as one of the conditions.”

And he was like, okay, fine. You know what I'm saying? What's going on for? A tour with Hank and John, and we'll go. Yeah, I know that's not what I mean.

Yeah. Well, I didn't even know what it was at the time. I didn't really know. I just knew that I was supposed to go. Time goes on.

And we have kids and life just happens. And then during COVID, I realized that a lot of the programs in Israel were going to be online. So I took a Hebrew class and learned Hebrew for the first time. I was like, maybe my whole master's degree could be online, John. I could do the whole master's degree during COVID.

So I started, but then everything opened back up. And they were allowed us to go to Israel. My husband was like, well, I promised you were going to go. Let's go. And I was like, six kids.

Can we do this? Can we go to Israel for two years? So I can go to school.

The truth is, is that God makes things happen for us in our lives.

And I feel like that's the story of my life back to this disappointment about not becoming a semi-teacher. I mean, maybe I would have had a great semi-teacher. But I look at all the doors that God has opened up for me, and all the paths that he's given. And all the ways that he's taken and directed my life and given me the opportunities. Somehow he had this big miracle of Israel and it worked out.

And we went with six kids and it was the best of times and the worst of times. It was incredible. And I was amazing. I just feel so grateful. And I know like my testimony that came out about was that God knows the desires of our hearts.

The heat knows our talents and our strengths. And no matter what our life circumstances are, he will guide us and direct us and help us to accomplish what's in our hearts. Especially for women. I feel like so often women have to feel they have to choose between family and career. I don't think that's true.

It's definitely hard to juggle. I will not say that. It's not true. But I definitely think that choosing children and choosing a family is very much online with reaching your dreams and accomplishing amazing things.

I feel like the Lord will open doors and move mountains for people who are following the path that he is guiding them on. I love it. I just want people who know that book is called God comes to women and I can't wait to read that. I think that's an empowering thought.

“I think it's beautiful and I think it will bless a lot of people.”

I'm so glad you mentioned that. It's so interesting. I'm going to be chewing on that for days. Heather, women in the scriptures.com. That's still being updated as much as you can.

Yeah. Still as a treasure chill of all the things I've written before on there and resources. I haven't been as good about updating it recently because I've been doing school and other things. But there's still a lot of good things on there and a lot of good resources. Hopefully it can handle a little bit of high traffic this week.

I'm sure our listeners are all big head there. They're feral fans and want to head over there and check that out. How wonderful. Heather, this has been a superb day. I love second chronicles.

John, and you've never heard me say that before.

Yeah, we've never chronicleed so much before, but we are. We are chronicles now. Yeah, let it be chronicleed that we love second chronicles. Thank you for your time, Heather, and your preparation. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome and thank you so much for a wonderful conversation. Yeah, it has been a treat having you here.

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