Elder Blackburn freezing in Blackburn, England. Hopefully he's warmer now that he has some good earmuffs and gloves!!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas Phone Call
Well, this brings us all up to date now!! :)
We got to chat with Skylar today for almost an hour. We tried to Skype with him, but the internet he was using wasn't strong enough to sustain the connection. Schade... oh well. We still had a lovely time chatting with him! He's doing great! He sends his love to everyone, especially those that write him! *Wink wink nudge nudge.* He is still in Blackburn, and is now training Elder S[h]andor from Slovakia who just arrived on Tuesday. He is also still with Elder Stubbs from Australia, but they aren't sure how long their trio will last. They have a couple baptisms coming up in the next few weeks and they are staying busy teaching. He says his street contacting is easy-peasy lemon-squeezy now, but bus contacting is still a struggle... Brits aren't too fond of people trying to talk to them on the bus, but since he rides the bus a couple hours a day, it would just be wasted time if he didn't try to open his mouth. He loves the Blackburn Ward, even though the area isn't as receptive as his others. He's sick of people making comments about his name (apparently, some people don't believe that his last name is actually Blackburn when he first meets them). His shoes are worn out... I think he called them mini-refrigerators... and he is all around FREEZING. He's been sick the last couple weeks, and going out and working in the rain and snow has only made it worse, but he's zipped up his man suit and his still working hard. We told him to take better care of himself! The buses aren't running today though, so they have to walk about 2 hrs back home from the member's house they were visiting...
Moral of the story: it's still hard work to be a missionary, but he is learning A TON and loving the experience... even the hard parts! And he loves all of you! Happy Christmas!
-Dana
We got to chat with Skylar today for almost an hour. We tried to Skype with him, but the internet he was using wasn't strong enough to sustain the connection. Schade... oh well. We still had a lovely time chatting with him! He's doing great! He sends his love to everyone, especially those that write him! *Wink wink nudge nudge.* He is still in Blackburn, and is now training Elder S[h]andor from Slovakia who just arrived on Tuesday. He is also still with Elder Stubbs from Australia, but they aren't sure how long their trio will last. They have a couple baptisms coming up in the next few weeks and they are staying busy teaching. He says his street contacting is easy-peasy lemon-squeezy now, but bus contacting is still a struggle... Brits aren't too fond of people trying to talk to them on the bus, but since he rides the bus a couple hours a day, it would just be wasted time if he didn't try to open his mouth. He loves the Blackburn Ward, even though the area isn't as receptive as his others. He's sick of people making comments about his name (apparently, some people don't believe that his last name is actually Blackburn when he first meets them). His shoes are worn out... I think he called them mini-refrigerators... and he is all around FREEZING. He's been sick the last couple weeks, and going out and working in the rain and snow has only made it worse, but he's zipped up his man suit and his still working hard. We told him to take better care of himself! The buses aren't running today though, so they have to walk about 2 hrs back home from the member's house they were visiting...
Moral of the story: it's still hard work to be a missionary, but he is learning A TON and loving the experience... even the hard parts! And he loves all of you! Happy Christmas!
-Dana
Week 28
20 December 2010
Hello!
So I will just jump into it.
The Book of Mosiah
Chapter 4
King Benjamin continues his address—Salvation comes because of the Atonement—Believe in God to be saved—Retain a remission of your sins through faithfulness—Impart of your substance to the poor—Do all things in wisdom and order. About 124 B.C.
The other day I knocked on a referral and he let us in. He was an alcoholic. He believed in God, but did not believe that he would help him. His friend was there and was an alcoholic too. His house was about 1-2 degrees celsius. Just a little bit above freezing obviously and he had about £1.84 left on his Electric Meter. They have pay as you go meters here which is different than most of you in America. We got him food from our emergency supply (aka extra missionary stuff from old transfers) and then we took it back with a hot bowl of mac n cheese. It still didnt help him with his electric heating. He was grateful but still bitter.
Our sunday school lesson was about the Sabbath Day and I kept hearing the words of Christ saying, "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath?" I kept beating myself up because I did not want to go down the road the cash machine and withdraw money to give him. I ended up after searching through the scriptures in my head and detecting a genuine attitude of needing heating to walk down to the ATM and withdraw £10 and splitting it at the cashier to give the man £5. I went back and prayed and I asked if it was the right thing to do. I was answered with a yes and I know now the situations Christ was in when the Pharisees tried to bind him down with extra carnal rules and they tried to tell the lawgiver how to live the law.
Keep the Sabbath day and every aspect of your life will be positively affected. Don't and the opposite will happen. This, I testify to you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love,
Elder Blackburn
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[This was Skylar's response to MY mission call to California San Fernando, Spanish Speaking]
AHHHHHHHHHHH YAY!!! Hopefully after learning English, German, and a little Hebrew [actually it was Arabic, but whatev... haha] you won't twist your tongue up with Spanish! haha or as Logan says Espanglish =D That is really a perfect place for you. Did you write that Logan served in Riverside California on the papers? That is awesome! And ya, I can completely relate. It is sort of that moment you open it and say..."OH SHOOT...I am actually going to do this! AHHHH! FREAK OUT TIME!!!! MAJOR!" Definitely know that feeling. I am proud of you! I will have to tell sister Davis the next time I see her which would be Wednesday BUT I am going to Chorley (The Temple, MTC, and Zone Conference area) on Tuesday to pick up a new missionary because apparently President and the Lord think they are being funny and are having me train the only missionary that is coming out this Christmas...AHHH That is freak out time...HECK I HAVE ONLY BEEN OUT 7 MONTHS! =/ Most trainers are 10-12 months out!
President said, "Now, I know you are really young in your mission to be doing this, but I have faith in you and you will be great." HA YA RIGHT! CRAZY!
LOVE YOU!
(Simply lame English) Elder Blackburn
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This is a massive email. This is 1 of 13 parts of the thing that I was talking about last week. LOVE YOU, Talk to you later this week!
Elder Blackburn
PS: my bottom retainer came out today...still have it...oops...haha LOVE YOU! it feels weird
A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Pt 8
By Hugh Nibley
Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University
Hugh Nibley, "A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Part 8", Ensign, Dec. 1976, 73
The purpose of these articles is (1) to call attention to some of the long-ignored aspects of the Joseph Smith account of Enoch in the book of Moses and in the Inspired Version of Genesis and (2) to provide at the same time some of the evidence that establishes the authenticity of that remarkable text. Contemporary learning offered few checks to the imagination of Joseph Smith; the enthusiasm of his followers presented none. Yet, though free to roam at will over a boundless plain, the Prophet never once in his account of Enoch strays from the narrow and exacting path that later Enoch texts have so clearly marked. In his version, every essential element of the Enoch story as we now know it turns up, yet he never strays out of bounds—what he says and what he does not say about Enoch are equally remarkable considering his situation.
To present and discuss all the ancient parallels to the Joseph Smith Enoch would require a work of immense scope, but such is not necessary for our purpose. It is enough to show by one or two examples in each case that even the most extravagant passages in the Joseph Smith version may all be matched by ancient texts—the Prophet is never alone. Many important questions, such as the real age of the Enoch tradition, how the various texts are related, their relevance to modern life, etc., must be left till later. For the present the message and the bona fides of the Joseph Smith account of Enoch are our sole concern.
Surprisingly enough, the best documented story of a clash between Adam and Satan is the scene in heaven. One old writing with unusually good credentials that trace back to books deposited by the apostles in the first Church archives in Jerusalem is the Coptic “Discourse of the Abbaton, a sermon based on the text delivered by Timothy the Archbishop of Alexandria.”304
The book belongs to the forty-day literature; and as it opens, the Lord on his last day on earth with the apostles just before his ascension asks them if there is any final request they would like to make of him—exactly as in Third Nephi 28:1. [3 Ne. 28:1] What they want most is to understand the role of Death and its horrors in God’s plan for his children.305 To explain this the Lord tells them of the council in heaven in the preexistence where the plan of the creation is being discussed. There was great reluctance among the hosts to proceed with the creation of the earth, the earth itself complaining, exactly in the manner of Moses 7:48, of the filthiness and corruption that would surely go out of her and begging to be allowed to rest from such horrors. (Fol. 10a–b.) Because of the council’s reluctance to proceed, God allows the lifeless body of Adam to lie upon the earth for forty days, unwilling, without the council’s approval, to let his spirit enter. (11b.) The Son of God saves the day by offering to pay the price for whatever suffering will be entailed, thus permitting “God’s children to return again to their former condition.” (12a.) Christ alone thus becomes the author of our earthly existence; amid joy and rejoicing God calls for a book, in which he registers the names of all the “Sons of God” who are to go to earth. (See Gen. 5:1ff, Fol. 12b.) This of course is the heavenly book of the generations of Adam open at the foundation of the earth, the book to which Enoch refers so explicitly in Moses 6:46, 8.
In the presence of all the hosts, Adam is next made ready to take over his great assignment. He is placed on a throne and given a crown of glory and a scepter, and all the sons of God bow the knee first to God the Father and then to Adam the Father in recognition of his being in God’s exact likeness and image. (13a.) Satan, however, refuses to comply, declaring that he is willing to worship the Father but not Adam: “It is rather he that should worship me for I arrived before he did!” (13a–b.) (See Moses 1:19: “I am the Only Begotten, worship me.”) God saw that Satan, because of his boundless ambition and total lack of humility, could no longer be trusted with celestial power and commanded the angels to remove him from his office. This ordinance they performed with great sorrow and reluctance: They “removed the writing of authority from his hand. They took from him his armor and all the insignia of priesthood and kingship.” Then with a ceremonial knife, a sickle, they inflicted upon him certain ceremonial blows of death which deprived him of his full strength forever after. (14a.) Other accounts say that after these cuts he retained only one-third of his former power, even as he was followed by one-third of the hosts.
Next Adam was escorted to earth to enter his mortal body, and for a hundred years thereafter was often visited by angels. (14b.) Thereafter, for two hundred years he lived happily in innocence with Eve, taking good care of the animals in his charge. Eventually Satan succeeded in getting possession of a mortal creature, which enabled him to carry on an extensive campaign aimed at Eve. (16a–17a.) Adam was greatly upset; but when Eve, the victim of a trick, took all responsibility, he joined her. (17b.)
Satan stopped Adam outside of the Garden and gloatingly told him that this was his sweet revenge for Adam’s victory in heaven: Adam had got him expelled from heaven and now he had paid him in kind; what was more, he intended to continue his project—“I will never cease to contend against thee and against all those who shall come after thee from out of thee, until I have taken them all down to perdition!” (21a–b.) With the threat of death before him, Adam saw the bitterness of hell (19a, 2lb), but calling upon God he received not only the assurance of salvation for the dead through the atonement of Christ (20b), but is told that death shall be sweet to those whose names are inscribed in the Book of Life (24a–b). Fear of death (the angel Mouriel) is wholesome and necessary to remind the human race of its fragility and constant need of repentance. This has the salutary effect of countering Satan’s plan by providing a constant check on the tendencies of men to misbehave, a sobering and, if necessary, a frightening lesson.
What comes after the showdown between our first parents and the Adversary? Our sources obligingly go right on with the story, and follow Satan from his attempts to win Adam’s obedience to his highly successful interviews with Cain, tracing the steady spread of wickedness among mankind down to its culmination in the days of Enoch. There is no better summary of the story than that given in the book of Moses, which is surprisingly close to the “Combat of Adam” version on every point. Let us briefly survey events leading up to the call of Enoch, as given in the Joseph Smith account.
Having been instructed by an angel of the Lord, Adam and Eve enjoyed a fulness of the gospel, “and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.” (See Moses 5:1–12.) Enter Satan, the negative one, with his nongospel: “Believe it not!” and his counter-gospel: “I am also a son of God.” (Moses 5:13.) He gains a following by pushing downhill, in the direction of what is “carnal, sensual, and devilish.” (Moses 5:13.) This called for much preaching of repentance (Moses 5:14–15), as Adam and Eve remained true and faithful, and “ceased not to call upon God” (Moses 5:16). Into this world Cain was born, who rejected his parents’ teachings as irrational—“Who is the Lord that I should know him?” (Moses 5:16.) The Lord gave Cain every chance to be wise and save himself, showing him in all reasonableness the dangerous course he was taking, and warning him that he would be in Satan’s power to the degree that he refused obedience: “And thou shalt rule over him.” (Moses 5:23; see also Gen. 4:7.) Cain rule over Satan? Yes, that is the arrangement—the devil serves his client, gratifies his slightest whim, pampers his appetites, and is at his beck and call throughout his earthly life, putting unlimited power and influence at his disposal through his command of the treasures of the earth, gold and silver. But in exchange the victim must keep his part of the agreement, following Satan’s instructions on earth and remaining in his power hereafter. That is the classic bargain, the pact with the Devil, by which a Faust, Don Juan, Macbeth, or Jabez Stone achieve the pinnacle of earthly success and the depths of eternal damnation.
The Lord held forth the fatherly invitation to Cain: “If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted,” along with the solemn warning, “Satan desireth to have thee.” (Moses 5:23; see also Gen. 4:7.) He is admonished against the folly of “reject[ing] the greater counsel” (Moses 5:25), and the door of repentance is held open right to the last moment, when it is Cain himself who breaks off the conversation and angrily stamps out, refusing to listen “any more to the voice of the Lord” or to his brother’s remonstrances (Moses 5:26). Cain married “one of his brothers’ daughters” (not necessarily Abel’s), and together “they loved Satan more than God” (Moses 5:28), quite satisfied with their religion and quite defiant about it.
What could one do in such a situation? Nothing: “Adam and his wife mourned before the Lord, because of Cain and his brethren.” (Moses 5:27.) Having deliberately severed all connection with his Heavenly Father, Cain was free to enter a formal agreement with Satan, by which he would receive instruction in the techniques of achieving power and gain: “Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret [The language is that of ancient colleges or guilds where the secret is the mystery of the trade or profession; in this case, his secret is how to convert life into property], that I may murder and get gain.” (Moses 5:31; see also Moses 5:49.) Cain “gloried” in the power of his new-found skill and dialectic, declaring that it made him “free.” (Moses 5:33.) He put his knowledge to work in a brilliantly successful operation in which “Abel … was slain by the conspiracy of his brother” (D&C 84:16), and gleefully congratulated himself and “gloried in that which he had done, saying: I am free; surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands.” (Moses 5:33; italics added.) This new light on Cain’s behavior is confirmed in the Combat of Adam, where we learn that, after killing Abel, Cain “felt no inclination to repent of what he had done,” a detail pointed out also by some of the early church fathers.306
Plainly this is not the conventional novel of Cain and Abel, in which an impetuous adolescent loses his head and brains his spoiled brother in a fit of jealousy; it is a carefully planned and executed operation in which Cain slew “his brother Abel, for the sake of getting gain” (Moses 5:50), dismissing his conscience with the thought that all was fair and square since Abel was quite capable of taking care of himself: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Moses 5:34). This was the philosophy by which Satan seduced the human race, teaching them that “every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.” (Alma 30:17.) When God took a different view and called him to account, he still pleaded the profit motive as an excuse: “Satan tempted me because of my brother’s flocks.” (Moses 5:38.) Being “shut out from the presence of the Lord” (Moses 5:41), Cain started his own establishment, the main line of his descendants being Enoch (who built a city of Enoch), Irad, Mahujael, Methusael, Lamech the father of Jubal and Tubal Cain. (Moses 5:42–46.) Lamech like Cain “entered into a covenant with Satan,” and like him “became Master Mahan.” (Moses 5:49; italics added.) When Lamech heard that Irad the son of Enoch was violating the secrecy of these terrible things he “slew him for the oath’s sake” (Moses 5:50), since “Irad began to reveal … unto the [other] sons of Adam” these top-secret signs of recognition (Moses 5:49). All those who covenanted with Satan were excluded from the holy covenants of God, though they pretended that everything was the same as before. The dirty business spread as such things do once started; Lamech became an outcast like Cain, not because of the murder but because his wives started spreading his confidential secrets—the very ones he had murdered Irad for divulging. “And thus the works of darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men.
“And God cursed the earth with a sore curse.” (Moses 5:55–56.)
Is there no relief in the terrible picture? There is: all this time the gospel was “being declared by holy angels … and by the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Moses 5:58), while “all things were confirmed unto Adam, by an holy ordinance,” in the assurance that “the Gospel … should be in the world, until the end thereof” (Moses 5:59). Adam, having lost Abel, got another son, Seth, to carry on his work. (Moses 6:2.) From him comes that line of successors in the priesthood, duly registered in the Book of Life, from which the wicked were excluded. (Moses 2:5–8.) After Seth came Enos, who decided to make an important move. Since “in those days Satan had great dominion among men, and raged in their hearts,” causing “wars and bloodshed … in administering death, because of secret works, seeking for power” (Moses 2:15)—exactly as in the modern world—Enos gathered together “the residue of the people of God” and with them migrated out of the country “and dwelt in a land of promise,” named Cainan after his son (Moses 2:17). The line is Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. (Moses 6:16–21; Moses 8:2, 5–11.)
In The Combat of Adam with Satan, as Migne observes, “the author depicts the descendants of Adam as divided into two separate and distinct branches: the Cainites dedicated to following Satan, who lived in a fertile country but very far distant from Eden, and who devoted themselves to all the pleasures of the flesh and all manner of immorality,” and the Sethites who “dwelt in the mountains near the Garden, were faithful to the divine law and bore the name of the Sons of God.”
The occurrence of like names in the two genealogies should not surprise anyone who does much genealogy, where the same family names keep turning up in an endless round. The thing to notice is that there are two lines and that Enoch is seen as a stranger and a wild man only when he leaves his native colony in Cainan, “a land of righteousness unto this day” (Moses 6:41), to sojourn as a missionary among the wayward tribes. And so the stage is set for Enoch.
The Wicked World of Enoch
The wickedness of Enoch’s day had a special stamp and flavor; only the most determined and entrenched depravity merited the extermination of the race. In apocryphal Enoch stories we are told how humanity was led to the extremes of misconduct under the tutelage of uniquely competent masters. According to these traditions, these were none other than special heavenly messengers who were sent down to earth to restore respect for the name of God among the degenerate human race but instead yielded to temptation, misbehaved with the daughters of men, and ended up instructing and abetting their human charges in all manner of iniquity. They are variously designated as the Watchers, Fallen Angels, Sons of God, Nephilim, or Rephaim, and are sometimes confused with their offspring, the Giants.307 Other candidates for this dubious honor have been suggested by various scholars, the trouble being that more than one category of beings qualify as Fallen Angels and spectacular sinners before the time of the Flood.308 The Bible uses the title sons of God—were they different from the Watchers of tradition?
“The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare … to them … mighty men, … men of renown.
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” (Gen. 6:2, 4–5.)
The idea of intercourse between heavenly and earthly beings was widespread in ancient times. Thus, in the newly discovered Genesis Apocryphon, when Lamech’s wife bears him a superchild (Noah), he assumes almost as a matter of course that the father is “one of the angels” and accuses her of faithlessness until his grandfather, Enoch, whose “lot is with the Holy Ones” and who lives far away, clears up the misunderstanding. Significantly, the name of the child’s mother is Bit-enosh, i.e., she is one of the “daughters of men.”309 The Cedrenus fragment avoids the problem of heavenly origin by identifying the sons of God and the daughters of men with the descendants of Seth and Cain respectively, and he specifically designates the sons of God as the Watchers.310 Recently M. Emanueli has suggested that the various terms are merely “a figure of speech in order to express the depth of the deterioration of that generation.”311
While the sons of God have been identified with both angels and the Watchers, the Greek Enoch does not identify the Watchers with Satan’s hosts who fell from heaven from the beginning—they are another crowd.312 It is the Joseph Smith Enoch which gives the most convincing solution: the beings who fell were not angels but men who had become sons of God. From the beginning, it tells us, mortal men could qualify as “sons of God,” beginning with Adam. “Behold, thou [Adam] art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons.” (Moses 6:68; italics added.) How? By believing and entering the covenant. “Our father Adam taught these things, and many have believed, and become the sons of God.” (Moses 7:1.) Thus when “Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed … they were called the sons of God.” (Moses 8:13.) In short, the sons of God are those who accept and live by the law of God. When “the sons of men” (as Enoch calls them) broke their covenant, they still insisted on that exalted title: “Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men?” (Moses 8:21), even as “the sons of men,” reversing the order, married the daughters of those “called the sons of God,” thereby forfeiting their title, “for,” said God to Noah, “they will not hearken to my voice.” (Moses 8:15.) The situation was, then, that the sons of God, or their daughters who had been initiated into a spiritual order, departed from it and broke their vows, mingling with those who observed only a carnal law.
“Why have you left heaven [and] the Exalted One,” says Enoch in a Gizeh fragment “and … with the daughters of men defiled yourselves? … Ye have behaved as sons of Earth and begotten to yourselves giant sons. And you were once holy, spiritual, eternal beings … and have lusted after the flesh … as do mortal and perishable creatures.”313
What made the world of Enoch so singularly depraved as to invite total obliteration was the deliberate and systematic perversion of heavenly things to justify wickedness. An early Christian writer, Hippolytus, says that the Anti-Christ imitates Christ in every particular: each sends out his apostles, gives his seal to believers, does signs and wonders, claims the temple as his own, has his own church and assembly, etc. Such is the method of “the great Deceiver of the World,” against whom, says Hippolytus, “Enoch and Elias have warned us.”314 We are reminded how Satan put forth his claim, “I am also a son of God” (Moses 5:13), and commanded Cain to “make an offering unto the Lord” (Moses 5:18–19) and to take his oaths “by the living God” (Moses 5:29), as if everything were still in the proper order. In the same spirit Noah’s descendants in their wickedness still insisted that nothing had changed:
(Moses 8:21.) “The children of men said to Noah: Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men?”
The apocrypha agree:
Sophisticated deception is the name of the game. “Woe unto you who deliberately go astray [poiountes planemata],” cries Enoch, “who promote yourselves to honor and glory by deceitful practices. … Who misapply and misinterpret straightforward statements, who have given a new twist to the everlasting Covenant, and then produce arguments to prove that you are without guilt!”315 Cold-blooded calculation is the keynote. The “Watchers” (using the Greek word) led away “myriads of myriads … with our Prince Satan-el,” says the Slavonic Enoch, “and defiled the earth by their acts. And the wives [instead of daughters!] of men did a great evil, violating the law … a great iniquity.”316 “For in the secret places of the earth,” we read in a very early Judeo-Christian source, “they were doing evil … and all of them committed adultery with their neighbor’s wives; and they made solemn covenants among themselves concerning these things.”317 Such practices went back to the days of Cain:
Moses
Apocrypha
Moses
Apocrypha
Moses
Apocrypha
And so we find in a Greek Enoch text the Great Angels returning from earth to report to God that they had found “Azael teaching all manner of unrighteousness upon the earth, and he has laid bare those mysteries of the age which belong to heaven, which are [now] known and practiced among men; and also Semiazas is with him, he to whom thou gavest authority [over] those who go along with him.”318
As bad as breaking their oaths was divulging them to those not worthy to receive them, thereby debasing and invalidating them. One of the most widespread themes of myth and legend is the tragedy of the hero who yields to the charms of a fair maiden or femme fatale and ends up revealing to her hidden mysteries. The story meets us in the oldest Egyptian epic (where the lady Isis wheedles out of Re the fatal knowledge of his true name) and in like tales of Samson and Delilah, the daughter of Jared, Lohengrin, etc., in which the woman is the Pandora who must know what is in the box. On this theme the Gizeh fragments offer a significant parallel to the Joseph Smith version, in which the common background of the text and the confusion of the later scribes are equally apparent:
(Moses 5:53.) “Lamech had spoken the secret unto his wives, and they … declared these things abroad, and had not compassion. … Moses 5:55. And thus … darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men.”
Compare this to:
(Gizeh 16:2–4.)319 “And now concerning the Watchers, say to them. You were in heaven and there you knew every mysterion which had not been made known to you as well as that mystery which God allowed; and that you disclosed to your wives in the hardness of your heart, and it was through this mystery that women and men caused iniquities to abound upon the earth.”
Clement of Alexandria attributed to Musaeus, the founder of the Greek Mysteries, an account of “how the angels lost their heavenly heritage through the telling of the secret things [mysteria] to women,” things, Clement observes, “which the other angels keep secret or quietly perform until the coming of the Lord.”320
Rather surprisingly, the age of Enoch is consistently described as the time of great intellectual as well as material sophistication. “Azael … taught [men] to make knives and breastplates and all kinds of military hardware; and to work the ores of the earth, and how gold was to be worked and made into ornaments for women; and he showed them silver and taught them polishing [eye-paint] and cosmetics and precious stones and dyes. And the sons and daughters of men adopted all these things and led the saints astray. And there was great wickedness on the earth, and they became perverted and lost in all their ways. Along with that their leader Semiazas taught them scientific formulas (epaodas kata tou nous), and the properties of roots and plants of the earth. The eleventh, Pharmakos, taught all manner of drugs, incantations, prescriptions, formulas. [Others] taught them star-gazing, astrology, meteorology, geology, the signs of the sun and moon. All of these began to reveal the mysteries to their wives and children.”321
The leaders of the people devoted most of their wealth to “all kinds of engineering projects for controlling and taming nature. But the Lord altered the order of creation, making the sun rise in the west and set in the East,” so that all their plans came to naught.322 The idea of controlling the environment independently of God “was not as foolish as it sounds,” says the Zohar, “for they knew all the arts … and all the ruling principles [archons] governing the world, and on this knowledge they relied, until at length God disabused them by restoring the earth to its primal state and covering it with water.”323 Rabbi Isaac reports: In the days of Enoch even children were acquainted with these mysterious arts (the advanced sciences). R. Yesa asks: With all that knowledge could they not foresee destruction? To which R. Isaac replies: They knew, all right, but they thought they were just smart enough to prevent it. What they did not know was that God rules the world. … He gave them respite as long as the righteous men Jared, Methuselah and Enoch were alive: but when they departed from the world, God let the punishment descend … and they were blotted out from the earth.324
A Book of Mormon text betrays the Enoch tradition (possibly contained in the brass plates) in a transparent parallel:
(2 Ne. 26:29.) “Priestcrafts are that men … set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.”
Compare this to:
(Zohar. Beresh. 25b.) “These men [of Enoch’s time] erected synagogues and colleges, and placed in them scrolls and rich ornaments … but they did it to set themselves up for a light, and for the honors of men; and in such a way the powers of evil prevail over Israel.”
Power and gain are two faces of one coin: “We are able to do whatever we please,” said the people in Enoch’s day, “because we are very rich!” To which Enoch replied: “You are wrong! Your riches will soon depart from you …”; but they went on seeking the power of gain more grimly than ever.325
An interesting connection emerges in the account of how “in the time of Enoch they committed murder, shedding of blood of the children of men; they enslaved them, they sold what did not belong to them, they entered homes without right, and took whatever they wanted … they rigged the laws in their favor, and imitated the abominable deeds of the rebellious angels of a former time in which, when Abel tried to check them they encompassed his death by a conspiracy.”326 For this confirms a bold statement found in the Doctrine and Covenants 84:16: “Abel … was slain by [a] conspiracy.” [D&C 84:16] Ambition was the motivating force in all this evil. “The giants,” says Ben Sira 16:7, “were aspiring spirits who desired to be great in the manner of God on earth”; E. Kraeling has pointed out that the biblical term “men of name,” means “men who aspired to be great, ‘to make a name’ for themselves.”327 The Slavonic Enoch version matches the book of Moses in taking us back to the beginning of the matter:
Moses
Apochrypha
Almost all our sources, and especially the Joseph Smith book of Enoch, emphasize the point that the people did not drift imperceptibly into ways of folly. They were so constantly warned that only a high and determined willfulness brought destruction upon them:
Moses
Apochrypha
Moses
Apocrypha
Moses
Apocrypha
Moses
Apocrypha
***These comparisons were in chart form with Moses in one column and Apocrypha in the other, but I tried to make the formatting on the post as clear as I could. Skylar certainly loves to share his studies with us, and I'm so grateful that he does!!***
Hello!
So I will just jump into it.
The Book of Mosiah
Chapter 4
King Benjamin continues his address—Salvation comes because of the Atonement—Believe in God to be saved—Retain a remission of your sins through faithfulness—Impart of your substance to the poor—Do all things in wisdom and order. About 124 B.C.
The other day I knocked on a referral and he let us in. He was an alcoholic. He believed in God, but did not believe that he would help him. His friend was there and was an alcoholic too. His house was about 1-2 degrees celsius. Just a little bit above freezing obviously and he had about £1.84 left on his Electric Meter. They have pay as you go meters here which is different than most of you in America. We got him food from our emergency supply (aka extra missionary stuff from old transfers) and then we took it back with a hot bowl of mac n cheese. It still didnt help him with his electric heating. He was grateful but still bitter.
Our sunday school lesson was about the Sabbath Day and I kept hearing the words of Christ saying, "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath?" I kept beating myself up because I did not want to go down the road the cash machine and withdraw money to give him. I ended up after searching through the scriptures in my head and detecting a genuine attitude of needing heating to walk down to the ATM and withdraw £10 and splitting it at the cashier to give the man £5. I went back and prayed and I asked if it was the right thing to do. I was answered with a yes and I know now the situations Christ was in when the Pharisees tried to bind him down with extra carnal rules and they tried to tell the lawgiver how to live the law.
Keep the Sabbath day and every aspect of your life will be positively affected. Don't and the opposite will happen. This, I testify to you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love,
Elder Blackburn
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[This was Skylar's response to MY mission call to California San Fernando, Spanish Speaking]
AHHHHHHHHHHH YAY!!! Hopefully after learning English, German, and a little Hebrew [actually it was Arabic, but whatev... haha] you won't twist your tongue up with Spanish! haha or as Logan says Espanglish =D That is really a perfect place for you. Did you write that Logan served in Riverside California on the papers? That is awesome! And ya, I can completely relate. It is sort of that moment you open it and say..."OH SHOOT...I am actually going to do this! AHHHH! FREAK OUT TIME!!!! MAJOR!" Definitely know that feeling. I am proud of you! I will have to tell sister Davis the next time I see her which would be Wednesday BUT I am going to Chorley (The Temple, MTC, and Zone Conference area) on Tuesday to pick up a new missionary because apparently President and the Lord think they are being funny and are having me train the only missionary that is coming out this Christmas...AHHH That is freak out time...HECK I HAVE ONLY BEEN OUT 7 MONTHS! =/ Most trainers are 10-12 months out!
President said, "Now, I know you are really young in your mission to be doing this, but I have faith in you and you will be great." HA YA RIGHT! CRAZY!
LOVE YOU!
(Simply lame English) Elder Blackburn
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This is a massive email. This is 1 of 13 parts of the thing that I was talking about last week. LOVE YOU, Talk to you later this week!
Elder Blackburn
PS: my bottom retainer came out today...still have it...oops...haha LOVE YOU! it feels weird
A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Pt 8
By Hugh Nibley
Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University
Hugh Nibley, "A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Part 8", Ensign, Dec. 1976, 73
The purpose of these articles is (1) to call attention to some of the long-ignored aspects of the Joseph Smith account of Enoch in the book of Moses and in the Inspired Version of Genesis and (2) to provide at the same time some of the evidence that establishes the authenticity of that remarkable text. Contemporary learning offered few checks to the imagination of Joseph Smith; the enthusiasm of his followers presented none. Yet, though free to roam at will over a boundless plain, the Prophet never once in his account of Enoch strays from the narrow and exacting path that later Enoch texts have so clearly marked. In his version, every essential element of the Enoch story as we now know it turns up, yet he never strays out of bounds—what he says and what he does not say about Enoch are equally remarkable considering his situation.
To present and discuss all the ancient parallels to the Joseph Smith Enoch would require a work of immense scope, but such is not necessary for our purpose. It is enough to show by one or two examples in each case that even the most extravagant passages in the Joseph Smith version may all be matched by ancient texts—the Prophet is never alone. Many important questions, such as the real age of the Enoch tradition, how the various texts are related, their relevance to modern life, etc., must be left till later. For the present the message and the bona fides of the Joseph Smith account of Enoch are our sole concern.
Surprisingly enough, the best documented story of a clash between Adam and Satan is the scene in heaven. One old writing with unusually good credentials that trace back to books deposited by the apostles in the first Church archives in Jerusalem is the Coptic “Discourse of the Abbaton, a sermon based on the text delivered by Timothy the Archbishop of Alexandria.”304
The book belongs to the forty-day literature; and as it opens, the Lord on his last day on earth with the apostles just before his ascension asks them if there is any final request they would like to make of him—exactly as in Third Nephi 28:1. [3 Ne. 28:1] What they want most is to understand the role of Death and its horrors in God’s plan for his children.305 To explain this the Lord tells them of the council in heaven in the preexistence where the plan of the creation is being discussed. There was great reluctance among the hosts to proceed with the creation of the earth, the earth itself complaining, exactly in the manner of Moses 7:48, of the filthiness and corruption that would surely go out of her and begging to be allowed to rest from such horrors. (Fol. 10a–b.) Because of the council’s reluctance to proceed, God allows the lifeless body of Adam to lie upon the earth for forty days, unwilling, without the council’s approval, to let his spirit enter. (11b.) The Son of God saves the day by offering to pay the price for whatever suffering will be entailed, thus permitting “God’s children to return again to their former condition.” (12a.) Christ alone thus becomes the author of our earthly existence; amid joy and rejoicing God calls for a book, in which he registers the names of all the “Sons of God” who are to go to earth. (See Gen. 5:1ff, Fol. 12b.) This of course is the heavenly book of the generations of Adam open at the foundation of the earth, the book to which Enoch refers so explicitly in Moses 6:46, 8.
In the presence of all the hosts, Adam is next made ready to take over his great assignment. He is placed on a throne and given a crown of glory and a scepter, and all the sons of God bow the knee first to God the Father and then to Adam the Father in recognition of his being in God’s exact likeness and image. (13a.) Satan, however, refuses to comply, declaring that he is willing to worship the Father but not Adam: “It is rather he that should worship me for I arrived before he did!” (13a–b.) (See Moses 1:19: “I am the Only Begotten, worship me.”) God saw that Satan, because of his boundless ambition and total lack of humility, could no longer be trusted with celestial power and commanded the angels to remove him from his office. This ordinance they performed with great sorrow and reluctance: They “removed the writing of authority from his hand. They took from him his armor and all the insignia of priesthood and kingship.” Then with a ceremonial knife, a sickle, they inflicted upon him certain ceremonial blows of death which deprived him of his full strength forever after. (14a.) Other accounts say that after these cuts he retained only one-third of his former power, even as he was followed by one-third of the hosts.
Next Adam was escorted to earth to enter his mortal body, and for a hundred years thereafter was often visited by angels. (14b.) Thereafter, for two hundred years he lived happily in innocence with Eve, taking good care of the animals in his charge. Eventually Satan succeeded in getting possession of a mortal creature, which enabled him to carry on an extensive campaign aimed at Eve. (16a–17a.) Adam was greatly upset; but when Eve, the victim of a trick, took all responsibility, he joined her. (17b.)
Satan stopped Adam outside of the Garden and gloatingly told him that this was his sweet revenge for Adam’s victory in heaven: Adam had got him expelled from heaven and now he had paid him in kind; what was more, he intended to continue his project—“I will never cease to contend against thee and against all those who shall come after thee from out of thee, until I have taken them all down to perdition!” (21a–b.) With the threat of death before him, Adam saw the bitterness of hell (19a, 2lb), but calling upon God he received not only the assurance of salvation for the dead through the atonement of Christ (20b), but is told that death shall be sweet to those whose names are inscribed in the Book of Life (24a–b). Fear of death (the angel Mouriel) is wholesome and necessary to remind the human race of its fragility and constant need of repentance. This has the salutary effect of countering Satan’s plan by providing a constant check on the tendencies of men to misbehave, a sobering and, if necessary, a frightening lesson.
What comes after the showdown between our first parents and the Adversary? Our sources obligingly go right on with the story, and follow Satan from his attempts to win Adam’s obedience to his highly successful interviews with Cain, tracing the steady spread of wickedness among mankind down to its culmination in the days of Enoch. There is no better summary of the story than that given in the book of Moses, which is surprisingly close to the “Combat of Adam” version on every point. Let us briefly survey events leading up to the call of Enoch, as given in the Joseph Smith account.
Having been instructed by an angel of the Lord, Adam and Eve enjoyed a fulness of the gospel, “and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.” (See Moses 5:1–12.) Enter Satan, the negative one, with his nongospel: “Believe it not!” and his counter-gospel: “I am also a son of God.” (Moses 5:13.) He gains a following by pushing downhill, in the direction of what is “carnal, sensual, and devilish.” (Moses 5:13.) This called for much preaching of repentance (Moses 5:14–15), as Adam and Eve remained true and faithful, and “ceased not to call upon God” (Moses 5:16). Into this world Cain was born, who rejected his parents’ teachings as irrational—“Who is the Lord that I should know him?” (Moses 5:16.) The Lord gave Cain every chance to be wise and save himself, showing him in all reasonableness the dangerous course he was taking, and warning him that he would be in Satan’s power to the degree that he refused obedience: “And thou shalt rule over him.” (Moses 5:23; see also Gen. 4:7.) Cain rule over Satan? Yes, that is the arrangement—the devil serves his client, gratifies his slightest whim, pampers his appetites, and is at his beck and call throughout his earthly life, putting unlimited power and influence at his disposal through his command of the treasures of the earth, gold and silver. But in exchange the victim must keep his part of the agreement, following Satan’s instructions on earth and remaining in his power hereafter. That is the classic bargain, the pact with the Devil, by which a Faust, Don Juan, Macbeth, or Jabez Stone achieve the pinnacle of earthly success and the depths of eternal damnation.
The Lord held forth the fatherly invitation to Cain: “If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted,” along with the solemn warning, “Satan desireth to have thee.” (Moses 5:23; see also Gen. 4:7.) He is admonished against the folly of “reject[ing] the greater counsel” (Moses 5:25), and the door of repentance is held open right to the last moment, when it is Cain himself who breaks off the conversation and angrily stamps out, refusing to listen “any more to the voice of the Lord” or to his brother’s remonstrances (Moses 5:26). Cain married “one of his brothers’ daughters” (not necessarily Abel’s), and together “they loved Satan more than God” (Moses 5:28), quite satisfied with their religion and quite defiant about it.
What could one do in such a situation? Nothing: “Adam and his wife mourned before the Lord, because of Cain and his brethren.” (Moses 5:27.) Having deliberately severed all connection with his Heavenly Father, Cain was free to enter a formal agreement with Satan, by which he would receive instruction in the techniques of achieving power and gain: “Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret [The language is that of ancient colleges or guilds where the secret is the mystery of the trade or profession; in this case, his secret is how to convert life into property], that I may murder and get gain.” (Moses 5:31; see also Moses 5:49.) Cain “gloried” in the power of his new-found skill and dialectic, declaring that it made him “free.” (Moses 5:33.) He put his knowledge to work in a brilliantly successful operation in which “Abel … was slain by the conspiracy of his brother” (D&C 84:16), and gleefully congratulated himself and “gloried in that which he had done, saying: I am free; surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands.” (Moses 5:33; italics added.) This new light on Cain’s behavior is confirmed in the Combat of Adam, where we learn that, after killing Abel, Cain “felt no inclination to repent of what he had done,” a detail pointed out also by some of the early church fathers.306
Plainly this is not the conventional novel of Cain and Abel, in which an impetuous adolescent loses his head and brains his spoiled brother in a fit of jealousy; it is a carefully planned and executed operation in which Cain slew “his brother Abel, for the sake of getting gain” (Moses 5:50), dismissing his conscience with the thought that all was fair and square since Abel was quite capable of taking care of himself: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Moses 5:34). This was the philosophy by which Satan seduced the human race, teaching them that “every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.” (Alma 30:17.) When God took a different view and called him to account, he still pleaded the profit motive as an excuse: “Satan tempted me because of my brother’s flocks.” (Moses 5:38.) Being “shut out from the presence of the Lord” (Moses 5:41), Cain started his own establishment, the main line of his descendants being Enoch (who built a city of Enoch), Irad, Mahujael, Methusael, Lamech the father of Jubal and Tubal Cain. (Moses 5:42–46.) Lamech like Cain “entered into a covenant with Satan,” and like him “became Master Mahan.” (Moses 5:49; italics added.) When Lamech heard that Irad the son of Enoch was violating the secrecy of these terrible things he “slew him for the oath’s sake” (Moses 5:50), since “Irad began to reveal … unto the [other] sons of Adam” these top-secret signs of recognition (Moses 5:49). All those who covenanted with Satan were excluded from the holy covenants of God, though they pretended that everything was the same as before. The dirty business spread as such things do once started; Lamech became an outcast like Cain, not because of the murder but because his wives started spreading his confidential secrets—the very ones he had murdered Irad for divulging. “And thus the works of darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men.
“And God cursed the earth with a sore curse.” (Moses 5:55–56.)
Is there no relief in the terrible picture? There is: all this time the gospel was “being declared by holy angels … and by the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Moses 5:58), while “all things were confirmed unto Adam, by an holy ordinance,” in the assurance that “the Gospel … should be in the world, until the end thereof” (Moses 5:59). Adam, having lost Abel, got another son, Seth, to carry on his work. (Moses 6:2.) From him comes that line of successors in the priesthood, duly registered in the Book of Life, from which the wicked were excluded. (Moses 2:5–8.) After Seth came Enos, who decided to make an important move. Since “in those days Satan had great dominion among men, and raged in their hearts,” causing “wars and bloodshed … in administering death, because of secret works, seeking for power” (Moses 2:15)—exactly as in the modern world—Enos gathered together “the residue of the people of God” and with them migrated out of the country “and dwelt in a land of promise,” named Cainan after his son (Moses 2:17). The line is Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. (Moses 6:16–21; Moses 8:2, 5–11.)
In The Combat of Adam with Satan, as Migne observes, “the author depicts the descendants of Adam as divided into two separate and distinct branches: the Cainites dedicated to following Satan, who lived in a fertile country but very far distant from Eden, and who devoted themselves to all the pleasures of the flesh and all manner of immorality,” and the Sethites who “dwelt in the mountains near the Garden, were faithful to the divine law and bore the name of the Sons of God.”
The occurrence of like names in the two genealogies should not surprise anyone who does much genealogy, where the same family names keep turning up in an endless round. The thing to notice is that there are two lines and that Enoch is seen as a stranger and a wild man only when he leaves his native colony in Cainan, “a land of righteousness unto this day” (Moses 6:41), to sojourn as a missionary among the wayward tribes. And so the stage is set for Enoch.
The Wicked World of Enoch
The wickedness of Enoch’s day had a special stamp and flavor; only the most determined and entrenched depravity merited the extermination of the race. In apocryphal Enoch stories we are told how humanity was led to the extremes of misconduct under the tutelage of uniquely competent masters. According to these traditions, these were none other than special heavenly messengers who were sent down to earth to restore respect for the name of God among the degenerate human race but instead yielded to temptation, misbehaved with the daughters of men, and ended up instructing and abetting their human charges in all manner of iniquity. They are variously designated as the Watchers, Fallen Angels, Sons of God, Nephilim, or Rephaim, and are sometimes confused with their offspring, the Giants.307 Other candidates for this dubious honor have been suggested by various scholars, the trouble being that more than one category of beings qualify as Fallen Angels and spectacular sinners before the time of the Flood.308 The Bible uses the title sons of God—were they different from the Watchers of tradition?
“The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare … to them … mighty men, … men of renown.
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” (Gen. 6:2, 4–5.)
The idea of intercourse between heavenly and earthly beings was widespread in ancient times. Thus, in the newly discovered Genesis Apocryphon, when Lamech’s wife bears him a superchild (Noah), he assumes almost as a matter of course that the father is “one of the angels” and accuses her of faithlessness until his grandfather, Enoch, whose “lot is with the Holy Ones” and who lives far away, clears up the misunderstanding. Significantly, the name of the child’s mother is Bit-enosh, i.e., she is one of the “daughters of men.”309 The Cedrenus fragment avoids the problem of heavenly origin by identifying the sons of God and the daughters of men with the descendants of Seth and Cain respectively, and he specifically designates the sons of God as the Watchers.310 Recently M. Emanueli has suggested that the various terms are merely “a figure of speech in order to express the depth of the deterioration of that generation.”311
While the sons of God have been identified with both angels and the Watchers, the Greek Enoch does not identify the Watchers with Satan’s hosts who fell from heaven from the beginning—they are another crowd.312 It is the Joseph Smith Enoch which gives the most convincing solution: the beings who fell were not angels but men who had become sons of God. From the beginning, it tells us, mortal men could qualify as “sons of God,” beginning with Adam. “Behold, thou [Adam] art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons.” (Moses 6:68; italics added.) How? By believing and entering the covenant. “Our father Adam taught these things, and many have believed, and become the sons of God.” (Moses 7:1.) Thus when “Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed … they were called the sons of God.” (Moses 8:13.) In short, the sons of God are those who accept and live by the law of God. When “the sons of men” (as Enoch calls them) broke their covenant, they still insisted on that exalted title: “Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men?” (Moses 8:21), even as “the sons of men,” reversing the order, married the daughters of those “called the sons of God,” thereby forfeiting their title, “for,” said God to Noah, “they will not hearken to my voice.” (Moses 8:15.) The situation was, then, that the sons of God, or their daughters who had been initiated into a spiritual order, departed from it and broke their vows, mingling with those who observed only a carnal law.
“Why have you left heaven [and] the Exalted One,” says Enoch in a Gizeh fragment “and … with the daughters of men defiled yourselves? … Ye have behaved as sons of Earth and begotten to yourselves giant sons. And you were once holy, spiritual, eternal beings … and have lusted after the flesh … as do mortal and perishable creatures.”313
What made the world of Enoch so singularly depraved as to invite total obliteration was the deliberate and systematic perversion of heavenly things to justify wickedness. An early Christian writer, Hippolytus, says that the Anti-Christ imitates Christ in every particular: each sends out his apostles, gives his seal to believers, does signs and wonders, claims the temple as his own, has his own church and assembly, etc. Such is the method of “the great Deceiver of the World,” against whom, says Hippolytus, “Enoch and Elias have warned us.”314 We are reminded how Satan put forth his claim, “I am also a son of God” (Moses 5:13), and commanded Cain to “make an offering unto the Lord” (Moses 5:18–19) and to take his oaths “by the living God” (Moses 5:29), as if everything were still in the proper order. In the same spirit Noah’s descendants in their wickedness still insisted that nothing had changed:
(Moses 8:21.) “The children of men said to Noah: Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men?”
The apocrypha agree:
(Black, p. 44, 106:7, 13–14.) “For in the days of Jared my father, they departed from the teaching of the Lord, from the covenant of heaven. And behold they commit sin and reject [parabainousin] the proper way [ethos] … and beget children not like spiritual but like carnal offspring.”
Sophisticated deception is the name of the game. “Woe unto you who deliberately go astray [poiountes planemata],” cries Enoch, “who promote yourselves to honor and glory by deceitful practices. … Who misapply and misinterpret straightforward statements, who have given a new twist to the everlasting Covenant, and then produce arguments to prove that you are without guilt!”315 Cold-blooded calculation is the keynote. The “Watchers” (using the Greek word) led away “myriads of myriads … with our Prince Satan-el,” says the Slavonic Enoch, “and defiled the earth by their acts. And the wives [instead of daughters!] of men did a great evil, violating the law … a great iniquity.”316 “For in the secret places of the earth,” we read in a very early Judeo-Christian source, “they were doing evil … and all of them committed adultery with their neighbor’s wives; and they made solemn covenants among themselves concerning these things.”317 Such practices went back to the days of Cain:
Moses
Moses 5:52. The Lord cursed … all them that had covenanted with Satan; for they kept not the commandments of God.
Moses 5:29. And Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me … and swear thy brethren … that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die.
Moses 5:51. For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination, and their works were in the dark, and they knew every man his brother.
Apocrypha
Gizeh 6:2. The Sons of Heaven wished to break their covenants and join with the daughters of men, but Seimizas [Satan] said ‘I am afraid you will not be willing to go through with this thing.’ 4. And they answered him all, saying, We will all swear with an oath, and bind each other by a mortal curse [lit., anathemize each other], that we will not go back on this agreement [gnome] until we have carried it out; 5. Then they all swore together and pronounced the doom of death on each other.
Moses
Moses 5:29–30. Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy brethren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die; and this that thy father may not know it. … And all these things were done in secret.
Apocrypha
1 En. 29:13. Kasbeel, the chief of the oath … when he dwelt above in glory 14. … requested Michael to show him the hidden name, that he might enunciate in the oath, so that those might quake before that name and oath who revealed all that was secret to the children of men.
1 En. 69:1. It was Gadreel who showed the children of men all the blows of death, and he led astray Eve.
Moses
Moses 5:16. And Adam and Eve … ceased not to call upon God. … But behold, Cain hearkened not, saying: Who is the Lord that I should know him?
Moses 5:51. For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination, and their works were in the dark.
Apocrypha
Ethiop. Bk. Mysts. PO 4:431. “In the days of Cain evil and deceitful practices increased. The wicked angels set themselves up in open and insolent opposition to Adam, and glorying in their earthly bodies learned a great sin, and openly exposed all the work which they had seen in heaven.
And so we find in a Greek Enoch text the Great Angels returning from earth to report to God that they had found “Azael teaching all manner of unrighteousness upon the earth, and he has laid bare those mysteries of the age which belong to heaven, which are [now] known and practiced among men; and also Semiazas is with him, he to whom thou gavest authority [over] those who go along with him.”318
As bad as breaking their oaths was divulging them to those not worthy to receive them, thereby debasing and invalidating them. One of the most widespread themes of myth and legend is the tragedy of the hero who yields to the charms of a fair maiden or femme fatale and ends up revealing to her hidden mysteries. The story meets us in the oldest Egyptian epic (where the lady Isis wheedles out of Re the fatal knowledge of his true name) and in like tales of Samson and Delilah, the daughter of Jared, Lohengrin, etc., in which the woman is the Pandora who must know what is in the box. On this theme the Gizeh fragments offer a significant parallel to the Joseph Smith version, in which the common background of the text and the confusion of the later scribes are equally apparent:
(Moses 5:53.) “Lamech had spoken the secret unto his wives, and they … declared these things abroad, and had not compassion. … Moses 5:55. And thus … darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men.”
Compare this to:
(Gizeh 16:2–4.)319 “And now concerning the Watchers, say to them. You were in heaven and there you knew every mysterion which had not been made known to you as well as that mystery which God allowed; and that you disclosed to your wives in the hardness of your heart, and it was through this mystery that women and men caused iniquities to abound upon the earth.”
Clement of Alexandria attributed to Musaeus, the founder of the Greek Mysteries, an account of “how the angels lost their heavenly heritage through the telling of the secret things [mysteria] to women,” things, Clement observes, “which the other angels keep secret or quietly perform until the coming of the Lord.”320
Rather surprisingly, the age of Enoch is consistently described as the time of great intellectual as well as material sophistication. “Azael … taught [men] to make knives and breastplates and all kinds of military hardware; and to work the ores of the earth, and how gold was to be worked and made into ornaments for women; and he showed them silver and taught them polishing [eye-paint] and cosmetics and precious stones and dyes. And the sons and daughters of men adopted all these things and led the saints astray. And there was great wickedness on the earth, and they became perverted and lost in all their ways. Along with that their leader Semiazas taught them scientific formulas (epaodas kata tou nous), and the properties of roots and plants of the earth. The eleventh, Pharmakos, taught all manner of drugs, incantations, prescriptions, formulas. [Others] taught them star-gazing, astrology, meteorology, geology, the signs of the sun and moon. All of these began to reveal the mysteries to their wives and children.”321
The leaders of the people devoted most of their wealth to “all kinds of engineering projects for controlling and taming nature. But the Lord altered the order of creation, making the sun rise in the west and set in the East,” so that all their plans came to naught.322 The idea of controlling the environment independently of God “was not as foolish as it sounds,” says the Zohar, “for they knew all the arts … and all the ruling principles [archons] governing the world, and on this knowledge they relied, until at length God disabused them by restoring the earth to its primal state and covering it with water.”323 Rabbi Isaac reports: In the days of Enoch even children were acquainted with these mysterious arts (the advanced sciences). R. Yesa asks: With all that knowledge could they not foresee destruction? To which R. Isaac replies: They knew, all right, but they thought they were just smart enough to prevent it. What they did not know was that God rules the world. … He gave them respite as long as the righteous men Jared, Methuselah and Enoch were alive: but when they departed from the world, God let the punishment descend … and they were blotted out from the earth.324
A Book of Mormon text betrays the Enoch tradition (possibly contained in the brass plates) in a transparent parallel:
(2 Ne. 26:29.) “Priestcrafts are that men … set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.”
Compare this to:
(Zohar. Beresh. 25b.) “These men [of Enoch’s time] erected synagogues and colleges, and placed in them scrolls and rich ornaments … but they did it to set themselves up for a light, and for the honors of men; and in such a way the powers of evil prevail over Israel.”
Power and gain are two faces of one coin: “We are able to do whatever we please,” said the people in Enoch’s day, “because we are very rich!” To which Enoch replied: “You are wrong! Your riches will soon depart from you …”; but they went on seeking the power of gain more grimly than ever.325
An interesting connection emerges in the account of how “in the time of Enoch they committed murder, shedding of blood of the children of men; they enslaved them, they sold what did not belong to them, they entered homes without right, and took whatever they wanted … they rigged the laws in their favor, and imitated the abominable deeds of the rebellious angels of a former time in which, when Abel tried to check them they encompassed his death by a conspiracy.”326 For this confirms a bold statement found in the Doctrine and Covenants 84:16: “Abel … was slain by [a] conspiracy.” [D&C 84:16] Ambition was the motivating force in all this evil. “The giants,” says Ben Sira 16:7, “were aspiring spirits who desired to be great in the manner of God on earth”; E. Kraeling has pointed out that the biblical term “men of name,” means “men who aspired to be great, ‘to make a name’ for themselves.”327 The Slavonic Enoch version matches the book of Moses in taking us back to the beginning of the matter:
Moses
Moses 4:1. That Satan … came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind … wherefore give me thine honor.
Moses 4:4. And he became Satan … to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.
Apochrypha
Ms. R, Ch. 11: The Devil knew that I wanted to make the world … with Adam ruling as Lord of it. … he became Satan when he fled from heaven, before which time he was Satan-el. He changed his nature and was no longer an angel; he preserved his identity, but his state of mind was altered, as when any righteous person becomes wicked … and he conceived the impossible idea of setting up his throne … to be equal to my power.
[God has given him great power over such as listen to him.] (Apoc. Abr. 14:1–2; cf. DS Thanks. VI [f] p. X.)
Almost all our sources, and especially the Joseph Smith book of Enoch, emphasize the point that the people did not drift imperceptibly into ways of folly. They were so constantly warned that only a high and determined willfulness brought destruction upon them:
Moses
Moses 6:28. For these many generations … have they gone astray, … and have sought their own counsels in the dark; …
Moses 6:29. Wherefore, they have … brought upon themselves death.
Apochrypha
Beatty 99:8f. And they shall go astray in the foolishness [aphrosyne] of their hearts, and the visions of their dreams [the dark] shall lead them astray. And the lying words you have made shall perish. 98:9. Woe to you foolish ones, for you shall perish through your own folly!
Moses
Moses 5:57. For they would not hearken unto his voice, nor believe on his Only Begotten Son.
Apocrypha
Secrets 4 (Vaillant, p. 18). These are they who denied the Lord, and would not hear the voice of the Lord, but followed their own counsel.
Moses
Moses 6:29. They have foresworn themselves, and, by their oaths, they have brought upon themselves death; and a hell I have prepared for them, if they repent not.
Apocrypha
Gk. Enoch 63:9. We pass away … on account of our own works … descending into hell [Sheol].
Gk. 3(99:2). Wo unto you who pervert the eternal covenant and reckon yourselves sinless!
Moses
Moses 6:43. Why counsel ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven?
Apocrypha
Bait ha-Midrasch (BHM) 5:171. I am Enoch! When the generation of the Flood sinned and said of God: Turn away from him, and in the knowing of his ways do not rejoice. Then God delivered men.
***These comparisons were in chart form with Moses in one column and Apocrypha in the other, but I tried to make the formatting on the post as clear as I could. Skylar certainly loves to share his studies with us, and I'm so grateful that he does!!***
Week 27
13 December 2010
Hello Family,
The snow is gone, the rain is back and so are the negative temperatures...not sure how that works out, but it does haha. No Worries though...there is a huge snow storm on the way from the arctic on Thursday and everyone here is a little edgy because of it haha. We shall see....
So before anything, here are some funny pictures I thought you might like to look at! This is the Nativity that is in the town center here in Accrington...
So ya it is a nativity but wait. It is a nativity of our family! Look closer! One of these things just don't belong here! =P HAHAHA and not only is there a Black wise man, but he is STEALING the GOLD! 1 in the back is kneeling. 2 on the side is about to kneel and offering his gift. and the 3rd wiseman is black and holding the gold away and trying to sneak out while everyone is looking at the baby! HAHA I thought you of all humans would enjoy this =P
(Sorry Liz, I love you too)
Elder Blackburn
PS: Sometimes, Distance is a protection =D
***********************************************************
In the past, when I have thought of the Relief Society Motto- "Charity Never Faileth". I thought ya...that is what the ladies are supposed to do and have to help one another sew quilts, knit baby hats, and bring casseroles to people. Sure great motto. But when mentioned in a talk this week I wondered about it for a second.
CHARITY NEVER FAILETH
What does that mean? What else can it mean? WHY does it matter?
What impressed upon me in a way that had not really dawned on me before is that our Father's Charity does not fail. Christ's Charity does not fail. And if we do all we can, if we simply strive to do all we can, then that charity, that sacrifice, and infinite atonement can work in my life.
I was then asked by Elder Stubbs this morning why I had X-Factor on the back of one of my AdvoCare T-Shirts and after a long explanation and blah blah blah I started thinking about the X-Factors in our own lives. The prominent X-Factor is that Christ died for us, but since we know what it is, and it CAN be applied to everyone, it is not really an X-Factor. Our individual X-Factors are our own efforts and desires which is why in the scriptures it says we are judged by our works and desires.
Our Loving Heavenly Father wants you back, wants us all back! He wants us back better. That is why we are here and He understands we will make mistakes, grievous mistakes that take grievous punishment, but He is still merciful nevertheless and will always let His Charity shine forward. Trust in Him and leave your Heart Open.
I love you all and hope this lifted your spirits.
Elder Blackburn
Hello Family,
The snow is gone, the rain is back and so are the negative temperatures...not sure how that works out, but it does haha. No Worries though...there is a huge snow storm on the way from the arctic on Thursday and everyone here is a little edgy because of it haha. We shall see....
So before anything, here are some funny pictures I thought you might like to look at! This is the Nativity that is in the town center here in Accrington...
So ya it is a nativity but wait. It is a nativity of our family! Look closer! One of these things just don't belong here! =P HAHAHA and not only is there a Black wise man, but he is STEALING the GOLD! 1 in the back is kneeling. 2 on the side is about to kneel and offering his gift. and the 3rd wiseman is black and holding the gold away and trying to sneak out while everyone is looking at the baby! HAHA I thought you of all humans would enjoy this =P
(Sorry Liz, I love you too)
Elder Blackburn
PS: Sometimes, Distance is a protection =D
***********************************************************
In the past, when I have thought of the Relief Society Motto- "Charity Never Faileth". I thought ya...that is what the ladies are supposed to do and have to help one another sew quilts, knit baby hats, and bring casseroles to people. Sure great motto. But when mentioned in a talk this week I wondered about it for a second.
CHARITY NEVER FAILETH
What does that mean? What else can it mean? WHY does it matter?
What impressed upon me in a way that had not really dawned on me before is that our Father's Charity does not fail. Christ's Charity does not fail. And if we do all we can, if we simply strive to do all we can, then that charity, that sacrifice, and infinite atonement can work in my life.
I was then asked by Elder Stubbs this morning why I had X-Factor on the back of one of my AdvoCare T-Shirts and after a long explanation and blah blah blah I started thinking about the X-Factors in our own lives. The prominent X-Factor is that Christ died for us, but since we know what it is, and it CAN be applied to everyone, it is not really an X-Factor. Our individual X-Factors are our own efforts and desires which is why in the scriptures it says we are judged by our works and desires.
Our Loving Heavenly Father wants you back, wants us all back! He wants us back better. That is why we are here and He understands we will make mistakes, grievous mistakes that take grievous punishment, but He is still merciful nevertheless and will always let His Charity shine forward. Trust in Him and leave your Heart Open.
I love you all and hope this lifted your spirits.
Elder Blackburn
Week 26
6 December 2010
So, Let's get started.
Weather: 3-6 inches of snow, then melted, then froze over, then melted, then froze over, more snow, then melted, then rain, then froze...and we are here...Do not worry I have only fallen down onceish and that was more of "just taking a Knee" =D
I bought a beanie or cap or whatever you want to call it and then I took it off when I got on a bus and forgot to grab it when I got off the bus...Then I found another one already in the flat from a missionary who went home so no worries there!
I have officially had some good Scottish Haggus and I have to say it is not to shabby! Robbie is doing great in the ward with all of the youth. It is strange though, most times you have a hard time getting the new members to branch off from the missionaries but all of the youth kind of do their own thing and he is friends with them all already from school so it is harder to find times TO talk to him for lessons.
I would be happy to have you know that in November I finished the Old Testament which means I finished the standard works for the first time ever. My mission president was not as thrilled that I wasted my free time reading the old testament, but I am glad I did it. I learned a lot about the workings of the temple and the Priesthood when reading through it. The Book of Mormon has been read twice and I am about to finish Doctrine and Covenants for the 2nd time and we will read it starting JAN 1st as a mission marking specifics of details that President Bullock wants us to know. Now I tell you all of this BECAUSE I want you to know how important reading the scriptures is! I never did besides when I was with granpa and a couple times at home, but I never understood the importance and the power that comes from reading them. In PMG it says that daily study of the Book of Mormon will give us increased strength to overcome the temptations of the adversary and I really do know that that is true. I have been strengthened and my spirit has been bouyed up on those days that no one wants to listen (it is England/Europe that happens a lot) and I have been given the excitement or at least the push to go out again into below zero temperatures and find those people who are willing to listen. Yes, they are few and far between, but they are there!
This week as well we had an interesting District Meeting about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch, which ties in with missionary work because of the Great Apostasy and how our testimonies can be strengthened. There is an article by Hughe Nibley called "A Strange Thing In The Land" which can be found on LDS.ORG and I was able to read up until part 9 (there are 13 parts) and it is about 150 pages long altogether and it is REALLY INTERESTING and something Bob has probably read and that grandpa would like to read. It reads a lot like Jesus the Christ which actually is not that hard to understand once you open it up and if you have read the scriptures at all.
Yesterday in Priesthood we watched the story of Valencia Di Florencio (Completely botched the name) but he is the italian pastor who found an unnamed copy of the Book of Mormon and he read and followed the instructions in Moroni and prayed. Got an answer that the Book was true and then taught out of it in his church. People started coming to his service more than any of the other pastors and they got angry because of his popularity and they blamed "the Book" and told him to burn it or else. They kicked him out of the ministry (twice) and then he ended up finding the word Mormon in the dictionary and wrote to Heber J. Grant and then got a new copy and was then baptised years and years later. He found the copy before WWI in New York and then was baptised after WWII in England I believe or Italy. We had to fast forward that part of the story. Anyways, it ends with his testimony of the Book of Mormon and really really liked that story. Even pastors, ministers, priests, kings, and magistrates; if they follow the counsel given in the Book of Mormon can have the dark veil lifted from their eyes and see the light that is in the Book.
In Sacrament meeting yesterday, the testimonies were mostly about Christmas, but I was thinking more of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Restoration DVD starts off like this
-"I was born in the year 1805 to goodly parents who spared no pain in instructing me in the Christian Religion"
Joseph Smith History tells us the day he was born was 23 December 1805. That day one of the greatest spirits to ever voice his opinion in the Grand Councils of Heaven came to earth. He was no Saviour. There was no Star. But if there was ever a better white elephant gift to the world or repeat gift to the world. It was the birth of the Man Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Gospel. The first gift of Christmas was the Saviour and EVERYTHING He did. The second in our day is the re-application of the Saviour through the Restoration of His Priesthood Authority through His carefully called and chosen servant.
I love you all!
Elder Blackburn
So, Let's get started.
Weather: 3-6 inches of snow, then melted, then froze over, then melted, then froze over, more snow, then melted, then rain, then froze...and we are here...Do not worry I have only fallen down onceish and that was more of "just taking a Knee" =D
I bought a beanie or cap or whatever you want to call it and then I took it off when I got on a bus and forgot to grab it when I got off the bus...Then I found another one already in the flat from a missionary who went home so no worries there!
I have officially had some good Scottish Haggus and I have to say it is not to shabby! Robbie is doing great in the ward with all of the youth. It is strange though, most times you have a hard time getting the new members to branch off from the missionaries but all of the youth kind of do their own thing and he is friends with them all already from school so it is harder to find times TO talk to him for lessons.
I would be happy to have you know that in November I finished the Old Testament which means I finished the standard works for the first time ever. My mission president was not as thrilled that I wasted my free time reading the old testament, but I am glad I did it. I learned a lot about the workings of the temple and the Priesthood when reading through it. The Book of Mormon has been read twice and I am about to finish Doctrine and Covenants for the 2nd time and we will read it starting JAN 1st as a mission marking specifics of details that President Bullock wants us to know. Now I tell you all of this BECAUSE I want you to know how important reading the scriptures is! I never did besides when I was with granpa and a couple times at home, but I never understood the importance and the power that comes from reading them. In PMG it says that daily study of the Book of Mormon will give us increased strength to overcome the temptations of the adversary and I really do know that that is true. I have been strengthened and my spirit has been bouyed up on those days that no one wants to listen (it is England/Europe that happens a lot) and I have been given the excitement or at least the push to go out again into below zero temperatures and find those people who are willing to listen. Yes, they are few and far between, but they are there!
This week as well we had an interesting District Meeting about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch, which ties in with missionary work because of the Great Apostasy and how our testimonies can be strengthened. There is an article by Hughe Nibley called "A Strange Thing In The Land" which can be found on LDS.ORG and I was able to read up until part 9 (there are 13 parts) and it is about 150 pages long altogether and it is REALLY INTERESTING and something Bob has probably read and that grandpa would like to read. It reads a lot like Jesus the Christ which actually is not that hard to understand once you open it up and if you have read the scriptures at all.
Yesterday in Priesthood we watched the story of Valencia Di Florencio (Completely botched the name) but he is the italian pastor who found an unnamed copy of the Book of Mormon and he read and followed the instructions in Moroni and prayed. Got an answer that the Book was true and then taught out of it in his church. People started coming to his service more than any of the other pastors and they got angry because of his popularity and they blamed "the Book" and told him to burn it or else. They kicked him out of the ministry (twice) and then he ended up finding the word Mormon in the dictionary and wrote to Heber J. Grant and then got a new copy and was then baptised years and years later. He found the copy before WWI in New York and then was baptised after WWII in England I believe or Italy. We had to fast forward that part of the story. Anyways, it ends with his testimony of the Book of Mormon and really really liked that story. Even pastors, ministers, priests, kings, and magistrates; if they follow the counsel given in the Book of Mormon can have the dark veil lifted from their eyes and see the light that is in the Book.
In Sacrament meeting yesterday, the testimonies were mostly about Christmas, but I was thinking more of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Restoration DVD starts off like this
-"I was born in the year 1805 to goodly parents who spared no pain in instructing me in the Christian Religion"
Joseph Smith History tells us the day he was born was 23 December 1805. That day one of the greatest spirits to ever voice his opinion in the Grand Councils of Heaven came to earth. He was no Saviour. There was no Star. But if there was ever a better white elephant gift to the world or repeat gift to the world. It was the birth of the Man Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Gospel. The first gift of Christmas was the Saviour and EVERYTHING He did. The second in our day is the re-application of the Saviour through the Restoration of His Priesthood Authority through His carefully called and chosen servant.
I love you all!
Elder Blackburn
Week 25
29 November 2010
Here are some other pictures. I only have 4 minutes and the computers
are slow. but this is what I got for my christmas present money! Hope
it makes you laugh and you like it!
Here are some other pictures. I only have 4 minutes and the computers
are slow. but this is what I got for my christmas present money! Hope
it makes you laugh and you like it!
Week 24
22 November 2010
This would be helpful too but the library closes in 3 minutes so I have to go. I love you all!
This talk is amazing!
Believing Christ
By Stephen E. Robinson
A Practical Approach to the Atonement
The greatest dilemma in the entire universe consists of two facts. We can read about the first in Doctrine and Covenants 1:31: “I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” [D&C 1:31] That means he can’t stand it; he can’t blink, or look the other way, or sweep it under the rug. He can’t tolerate sin in the least degree.
The other side of the dilemma is very simply put: I sin, and so do you.
If those were the only two parts of the equation, we would have to conclude that we, as sinful beings, cannot be tolerated in the presence of God.
But that is not all there is to the equation. The Atonement of Christ is the glorious plan by which this dilemma can be resolved. I would like to share some experiences from my own family that illustrate how the Atonement works to solve this great dilemma.
First is a story about my son, Michael, who did something wrong when he was six or seven years old. He’s my only son. I want him to be better than his dad was even as a boy, and so I expect a great deal of him. So I sent him to his bedroom with the instructions, “Don’t come out until I come and get you.”
And then I forgot. Some hours later, as I was watching television, I heard his door open and tentative footsteps come down the hall. I said, “Oh, no,” and ran to the hall to see him standing there with swollen eyes and tears on his cheeks. He looked up at me—he wasn’t quite sure he should have come out—and said, “Dad, can’t we ever be friends again?” Of course, I hugged him and expressed my love for him. He’s my boy, and I love him, despite anything he may have done.
Like Michael, we all do things that disappoint our Father, that separate us from his presence and Spirit. There are times when we get “sent to our rooms” spiritually. There are sins that wound our spirits. Sometimes we do things that make us feel as if we could never get clean. When that happens, sometimes we ask the Lord, as we lift up our eyes, “O Father, can’t we ever be friends again?”
The answer that can be found in all the scriptures is a resounding “Yes, through the Atonement of Christ.” I particularly like the way it is put in Isaiah 1:18 [Isa. 1:18]:
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
The Lord is saying that whatever you have done, he can make you pure and worthy and innocent and celestial.
Now, to have faith in Jesus Christ is not merely to believe that he is who he says he is, or to believe in Christ. Sometimes, to have faith in Christ is also to believe Christ.
Both as a bishop and as a teacher in the Church, I have learned that there are many who believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, but who do not believe that he can save them. They believe in his identity, but not in his power to cleanse and purify and save. To have faith in his identity is only half the principle. To have faith in his power to cleanse and save is the other half. We must not only believe in Christ, but we must also believe Christ when he says that he can cleanse us and make us celestial.
When I was a bishop, some members told me, “Bishop, I’ve sinned too horribly. I can’t have the full blessings of the gospel because I did this or I did that. I’ll come to church, and I’m hoping for a pretty good reward—but I couldn’t receive the full blessings of exaltation in the celestial kingdom after what I’ve done.”
Other members said, “Bishop, I’m just an average Saint. I’m weak and imperfect, and I don’t have all the talents that Brother (or Sister) So-and-So has. I’ll never be in the bishopric, or I’ll never be the Relief Society president. I’m just average. I hope for a place a little further down.”
These statements are variations of the same theme: “I do not believe Christ can do what he claims. I have no faith in his ability to exalt me.”
One fellow said to me, “Bishop, I’m just not celestial material.” Well, I’d had enough, so I said back to him, “Why don’t you admit your real problem? You’re not celestial material? Welcome to the club. None of us is! By ourselves, none of us is perfect as we must be to live in the presence of God. Why don’t you just admit that you don’t have faith in the ability of Christ to do what he says he can do?”
He got angry. “I have a testimony of Jesus,” he said. “I believe in Christ.”
I responded, “Yes, you believe in Christ. But you do not believe Christ when he says that even though you are not celestial material, he can make you celestial material, if you’ll cooperate.”
Why He Is Called the Savior
Sometimes the weight of the demand for perfection makes us despair. Sometimes we fail to believe that most choice truth of the gospel that the Lord can change us and bring us into his kingdom. Let me share an experience that happened about ten years ago.
My wife, Janet, and I were living in Pennsylvania. Things were going pretty well. I had been promoted, and it was a good year for us as a family. But it was a trying year for Janet personally. That year she had our fourth child, graduated from college, passed the exam to become a certified public accountant, and was called to be the ward Relief Society president. We had temple recommends, and we held family home evening. I was serving in the bishopric.
Then one night, something happened to my wife that I can describe only as “dying spiritually.” She wouldn’t talk about it or tell me what was wrong. For me, that was the worst part. For a couple of weeks she did not wish to participate in spiritual things, and she asked to be released from her callings.
Finally, after about two weeks, it came out. She said, “All right. You want to know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t get up at 5:30 in the morning and bake bread and sew clothes and help my kids with their homework and do my own homework and do my Relief Society work and get my genealogy done and go to the parent-teacher meetings at school and write to the missionaries.” And she named off one burden after another that had been laid on her.
Then she listed her flaws and imperfections. She said, “I don’t have the talent that Sister Morrell has. I can’t do what Sister Childs does. I try not to yell at the kids, but I lose control and yell at them anyway. I’ve just finally admitted that I’m not perfect and that I’m not ever going to be perfect. I’m not going to make it to the celestial kingdom, and I can’t pretend that I am. So I’ve given up. Why break my back trying to do what I can’t?”
Well, we started to talk, and it was a long night. I asked her, “Janet, do you have a testimony?”
She said, “Of course I do! That’s what’s so terrible. I know it’s true. I just can’t do it.”
“Have you kept the covenants you made when you were baptized?”
She said, “I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I cannot keep all the commandments all the time.”
Then I rejoiced because I knew that her problem wasn’t any of those horrible things I had thought it might be. It is possible to be an active member of the Church, to have a testimony of its truthfulness, to hold leadership positions—and still to lose track of the “good news” at the gospel’s core. This is what had happened to Janet. She was trying to save herself. She knew why Jesus is an adviser and a teacher. She knew why he is an example, the head of the Church, our Elder Brother, and even God. She knew all of that, but she did not understand why he is called the Savior.
Janet was tying to save herself, with Jesus as an adviser. But we can’t do that. No one is perfect. In Ether 3:2 we read about one of the greatest prophets who ever lived, the brother of Jared. His faith was so great that he was about to pierce the veil and see the spirit body of Christ. Yet, as he began to pray, he said:
“Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee [notice that he starts his prayer with an apology as an imperfect being for approaching a perfect God]; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires.”
Of course we fail at the celestial level. That’s why we need a savior and why we are commanded to approach God and to call upon him so we may receive according to our desires. The Savior said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). We misinterpret this scripture frequently. We think it says, “Blessed are the righteous,” but it does not. When are you hungry? When are you thirsty? When you don’t have the object of your desire. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after the righteousness that God has, after the righteousness of the celestial kingdom. As that becomes the desire of their hearts, it will be given to them—they will be filled. We receive “according to our desires.”
Becoming One
In mortality, perfection comes to us only through the Atonement of Christ. We cannot achieve it ourselves. We must become one with the Lord, who is a perfect being. This is what the business world would call a merger. When a small, bankrupt firm that’s about ready to collapse merges with a strong corporation, what happens? Assets and liabilities of the two companies flow together, and the new entity that is created is solvent.
When Janet and I got married, I was financially pressed, and Janet had money in the bank. When we entered into the covenant relationship of marriage, we formed a joint account at the bank. No longer was there an “I,” and no longer a “she”—now, financially speaking, it was “we.” My liabilities and her assets flowed into each other in this joint account, and for the first time in months I was solvent.
Spiritually, this is what happens when we enter into the covenant relationship with our Savior. We have liabilities; he has assets. He proposes to us a covenant relationship. I use the word propose on purpose because it is a marriage of a spiritual sort that is being proposed. That is why he is called the Bridegroom. This covenant relationship is so intimate that it is described in scriptures as a marriage. I become one with Christ, and as partners we work together for my salvation. My liabilities and his assets flow into each other. I do all that I can do, and he does what I cannot yet do. The two of us together are perfect.
This is why the Savior says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). What heavier load is there than the demand for perfection, the idea that you must make yourself perfect in this life before you can have any hope in the next? What heavier burden is there than the yoke of the law?
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me,” said the Savior; “for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29–30).
“Trust Me”
The prophet Nephi was one of the great prophets, yet he had a sense of his need for and his reliance upon the Savior. He says, “O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.
“I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.
“And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins” (2 Ne. 4:17–19).
Did Nephi have an appreciation for his mortal condition, for his need of the Savior to save him from his sins? Yes, and the key is what comes next: “Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted” (2 Ne. 4:19).
Nephi realized that he was imperfect. His sins bothered him. He was not celestial yet. But he knew in whom he trusted. Nephi trusted in the power of Jesus Christ to cleanse him of his sins and to bring him into the kingdom of God.
I had a friend who used to say quite frequently, “I figure my life is half over, and I’m halfway to the celestial kingdom, so I’m right on schedule.”
One day I asked her, “Judy, what happens if you die tomorrow?” It was the first time that thought had ever occurred to her.
“Let’s see,” she said, “halfway to the celestial kingdom is … mid-terrestrial. That’s not good enough.”
We need to know that in this covenant relationship we have with the Savior, if we should die tomorrow we have hope of the celestial kingdom. That hope is one of the promised blessings of the covenant relationship. Yet many of us do not understand it or take advantage of it.
When our twin daughters were small, we decided to take them to the public pool and teach them how to swim. I remember starting with Rebekah. As I went down into the water with her, I was thinking, “I’m going to teach Becky how to swim.” But in her mind was the thought, “My dad is going to drown me. I’m going to die!” The water was only three-and-a-half feet deep, but Becky was only three feet tall. She was so frightened that she began to scream and cry and kick and scratch. She was unteachable.
Finally, I threw my arms around her and held her and said, “Becky, I’ve got you. I’m your dad. I love you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Now relax.” Bless her heart, she trusted me. She relaxed, and then I put my arms under her and said, “Okay, now kick your legs.” And she began to learn how to swim.
Spiritually there are some of us who are similarly frightened by these questions. “Am I celestial? Am I going to make it? Was I good enough today?” We’re so terrified of whether we’re going to live or die, or whether we’ve made it to the kingdom or not, that we cannot make any progress. At those times, the Savior, in a sense, throws his arms around us and says, “I’ve got you. I love you. I’m not going to let you die. Now relax and trust me.” If we can relax and trust him and believe him, as well as believe in him, then together we can begin to learn to live the gospel. Then he says, “Okay, now begin to pay tithing. Very good. Now pay a full tithing.” And so we begin to make progress.
In Alma 34:14–16, we read:
“Behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal.
“And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.
“And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety.”
The arms of safety—that is my favorite phrase in the Book of Mormon.
Do Latter-day Saints believe in “being saved”? If I ask my religion students that question with the right tone of voice—“Do we believe in being saved?”—I can generally get about a third of them to shake their heads and say, “Oh, no, no. Those other religions believe in that.” What a tragedy! We most certainly do believe in being saved. That’s why Jesus is called the Savior. What good is it to have a Savior if no one is saved? It’s like having a lifeguard who won’t get out of the chair. “Oops, there goes another swimmer down. Hey, try the backstroke! Oh, too bad he didn’t make it.” We have a Savior who can save us from ourselves, from what we lack, from our imperfections, from the carnal individual within us.
In Joseph Smith’s vision of the celestial kingdom, he describes those who are there in these terms:
“These are they whose names are written in heaven, where God and Christ are the judge of all.
“These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” (D&C 76:68–69).
Just men and women, good men and women, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, are made perfect through Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant.
Give Him All That We Have
As my wife and I talked about her feeling of inadequacy and her feeling that she couldn’t make it, I recalled something that had happened in our family just a couple of months earlier. We call it the parable of the bicycle.
After I had come home one day, I was sitting in a chair reading the newspaper. My daughter Sarah, who was seven years old, came in and said, “Dad, can I have a bike? I’m the only kid on the block who doesn’t have a bike.”
Well, I didn’t think I could afford to buy her a bike, so I tried to stall her by saying, “Sure, Sarah.”
She asked, “How? When?”
I said, “You save all your pennies, and pretty soon you’ll have enough for a bike.” And she went away.
A couple of weeks later as I was sitting in the same chair, I was aware that Sarah was doing something for her mother and getting paid. She went into the other room, and I heard “Clink, clink.” I asked, “Sarah, what are you doing?”
She came out and showed me a little jar all cleaned up with a slit cut in the lid and a bunch of pennies in the bottom. She looked at me and said, “You promised me that if I saved all my pennies, pretty soon I’d have enough for a bike. And, Daddy, I’ve saved every single one of them.”
My heart was filled with love for her. She was doing everything in her power to follow my instructions. I hadn’t actually lied to her. If she saved all of her pennies, she eventually would have enough for a bike, but by then she would want a car! Her needs weren’t being met. So I said, “Let’s go downtown and look at bikes.”
We went to every store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Finally we found it—the perfect bicycle. She got up on that bike, and she was thrilled. But when she saw how much the bicycle cost, her face fell, and she started to cry. She said, “Oh, Dad, I’ll never have enough for a bicycle.”
So I said, “Sarah, how much do you have?”
She answered, “Sixty-one cents.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You give me everything you’ve got and a hug and a kiss, and the bike is yours.” She gave me a hug, a kiss—and the sixty-one cents. I paid for the bicycle. Then I had to drive home very slowly because she wouldn’t get off the bike; she rode home on the sidewalk. And as I drove along slowly beside her, it occurred to me that this was a parable for the Atonement of Christ.
We all want something desperately—something far more than a bicycle. We want the celestial kingdom. We want to be with our Father in Heaven. And no matter how hard we try, we come up short. At some point we realize, “I can’t do this!” That was the point my wife, Janet, had reached. At that point, we taste the sweetness of the gospel covenant as the Savior proposes, “All right, you’re not perfect. Give me all you have, and I’ll pay the rest. Give me a hug and a kiss—that is, enter into a personal relationship with me—and I will do what remains undone.”
There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that he still requires our best effort. We must try, we must work—we must do all that we can. But the good news is that, having done all we can, it is enough—for now. Together we’ll make progress in the eternities, and eventually we will become perfect. But in the meantime, we are perfect only in a partnership, in a covenant relationship with him. Only by tapping his perfection can we hope to qualify.
As Janet and I discussed how it worked, she finally understood. I remember her saying through her tears, “I’ve always believed he is the Son of God. I have always believed that he suffered and died for me. But now I realize that he can save me from myself, from my sins, from my weakness, inadequacy, and lack of talent.”
How many of us forget the words of Nephi: “There is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Ne. 2:8).
There is no other way. Many of us are trying to save ourselves, holding the Atonement of Jesus Christ at arm’s distance and saying, “When I’ve done it, when I’ve perfected myself, when I’ve made myself worthy—then I’ll be worthy of the Atonement. Then I will allow him in.” We cannot do it. That’s like saying, “When I am well, I’ll take the medicine. I’ll be worthy of it then.” That’s not how it was designed to work.
One of my favorite hymns says, “Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too, And trust in his redeeming blood, And try his works to do” (“There Is a Green Hill Far Away,” Hymns, 1985, no. 194). I think one of the reasons I love that hymn so much is that it expresses both sides of that covenant relationship. We must “try his works to do” with all that is in us. We must do all that we can, and having done all, then we must “trust in his redeeming blood” and in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet do.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie used to call this being in the gospel harness. When we are in the gospel harness, we are pulling for the kingdom with our eyes on that goal. Although we are not yet there, we can have confidence that just as that is our goal in life, so it will be our goal in eternity. Through the Atonement of Christ we can have hope of achieving and an expectation of receiving that goal.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. He is our individual Savior, if only we will enter into that glorious covenant relationship with him and give him all we have. Whether it be sixty-one cents, or a dollar and a half, or two cents, we must hold nothing back; we must give it all. And then we must have faith and trust in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet accomplish, to make up what we yet lack of perfection. This is the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light.
This would be helpful too but the library closes in 3 minutes so I have to go. I love you all!
This talk is amazing!
Believing Christ
By Stephen E. Robinson
A Practical Approach to the Atonement
The greatest dilemma in the entire universe consists of two facts. We can read about the first in Doctrine and Covenants 1:31: “I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” [D&C 1:31] That means he can’t stand it; he can’t blink, or look the other way, or sweep it under the rug. He can’t tolerate sin in the least degree.
The other side of the dilemma is very simply put: I sin, and so do you.
If those were the only two parts of the equation, we would have to conclude that we, as sinful beings, cannot be tolerated in the presence of God.
But that is not all there is to the equation. The Atonement of Christ is the glorious plan by which this dilemma can be resolved. I would like to share some experiences from my own family that illustrate how the Atonement works to solve this great dilemma.
First is a story about my son, Michael, who did something wrong when he was six or seven years old. He’s my only son. I want him to be better than his dad was even as a boy, and so I expect a great deal of him. So I sent him to his bedroom with the instructions, “Don’t come out until I come and get you.”
And then I forgot. Some hours later, as I was watching television, I heard his door open and tentative footsteps come down the hall. I said, “Oh, no,” and ran to the hall to see him standing there with swollen eyes and tears on his cheeks. He looked up at me—he wasn’t quite sure he should have come out—and said, “Dad, can’t we ever be friends again?” Of course, I hugged him and expressed my love for him. He’s my boy, and I love him, despite anything he may have done.
Like Michael, we all do things that disappoint our Father, that separate us from his presence and Spirit. There are times when we get “sent to our rooms” spiritually. There are sins that wound our spirits. Sometimes we do things that make us feel as if we could never get clean. When that happens, sometimes we ask the Lord, as we lift up our eyes, “O Father, can’t we ever be friends again?”
The answer that can be found in all the scriptures is a resounding “Yes, through the Atonement of Christ.” I particularly like the way it is put in Isaiah 1:18 [Isa. 1:18]:
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
The Lord is saying that whatever you have done, he can make you pure and worthy and innocent and celestial.
Now, to have faith in Jesus Christ is not merely to believe that he is who he says he is, or to believe in Christ. Sometimes, to have faith in Christ is also to believe Christ.
Both as a bishop and as a teacher in the Church, I have learned that there are many who believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, but who do not believe that he can save them. They believe in his identity, but not in his power to cleanse and purify and save. To have faith in his identity is only half the principle. To have faith in his power to cleanse and save is the other half. We must not only believe in Christ, but we must also believe Christ when he says that he can cleanse us and make us celestial.
When I was a bishop, some members told me, “Bishop, I’ve sinned too horribly. I can’t have the full blessings of the gospel because I did this or I did that. I’ll come to church, and I’m hoping for a pretty good reward—but I couldn’t receive the full blessings of exaltation in the celestial kingdom after what I’ve done.”
Other members said, “Bishop, I’m just an average Saint. I’m weak and imperfect, and I don’t have all the talents that Brother (or Sister) So-and-So has. I’ll never be in the bishopric, or I’ll never be the Relief Society president. I’m just average. I hope for a place a little further down.”
These statements are variations of the same theme: “I do not believe Christ can do what he claims. I have no faith in his ability to exalt me.”
One fellow said to me, “Bishop, I’m just not celestial material.” Well, I’d had enough, so I said back to him, “Why don’t you admit your real problem? You’re not celestial material? Welcome to the club. None of us is! By ourselves, none of us is perfect as we must be to live in the presence of God. Why don’t you just admit that you don’t have faith in the ability of Christ to do what he says he can do?”
He got angry. “I have a testimony of Jesus,” he said. “I believe in Christ.”
I responded, “Yes, you believe in Christ. But you do not believe Christ when he says that even though you are not celestial material, he can make you celestial material, if you’ll cooperate.”
Why He Is Called the Savior
Sometimes the weight of the demand for perfection makes us despair. Sometimes we fail to believe that most choice truth of the gospel that the Lord can change us and bring us into his kingdom. Let me share an experience that happened about ten years ago.
My wife, Janet, and I were living in Pennsylvania. Things were going pretty well. I had been promoted, and it was a good year for us as a family. But it was a trying year for Janet personally. That year she had our fourth child, graduated from college, passed the exam to become a certified public accountant, and was called to be the ward Relief Society president. We had temple recommends, and we held family home evening. I was serving in the bishopric.
Then one night, something happened to my wife that I can describe only as “dying spiritually.” She wouldn’t talk about it or tell me what was wrong. For me, that was the worst part. For a couple of weeks she did not wish to participate in spiritual things, and she asked to be released from her callings.
Finally, after about two weeks, it came out. She said, “All right. You want to know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t get up at 5:30 in the morning and bake bread and sew clothes and help my kids with their homework and do my own homework and do my Relief Society work and get my genealogy done and go to the parent-teacher meetings at school and write to the missionaries.” And she named off one burden after another that had been laid on her.
Then she listed her flaws and imperfections. She said, “I don’t have the talent that Sister Morrell has. I can’t do what Sister Childs does. I try not to yell at the kids, but I lose control and yell at them anyway. I’ve just finally admitted that I’m not perfect and that I’m not ever going to be perfect. I’m not going to make it to the celestial kingdom, and I can’t pretend that I am. So I’ve given up. Why break my back trying to do what I can’t?”
Well, we started to talk, and it was a long night. I asked her, “Janet, do you have a testimony?”
She said, “Of course I do! That’s what’s so terrible. I know it’s true. I just can’t do it.”
“Have you kept the covenants you made when you were baptized?”
She said, “I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I cannot keep all the commandments all the time.”
Then I rejoiced because I knew that her problem wasn’t any of those horrible things I had thought it might be. It is possible to be an active member of the Church, to have a testimony of its truthfulness, to hold leadership positions—and still to lose track of the “good news” at the gospel’s core. This is what had happened to Janet. She was trying to save herself. She knew why Jesus is an adviser and a teacher. She knew why he is an example, the head of the Church, our Elder Brother, and even God. She knew all of that, but she did not understand why he is called the Savior.
Janet was tying to save herself, with Jesus as an adviser. But we can’t do that. No one is perfect. In Ether 3:2 we read about one of the greatest prophets who ever lived, the brother of Jared. His faith was so great that he was about to pierce the veil and see the spirit body of Christ. Yet, as he began to pray, he said:
“Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee [notice that he starts his prayer with an apology as an imperfect being for approaching a perfect God]; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires.”
Of course we fail at the celestial level. That’s why we need a savior and why we are commanded to approach God and to call upon him so we may receive according to our desires. The Savior said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). We misinterpret this scripture frequently. We think it says, “Blessed are the righteous,” but it does not. When are you hungry? When are you thirsty? When you don’t have the object of your desire. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after the righteousness that God has, after the righteousness of the celestial kingdom. As that becomes the desire of their hearts, it will be given to them—they will be filled. We receive “according to our desires.”
Becoming One
In mortality, perfection comes to us only through the Atonement of Christ. We cannot achieve it ourselves. We must become one with the Lord, who is a perfect being. This is what the business world would call a merger. When a small, bankrupt firm that’s about ready to collapse merges with a strong corporation, what happens? Assets and liabilities of the two companies flow together, and the new entity that is created is solvent.
When Janet and I got married, I was financially pressed, and Janet had money in the bank. When we entered into the covenant relationship of marriage, we formed a joint account at the bank. No longer was there an “I,” and no longer a “she”—now, financially speaking, it was “we.” My liabilities and her assets flowed into each other in this joint account, and for the first time in months I was solvent.
Spiritually, this is what happens when we enter into the covenant relationship with our Savior. We have liabilities; he has assets. He proposes to us a covenant relationship. I use the word propose on purpose because it is a marriage of a spiritual sort that is being proposed. That is why he is called the Bridegroom. This covenant relationship is so intimate that it is described in scriptures as a marriage. I become one with Christ, and as partners we work together for my salvation. My liabilities and his assets flow into each other. I do all that I can do, and he does what I cannot yet do. The two of us together are perfect.
This is why the Savior says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). What heavier load is there than the demand for perfection, the idea that you must make yourself perfect in this life before you can have any hope in the next? What heavier burden is there than the yoke of the law?
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me,” said the Savior; “for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29–30).
“Trust Me”
The prophet Nephi was one of the great prophets, yet he had a sense of his need for and his reliance upon the Savior. He says, “O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.
“I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.
“And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins” (2 Ne. 4:17–19).
Did Nephi have an appreciation for his mortal condition, for his need of the Savior to save him from his sins? Yes, and the key is what comes next: “Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted” (2 Ne. 4:19).
Nephi realized that he was imperfect. His sins bothered him. He was not celestial yet. But he knew in whom he trusted. Nephi trusted in the power of Jesus Christ to cleanse him of his sins and to bring him into the kingdom of God.
I had a friend who used to say quite frequently, “I figure my life is half over, and I’m halfway to the celestial kingdom, so I’m right on schedule.”
One day I asked her, “Judy, what happens if you die tomorrow?” It was the first time that thought had ever occurred to her.
“Let’s see,” she said, “halfway to the celestial kingdom is … mid-terrestrial. That’s not good enough.”
We need to know that in this covenant relationship we have with the Savior, if we should die tomorrow we have hope of the celestial kingdom. That hope is one of the promised blessings of the covenant relationship. Yet many of us do not understand it or take advantage of it.
When our twin daughters were small, we decided to take them to the public pool and teach them how to swim. I remember starting with Rebekah. As I went down into the water with her, I was thinking, “I’m going to teach Becky how to swim.” But in her mind was the thought, “My dad is going to drown me. I’m going to die!” The water was only three-and-a-half feet deep, but Becky was only three feet tall. She was so frightened that she began to scream and cry and kick and scratch. She was unteachable.
Finally, I threw my arms around her and held her and said, “Becky, I’ve got you. I’m your dad. I love you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Now relax.” Bless her heart, she trusted me. She relaxed, and then I put my arms under her and said, “Okay, now kick your legs.” And she began to learn how to swim.
Spiritually there are some of us who are similarly frightened by these questions. “Am I celestial? Am I going to make it? Was I good enough today?” We’re so terrified of whether we’re going to live or die, or whether we’ve made it to the kingdom or not, that we cannot make any progress. At those times, the Savior, in a sense, throws his arms around us and says, “I’ve got you. I love you. I’m not going to let you die. Now relax and trust me.” If we can relax and trust him and believe him, as well as believe in him, then together we can begin to learn to live the gospel. Then he says, “Okay, now begin to pay tithing. Very good. Now pay a full tithing.” And so we begin to make progress.
In Alma 34:14–16, we read:
“Behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal.
“And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.
“And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety.”
The arms of safety—that is my favorite phrase in the Book of Mormon.
Do Latter-day Saints believe in “being saved”? If I ask my religion students that question with the right tone of voice—“Do we believe in being saved?”—I can generally get about a third of them to shake their heads and say, “Oh, no, no. Those other religions believe in that.” What a tragedy! We most certainly do believe in being saved. That’s why Jesus is called the Savior. What good is it to have a Savior if no one is saved? It’s like having a lifeguard who won’t get out of the chair. “Oops, there goes another swimmer down. Hey, try the backstroke! Oh, too bad he didn’t make it.” We have a Savior who can save us from ourselves, from what we lack, from our imperfections, from the carnal individual within us.
In Joseph Smith’s vision of the celestial kingdom, he describes those who are there in these terms:
“These are they whose names are written in heaven, where God and Christ are the judge of all.
“These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” (D&C 76:68–69).
Just men and women, good men and women, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, are made perfect through Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant.
Give Him All That We Have
As my wife and I talked about her feeling of inadequacy and her feeling that she couldn’t make it, I recalled something that had happened in our family just a couple of months earlier. We call it the parable of the bicycle.
After I had come home one day, I was sitting in a chair reading the newspaper. My daughter Sarah, who was seven years old, came in and said, “Dad, can I have a bike? I’m the only kid on the block who doesn’t have a bike.”
Well, I didn’t think I could afford to buy her a bike, so I tried to stall her by saying, “Sure, Sarah.”
She asked, “How? When?”
I said, “You save all your pennies, and pretty soon you’ll have enough for a bike.” And she went away.
A couple of weeks later as I was sitting in the same chair, I was aware that Sarah was doing something for her mother and getting paid. She went into the other room, and I heard “Clink, clink.” I asked, “Sarah, what are you doing?”
She came out and showed me a little jar all cleaned up with a slit cut in the lid and a bunch of pennies in the bottom. She looked at me and said, “You promised me that if I saved all my pennies, pretty soon I’d have enough for a bike. And, Daddy, I’ve saved every single one of them.”
My heart was filled with love for her. She was doing everything in her power to follow my instructions. I hadn’t actually lied to her. If she saved all of her pennies, she eventually would have enough for a bike, but by then she would want a car! Her needs weren’t being met. So I said, “Let’s go downtown and look at bikes.”
We went to every store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Finally we found it—the perfect bicycle. She got up on that bike, and she was thrilled. But when she saw how much the bicycle cost, her face fell, and she started to cry. She said, “Oh, Dad, I’ll never have enough for a bicycle.”
So I said, “Sarah, how much do you have?”
She answered, “Sixty-one cents.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You give me everything you’ve got and a hug and a kiss, and the bike is yours.” She gave me a hug, a kiss—and the sixty-one cents. I paid for the bicycle. Then I had to drive home very slowly because she wouldn’t get off the bike; she rode home on the sidewalk. And as I drove along slowly beside her, it occurred to me that this was a parable for the Atonement of Christ.
We all want something desperately—something far more than a bicycle. We want the celestial kingdom. We want to be with our Father in Heaven. And no matter how hard we try, we come up short. At some point we realize, “I can’t do this!” That was the point my wife, Janet, had reached. At that point, we taste the sweetness of the gospel covenant as the Savior proposes, “All right, you’re not perfect. Give me all you have, and I’ll pay the rest. Give me a hug and a kiss—that is, enter into a personal relationship with me—and I will do what remains undone.”
There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that he still requires our best effort. We must try, we must work—we must do all that we can. But the good news is that, having done all we can, it is enough—for now. Together we’ll make progress in the eternities, and eventually we will become perfect. But in the meantime, we are perfect only in a partnership, in a covenant relationship with him. Only by tapping his perfection can we hope to qualify.
As Janet and I discussed how it worked, she finally understood. I remember her saying through her tears, “I’ve always believed he is the Son of God. I have always believed that he suffered and died for me. But now I realize that he can save me from myself, from my sins, from my weakness, inadequacy, and lack of talent.”
How many of us forget the words of Nephi: “There is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Ne. 2:8).
There is no other way. Many of us are trying to save ourselves, holding the Atonement of Jesus Christ at arm’s distance and saying, “When I’ve done it, when I’ve perfected myself, when I’ve made myself worthy—then I’ll be worthy of the Atonement. Then I will allow him in.” We cannot do it. That’s like saying, “When I am well, I’ll take the medicine. I’ll be worthy of it then.” That’s not how it was designed to work.
One of my favorite hymns says, “Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too, And trust in his redeeming blood, And try his works to do” (“There Is a Green Hill Far Away,” Hymns, 1985, no. 194). I think one of the reasons I love that hymn so much is that it expresses both sides of that covenant relationship. We must “try his works to do” with all that is in us. We must do all that we can, and having done all, then we must “trust in his redeeming blood” and in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet do.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie used to call this being in the gospel harness. When we are in the gospel harness, we are pulling for the kingdom with our eyes on that goal. Although we are not yet there, we can have confidence that just as that is our goal in life, so it will be our goal in eternity. Through the Atonement of Christ we can have hope of achieving and an expectation of receiving that goal.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. He is our individual Savior, if only we will enter into that glorious covenant relationship with him and give him all we have. Whether it be sixty-one cents, or a dollar and a half, or two cents, we must hold nothing back; we must give it all. And then we must have faith and trust in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet accomplish, to make up what we yet lack of perfection. This is the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light.
Week 23
15 November 2010
Hello!
So, there is not much else going on right now here in Blackburn. This is the best ward I have been in so far and I think it has the fact that it is the first one with lots of youth. I want the youth of our ward to know that they are a huge strength in giving diversity to the ward. If not for anyone else, you are definitely to the missionaries.
So I have been sharing my favorite scripture getting to know the members here in simple pop-in lessons I guess you could call them and so I figured I would share it with you all as well.
Alma 5:45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I aknow of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?
46 Behold, I say unto you they are made aknown unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have bfasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of crevelation which is in me.
47 And moreover, I say unto you that it has thus been revealed unto me, that the words which have been spoken by our fathers are true, even so according to the spirit of prophecy which is in me, which is also by the manifestation of the Spirit of God.
48 I say unto you, that I know of myself that whatsoever I shall say unto you, concerning that which is to come, is true; and I say unto you, that I know that Jesus Christ shall come, yea, the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace, and mercy, and truth. And behold, it is he that cometh to take away the sins of the world, yea, the sins of every man who steadfastly believeth on his name.
49 And now I say unto you that this is the aorder after which I am called, yea, to preach unto my beloved brethren, yea, and every one that dwelleth in the land; yea, to preach unto all, both old and young, both bond and free; yea, I say unto you the aged, and also the middle aged, and the rising generation; yea, to cry unto them that they must repent and be bborn again.
I really do have a testimony of these things in this passage. I know Christ lives and will come again and has come. Heavenly Father gave His Son for us, and His Son gave his Life for us. Please, I pray, remember the feelings of your own conversion throughout this week and you will be able to take those feelings and apply them to the weekly focus of CHARITY.
And something that shows our Charity is our Character. Something I was able to make up from a talk that Elder Bednar gave about the Character of Christ which I shared with you a couple months ago is this phrase:
Character is Charity in Action.
So as you go about your week, focus on showing your Character and you will be able to show Charity. I believe this phrase connects us with what Moroni was trying to convey in his words when he said- in Moroni 7:48
-that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be dpurified even as he is pure.
We will be like him, because our Characters endowed with Charity have become as His Character and I know this to be true.
I love you all,
Elder Blackburn
**********************************************
So i have read through to Ezekiel 13 and am trudging through the last 150 pages! =P I finished the Book of Mormon on Friday for the 2nd time and have started D&C.
So ya there is a lot of things going on here except with teaching anyone. We have some recent converts that really need our help with just support because they aren't quite firing on all cylinders and things like that. We are going to be working with some former investigators hopefully and get the ball rolling that way. It is a pretty dead area to put someone who is just beginning to be senior but we are working closer with the members or at least trying to than I have in the past 2 areas...We shall see.
It is the best ward I have been in yet...=D
Love,
Elder Blackburn
Hello!
So, there is not much else going on right now here in Blackburn. This is the best ward I have been in so far and I think it has the fact that it is the first one with lots of youth. I want the youth of our ward to know that they are a huge strength in giving diversity to the ward. If not for anyone else, you are definitely to the missionaries.
So I have been sharing my favorite scripture getting to know the members here in simple pop-in lessons I guess you could call them and so I figured I would share it with you all as well.
Alma 5:45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I aknow of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?
46 Behold, I say unto you they are made aknown unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have bfasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of crevelation which is in me.
47 And moreover, I say unto you that it has thus been revealed unto me, that the words which have been spoken by our fathers are true, even so according to the spirit of prophecy which is in me, which is also by the manifestation of the Spirit of God.
48 I say unto you, that I know of myself that whatsoever I shall say unto you, concerning that which is to come, is true; and I say unto you, that I know that Jesus Christ shall come, yea, the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace, and mercy, and truth. And behold, it is he that cometh to take away the sins of the world, yea, the sins of every man who steadfastly believeth on his name.
49 And now I say unto you that this is the aorder after which I am called, yea, to preach unto my beloved brethren, yea, and every one that dwelleth in the land; yea, to preach unto all, both old and young, both bond and free; yea, I say unto you the aged, and also the middle aged, and the rising generation; yea, to cry unto them that they must repent and be bborn again.
I really do have a testimony of these things in this passage. I know Christ lives and will come again and has come. Heavenly Father gave His Son for us, and His Son gave his Life for us. Please, I pray, remember the feelings of your own conversion throughout this week and you will be able to take those feelings and apply them to the weekly focus of CHARITY.
And something that shows our Charity is our Character. Something I was able to make up from a talk that Elder Bednar gave about the Character of Christ which I shared with you a couple months ago is this phrase:
Character is Charity in Action.
So as you go about your week, focus on showing your Character and you will be able to show Charity. I believe this phrase connects us with what Moroni was trying to convey in his words when he said- in Moroni 7:48
-that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be dpurified even as he is pure.
We will be like him, because our Characters endowed with Charity have become as His Character and I know this to be true.
I love you all,
Elder Blackburn
**********************************************
So i have read through to Ezekiel 13 and am trudging through the last 150 pages! =P I finished the Book of Mormon on Friday for the 2nd time and have started D&C.
So ya there is a lot of things going on here except with teaching anyone. We have some recent converts that really need our help with just support because they aren't quite firing on all cylinders and things like that. We are going to be working with some former investigators hopefully and get the ball rolling that way. It is a pretty dead area to put someone who is just beginning to be senior but we are working closer with the members or at least trying to than I have in the past 2 areas...We shall see.
It is the best ward I have been in yet...=D
Love,
Elder Blackburn
Week 22
11 November 2010
AHHHHHHHHHHHH I cannot even tell you how cold it is here. And it is even colder here in Blackburn than it was in Bolton!
Oh YA! I am in BLACKBURN NOW! =P!!!! My new companion is Elder Stubbs and he is from Austrailia. He has a twin brother in the Leeds mission.
Leviticus is awesome! what are you talking about? You learn about the priesthood in there quite a bit. I am in Jeremiah 37 nowish I think...page 990 or something like that and I am reading as much as I can, but also trying to talk to my companion. There are 4 Elders here in Blackburn as well but only one crazy ward at the same time.
So, President Bullock told me he is sending me here to find family, Got a clue where I should look in Accrington, Darwen, Blackburn, anywhere surrounding that????? ANYWHERE?!?!?!? haha I love you
I LOVE YOU LOTS
Sending the family more stuff now =P
***************************************
I am now in Blackburn. Yupp Blackburn. For Christmas.
My new address is this for everyone who needs an update and all of my facebook stalkers =P:
Elder Blackburn
Apt. 10 Signal Court
21 Pickup Street
Accrington
BB5 0EY
England
I hope you all are a whole lot warmer than I AM! ITS FREEZING UP HERE NEAR THE ARCTIC! =P
My new companion is Elder Stubbs, but I gotta go get food! SO HUNGRY!
LOVE YOU!
Elder Blackburn
*********************************************
So mom asked me some interesting questions so here are my answers.
Question #1-When does my faith go Beyond to a (sure)perfect knowledge?
That is easy. Read.
Alma 32:33 And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good.
34 And now, behold, is your aknowledge bperfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your cfaith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your dmind doth begin to expand.
So, take anyone who investigates the church for example. They are invited to pray and ask God to know if the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith is a Prophet. When they pray, and feel the Spirit confirm that what we have taught is true, then they have a perfect knowledge from a source which "man cannot give or take away".
Their knowledge, however, is not perfect in all things, but in the one thing we gain that testimony of. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. I know the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and I know a few other things, in the which, I have a perfect knowledge and understanding of. Which makes me ask that same question you did-
Question #2-Then how does that Knowledge change our accountability?
It is a little bit trickier, but the answer is in here.
Alma 32:17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a asign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.
18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to abelieve, for he knoweth it.
19 And now, how much amore bcursed is he that cknoweth the dwill of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into etransgression?
20 Now of this thing ye must judge. Behold, I say unto you, that it is on the one hand even as it is on the other; and it shall be unto every man according to his work.
Now of this thing ye must judge. I know that I will be held more accountable if I fall into transgression over someone else who does know nothing about the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, Gospel of Jesus Christ, Temple, or simply more than anyone who doesn't know Christ at all. Can I give you a percentage...? No. But I can tell you that you know what you are held accountable for. You know the light and knowledge that you have and that it is a great thing.
But however perfect our knowledge is, if we lose that Faith that we planted the seed with, then it is as it is hewn down and cast into the fire, which leads to our own condemnation.
But Blessed are Ye My Good and Faithful Servant,
I love you,
Elder Blackburn
AHHHHHHHHHHHH I cannot even tell you how cold it is here. And it is even colder here in Blackburn than it was in Bolton!
Oh YA! I am in BLACKBURN NOW! =P!!!! My new companion is Elder Stubbs and he is from Austrailia. He has a twin brother in the Leeds mission.
Leviticus is awesome! what are you talking about? You learn about the priesthood in there quite a bit. I am in Jeremiah 37 nowish I think...page 990 or something like that and I am reading as much as I can, but also trying to talk to my companion. There are 4 Elders here in Blackburn as well but only one crazy ward at the same time.
So, President Bullock told me he is sending me here to find family, Got a clue where I should look in Accrington, Darwen, Blackburn, anywhere surrounding that????? ANYWHERE?!?!?!? haha I love you
I LOVE YOU LOTS
Sending the family more stuff now =P
***************************************
I am now in Blackburn. Yupp Blackburn. For Christmas.
My new address is this for everyone who needs an update and all of my facebook stalkers =P:
Elder Blackburn
Apt. 10 Signal Court
21 Pickup Street
Accrington
BB5 0EY
England
I hope you all are a whole lot warmer than I AM! ITS FREEZING UP HERE NEAR THE ARCTIC! =P
My new companion is Elder Stubbs, but I gotta go get food! SO HUNGRY!
LOVE YOU!
Elder Blackburn
*********************************************
So mom asked me some interesting questions so here are my answers.
Question #1-When does my faith go Beyond to a (sure)perfect knowledge?
That is easy. Read.
Alma 32:33 And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good.
34 And now, behold, is your aknowledge bperfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your cfaith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your dmind doth begin to expand.
So, take anyone who investigates the church for example. They are invited to pray and ask God to know if the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith is a Prophet. When they pray, and feel the Spirit confirm that what we have taught is true, then they have a perfect knowledge from a source which "man cannot give or take away".
Their knowledge, however, is not perfect in all things, but in the one thing we gain that testimony of. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet. I know the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and I know a few other things, in the which, I have a perfect knowledge and understanding of. Which makes me ask that same question you did-
Question #2-Then how does that Knowledge change our accountability?
It is a little bit trickier, but the answer is in here.
Alma 32:17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a asign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.
18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to abelieve, for he knoweth it.
19 And now, how much amore bcursed is he that cknoweth the dwill of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into etransgression?
20 Now of this thing ye must judge. Behold, I say unto you, that it is on the one hand even as it is on the other; and it shall be unto every man according to his work.
Now of this thing ye must judge. I know that I will be held more accountable if I fall into transgression over someone else who does know nothing about the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, Gospel of Jesus Christ, Temple, or simply more than anyone who doesn't know Christ at all. Can I give you a percentage...? No. But I can tell you that you know what you are held accountable for. You know the light and knowledge that you have and that it is a great thing.
But however perfect our knowledge is, if we lose that Faith that we planted the seed with, then it is as it is hewn down and cast into the fire, which leads to our own condemnation.
But Blessed are Ye My Good and Faithful Servant,
I love you,
Elder Blackburn
Special Invitation from President Bullock
2 November 2010
Dear Parents,
At the end of last year, we studied the attributes of Christ together as a mission and realized wonderful blessings individually and collectively. It changed the lives of many missionaries and their families who participated. I was inspired by the letters of our missionaries who felt the spirit and put forth the effort to truly make these attributes part of who they are. We were also overwhelmed by the number of families of our missionaries who made this a personal and family focus leading up to Christmas.
We are going to do the same this year. Over 60% of our missionaries have come to the mission since last November so this will be new to them and their families. For those who were part of this last year, it will not only be a wonderful opportunity to renew what they have already done but perhaps even take this process to a higher level. Attached is a flyer “Becoming Like Him” that we have given to each of our missionaries.
We would like to invite you to participate as a family. We have asked your son/daughter to included in their weekly email or letter home, the things they learned, progress they made and spiritual impressions they had about the attribute for that week. For those of you who choose to participate, we would recommend that you do that same back to your son/daughter. As with last year, we are confident that this will be a positive and life-changing experience for those who take part.
The mission is doing well and we are being abundantly blessed. We are grateful to you the families and for your strength and support to your missionary, it means everything to them. We love our missionaries and feel it a blessing and honor to be serving with them. Their obedience, faithfulness and diligence is an example and inspiration to all of us.
Warm regards,
President Bullock
England Manchester Mission
************************************************
England Manchester Mission
Becoming Like Him
Striving to become more like Christ as we draw near to Christmas
Focus
“The Lord has also called you to His work, and He invites you to follow Him. The invitation to follow
Christ is an invitation to follow His example and to become like Him. Some chapters in Preach My
Gospel focus on what you need to do as a missionary – how to study, how to manage time wisely.
Just as vital as what you do, however, is who you are.” (Preach My Gospel, pg. 115)
Objective
During the nine weeks leading up to Christmas and year-end, we will work together as a mission to
become more like Christ. Each week we will work on one of the Christlike Attributes as outlined in
Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel. We also invite you to engage your family in this study and ask them
to do the same. At Christmas we will celebrate the process of becoming more like Christ.
Method
The following list of activities may be of help as you focus on becoming more like Christ:
Schedule
We will study each attribute for one week, from one P-Day to the next. Thus, you will be writing
your family and the President about what you have learned. Please follow the schedule below:
2010 - Week of:
Nov 1 – Nov 7 Faith in Jesus Christ
Nov 8 – Nov 14 Hope
Nov 15 – Nov 21 Charity and Love
Nov 22 – Nov 28 Virtue
Nov 29 – Dec 5 Knowledge
Dec 6 – Dec 12 Patience
Dec 13 – Dec 19 Humility
Dec 20 – Dec 26 Diligence
Dec 27 – Jan 2 Obedience
“…what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” 3 Nephi 27:27
Dear Parents,
At the end of last year, we studied the attributes of Christ together as a mission and realized wonderful blessings individually and collectively. It changed the lives of many missionaries and their families who participated. I was inspired by the letters of our missionaries who felt the spirit and put forth the effort to truly make these attributes part of who they are. We were also overwhelmed by the number of families of our missionaries who made this a personal and family focus leading up to Christmas.
We are going to do the same this year. Over 60% of our missionaries have come to the mission since last November so this will be new to them and their families. For those who were part of this last year, it will not only be a wonderful opportunity to renew what they have already done but perhaps even take this process to a higher level. Attached is a flyer “Becoming Like Him” that we have given to each of our missionaries.
We would like to invite you to participate as a family. We have asked your son/daughter to included in their weekly email or letter home, the things they learned, progress they made and spiritual impressions they had about the attribute for that week. For those of you who choose to participate, we would recommend that you do that same back to your son/daughter. As with last year, we are confident that this will be a positive and life-changing experience for those who take part.
The mission is doing well and we are being abundantly blessed. We are grateful to you the families and for your strength and support to your missionary, it means everything to them. We love our missionaries and feel it a blessing and honor to be serving with them. Their obedience, faithfulness and diligence is an example and inspiration to all of us.
Warm regards,
President Bullock
England Manchester Mission
************************************************
England Manchester Mission
Becoming Like Him
Striving to become more like Christ as we draw near to Christmas
Focus
“The Lord has also called you to His work, and He invites you to follow Him. The invitation to follow
Christ is an invitation to follow His example and to become like Him. Some chapters in Preach My
Gospel focus on what you need to do as a missionary – how to study, how to manage time wisely.
Just as vital as what you do, however, is who you are.” (Preach My Gospel, pg. 115)
Objective
During the nine weeks leading up to Christmas and year-end, we will work together as a mission to
become more like Christ. Each week we will work on one of the Christlike Attributes as outlined in
Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel. We also invite you to engage your family in this study and ask them
to do the same. At Christmas we will celebrate the process of becoming more like Christ.
Method
The following list of activities may be of help as you focus on becoming more like Christ:
Read about the attribute in Preach My Gospel
Study the scripture references in Preach My Gospel that go with the attribute
Study other scriptures from the Topical Guide on the attribute
Look for examples and stories of the attribute in the life of Christ
Record your thoughts, feelings and impressions in your study journal
Every morning, ask the Lord to help you better develop that attribute in your life that day
Discuss and plan to live the attribute as a companionship
Every morning, individually and collectively commit to live the attribute
Talk about the attribute in your teaching and meetings
Discuss the attribute throughout the day with your companion
Every evening, report to the Lord on your progress
Write about your experiences and what you have learned in your personal journal
Ask your family to live the attribute and write about it to you each week
Schedule
We will study each attribute for one week, from one P-Day to the next. Thus, you will be writing
your family and the President about what you have learned. Please follow the schedule below:
2010 - Week of:
Nov 1 – Nov 7 Faith in Jesus Christ
Nov 8 – Nov 14 Hope
Nov 15 – Nov 21 Charity and Love
Nov 22 – Nov 28 Virtue
Nov 29 – Dec 5 Knowledge
Dec 6 – Dec 12 Patience
Dec 13 – Dec 19 Humility
Dec 20 – Dec 26 Diligence
Dec 27 – Jan 2 Obedience
“…what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” 3 Nephi 27:27
Week 21
1 November 2010
Power and Authority: The Priesthood of God
Joseph Smith’s teachings concerning priesthood constitute a
distinctive part of Latter-day Saint religion. The term priesthood, as
used by Latter-day Saints, has at least two specific meanings.
Priesthood is both authority from God to act in his name and actual
power to accomplish God’s purposes. Joseph Smith proclaimed that he
received such authority and power directly from heavenly messengers
and that religious ordinances performed without divine authority have
no binding effect outside this life. Baptism, for example, is valid
only when someone possessing divine authority performs it.
Joseph Smith taught that priesthood authority and power had to be
restored to the earth because it had been lost through apostasy. 2
Historical evidences of this apostasy include denials of spiritual
gifts, uncertainty about doctrines and the roles of Church officers,
changes in covenants and ordinances, and overindulgence in pomp and
splendor. These external manifestations reflected the internal loss of
divine authority.
As early as 1823, Moroni promised Joseph Smith that the priesthood
would be revealed to him by the hand of Elijah. (See D&C 2:1.)
Priesthood restoration began on 15 May 1829 when John the Baptist—by
then a resurrected being of glory—appeared to the young prophet and
Oliver Cowdery to confer the Aaronic Priesthood upon them. (See D&C
13; JS—H 1:68–72.) Shortly thereafter, the Apostles Peter, James, and
John came and conferred upon them the Melchizedek Priesthood. 3 (See
D&C 27:12–13.)
In 1836 Joseph Smith received, in the Kirtland Temple, additional
fundamental priesthood keys. These priesthood powers included the keys
of the gathering of Israel, the keys of the gospel of Abraham, and the
keys of the sealing power, each set of powers restored personally by
Moses, Elias, and Elijah. (See D&C 110.) At other times, additional
keys and powers of the priesthood were also restored. (See D&C
128:21.) These included the keys of the kingdom pertaining to the
dispensation of the fulness of times, keys that have subsequently
passed to Joseph Smith’s successors, including President Ezra Taft
Benson today. (See D&C 90:1–5.)
As this process of priesthood restoration unfolded, Joseph Smith’s
understanding of the nature of priesthood power and authority
increased. Sometime in April or May 1829, he translated the passage in
Alma 13 about the high priesthood after the holy order of the Son of
God. He also learned that the priesthood is eternal, a concept that he
more fully expressed in 1839 when he said, “The Priesthood is an
everlasting principle & Existed with God from Eternity.” 4 Soon
afterward, he received the lesser priesthood, the priesthood of Aaron.
(See D&C 13; D&C 84:25–27.) By this, he learned that two types of
priesthood exist and that they would be operative in this
dispensation. In May 1829, he also learned that priesthood power is
necessary in order to baptize, to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost,
and to administer the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. (See 3 Ne.
11:22; 3 Ne. 18:37; Moro. 2–6.)
In April 1830, Joseph organized The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, based upon a foundation of Apostles, prophets,
elders, priests, teachers, and deacons; and in June 1830, he witnessed
“glorious manifestations of the powers of the Priesthood.” 5
In March 1835, he gained further insight into the distinctions between
the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods: “The Melchizedek Priesthood
holds the right of presidency, and has power and authority over all
offices in the church” (D&C 107:8), while the Aaronic Priesthood “is
called the lesser priesthood … because it is an appendage to the
greater, or the Melchizedek Priesthood” (D&C 107:14). Two years later,
the Prophet recorded, “The higher the authority, the greater the
difficulty of the station.” 6
Joseph Smith also learned that temples had to be constructed to
“enable all the functions of the Priesthood to be duly exercised.” 7
Near the end of his life, he reemphasized to the Saints that although
ministers of other faiths did not have divine authority, he did. 8
The teachings of Joseph Smith concerning the nature of authority and
the need for a restoration differ markedly from other
nineteenth-century creeds. Most Protestants believed that the written
words of the Bible constituted the only authority necessary and saw
the congregation of believers as a “royal priesthood” in Christ.
Catholics asserted priesthood authority in the traditions of the
church and through the popes, who they claimed received authority from
Peter. 9
Neither Protestants nor Catholics generally recognized the need for a
restoration of priesthood authority or for an organization of
priesthood offices and functions similar to what existed in the early
church. Early Christians, however, had priesthood offices and
authority quite similar to those established by Joseph Smith.
The New Testament contains evidence of that view. Differences between
the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, for example, are outlined in
Hebrews 7. The concept “that a man must be called of God, by prophecy,
and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority” (A of F
1:5) is expressed in Hebrews 5:4, which says, “No man taketh this
honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” (See
1 Tim. 4:14.)
Ephesians 2:19–20 and 4:11–14 affirm that Apostles and prophets form
the essential foundation of the Church, and the New Testament contains
references to bishops, seventies, elders, priests, deacons, and other
offices. (See Luke 10:1; Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 3:1, 8; Rev. 20:6.) Traces
of this organization survived in the first few centuries after Christ.
Clement and Ignatius, for example, mention bishops, elders, and
deacons in the local structure of church authority. 10 With the death
of the Apostles, however, priesthood keys no longer existed in the
church, and apostate ideas soon replaced these earlier teachings.
Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, correct concepts and divine
authority were restored.
Power and Authority: The Priesthood of God
Joseph Smith’s teachings concerning priesthood constitute a
distinctive part of Latter-day Saint religion. The term priesthood, as
used by Latter-day Saints, has at least two specific meanings.
Priesthood is both authority from God to act in his name and actual
power to accomplish God’s purposes. Joseph Smith proclaimed that he
received such authority and power directly from heavenly messengers
and that religious ordinances performed without divine authority have
no binding effect outside this life. Baptism, for example, is valid
only when someone possessing divine authority performs it.
Joseph Smith taught that priesthood authority and power had to be
restored to the earth because it had been lost through apostasy. 2
Historical evidences of this apostasy include denials of spiritual
gifts, uncertainty about doctrines and the roles of Church officers,
changes in covenants and ordinances, and overindulgence in pomp and
splendor. These external manifestations reflected the internal loss of
divine authority.
As early as 1823, Moroni promised Joseph Smith that the priesthood
would be revealed to him by the hand of Elijah. (See D&C 2:1.)
Priesthood restoration began on 15 May 1829 when John the Baptist—by
then a resurrected being of glory—appeared to the young prophet and
Oliver Cowdery to confer the Aaronic Priesthood upon them. (See D&C
13; JS—H 1:68–72.) Shortly thereafter, the Apostles Peter, James, and
John came and conferred upon them the Melchizedek Priesthood. 3 (See
D&C 27:12–13.)
In 1836 Joseph Smith received, in the Kirtland Temple, additional
fundamental priesthood keys. These priesthood powers included the keys
of the gathering of Israel, the keys of the gospel of Abraham, and the
keys of the sealing power, each set of powers restored personally by
Moses, Elias, and Elijah. (See D&C 110.) At other times, additional
keys and powers of the priesthood were also restored. (See D&C
128:21.) These included the keys of the kingdom pertaining to the
dispensation of the fulness of times, keys that have subsequently
passed to Joseph Smith’s successors, including President Ezra Taft
Benson today. (See D&C 90:1–5.)
As this process of priesthood restoration unfolded, Joseph Smith’s
understanding of the nature of priesthood power and authority
increased. Sometime in April or May 1829, he translated the passage in
Alma 13 about the high priesthood after the holy order of the Son of
God. He also learned that the priesthood is eternal, a concept that he
more fully expressed in 1839 when he said, “The Priesthood is an
everlasting principle & Existed with God from Eternity.” 4 Soon
afterward, he received the lesser priesthood, the priesthood of Aaron.
(See D&C 13; D&C 84:25–27.) By this, he learned that two types of
priesthood exist and that they would be operative in this
dispensation. In May 1829, he also learned that priesthood power is
necessary in order to baptize, to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost,
and to administer the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. (See 3 Ne.
11:22; 3 Ne. 18:37; Moro. 2–6.)
In April 1830, Joseph organized The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, based upon a foundation of Apostles, prophets,
elders, priests, teachers, and deacons; and in June 1830, he witnessed
“glorious manifestations of the powers of the Priesthood.” 5
In March 1835, he gained further insight into the distinctions between
the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods: “The Melchizedek Priesthood
holds the right of presidency, and has power and authority over all
offices in the church” (D&C 107:8), while the Aaronic Priesthood “is
called the lesser priesthood … because it is an appendage to the
greater, or the Melchizedek Priesthood” (D&C 107:14). Two years later,
the Prophet recorded, “The higher the authority, the greater the
difficulty of the station.” 6
Joseph Smith also learned that temples had to be constructed to
“enable all the functions of the Priesthood to be duly exercised.” 7
Near the end of his life, he reemphasized to the Saints that although
ministers of other faiths did not have divine authority, he did. 8
The teachings of Joseph Smith concerning the nature of authority and
the need for a restoration differ markedly from other
nineteenth-century creeds. Most Protestants believed that the written
words of the Bible constituted the only authority necessary and saw
the congregation of believers as a “royal priesthood” in Christ.
Catholics asserted priesthood authority in the traditions of the
church and through the popes, who they claimed received authority from
Peter. 9
Neither Protestants nor Catholics generally recognized the need for a
restoration of priesthood authority or for an organization of
priesthood offices and functions similar to what existed in the early
church. Early Christians, however, had priesthood offices and
authority quite similar to those established by Joseph Smith.
The New Testament contains evidence of that view. Differences between
the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, for example, are outlined in
Hebrews 7. The concept “that a man must be called of God, by prophecy,
and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority” (A of F
1:5) is expressed in Hebrews 5:4, which says, “No man taketh this
honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” (See
1 Tim. 4:14.)
Ephesians 2:19–20 and 4:11–14 affirm that Apostles and prophets form
the essential foundation of the Church, and the New Testament contains
references to bishops, seventies, elders, priests, deacons, and other
offices. (See Luke 10:1; Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 3:1, 8; Rev. 20:6.) Traces
of this organization survived in the first few centuries after Christ.
Clement and Ignatius, for example, mention bishops, elders, and
deacons in the local structure of church authority. 10 With the death
of the Apostles, however, priesthood keys no longer existed in the
church, and apostate ideas soon replaced these earlier teachings.
Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, correct concepts and divine
authority were restored.
Week 20
18 October 2010
Hey!
So Tell Bishop thanks for the sweet email! I had to look up what it [the plans for the new Indianapolis Temple that was just announced in October's General Conference!!]
looked like and in case someone hasn't there it is sort of! Anyways,
this week is an odd one. Our strengths were our weaknesses and our
weaknesses were...well what we could call strengths. We had a good
week of finding and taught a whopping 12 lessons haha...ya and our
investigators who are becoming eternal investigators are still there
but our progressing one has dropped off the face of at least
Bolton...she has been in Manchester all week...
They have changed the format of the email service we have and it
freaked me out today...I thought something happened and I couldn't
read any emails this week. I think I would have smacked the screen
sooner or later if I didnt figure it out quick enough. We only have a
timed hour in this library and so things don't always get sent like I
thought they would...
So today I read from Mosiah 10-17 which is basically the whole story
of King Noah and Abinadi. Only exception is that King Noah isn't dead
yet. It was pretty interesting. I am about halfway done with 2
Chronicles also in my Old Testament reading and there are a couple
things I have read that I am thankful some passages of the Bible did
not get lost in the corruptness of the world. One of those is the
willingness of the people of Israel under King David and Solomon to
pay their "tithing" as we would call it today.
These passages in 1 Chronicles 29 sum up what I mean:
6 ¶ Then the chief of the fathers and princes of the tribes of
Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers
of the king’s work, offered willingly,
7 And gave for the service of the house of God of gold five thousand
talents and ten thousand drams, and of silver ten thousand talents,
and of brass eighteen thousand talents, and one hundred thousand
talents of iron.
8 And they with whom precious stones were found gave them to the
treasure of the ahouse of the Lord, by the hand of Jehiel the
Gershonite.
9 Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered awillingly,
because with perfect heart they offered bwillingly to the Lord: and
David the king also rejoiced with great joy.
10 ¶ Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation:
and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel our afather, for
ever and ever.
11 Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the aglory,
and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in
the earth is thine; thine is the bkingdom, O Lord, and thou art
exalted as head above all.
12 Both ariches and honour bcome of thee, and thou reignest over
all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to
make great, and to give strength unto all.
13 Now therefore, our God, we athank thee, and praise thy glorious name.
14 But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to
offer so willingly after this sort? for all things acome of thee, and
of thine own have we given thee.
I would organize that and bold the points I wanted to make but the key
word is that they offered willingly their tithing and fast offerings
to the Lord because they knew it all came from Him anyways. I just
want to remind all of you to do the same and keep on track with your
tithing. I promise you as you do, the money troubles will seem as the
people of Alma under Amulon when the Lord promises-
13 And it acame to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in
their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort,
for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will
covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.
14 And I will also ease the aburdens which are put upon your
shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while
you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as bwitnesses
for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord
God, do visit my people in their cafflictions.
15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon
Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did astrengthen
them that they could bear up their bburdens with ease, and they did
submit cheerfully and with cpatience to all the will of the Lord.
16 And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their
patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be
of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage.
We can show our Faith in the Lord as did Alma's people by paying our
tithing and the burdens will be lightened to the point that we cannot
feel them upon our backs and with continued Faith and Prayer,
deliverance will come in one way or another.
I love you all,
Elder Blackburn
Hey!
So Tell Bishop thanks for the sweet email! I had to look up what it [the plans for the new Indianapolis Temple that was just announced in October's General Conference!!]
looked like and in case someone hasn't there it is sort of! Anyways,
this week is an odd one. Our strengths were our weaknesses and our
weaknesses were...well what we could call strengths. We had a good
week of finding and taught a whopping 12 lessons haha...ya and our
investigators who are becoming eternal investigators are still there
but our progressing one has dropped off the face of at least
Bolton...she has been in Manchester all week...
They have changed the format of the email service we have and it
freaked me out today...I thought something happened and I couldn't
read any emails this week. I think I would have smacked the screen
sooner or later if I didnt figure it out quick enough. We only have a
timed hour in this library and so things don't always get sent like I
thought they would...
So today I read from Mosiah 10-17 which is basically the whole story
of King Noah and Abinadi. Only exception is that King Noah isn't dead
yet. It was pretty interesting. I am about halfway done with 2
Chronicles also in my Old Testament reading and there are a couple
things I have read that I am thankful some passages of the Bible did
not get lost in the corruptness of the world. One of those is the
willingness of the people of Israel under King David and Solomon to
pay their "tithing" as we would call it today.
These passages in 1 Chronicles 29 sum up what I mean:
6 ¶ Then the chief of the fathers and princes of the tribes of
Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers
of the king’s work, offered willingly,
7 And gave for the service of the house of God of gold five thousand
talents and ten thousand drams, and of silver ten thousand talents,
and of brass eighteen thousand talents, and one hundred thousand
talents of iron.
8 And they with whom precious stones were found gave them to the
treasure of the ahouse of the Lord, by the hand of Jehiel the
Gershonite.
9 Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered awillingly,
because with perfect heart they offered bwillingly to the Lord: and
David the king also rejoiced with great joy.
10 ¶ Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation:
and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel our afather, for
ever and ever.
11 Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the aglory,
and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in
the earth is thine; thine is the bkingdom, O Lord, and thou art
exalted as head above all.
12 Both ariches and honour bcome of thee, and thou reignest over
all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to
make great, and to give strength unto all.
13 Now therefore, our God, we athank thee, and praise thy glorious name.
14 But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to
offer so willingly after this sort? for all things acome of thee, and
of thine own have we given thee.
I would organize that and bold the points I wanted to make but the key
word is that they offered willingly their tithing and fast offerings
to the Lord because they knew it all came from Him anyways. I just
want to remind all of you to do the same and keep on track with your
tithing. I promise you as you do, the money troubles will seem as the
people of Alma under Amulon when the Lord promises-
13 And it acame to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in
their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort,
for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will
covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.
14 And I will also ease the aburdens which are put upon your
shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while
you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as bwitnesses
for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord
God, do visit my people in their cafflictions.
15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon
Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did astrengthen
them that they could bear up their bburdens with ease, and they did
submit cheerfully and with cpatience to all the will of the Lord.
16 And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their
patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be
of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage.
We can show our Faith in the Lord as did Alma's people by paying our
tithing and the burdens will be lightened to the point that we cannot
feel them upon our backs and with continued Faith and Prayer,
deliverance will come in one way or another.
I love you all,
Elder Blackburn
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