A LIVING BOOK PART 1

 

The Old Testament is my favourite book of scripture. I cannot tell you how it touches the core of my heart. I believe we need to understand our  history to better understand our present and our future. Once we understand who we, as a group of people really are, we will hope for the destiny that is ours as God’s favoured people.

I have heard it said that the Old Testament is a ‘dead book’. I suppose some think it is so because it contains the fulfilled law of Moses but to me nothing that has been and gone is dead. The law of Moses is not all there is to the Old Testament and indeed the more important content of it is the everlasting covenant between Jehovah and His chosen people.  

Consider the prophets of old who are still very much a part of our dispensation:

-          Father Adam who will yet return to earth and preside at the meeting of Adam-Ondi-Ahman to deliver up his stewardship to Christ, who holds the keys of the universe, but will retain his standing as head of the human family (“Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith” p 157);

-          The righteous Father Abraham who Jehovah himself covenanted with, promising that the covenant would be fulfilled in the latter days and that in “his seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed” (1 Nephi 15:18). This is us and this is our day. We are “the seed” and these are the latter days. The covenant is not dead. It is very much alive. 

-          Ezekiel who prophesied the end of times with the battle of Armageddon that will usher in the Second Coming (Ezekiel 38) and his amazing prophecy of resurrection of the human family (chapter 37). This too is yet to be fulfilled, therefore it is not a dead doctrine.

-          Dear Elijah whose spirit keeps turning the hearts of the children to their fathers to this very day.  The beloved servant of God who came to Kirtland Temple to restore the sealing power so that ‘the whole earth would not be utterly wasted at Christ’s coming’ (D&C 2:3). Christ is yet to come and the temple work for the dead is ongoing in our day to fulfil the earth’s purpose.

-          Moses, the mighty lawgiver of Israel, who conferred the keys of the gathering on Joseph Smith on 3 April 1836 in Kirtland Temple (D&C 110:11). Would we be gathering Israel today without these keys? The keys are not dead, nor is the gathering.

These prophets are still very much alive as is the history they created. And this is how important they are to our dispensation: they validate the calling of Joseph Smith: “If the Bible is evidence for anything, read about the calling of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Paul and John the Revelator. ALL were called in precisely the manner that Joseph was. All spoke with God or angels, just as Joseph did.” (Bruce C. Hafen, “The Believing Heart” p 26)

Even the greatest prophet of Israel, Isaiah, prophesied of Joseph himself down to the finest detail of the failure to authenticate the Book of Mormon by Professor Anton (Isaiah 29:11,12)

The prophets of the Old Testament will remain in my heart forever, because they were all converted and devoted to the same God we worship today, God Jehovah, God’s own Son. Their struggles, their achievements, their contribution to the Plan of Salvation and humanity will never be erased. Their memory might be like ashes blown in the winds of time but their legacy remains. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: I Was There by Danny Hahlbohm)