THE HEART OF AN EAGLE

Seems that a certain man went through the forest looking for any kind of a bird of interest and he came upon a little baby eagle that had fallen out of his nest. He took it home and put it in a pen with the chickens and the turkeys and the ducks.

Several years later a naturalist came by his house and passing through the garden said:
"Sir, that's an eagle, not a chicken."
"Yes Sir, but I've trained it to be a chicken. It's no longer an eagle, it's a chicken even though it measures 15' from tip to tip of his wings."
"No" said the naturalist, "It's an eagle, it has a heart of an eagle and if you let me, I'll make it soar to the heights of the heavens."
"No" said the owner, "it's a chicken. It will never fly."
They agreed to test it.
The naturalist picked up the eagle and said:
"Eagle, thou doest belong to the sky and not to this earth. Stretch forth thy wings and fly."
The eagle turned this way and that and very nervously looked down and then jumped to be with his friends the chickens.
The owner said:
"I told you it was a chicken."
"No" said the naturalist, "it's an eagle, give it another chance tomorrow."

So the next day he took it to the top of the house and said:
"Eagle, thou art an eagle, stretch forth thy wings and fly."
But again the eagle seeing the chickens jumped down and fared with them.
The owner said again:
"I told you it was a chicken."
"No" said the naturalist, "it's an eagle, it has a heart of an eagle and if you give it another chance it will soar like an eagle".
The next morning he arose early and took the eagle outside the city away from the house to the foot of a great mountain.
The sun was just rising gilding the top of the mountain with gold and every crack was glistening with the joy of that beautiful morning. He picked up the eagle.
"Eagle, thou art an eagle, thou doest belong to the sky, not to the earth, stretch forth thy wings and fly."
The eagle looked and trembled as if new life was coming to it but it did not fly. The naturalist then made it look straight into the sun. 
Suddenly it stretched forth it's mighty wings and with the screech of an eagle, it flew."

- Author Unknown

The beginning of early Christianity was also the beginning of the Great Apostasy. Within mere 30 years following Christ's ascension into heaven, the profound and simple truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ started to be blended with philosophies of men and eventually 'the wisdom of God was rejected as foolishness. The miracles of the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the ordinances were diluted and deleted. Men, blinded to the wisdom of God by their own intellectual conceit, added and subtracted at will from the truths revealed by God. Gradually and inevitably, these precious truths were changed, perverted, and lost. The simple was embellished, the holy corrupted, the truth falsified' (The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, p. 229). Under the Saviour's admonition to take the Gospel to other nations, Paul and the Apostles took the Gospel beyond the walls of Jerusalem to dispersed Jews, then Samaritans and then the Gentiles, more specifically, the Mediterranean world ruled by the Roman Empire. The Gospel which they preached was grounded in the eyewitness testimony of Jesus for many had seen the Saviour following His resurrection, therefore, their testimony and message was not based on Christ's teachings only but more importantly, on their witness of His resurrection which left no room for speculation. This non-speculative nature of the Christian faith conflicted with the philosophical conjecture in the Mediterranean which was heavily under the Hellenic influence, meaning Greek philosophy. Where Jews sought signs, Greeks sought wisdom and it is the wisdom of men which they revered more than the simple truths of the Gospel. With time the Christian resistance to Greek philosophy broke down and the strange admixture of Christian truth with pagan philosophy and practice constituted the Great Apostasy (see The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, p 233).

The tragedy of the Great Apostasy and the loss of simple truths of the Gospel cannot be over-stated. From about 100 A.D. until 1820, the children of men groped in darkness relying on the wisdom of men regarding their origin and destiny. Even today, despite the restoration of the truth, the world at large does not understand the meaning and purpose of life and looks to the wisdom of men, men who are 'ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth' (2 Timothy 3:7). This means many of us are confused not knowing who we truly are and what we can become. We cast our lot with men of the world who are as chickens pecking the group for gems of knowledge. We are looking down when we should be looking up. The tragedy of this is that the wisdom of men cannot elevate us above this telestial world. It teaches us to live here and now and gives no hope of anything better. The wisdom of men strives to keep us in the chicken coop not allowing us to believe that we are eagles meant for greater heights than this mortal sphere in this telestial world.

The restored Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us of our divine nature. It teaches us that within each one of us are seeds of excellence, seeds of perfection, seeds of godhood. We are meant to soar to greater heights with our eyes fixed on the glory of the sun for the glory of the sun is also the glory of the "Son" by whom we receive the same glory unto ourselves. Let us be wise and not look to the philosophies of men but to the Son who disperses confusing doctrines and false teachings of men.We do not belong to the telestial realm with the chickens, pecking the crumbs of their wisdom. We are eagles who belong to the skies, reaching for the sun which reflects the glory of celestial kingdom, which is our eternal home. It is there we want to find rest, from all our burdens, from all our sorrows, from all our tears. We are meant for greatness to which only the Saviour can lift us. He is the one that gives might to our wings, He is the sun which shines brightly and guides us to our eternal home. He is the one who He gives power to those He loves and He loves those who would have Him be their God (1 Nephi 17:40).

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no fathoming of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint"

(Isaiah 40:28-31)

WHEN HE COMES AGAIN

"As Samuel poured oil on the head of Saul and anointed him to be captain over the Lord's inheritance........as he also poured oil on David and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.....and as Zadok took an horn of oil and anointed Solomon........so Mary of Bethany poured costly spikenard from her alabaster box upon the head of Jesus, and also anointed his feet, so that the next day, the ten thousands of Israel might acclaim him King and shout Hosanna to his name" (Bruce R. McConkie, Mortal Messiah Book 3, p 327)

As Jesus left his beloved village of Bethany and approached Jerusalem, He stood on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the splendor of the city and wept. As he wept, he lamented, "If thou hadst known...the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes" (Luke 19:42) for the people were 'divided into conflicting and contending sects, each professing more holiness and righteousness than the other and all closing their eyes to the truth' (The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, p. 140). After all that He had done, all that was left to Him was to weep for the city which was too late to save.

Jesus entered Jerusalem riding 'lowly, upon an ass', not a symbol of humility but the symbol of Jewish royalty (McConkie Mortal Messiah Book 3, p 338), for it was His right to do so as the descendant of King David to whom the throne truly belonged. As His disciples, 'the children of the kingdom' (JST Matt. 21:13)  shouted hosannas to His name and proclaimed Him king for the first and only time of His mortal ministry, Jesus entered the Herodian splendor of the city. Not even the accolades which they heaped upon Him would have comforted Him as He contemplated their impending doom. What a strange Messianic triumph that was. On one hand they hailed Him as the one who could save but on the other they refused the salvation. With hope of deliverance from Roman rule pulsating in the heart of the glittering, golden Jerusalem, with its' imperial mantle of proud towers, a city regarded as a wonder of the world, who could have foreseen its' destruction? Just one, the one who sat upon 'the colt of an ass'.

Following His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus once again cleansed the temple of the 'den of thieves', the chief priests who saw themselves as the guardians not only of the temple but of 'the whole structure of Jewish religion. They glutted themselves on the profits from temple business, and so the temple was not just the source of their favoured social position (which they coveted so jelously) but also the source of their incomes - more, their fortunes' (The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, p. 143). . During the first cleansing of the temple, Jesus referred to it as 'my Father's house' (John 2:16). This time, upholding his kingly welcome into the city, Jesus referred to it as 'my house' (Matt 21:13). One can only imagine the seething in the vengeful hearts of those who plotted His death upon hearing such words for Jesus' declaration of His messiahship was pure blasphemy to their ears. When the purging was over, those who accepted His declaration and believed Him to be the promised Messiah gathered around Him to receive the fruits of His ministry. There, in His house, surrounded by those who believed in Him Jesus once again healed the blind and the lame, an exquisite symbol of the spiritually blind and lame He came to save.

Jerusalem paid dearly for rejecting and crucifying their God. As they left Jerusalem, Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse to His disciples where He predicted the sacking of Jerusalem by saying that not 'one stone will be left upon another' (21:6) and that the desolation of which Daniel spoke (Daniel 9:27) would be fulfilled. Jesus also told them that this destruction would come in their day and warned that the righteous should flee when they see the signs of its' coming. Less than 40 years after His death Titus descended on Jerusalem with his Roman legions and leveled the city to the ground but not before Jerusalem had endured unimaginable suffering through oppression and famine which saw women eating their own children as prophesied by Moses (Deut 28) and witnessed by Josephus (The New Complete Works of Josephus, The Jewish War, p 893). The destruction was so brutal that 'hunger exceeded human endurance; blood flowed in the streets, destruction made desolate the temple; 1,100,000 Jews were slaughtered; Jerusalem was ploughed as a field; and a remnant of a once mighty nation was scattered to the ends of the earth. The Jewish nation died, impaled on Roman spears, at the hands of Gentile overlords' (McConkie, DNTC, 1:644-45). Only the righteous were spared, the saints who dwelt in Jerusalem at the time had heeded Jesus' warning and had fled, guided by revelation, to Pella in Perea.

Why is it important for us to know about the destruction of Jerusalem? Because the destruction which will befall the wicked at the time of His Second Coming will be akin to what the Jewish nation endured in 70 AD. History will repeat itself because the world is still rejecting the Saviour, stoning the prophets and disregarding the word of God. During His Olivet Discourse Jesus spoke of the last days and the signs of His coming: "All the desolation and waste which attended the former destruction of Jerusalem is but prelude to the coming siege......In the coming re-enactment of this 'abomination of desolation', the whole world will be at war, Jerusalem will be the center of the conflict, every modern weapon will be used, and in the midst of the siege the Son of Man shall come, setting his foot upon the mount of Olives and fighting the battle of his saints (Zech. 12:1-9). Speaking of these final battles which shall accompany His return, the Lord says: 'I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city'. However, the final end of the conflict shall be different this time than it was anciently. 'Then shall the Lord go forth', the prophetic record says, 'and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives....and the Lord shall be king over all the earth' (Zech. 14). (McConkie, DNTC, 1:659-60)

During the Olivet Discourse Jesus told His disciples that when He returns one will be destroyed and one will be left. The two He spoke of were the wicked and the righteous. Those that shall remain on the earth and not be destroyed will be those who are honest and upright and who are so living that they would at least inherit terrestrial kingdom at the time of resurrection. As the Millenium will reflect the terrestrial glory, those who are living by telestial standards will not be able to remain on earth. Those of the telestial world are: 'sorcerers; adulterers; false swearers; those who oppress the hireling, the widow, and the fatherless in their wages; those who lead men away from the truth; those who do not fear God; members of the true Church who do not pay an honest tithing; they that work wickedness; and the proud. All these, he says, shall be as stubble when the day comes that shall burn as an oven. (Mal. 3:4; D&C 64:23-25). (McConkie, DNTC, 1:669)

Jesus wept when He reflected on the destruction of Jerusalem. Will He lament over us as He did over Jerusalem before he unveils His face? Will He weep over His saints who had abandoned their covenants and gone after the pleasures of the world? Will He sorrow over the lost sheep that have not been found? Will His heart break over those who profess to know Him but are found with empty oil lamps and regrets they are too late to rectify? When the comfort zone is ended it will be too late to put up the necessary defenses and watchtowers against the evils of the world. The day of preparation will be past and some of us will be found wanting. We live in the day preceding His return, the day of wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes, the day when iniquity is abounding causing the love of men to wax cold. These are all Saviour's predictions found in the scriptures. He has described His Second Coming as 'the great and dreadful day of the Lord' (D&C 110:16), dreadful for those who are in the clutches of iniquity but great for those who are seeking after righteousness and who are waiting with anticipation for the day of the Lord when all His promises shall be fulfilled. The question begs to be asked, are you scared or are you excited?

When He comes again, He will come as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings and He will seek out His own that He might dry the tears from their eyes and embrace them in the arms of His love. A God of power, a God of majesty, a God of glory, but most of all, a God of love.

SEEKING THE KINGDOM

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto the, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matthew 7:21-23)

When Jesus atoned for the sins of the world, he had an amazing insight into each person who will ever grace this earth; into their problems, capabilities, mental and emotional states and into their very heart. Because of this He knows what makes us tick, what makes us do what we do, He knows our desires, our thoughts and our motives. It is correct to say that He knows us better than we know ourselves because even we sometimes don't know things that are hidden in our subconscious that drive us to certain behaviours. When Joseph Smith was translating the Bible he made the most significant correction to the above verse of scripture which now reads "you never knew me" instead of "I never knew you". This gives us a much clearer understanding of our relationship to the Saviour of the world. Because of the Atonement, He knows us and He will always know us but we on the other hand can very easily misunderstand what it means to know Him and to eventually enter His kingdom. Clearly from the above scripture, only doing as Christ did will not get us there.

By telling us what will not get us into the kingdom of heaven, He also told us what will: instead of laying up for ourselves treasures on this earth, He admonished us to lay up treasures in heaven (Matt 6:19-21). What are these treasures we can lay up in heaven whilst we are here in mortality? If it is not what we do, then it must be what we are: "Treasures in heaven are the character, perfections, and attributes which men acquire by obedience to law. Thus, those who gain such attributes of godliness as knowledge, faith, justice, judgment, mercy and truth, will find these same attributes restored to them again in immortality (Alma 41:13-15)" (McConkie, DNTC, 1:239-40, The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, Student Manual, p. 58). Jesus confirmed this truth by giving us a further admonition to be 'perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect' (Matt 5:48). It has been our destiny from the beginning of time to become exalted to godhood, in other words, to become perfect and complete even as our Father is. Without this perfection we cannot enter His kingdom. In the words of Joseph Smith: "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens and men have got to learn how to be Gods.....the same as all Gods have done before...." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp 345-46).  No man, however, can achieve this lofty ideal on his own merits. 

Because it is not in our power to attain perfection on our own, God in his mercy has provided a way for us to do so. During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus invited his disciples to enter in at the 'strait gate' and thereby follow the course to eternal life (Matt 7:13,14). The gate is 'strait' because it is narrow and restricted but the path is both 'strait' and 'straight'. Where 'straitness' has reference to width, 'straightness' has reference to direction, this direction being invariable and always the same for 'there are no crooked paths or tangents leading to the kingdom of God' (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 769). It is at this gate that perfection has to have its beginning. It is here that it must begin and it is now, whilst in mortality. The supreme standard of the Lord's expectation for us to become perfect as our Father is, is rather daunting considering the reality of our imperfections and our mortal weaknesses. However, as the Saviour used our Father in Heaven who is perfect, complete and finished in his glorified state, as the example of perfection, He has by this suggested a broader perspective of this commandment. Joseph Smith taught that we will work out our salvation and exaltation beyond the grave. This gives us a clear indication that perfection in this life is not attainable. Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught: "We have to become perfect to be saved in the celestial kingdom. But nobody becomes perfect in this life. Only the Lord Jesus attained that state, and He had an advantage that none of us has. He was the Son of God, and He came into this life with a spiritual capacity and a talent and an inheritance that exceeded beyond all comprehension what any of the rest of us was born with.....We enter in at a gate, and the name of the gate is repentance and baptism. We thereby get on a path, and the name of the path is the straight and narrow path. And then if we endure to the end, meaning if we keep the commandments of God after baptism, we go up that straight and narrow path, and at its end is a reward that is named eternal life. All of this is available because of the atoning sacrifice of Christ" (Bruce R. McConkie as quoted in Bruce Satterfield, The Sermon On the Mount: A More Excellent Way, Meridian Magazine).

   

Indeed, because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and by virtue of our faith in Him, we can travel this road that leads to the Kingdom of God. The enabling power that makes this possible is called 'grace'. Once the strait gate is entered and sacred covenants made between God and man, we are then endowed with the saving grace which enables us to reach perfection as the Saviour and our Father did. President Harold B. Lee taught: "The 'saving grace' of the Lord's atoning power is extended to those who would receive the saving ordinances of the gospel". "Through the ordinance of baptism, we receive the divine grace of forgiveness that qualifies us to receive spiritual rebirth through the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now spiritually reborn, we must then grow up to godhood. This will require further enabling power through divine grace or mercy. This grace comes through the higher ordinances of the temple. Each ordinance and covenant made in the temple helps us to receive more grace that enables us to become like God ( (Bruce Satterfield, The Sermon On the Mount: A More Excellent Way, Meridian Magazine).

The steps to perfection come with the enabling power of Christ so none of us can claim that we cannot possibly achieve the lofty ideal of godhood and perfection. The way has been prepared and put in place for those of us who choose to follow the Redeemer of the world. When we make that choice we build our tabernacle of clay on 'the rock' of his teachings. Jesus said that anyone who hears his teachings and does not abide by them is like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand (Matt 7:26,27). He has no hope of surviving the spiritual battle of this life, let alone attaining perfection. And why would we want perfection? Because 'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which god hath prepared for them that love him' (1 Cor 2:9). One day we will receive this reward because of our faithfulness and His undeniable grace. We will enter into His rest and His kingdom and then and there we will finally come to understand that 'Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy' (2 Nephi 2:25). We will joy in our perfections and in our exalted glory, having overcome the world and having gained eternal life with our posterity and all the riches of eternity. It is our promise, it is our right, it is our sacred destiny.

HE WHO HAS PAVED THE WAY

The Inspired Version of the Bible records that at the onset of His mortal ministry and following His baptism, Jesus was 'led up of the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be with God': "And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, and had communed with God, he was afterwards an hungered and was left to be tempted of the devil" (Matthew 4:1,2, Inspired Version, italics added). In the King James Version of the Bible, it is recorded that he was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Bruce R. McConkie makes it clear that this was not the case: "Jesus did not go into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil; righteous men do not seek out temptation. He went 'to be with God'. Probably he was visited by the Father, without question he received transcendent spiritual manifestations. The temptations came after he 'had communed with God', 'after forty days.' (McConkie, DNTC, 1:128; see also Mosiah 3:7). The King James Version in Matthew 4 continues to record that Jesus was taken by the devil here and there to be tempted of him. The Inspired Version constantly corrects this in the footnotes stating that the Spirit took Jesus and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and an exceedingly high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. This is an extremely important point we need to take notice of. If we did not have the Inspired Version we would be convinced by the erroneous account of the King James Version that the devil had the upper hand with Jesus and that he has the upper hand with us. This is simply not true. The devil has no upper hand in anything. He is simply an upstart and an outcast. He has no power over the children of men except what they give him. He cannot take away anyone's agency or make anyone do his bidding and he most certainly cannot take us anywhere. His only dominion lies in temptation. That is the extent of his power.

I heard an evangelist say on TV recently that the adversary has no power on his best day to take us out on our worst day. This is a sobering thought considering he is so well practiced and considering how well he knows us from pre-existence and from observation. Unknowingly we have taught him where our worst weaknesses lay by our repeated misuse of agency. He knows the traps, the pitfalls, human foibles and all weaknesses. So how can we be more powerful than him? Because of two things:

1. We have a body. This is our biggest advantage. We have kept our first estate and now we are on the second leg of our eternal journey. We stand to gain eternal life. He has already lost that chance. He stands to gain nothing for when all this is over he will be nothing. Isaiah said this of him: "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake the kingdoms?" (Isaiah 14:15,16). In the end Satan will be stripped of the limited power he now has and his reign of horror on this earth will be over. For now he is considered 'the god of this world' but he will once again be just an outcast. 
2. We have once before chosen the God of Glory over Lucifer. We have the power to continue to choose Him who delivers us from the sting of sin and death and offers us ultimate freedom. When God revealed Himself to Moses, Moses beheld His glory and was taught of his divine origin as God repeatedly called him, 'Moses, my son'. When God withdrew, the devil appeared on the scene and wanted to be worshipped also. True to his character, he sought to make Moses believe he was lesser than he was by calling him 'son of man' (Moses 1:12). Satan knew that if Moses believed he was the son of God, he would also believe that he had God's power at his fingertips and could therefore resist him. Moses was not to be confused, however, and he pointed out to Satan that he had no glory, only darkness, and therefore he had no power over him (1 Moses:15) and by his conviction he was able to cast him out of his presence. When Jesus resisted the three temptations of the devil He proved to those who follow Him that all power to overcome lay within Him. We as his followers and disciples, through our faith on Him and by the virtue of our agency, have access to this power to overcome and conquer the enemy of all righteousness.

It was after the Saviour had made his covenants with the Father through baptism that Satan came to tempt Him. So it is with us. Often when we are baptised into the Church, we think we are safe and have 'arrived'. Nothing could be further from the truth. The adversary will work on us, the covenant people, more than he will work on those who have not made sacred promises to God. More often than not his temptations will come in three ways that he tempted the Saviour with: 1. a temptation of the appetite; 2. a yielding to the pride and fashion and vanity of those alienated from the things of God; 3. a gratifying of the passion, or a desire for the riches of the world or power among men (David O. McKay in CR, Oct 1911, p. 59). We who are his targets need to be vigilant at all times to recognise the subtle slide into sin that he constantly lays before us. Why? Because by it we stand to lose a lot. Here is a clear explanation of this fact:

"Repentance is, frankly, just plain smart, because sin makes you stupid. Stupid because you are deaf, dumb and blind to the ways of the Lord. Stupid because habitual sin drives the Spirit away, leaving you outside the protective influence of the Holy Ghost. Stupid because it makes you incapable of drawing upon the powers of heaven. Being stupid costs a lot. Sin costs a lot too. It can cost time, money, peace of mind, progress, self-respect, your integrity and virtue, your family, the trust of those you love, and even your Church membership. Sin is just plain stupid. And the cost is off the charts. So repent now. Repent daily. If you want to be sanctified, repentance is not optional" (Sheri L. Dew, You Were Born to Lead, You Were Born for Glory, BYU Speeches, December 2003)

We are powerful beyond our capacity to understand. This power is shown in the moments of our choices. The power within us comes from God. It is His gift to all those who commit to follow Him. We cannot afford to give this power away for it has the potential to crown us with eternal life and endless glory. We want this, we have always wanted this. We are His children who are destined to wear the crowns of godhood. He has paved the way and by it made us powerful enough to conquer and overcome through His sinless sacrifice. The path is straight, the road smooth, the journey easy if we walk it following the footsteps before us. The Atonement is the key and it can make us brilliant and holy and glorious beyond anything we can ever imagine (Cathryne Allen, How to Use the Power of the Atonement, November Blog 2013). Use it, call upon it and trust in it. The reward is yours and it is waiting.

"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."  (Moroni 7:33)

TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.

- William Wordsworth

There is presently showing a Ridley Scott movie entitled "Exodus, Gods and Kings". I was excited to see this movie as it has been many years since the last depiction of Moses' story which was "The Ten Commandments". Even though "Exodus, Gods and Kings" was a very well made movie I felt it was very much lacking in spirit. I do not know if Ridley Scott is a religious man or what his motivation was for making this movie which was dedicated to his late brother. The insight I gleaned from my observation of this movie is not in line with criticism of his work. My insight has to do with the depiction of Moses and his non-existent relationship with God. This Moses was portrayed as someone who knew not God and as a result doubted Him at every turn. As I contemplated this, I reflected upon Moses' encounter with God, the account of which we have in The Pearl of Great Price. This account offers us a much clearer picture of Moses' experience as opposed to the Bible. The Book of Moses in The Pearl of Great Price records that God who introduced Himself to Moses as 'the Lord God Almighty' (Moses 1:3) addressed Moses as 'my son' and proceeded to do so more than once inferring a paternal relationship. He then gave Moses the vision of all the worlds He has created, the purpose of this earth and the origin of man. This is followed by the most powerful statement God has ever made: "For behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). With all His power and all His might, able to create planets and galaxies without number, God proclaimed that His greatest work is His ability and intent to exalt His children who were created by Him and came from Him. The majestic I Am who created the earth that Moses stood on considered Moses and all who dwell on this earth His sons and His daughters, His greatest creations. To Him "man is the underlying and overriding purpose of all His work, man's success constitutes His glory, to Him man is everything" (Ted Gibbons, OT Lesson 1 "This Is My Work and My Glory").

I wondered if Ridley Scott's Moses would have been different in "Exodus, Gods and Kings" if he had read The Pearl of Great Price. As I pondered more about this, a familiar scripture came into my mind: "And because my words shall hiss forth - many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible" (2 Nephi 29:3). Would we know better of Moses and the origin of man if we despised revelation and rejected further words of God? Are we grateful for additional scripture that sits on our bookshelves? Are we studying with real intent the words of eternal life that are at our disposal? God said something else very significant to Moses: "And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of men - among as many as shall believe" (Moses 1:41). 'Another like unto thee' is of course Joseph Smith (2 Nephi 3:7-9) who gave us the Book of Moses as a result of revelation whilst translating the Bible in June 1830. And are we not 'as many as shall believe', his disciples who have taken upon us His Name and who have been blessed with the fullness of the gospel in this dispensation?

The Book of Moses is the most crucial book in all the scriptures because it tells us of our relationship to God, where we came from and why we are here. The whole purpose of humanity is contained within its words. How much the adversary had to gain by having this book lost from the Bible! And yet God's might and power are greater than anything he can do to thwart the work of God and in His mercy He had raised another prophet and seer to bring the lost words back so that we His children would know ourselves, who we are and the glory that lies dormant within us until such time that He, the Almighty God, the great I am, can exalt us on high and make us truly His own. Should we not rejoice at such a time as this? Should we not revere Him who has bought us with a price? Should we not exclaim 'all honour and glory be Thine for ever and ever'.

ENCIRCLED IN THE ARMS OF HIS LOVE

This week we have witnessed the unthinkable happen in our midst - a mother had discarded her newborn baby and committed him to the depths of the city drain to suffer the inevitable fate which she had decided upon. Whether the mother was of a sound mind or not is irrelevant to this here insight. Those of us who have been privileged to become mothers are all too familiar with the strong emotional bond and love a mother feels for her helpless newborn baby. Equally strong is the driving force within a mother to nurture her infant so that it might continue to have life. It is not surprising therefore that the Saviour of all mankind would use the metaphor of motherhood to impress upon us His enduring compulsion to save us unto Himself. I think the Saviour foresaw our day and this incident with the discarded infant and He spoke to us who live here and now though this scripture so that we may ever understand His commitment to us, His children:

"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yeah, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, they walls are continually before me." (Isaiah 49:15-16)

What was the Saviour saying? That it is more likely for a mother to forsake her newborn child, as unthinkable as that is, than for Him to forsake us; that we will never be discarded; that we will never not be wanted; that we alone remove ourselves from His presence. Other than to obtain a body, Christ did not need the experience of mortality. Through His perfect obedience to the Father He was exalted and became a God in His own right whilst in His First Estate. As the firstborn of the Father He stood to inherit all that the Father hath but Celestial Kingdom can be a lonely place without those that you love and He had loved us. And so His infallible love for us, his siblings, produced another reason for Him to enter mortality and thereby become the author of our salvation.

The Saviour longs for the lowliest of us, to make us His own. He longs to encircle us in the arms of His love, to take us home, to have us with Him forever. To this end was He born. To this end came He into the world, to save the world. Do you know how priceless you are? Do you know how beloved you are? Your destiny does not lie in the sewers of this telestial world but in celestial realms above. Your destiny lies in the inheritance of thrones, principalities and dominions in the Celestial Kingdom of our Father. The Saviour lives and He will return and when He does the obedient will become jewels in His crown and will be "...crowned with honour, and glory, and immortality, and eternal life" (D&C 75:5). For this purpose were we born, for this purpose was He lifted. For this purpose He seeks us from all corners of the earth and beckons us with this promise:

"Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love." (D&C 6:20)

BESIDE ME THERE IS NO SAVIOUR

GOD'S WINGS -

An article in National Geographic several years ago provided a penetrating picture of God's wings. After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he gently struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother's wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise. She could have flown to safety but refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how oft would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"  Matthew 23:37

As the unrepentant Judah neared Babylonian captivity, prophet Isaiah made a valiant attempt to bring the covenant people to a remembrance of the God of Israel. Chapters 40-47 of Isaiah are written in a completely poetic style and contain the most beautiful scriptures about the promised Messiah in all the standard works. Even when prophesying of captivity, Isaiah does not leave the covenant people without hope revealing Judah's future deliverance from bondage and the destruction of Babylon that had been Judah's oppressor. Isaiah brings the Saviour to the world's attention as its' only hope of deliverance from sin, oppression, despair, fear, hopelessness and death. Over and over Isaiah reiterates that there is only one Saviour and beside him there is no other:

Isaiah 43:10,11 - "...beside me there is no Saviour"
Isaiah 44:6 - "....beside me there is no God"
Isaiah 45:5,6 - "....there is none beside me"
Isaiah 45:14 - "...surely God is in thee and there is none else"
Isaiah 45:18 - "....I am the Lord and there is none else"
Isaiah 45:21,22 - "...there is no God else beside me"
Isaiah 46:9 - "...I am God and there is none like me"

Through modern day revelation we learn more of the Saviour's majesty, might and power and why He has the right to say that there is none other beside Him. Consider the following scriptures that speak this truth:

"O Lord God Almighty, hear us in these our petitions, and answer us from heaven, thy holy habitation, where thou sittest enthroned, with glory, honor, power, majesty, might, dominion, truth, justice, judgment, mercy and an infinity of fullness, from everlasting to everlasting." (D&C 109:77)

"He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things, and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever." (D&C 88:41)

Isaiah's exhaustive efforts to bring Israel back to their God provides a very thorough list of the Saviour's incomparable qualities. One cannot help but feel that this prophet knew the Saviour on a personal as well as revelatory level. Here is a list that in all reality teaches us that truly there is none other beside Him equal in wisdom, knowledge, might and power:

1. No one can teach Him or Counsel Him: Isaiah 40:13,14
2. He never fails nor gets weary: Isaiah 40:28-31
3. He created the heavens, the earth and the nations: Isaiah 40:12,15,16,21,22; 45:12,18
4. He can help when no one else can or will: Isaiah 41:17,18
5. He is never discouraged with us. He never quits or gives up: Isaiah 42:3,4
6. He will turn darkness into light and make crooked paths straight: Isaiah 42:16
7. He will stay with us in our trials: Isaiah 43:1-4
8. He will blot out our transgressions: Isaiah 43:25
9. He blesses our families: Isaiah 44:3,4
10. He carries us at all times: Isaiah 46:3,4
11. He will never forsake us nor forget us: Isaiah 49:14-16

Despite His majesty and power by which He can thrash the nations, the Saviour appeals to us mostly through sentiment enticing us back into His arms. The most effective metaphor which he uses to do this is one of motherhood. Could it be that we at present, in our mortal state, cannot relate to the grandeur of His godhood but can very well relate to the parental bond that exists between a parent and a child that is so much a part of mortality? Every woman that has experienced motherhood could understand this statement: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?  Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee" (Isaiah 49:15). It is unthinkable, is it not, for a woman to forget to feed her newborn baby? Yet, that is more likely to happen than for the Saviour to forget to succor us. And consider the hen who would sacrifice her life for the sake of her baby chickens. Would not any mother do this? More than his qualities of power, the Saviour would have us know that his heart is like a mother's: loving to the point of self-sacrifice, relentlessly caring and aggressively protective. He would have us know that within the shadow of His wings, He gathers us and protects us from the world which seeks to tears us down. Israel of old led themselves into Babylonian captivity by committing two foolish sins: they had forsaken the one true and living God, and they placed their trust in the powers of the world instead. It tugs on the heart strings to hear the Lord's lamentation concerning this: "For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13). 

"In ancient times, a king was welcomed to his throne in a great processional, often after victory in battle. A new highway would be built for the king and his parade of soldiers; workers would level the road and straighten it to make a path for the royal progress to the throne. Isaiah counsels us to 'prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God' (Isaiah 40:3). This appeal is an invitation to welcome the Lord into our hearts, to enthrone Him there instead of the proud, deceptive king of Babylon who desires only to keep us enslaved" (Breck England, "Beside Me There Is No Savior", Meridian Magazine). 

We do not belong in Babylon. We belong in the shelter and shadow of His wings. We of the House of Israel wish to proclaim to the world that He is the King of Kings and that there is no other beside Him. We want to be gathered from all nations into his loving and protective care so that when He comes, this, His plea, will not be true of us:

"O, ye nations of the earth, how oft would I have gathered you together as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, but ye would not!" D&C 43:24

HE WHO HAS WISDOM

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
-  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
She looketh well to the ways of the her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
-  Proverbs 31:10-30 

"The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are sometimes called the 'wisdom literature'. The sages of the ancient Near East realised the superiority of wisdom over knowledge, for wisdom encompasses knowledge and includes understanding and moral conduct. One was not wise, regardless of his vast learning, if his actions did not comply with his righteous beliefs". (Old Testament Student Manual, 1 Kings - Malachi, p. 13)

Quoted above are my two favourite sections of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. It is impossible to come away from these books with one major or common theme for they deal with application of wisdom in so many facets of life. One can, however, always walk away from them having found something of vast importance particular to them to correspond with their 'time and season'. Wisdom is not wisdom if it lacks application and application of all things cannot happen all at once. Progression to godhood is a journey which requires patience and repentance when the heart is ready.

It is of importance to consider three practical things when studying these gems of wisdom: 1. The wisdom given in these books of scripture is wisdom that is applicable to this life, it is wisdom from a worldly perspective meant to aid us in earthly life. When Ecclesiastes repeatedly says 'under the sun', he is meaning he is intentionally restricting his point of view to this world; 2. The reason we need to apply wisdom 'under the sun' is because everything is 'vanity'. 'Vanity' in Ecclesiastes means transitory or fleeting, thus the repeated and frequent use of this word denotes that he who applies wisdom in his life is wise, for this life is fleeting and will one day come to an end (Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Ecclesiastes"); 3. Wisdom in these two books of scripture is allegorized as a woman because the word 'wisdom' is feminine in gender thus an adulterous woman in Proverbs is a metaphor for foolishness as foolishness is the opposite of wisdom.

The most valuable lesson we can take away from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes is the admonition 'to trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding' (Prov. 3:5). This is true wisdom.  The italic preface to the chapter 8 of Proverbs tells us that 'the Lord and the sons of men possessed wisdom in premortal life'. 'Sons of men' refers to anyone who has been born in mortality, in other words, earthly beings. It is wisdom which enabled us to choose the Firstborn as our Saviour in our premortal state and to fight the forces of evil opposed to the Father's plan. Now that we are living on the other side of the veil, wisdom is once again needed to enable us to trust the choice we made so long ago. In this respect wisdom and trust go hand in hand. One day when this fleeting existence is ended we will have to account for our use of wisdom by which we conducted our mortal lives.

The other side of our trust in the Lord is His trust in us: "The Lord wants us to trust in him, but he also wants to be able to trust in us. One of our great prophet leaders said, 'To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved' (David O. Mckay, "Character", True To The Faith, Bookcraft, 1966, p. 274). One of the principal purposes of this life is to find out if the Lord can trust us. One of our familiar scriptures says, 'And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them' (Abraham 3:25). We are destined to be tried, tested, and proven during our sojourn on earth to see if we are trustworthy' (Robert E Wells, "The Cs of Spirituality", Ensign Nov 1978, p 24).

When the viles of this life press upon us do we lean to our own understanding or do we trust in God's wisdom embodied in the commandments He has given us to lead us through this fleeting life and on to eternal glory? God's wisdom would tell us that the sacrifice of the moment is worth the blessings of eternity. Trusting in God means trusting in our eternal destiny to which we were committed from the beginning, to become as He is, gods with all honour and glory. It means knowing who we are and using wisdom to honour that spiritual identity. It means standing firm in our convictions at all cost as this story about the son of King Louis XVI of France illustrates:

"King Louis had been taken from his throne and imprisoned. His young son, the prince, was taken by those who dethroned the king. They thought that inasmuch as the king's son was heir to the throne, if they could destroy him morally, he would never realise the great and grand destiny that life had bestowed upon him. They took him to a community far away, and there they exposed the lad to every filthy and vile thing that life could offer. They exposed him to foods the richness of which would quickly make him a slave to appetite. They used vile language around him constantly. They exposed him to lewd and lusting women. They exposed him to dishonour and distrust. He was surrounded twenty-four hours a day by everything that could drag the soul of a man as low as one could slip. For over six months he had this treatment - but not once did the young lad buckle under pressure. Finally, after intensive temptation, they questioned him. Why had he not submitted himself to these things - why had he not partaken? These things would provide pleasure, satisfy his lusts, and were desirable: they were all his. The boy said, "I cannot do what you ask for I was born to be a king".

THE GREAT ONES

I am tired of sailing my little boat

Far inside of the harbour bar;

I want to be out where the big ships float –

Out in the deep, where the great ones are!

And should my frail craft prove too slight

For storms that sweep those wide seas o’er,

Better go down in the stirring fight

Than drowse to death by the sheltered shore!

     - Daisy Rhinehart

I imagine this is what we would have been like in our pre-existence, not content to stay intelligences without form and purpose. We wanted godhood and we accepted the price we had to pay to get it. The sheltered shore is never enough for the ones that want to be great. The truly great ones want the storm and the stirring fight and the grandeur that comes with victory. The truly great ones wanted to risk everything in order to gain everything. They are formidable souls of men that did not flinch in battle with the opposing forces who wanted to keep us in the sheltered shore. They stood firm, believed and accepted when the Father said:

"All that I have I desire to give you - not only my wealth, but also my position and standing among men. That which I have I can easily give you, but that which I am you must obtain for yourself. You will qualify for your inheritance by learning what I have learned and by living as I have lived.  I will give you the laws and principles by which I have acquired my wisdom and stature. Follow my example, mastering as I have mastered, and you will become as I am, and all that I have will be yours." (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, The Challenge to Become, New Era Aug 2002)

In William Wordsworth's poetic words, we came to this earth 'trailing clouds of glory....from God who is our home' (Ode On Intimations of Immortality), leaving the memory of our greatness behind the veil, leaving all that we once held dear but determined to return ever triumphant and more glorious than when we left. Now in mortality we know very little of who we truly are because most of the time we do not seek to know our former selves. President Lorenzo Snow taught that we can come to know exactly who we are just as the Saviour did. He taught that "Jesus was a god before he came into the world and yet His knowledge was taken from Him. He did not know His former greatness, neither do we know what greatness we had attained to before we came here". He also taught that it was revealed to the Saviour who He was and 'for what purpose He was in the world. The glory and power He possessed before He came into the world was made known unto Him" (Conference Report, April 1901). We too can come to possess such knowledge and revelation for the Father can tell us all things through the power of His Spirit.

Consider Brigham Young's words on this subject : "I want to tell you, each and every one of you, that you are well acquainted with God our heavenly Father, or the great Elohim. You are all well acquainted with Him, for there is not a soul of you but what has lived in His house and dwelt with Him year after year; and yet you are seeking to become acquainted with Him, when the fact is, you have merely forgotten what you did know....There is not a person here today but what is a son or a daughter of that Being" (Journal of Discourses, 4:216). The fact is though that the veil is as thick or thin as we make it be. We are the ones that determine which way it will be for the Lord has promised: "If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things - that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal." (D&C 42:61)

Now that we are here, some of us are struggling to remain great. President Harold B. Lee warned that 'there were many who were foreordained ...to a greater state than they have prepared themselves for here. Even though they might have been among the noble and great...they may fail of that calling here in mortality' (Ensign, January 1974, p 5) It would seem it all depends on whether we are converted. We might have a testimony and a conviction of the gospel but we might not be converted, meaning our basic nature is not changing to reflect that of a Christ like person. It is one thing to be convinced of the truthfulness of the gospel and another to hunger and thirst after righteousness and allow it to change our hearts and our nature. It is one thing to know the commandments and another to have them 'written in our hearts' (Mosiah 13:11). We are here not only to achieve but also to be true and even add to our greatness that we brought with us. The gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to help us become as gods, namely the Father and the Son in whom is all perfection. We are not here to merely make deposits into 'some heavenly account' by doing good deeds (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, The Challenge to Become, New Era Aug 2002). To be converted means to 'become'. With conversion comes the desire to live according to God's plan. It is then that all feelings of compulsion to choose the right flee and the path to eternal life becomes easier. Following King Benjamin's memorable sermon, his people ".....cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." (Mosiah 5:2) This is true conversion. How much easier is it to live God's plan when you have no more disposition to do evil? The path to this conversion lies in yielding our hearts to God continually and being worthy of the Spirit which can sanctify us and change us. As we change and get closer to God, the veil thins and we become aligned with our true greatness. The aim is not to just return home but to return home being great. The Saviour of all mankind realised his greatness and has paved the way. May we walk in his footsteps for He is the light, the truth, the way.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and the evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark:
For tho' from out of bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

-  Lord Alfred Tennyson

UPON MY HONOUR

"....I seek not for honor of the world but for the glory of my God....." (Alma 60:36)


Soon after my divorce I moved with my children into a new ward. My new Bishop invited me into his office one Sunday for an interview to get to know me and welcome me. In the course of our interview I expressed to him that even though I had been faithful from the time of my baptism at 18 years of age, I had come to the conclusion that I had ruined my life. At that time my reality did not resemble the picture that my patriarchal blessing painted. I worried that I had done it all wrong and that it was beyond repair. My Bishop asked me to fast the following Sunday and meet with him again for a priesthood blessing. As I sat in his office with his hands upon my head, I was told something I did not expect to hear. In my Bishop's words I was told: "Your life was planned for you in your pre-existence and because of your great faith in Christ you had accepted that plan". As I mulled over what I had heard in the coming weeks, months and years I came to understand that I had not read between the lines of my patriarchal blessing but had only seen the idyllic outline of end results that would culminate in my life if I was faithful. To get to those idyllic pinnacles, however, I would need to tread some thorny paths. How I travelled those paths was totally up to me but one thing was for sure, I had a tremendous tool to survive the thorns that would afflict me on my way, which was my abiding faith in Christ that I had brought with me. Some months following that priesthood blessing, I had a confirmation of that faith as I sat in Stake Conference singing my favourite hymn, The Redeemer of Israel. A vision opened up in my mind that enabled me for a few seconds to see myself as I was in pre-existence, preaching the plan of salvation to the less converted. Over the years I have had occasion to reflect on these two incidents to strengthen me as I tackled the challenges of my life. Recently I was speaking with a friend of mine whose life also had not turned out the way he had imagined it would and he said to me that his only concern now is to remain as valiant in his second estate as he was in his first and that nothing else matters to him. That, I said to him, is really the only thing that truly matters, to remain true to God we once voted for and engaged in battle for.

Perhaps the saddest words uttered by the Saviour in relation to ancient Israel is his reply to Samuel who felt dejected when the Israelites rejected Him as their judge and requested that a king be appointed over them. Samuel warned them of three principal evils of a kingly form of government: excessive taxation (1 Sam 8:15,17), conscription of the labour force (1 Sam 8:11,13,16) and seizure of private lands (1 Sam 8:14,15). The lure of the world seemed to outweigh the warning though as Israelites persisted in their desire to have a king. The Saviour who had fought for them and stood with open arms at every turn conceded their rejection to Samuel: "Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them" (1 Sam 8:7). I cannot begin to imagine with what heaviness of heart the Saviour would have uttered those words. They who stood to become 'a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Exodus 19:6) desired that they 'may be like all the nations', that their king might fight their battles for them (1 Sam 8:19,20). Imagine wanting an imperfect human being at the helm of your armies instead of God who has all might and power. A God who had manifested that power to them over and over, whose reputation was so great even among the heathen nations who trembled at the thought of the God of Israel (1 Sam 4:5-8). And so Israel sought to honour the world rather than to honour the one true and living God. And so it is with us. We, modern day Israel, at times choose to honour the world over honouring God. In President Kimball's words:

"Samuel called the people together and explained to them that the people of the Lord should be different, with higher standards. 'We want to be like other people' they demanded. We do not want to be different... Not so different are we today! We want the glamour and frothiness of the world, not always realizing the penalties of our folly.....Others....indulge in their social drinking - 'we must have a king like unto other nations'. Styles are created by the vulgar and the money-mad and run from one extreme to the other to date our present wardrobes and create business for merchants. We cannot be different. We would rather die than be 'not up to date'. If the dress is knee length, we must go a little above the knee. If shorts are short we must have the shortest...If bathing suits are skimpy, we must have the skimpiest. We must have a king like unto other nations. The Lord has said that he will have a peculiar people but we do not wish to be peculiar... If intimate fondling is the pattern of the crowd, we will fondle. We must have a king like unto other nations.... When oh when, will the Latter-day Saints stand firm on their own feet, establish their own standards, follow proper patterns and live their own glorious lives in accordance with Gospel inspired patterns...Certainly good times and happy lives and clean fun are not dependent upon the glamorous, the pompous, the extremes" (Elder Spencer W. Kimball, "Like All the Nations", Church News, 15 October 1960, 14).

When we honour the world instead of God, we are not only endangering our own spiritual welfare but that of others too. As sons and daughters of Him who has spiritually begotten us through the covenant of baptism, we have a sacred responsibility to the inhabitants of the world, a responsibility we fail in when we join the world instead of remaining separate. This responsibility lies within the Abrahamic covenant. Consider the following:

"This challenge can remain a stumbling block for Abraham's seed today. The temptation to be 'like all the nations' is ever present. The standards and images of the world are not to become the ideals of Abraham's seed. The Old Testament in particular offers a warning to the Lord's covenant people of today as it chronicles the people of the past. In it we see the results of failing to bless all the families of the world because one desires to be like the world. Eventually Abraham's seed were lost, scattered, and taken captive by the world they so anxiously tried to imitate. (S. Michael Wilcox, "The Abrahamic Covenant", Ensign, Jan. 1998, 47)

We are of the seed of Abraham. We are noble men and women of the covenant. We are choice in the sight of God for we have been bought with a great price. We have a responsibility to heed the admonition of Alma who said '....come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things...' (Alma 5:57) that we may remain God's people, that our names will not be mingled with the names of the wicked (Alma 5:57), that we may be an ensign to the nations and bring them to God who gave them life. If we strive to honour God instead of honouring the world, we will remain true to the testimony of Jesus that we brought with us. The scriptures teach us that honour includes faith and trust in the Lord through humility and obedience to His commandments but it goes further than that. It is important that we recognise the systems of the world that we easily follow and that have the potential to lead us away from putting our trust in God. It means to remain honourable without compromise. It means not to trust in any other external force to aid us in our trials, our challenges and our attempts to rise above the world. And rise we must to honour the God of Israel. We are here to conquer the enemy of all righteousness (Moroni 9:6). We fought this enemy who sought to take away the honour and glory from the Father. We are still fighting this enemy today. We cannot fail. We must not fail. In President Hinckley's words:

"The war goes on. It is waged across the world over the issues of agency and compulsion. It is waged by an army of missionaries over the issues of truth and error. It is waged in our own lives, day in and day out, in our homes, in our work, in our school associations; it is waged over questions of love and respect, of loyalty and fidelity, of obedience and integrity. We are all involved in it - child, youth, or adult, each of us. We are winning, and the future never looked brighter" (President Gordon B. Hinckley, 'An Unending Conflict, A Victory Assured', Ensign, June 2007, p 4).

".....for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed" (1 Sam 2:30)

LOOKING UP

From the very creation of the world to this last dispensation, God has provided his children with many effective ways to admonish them to 'look to God and live'. We might look to the children of Israel and the miracles they witnessed and think that it should have been easy for them to do so with such tangible proofs and evidences that He was in their midst.  Our signs to direct us towards Him seem subtle in comparison.  After all there is no manna in our backyard and there is no smell of animal sacrifices in our temples to provide such visually searing remembrance of shedding of His blood for the souls of men.  So how can we effectively remember to stop looking down under the crushing weight of this world that oppresses us with demands of daily necessities and hardship?  When we are looking down, we cannot look up, it is impossible to do both,  but look up we must if we want to rise above this oppression.  The Israelites of old make an interesting study in this regard.

The Israelites' entire journey to the promised land was an exercise in 'looking up' to see the Saviour of the world, their personal and collective saviour who would not only lead them to their promised land but also to life eternal.  Everything the Saviour did for them was symbolic of Him to keep them in remembrance of His power to save and deliver.  Even the rod with which Moses challenged Pharoah's authority, which parted the Red Sea and provided drinking water to the needy Israelites became the symbol of Christ's ability to heal the believing, as it held up the serpent symbolic of Him who has all power.  According to the mythic epics of the ancient Near East, this rod was cut from the tree of life itself and passed down through the patriarchs to Abraham and ending up with Moses.  In the Book of Mormon we learn from Nephi that the tree of life represents the Saviour (1 Nephi 11) . Even though the Saviour sought to establish himself as the God of Israel to ultimately lead the Israelites to exaltation, he used the needs of this temporal life to point them in that direction.

I think why the Israelites found it difficult to cope with the challenges of their journey is because they expected the deliverance to give them immediate ease from any burdens and difficulties. They expected the milk and honey straight away.  Surely that's what deliverance means?  What happened instead was that they went from slavery to the harsh challenges of the wilderness.  Each of those challenges though were needful for them to get to know the God of Israel. The water that issued from the rock of Horeb became a symbol of Living Water as the rock yielded under the Christ within the rod in the hands of Moses. How else could Israelites learn that they were in the hands of the Living Water? And as manna descended upon the dew straight from heaven and filled the hungry hosts of Israel, how could they not know that they were fed by the Bread of Life?  How tough would it have been in the wilderness that afflicted them with so many personal discomforts and fears, yet the wilderness was exactly what was needful to serve as the training ground to make the Israelites God's people.

I love this painting by the LDS artist, Rose Datoc Dall.  It is titled "Hope of Israel".  A babe, yet a god. I love to see the Saviour depicted as a child because it reminds me that He experienced mortality like the rest of us, that He had to become acquainted with humanity to save the humanity.  He truly was the hope of Israel for no other power could have delivered them from their misery and He remains the hope of Israel today. Now more than ever, the house of Israel needs to be invested in that hope. Our needs today are really not that different from ancient times, they are just packaged differently.  Our only hope is the Saviour of the world who had 'descended below all things' that he might comprehend all things, 'that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth' and who 'ascended up on high' (D&C 88:6).  Where once he dwelt in the tabernacle of the congreation, He now sits upon His throne.  A god of majesty and power filled with grace, mercy and truth.  A god worth knowing and looking up to for we cannot afford not to.

"For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys" (Exodus 40:38).  Imagine having physical evidence that God is in your midst.  Ancient Israel was constantly subjected to signs and wonders, yet they found it difficult to trust that the Lord would supply the necessities of life for them.  No wonder they rejected the higher law, the commitment was not there, but murmuring was.  For this reason the Lord in his mercy gave them the lower law to live by.  We however, are required to live by the higher law and are required to have an exorbitant amount of faith to follow Him in all things, and to trust that He will care for us as he cared for ancient Israel. No cloud of the Lord resting on our temples by day and fire by night for us.  So how do we remember to look up and believe the Saviour can do for us what he says He can do?  By living in constant 'state of grace'.  Grace being  God's power to fill the gap between what we can give and what is required of us.  In all things, both temporal and spiritual.  When you are looking up in constant supplication to the God of Israel depending on Him to provide what is lacking that you cannot supply, you are in the state of grace. This applies to temporal needs as well as spiritual striving to become better.

There is a component of the state of grace that the ancient Israel was somewhat short on and that is gratitude.  When you are constantly murmuring, you cannot cultivate the attitude of gratitude and Israelites were proficient at murmuring, constantly afraid that they would die from their afflictions.  Why would God take them out of Egypt to allow them to die in the wilderness? There was no logic to their fears.  When you are murmuring you are denying God's power to come to your aid, his goodness and his watchful eye. Murmuring destroys your faith and breeds distrust and doubt.  By it you are denying what God has already done for you and given you and what you have learnt about your total dependence on Him.  When you pray for something and then go about complaining that you don't have it, you have stepped out of the state of grace.  God cannot give you what you need if you are creating the feeling of lack for your reality will always match the vibrational energy that you are creating.  This vibration can be likened to a magnetic field that you create by believing that you will receive.  If the magnetic field is not there, the blessing can be repelled.  If however, you ask for something and reflect consistently on all that you have already received from the fountain of all blessings, you are acknowledging God's power and your gratitude will create the vibrational energy that will draw that blessing to you.  This is the power of faith because faith is energy. Whatever you invest yourself in will create the energy to match that investment.  If you invest yourself in sorrow, you will create more sorrow, if you invest yourself in joy, you will have more joy.  If you are looking up, believing that you will receive, you will (1 Nephi 7:12).  The Saviour himself said this many times in the scriptures:

"Behold, I say unto you that whosoever believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth." (Mormon 9:21)

To know God is to trust in His might and power and in His promises.  How much more blessed are you than the Israelites of old if you believe without the signs, if the bended knee is all you need to find the God of Israel.  How beloved you are of God if you honour Him with your faith and faithfulness.  Abraham's belief in God's promises to him were accounted to him for righteousness (Galatians 3:6). You are of the seed of Abraham, a true Israelite in the household of God. You have the power to believe.  No matter how heavy your load, lift your head and look up.  Look up and believe.