A FAMILY COVENANT

 

The scriptures often refer to Jehovah as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exodus 3:6; 4:5; 1 Nephi 6:4; Acts 3:13; 7:32). The Saviour referred to these men  separately and with a reason.

To be an inheritor of something is one thing but to be an inheritor with the responsibility of that inheritance is another. For this reason, the Lord renewed the Abrahamic covenant with both Isaac and Jacob and personalized to them not only the covenant but also himself as their God. That renewal came at a difficult crossroads for each of these men.

When Isaac was facing a famine in Canaan, the Lord appeared to him and told him not to go to Egypt but to remain in the land which He has sworn by oath to give to Abraham (Genesis 26:2-4). Isaac moved around the land digging wells until he came to Beersheeba where the Lord appeared to him again, introduced himself as the God of Abraham, his father, and repeated the promises of the covenant (Genesis 26:23-25).

When Jacob was fleeing to his mother’s family to escape the wrath of his brother Esau, he met Jehovah in a dream one night who introduced himself as the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and recited the promises and then he reiterated the responsibility of the covenant, that in his seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed (Genesis 28:12-14).

The Saviour’s appearance to both men went beyond the renewal of the covenant.  He gave them both tender assurances such as: I am with thee….I will not leave thee….I will be with thee, and will bless thee….(Genesis 26:3; 28:15). In other words, I am not just Abraham’s God, I am your God too.

In both instances God affirmed that they had Abraham to thank for the blessings of the covenant, because “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws…..and I will multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake (Genesis 26:5,24).

And here is a clear picture of family loyalty. Both Isaac and Jacob understood the need to honour Abraham’s covenant with God and that the fulfilment of such would come through them. Neither of them backed down and said, “no, this is not my responsibility, I didn’t enter into any covenant”. I imagine that neither of these men would ever even think of dishonouring their father and grandfather.

This kind of commitment is a family tie that cannot be broken. This is family unity at its finest.

I know some families in the Church who are sealed together and claim how essential temple attendance is to them yet they are not on speaking terms with each other.  I don’t know how valid those sealings will be in the absence of some needed forgiveness that never happened or absence of honour some children needed to pay to their parents or missing amends that some parents needed to make to their children for damaging mistreatment.

The signs of the times are upon us. Friends have come to be cherished more than family units. The adversary is creating division in many families to the point of devastating detriment. Joseph Smith saw a horrifying vision of the last days involving families: “I saw men hunting the lives of their own sons, and brother murdering brother, women killing their own daughters, and daughters seeking the lives of their mother…..” (History of the Church, 3:391). This is happening in our day. We can see it on our televisions.

The Saviour gave us His Gospel to unite us as families. Is there a greater example than He who has honoured His Father through the life of obedience and submission? Each Sunday, as we sit in our family pews, we partake of the emblems that remind us to be like Him and to remind us of the covenant ties that bind us. Let us remember we are ‘a family Church’…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

SCRIPTURE CHALLENGE

I mentioned my history professor in my post yesterday who told us to be careful how we judge history because the times past are not within our realm of experience. As an Admin for an LDS Facebook Group I have to approve or decline submitted posts by the Group members. I had to decline a post today which I could scripturally prove was doctrinally incorrect . It was about the story of Sarah and Hagar.

The post I declined was incredibly subjective and viewed totally through the lense of the 21^st century. It’s only normal I guess, because this is the century we live in and what we know here and now is all that is within our frame of reference.

These are the three challenges I see when studying the scriptures: 1. Written history is not subjective; 1. Written history is incomplete;  3. Written history is at the mercy of translators.

Firstly, history only deals with facts. It does not delve into people’s emotions, their reactions to the times they lived in or their mental and emotional capacities when dealing with life. History only reports what can be seen by the naked eye. It is written by men from men’s perspective.

Secondly, history is at best just a summary of events. For instance, “the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus; they are a collection of faith-promoting accounts from the Saviour’s ministry that, if believed, will induce receptive souls to come unto Christ and partake of His goodness.” (Bruce R., “Mortal Messiah Book 1”, p 371). Apostle John himself attested to this when he wrote that the world itself could not contain all the books that could be written about the Saviour’s life (John 21:25).

We just have to look at the length of the scriptures we hold in our hands. The 28 short chapters of Genesis we just finished studying covers the history of 2,000 years.

Thirdly, Joseph has said that certain errors had crept into the Bible through ‘ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests’ (“Teachings of Joseph Smith” p 327). Some verses in the Bible actually don’t make sense. Sometimes it is just a matter of a word that was dropped out or one word has changed meaning over the centuries of time. I am sometimes amazed at this when I consult the Joseph Smith Inspired Version.

Consider the magnitude of this correction. In 2 Timothy 3:16 we are told “all scripture is given by inspiration of God” but the JST reads: “And all scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable..” Just the misplacement of the word “IS” totally altars the meaning.

So what then is the answer to the challenge of understanding what we read? This very question is the very answer. We are not to read the scriptures but we are to study and search them. This is the direction of the Church we should take seriously:

“The Prophet Joseph Smith (1805-44) encouraged the Saints to search the scriptures in order to receive an independent witness of the truth and to obtain direct instructions from God: “Search the scriptures….and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ to manifest the truth unto you…You will not then be dependent on man for the knowledge of God; nor will there be any room for speculation. No, for when men receive their instruction from Him that made them, they know how He will save them.” (“History of the Church”, 1:282).

And one last tip: “FEAST upon the words of Christ, for behold the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:3).

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: And He Opened His Mouth and Taught Them by Michael Malm)

THE PLAN OF OUR GOD

 

The death of Abraham basically rounded off the first 2,000 years of this earth. I reflected on how clearly the Plan of Salvation came into full swing during those years. This is obvious to me through the preservation of the patriarchal line that guaranteed the rights of the priesthood through which all the humanity stands to be blessed and another very crucial thing I didn’t understand fully before, the emphasis on propagation.

When Rebekah left her family to marry Isaac, she left with their blessing which would have been prized above all in her day: “And they blessed Rebekah and said unto her, O thou our sister, be thou blessed of thousands – of millions; and let thy seed possess the gate of those who hate them.” (JST Genesis 24:65)

When Isaac sent Jacob to Rebekah’s family in Padan-aram to secure for himself a wife, his parting blessing was this: “And God Almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people.” (Genesis 28:3)

Because posterity was part of the Abrahamic covenant, such blessings given to these two people were clearly birthright blessings.

Jacob’s marital unions with Leah and Rachel and subsequent unions with their handmaids always bothered me. I felt sorry for Jacob dealing with two highly competitive wives and two handmaids given to him for the purpose of bearing children suggested to me denial of their rights. It seemed to be no way for people of the covenant to behave.

I came to understand this a little better some years ago when I was doing my degree. One of my history professors said to us: “Be careful how you judge history. Even though it is based on facts, it is written by human beings and it is written from their perspective. More so, you have no idea what it was like to live 100 years, 500 years or even 1,000 years ago. You don’t know the customs, traditions, the mentality of the people, or their struggle for survival. You know nothing because you have not experienced it. You only know what you read.”

This broadened my vision of history and helped me understand two things:

1.      “Although the early patriarchs and their wives were great and righteous men and women who eventually were exalted and perfected (see D&C 132:37), this fact does not mean that they were perfect in every respect while in mortality….their shortcomings do not lessen their later greatness and their eventual perfection.” (Old Testament Student Manual Genesis – 2 Samual” p 85)

2.      Being able to bear a male child for their husband was a great honour for women anciently because it meant the continuation of the family line. So important was this in the context of propagation that God instituted ‘levirate marriage’ in Israelite families (see Deuteronomy 25:5-10). This law protected women who were left destitute without a husband and at the same time secured continuation of his family line. It’s a fascinating subject worth the study.

Imagine this life without the blessings of the priesthood and without propagation. How could the Plan of Salvation ever survive? We are so distracted in our day and age by our ‘human rights’ that we have largely rejected God in many nations. The birth rate is down and we glory in our privileges. We know nothing about survival and our dependence on God.

I saw a young adult male in a reel the other day who claimed he did not ask to be born and therefore he does not see that it is his responsibility to provide for himself, that apparently is his parents’ duty so he refuses to work. He has rights, he says…..he knows nothing…..I fear for him and the lesson that awaits him.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Bride and Groom of the New Testament by Lyle Geddes - lds.org)

A MOTHER OF NATIONS

 

No union of two people had a more romantic beginning. It was the union of Isaac and Rebekah.

Isaac was forty years old and Rebekah was a damsel most likely in her teens (Genesis 25:20). There was a whole generation between them. Isaac’s mother Sarah was the sister of Rebekah’s grandmother Milcah. This would make Rebekah half of Isaac’s age, if not younger.

He was well-established and rich, a man of God and the heir of the priesthood and the covenant which would make him the progenitor of all the faithful. She was a righteous, young beautiful virgin and everything Abraham desired for his son’s wife (Genesis 24:16)…like Sarah….and she was destined to become ‘a mother of nations’…..like Sarah.

The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah was born out of the covenant between Abraham and his eldest servant whom he commissioned to travel back to his family in Mesopotamia to procure a wife of his family’s lineage for his beloved son. The servant had to covenant that he would not allow Isaac to marry a Canaanite. It was a matter of preserving the rights to the priesthood,  something the Canaanites were not privileged to because they were of Cain’s lineage.

I will not recount here how successful the servant was in meeting Rebekah and her family through the obvious spiritually engineered process. The amazing thing is that Rebekah agreed to leave the security of her family and travel to a land she has never been to, to marry a man she has never seen.

Picture a man out in the field at the eventide spotting a caravan of camels approaching. A young girl he has never before seen, wearing a vail across her face, alights and is introduced as his wife. All Genesis records is that Isaac ‘brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, made her his wife and loved her’ (Genesis 24:67). You can just feel the cupid’s bow, can’t you???

I am amazed how men used to master the frontiers of this earth and women carved dynasties by the children they bore.

The heathen land of Canaan that Isaac and Rebekah lived in was not a paradise but it was the promised land for their posterity and they embraced it with trust and faith. Abraham passed on an estate of great wealth to Isaac which gave him a position of influence and prestige in the land but here is the sting… Life is not smooth sailing even for the most noble and chosen……

Like Sarah who waited 38 years for Isaac, Rebekah waited 20 years to become a mother. Genesis records that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah and 60 years old when she had Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25:20,26). What went through their minds for those 20 years, no doubt knowing the promises, would have tested them to the limit….

We are told that Isaac ‘intreated’ the Lord so that Rebekah could conceive (Genesis 25:21). The dictionary defines this word as: ask earnestly, beseech, implore, BEG….

The faith and trust paid of. Through one of the children Rebekah had were all the promises realized. Jacob’s 12 sons became the Tribes of Israel which roam this earth to this day….through which all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

And the God of Israel? He ALWAYS fulfils His promises. Mormon testified of this throughout the Book of Mormon with phrases such as ‘all this was done that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled’ and ‘God is powerful to the fulfilling of all his words’ (Mosiah 21:4; Alma 37:16; 50:19; Mormon 1:19; Helaman 4:21; Ether 15:3; Words of Mormon 1:4; 3 Nephi 1:13,20).

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Rebekah at the Well by Michael Deas)

A MAN OF GRIEF

 

“I…beheld the Lamb of God going forth among the children of men….and I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; and….they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out.” (1 Nephi 11:31)

“Jesus was touched with a feeling of their infirmities. Those cries pierced to His inmost heart; the groans and sighs of all that collective misery filled His whole soul with pity. His heart bled for them; He suffered with them; their agonies were His; so that the Evangelist St. Matthew recalls, with a slight difference of language, the words of Isaiah, “Surely He bore our griefs and carried our sorrow.” (F.W. Farrar, “The Life of Christ, London: Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1874)

“Isaiah’s clear meaning is that the Messiah takes upon himself the sins – and hence the griefs and sorrows, for these come because of sin – of all men on condition of repentance…..the physical healings are a type and pattern of the spiritual healings wrought through the infinite and eternal atonement of Him who ransoms men both temporally and spiritually.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “The Mortal Messiah From Bethlehem to Calvary” Book 2”, 52)

 

O the pain that seared Your heart

As You encountered human misery

On the dusty roads of Galilee!

You embraced it all so lovingly

And took it with You to the hill of Calvary.

You, who ached for our misery,

Became the beacon of hope

For all who accept Your godly suffering.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief by Jay Bryant Ward)

A LEGACY

 

There is an endearing story of Abraham’s death in the Jewish tradition. Abraham was 175 years old. It was the Feast of Weeks celebration and both Isaac and Ishmael had come to Hebron with their families to celebrate the Feast with their father. During the feast, Abraham praised his creator in thanksgiving and among other things asked that God’s mercy and peace be upon the posterity of his sons ‘that they may be a chosen nation and an inheritance from amongst all the nations of the earth’.

During the feast, Abraham called Jacob,‘the chosen patriarch heir and invoked the blessings of heaven upon him and his seed forever. And this is the tender part of Abraham’s death. Jacob and Abraham laid down together on one bed and ‘Jacob slept in the bosom of Abraham, who kissed him seven times and his heart rejoiced over him and he pronounced another blessing upon his head.

He then ‘blessed the God of gods, and he covered his face, and stretched out his feet and slept the sleep of eternity, and was gathered to his fathers’ (Jubilees 22:26-30, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 2:47; as quoted in The Blessings of Abraham by E. Douglas Clerk, p 232, 233).

An amazing life to leave behind for your posterity. The greatest legacy Abraham left, however, is the covenant between him and the God of Israel, receiving a promise that all of these blessings would be offered to all of his mortal posterity (Abraham 2:6-11; D&C 132:29-50).

Consider the magnitude of its promises: 1. Prosperity; 2. Property; 3. Posterity; 4. Priesthood; 5. Exaltation.

“All of these promises together are called the ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. This covenant was renewed with Isaac (Genesis 24:60; 26:1-4,24) and again with Jacob (Genesis 28: 35:9-13; 48:3-4). Those portions of it which pertain to personal exaltation and eternal increase are renewed with each member of the House of Israel who enters the order of celestial marriage; through that order the participating parties become inheritors of all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (D&C 132; Romans 9:4; Galatians 3; 4)

-          Bruce R. McConkie, “Mormon Doctrine” p 13)

Because the promises of the covenant were also made to Abraham’s descendants, Jesus made it clear that the covenant is not all fulfilled (3 Nephi 15:8; D&C 132:30-31) and will be fulfilled in the future. This is us. We are the future.

When we look at all the promises we can easily get the impression that the power of the covenant is with Jehovah who made them but in reality, the power of the covenant lies with us. We fulfil or break the covenant. That’s a lot of power for imperfect, weak mortals….As for the God who entered into this covenant, we can be assured of this:

“For the Lord thy God is a merciful God; he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.”  (Deuteronomy 4: 31)

“I will not…break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God….but I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors…” (Leviticus 26:44,45)

That’s the power of a perfect, long-suffering, unchangeable God, Jehovah, the God of Israel…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: I Am That I Am by John Zamudio)

 

SACRIFICE OF THE HEART

 

“A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation….” (Joseph Smith, “Lectures On Faith”, N.B. Lundwall, pp 57-59)

“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and follows not after me, is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37,38)

In the still of the night, God called on Abraham and asked of him a supreme sacrifice which became the crowning event of his life: “Abraham, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” (Genesis 22:1,2)

”God bids him sacrifice his only son, the one link which there was between himself and the promise that his posterity should be as the dust of the ground and the stars of heaven in number: He bids him sacrifice Isaac whom he loved, towards whom his heart yearned with infinite tenderness, who had made his home bright and joyous, and to lose him who would be the darkening of all the days he had yet to live.” (Goldman, “In the Beginning”, 792, quoting J.H. Blunt)

Joseph Smith has said that “if God had known any other way whereby he could have touched Abraham’s feelings more acutely and more deeply He would have done so.” (“Journal of Discourses” 14:360)

And so Abraham rose early, and without murmuring or complaining, and taking his son Isaac, began a three-day journey to the hill country of Moriah carrying a secret in the deepest recesses of his heart which demanded numerous explanations he could not provide.

But the explanation did come….after proof that Abraham would sacrifice his heart for the God he loved: “By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore….and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” (Genesis 22:16-18)

So it was God’s design to bless Abraham through the greatest trial known to man and the greatest lesson He can teach us…..He will ask for the highest in us….our heart. The sacrifice has to equal the greatness of the reward. Abraham now sits on his throne having received that greatest reward from the God of heaven, his exaltation (D&C 132:29).

The prototype of the Saviour in this story is not to be overlooked. Genesis does not mention any struggle of Isaac against his father whom he believed impeccably that his sacrifice was God’s wish and command. This was not obedience by a young child, as some early sources claim that Isaac was well into adulthood (E. Douglas Clark, “Blessings of Abraham” p 207).

This was a reconciliation to death born out of perfect and complete love for the father. Isaac was the prototype of Him who long ago possessed such a love and promised without ever recanting: “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever” (Moses 4:2).

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The King by David Bowman)