KNOW THYSELF

As the children of Israel progressed towards the promised land toward the end of 40 years of wandering, they found themselves in Moab country having already taken possession of the land of  the Amorites. By this time in their travels Israelites had become so numerous that it seemed to king of Moab that they covered the whole earth (Numbers 22:11).  Not only were their numbers frightening but their ability to take over was terrifying.  The king of Moab recognised that the Israelites were powerful because of the god they worshipped.  This point of Israelites' history brings us to one of the most interesting stories of the Old Testament.  Balak, the king of Moab knew he had to enlist some help if he was to withstand the Israelites so he sent for Balaam, a Mesopotamian diviner (Deut. 23:4) who had an international reputation.  Ancient Aramaic texts refer to Balaam as a 'seer of the gods'.  It was believed anciently that diviners could speak for any god.  Balaam received his instructions from God during the night (Num. 22:8) and then rose in the morning to reveal them.  It is not known whether or not Balaam was a true prophet of God holding the powers of the priesthood authority but his geographical position suggests he could have been one of the few scattered people such as Jethro, who held the priesthood and exercised its power (Old Testament Student Manual, p. 207).  The Bible suggests that he had a true knowledge of God and was susceptible to receiving revelation from Him, hence the title of a 'prophet'.

The story of Balaam is referred to by Elder Bruce R. McConkie as 'the madness of a prophet'.   Balaam was petitioned by Balak, the king of Moabites, to travel to Moab to curse Israel so they would not prevail against Moab and in return he would bestow on Balaam riches and great honour.  If Balaam heeded the first directive which he received from the Lord to decline the request and stay put, he would have faded into obscurity there and then but because of the choices which he made, three chapters of the Old Testament are devoted to his story and he is referred to a number of times throughout the scriptures.  Balak was persistent in his petitioning and Balaam was persistent in his hunger for riches and honour that were so easily offered. Because of this he kept pushing the Lord to allow him to go. So Balaam went to Moab against the Lord's displeasure even though the Lord allowed it and he importuned the Lord several times through offering of sacrifices to allow him to curse Israel.  Each time instead of a cursing came a blessing on Israel.  You would think that Balaam would at this point get the message that Israel was favoured of the Lord and that he should be on their side but Balaam wanted both, to please the God of Israel and to please the king of Moab. How wonderful it would be to be rich and powerful as well as having the prophetic powers that already were his. This is a classical example of being at two minds, with your feet in two camps, attempting to serve both God and mammon. This double mindnedness proved to be Balaam's downfall both spiritually and physically.

There are a number of lessons we can glean from this man and his choices. When Balaam couldn't get the Lord's permission to curse Israel he thought of another way to get his way. He came up with an ingenious plan to obey God and still get the riches. He told Balak that he can't curse Israel but God can.  He advised the king of Moab to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel by enticing them to commit sin through practices associated with idol worship. Through his advice, Moabites seduced the children of Israel into participating in the fertility cult associated with Ba'al worship. "And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor" (Num. 25:1-3) Here is a prophet who truly is mad thinking that he can retain God's favour while he is advocating such great sin.  Balaam met his death shortly thereafter while aligned against Israel in the camps of the Midianites where he was slain with the sword. Here is something interesting though. While he was on his way to Balak an angel of the Lord tried three times to stop him.  The donkey that Balaam travelled on halted each time and refused to travel further but Balaam was so fixed on his purpose that he could not see the angel and hurled such abuse on the donkey that the Lord opened the donkey's mouth and spoke to him.  Donkeys are known for their stubbornness. It is plain in this instance to see who was the real donkey.  Sometimes we are like Balaam and we insist on pursuing a destructive course of action with such exceeding stubbornness that we do not recognise the warning signs that God places before us.

Balaam's unwise course of action was not only to his detriment but to the detriment of others. Because of his craftiness the children of Israel were enticed into idol worship and whoredom with the Moabites and they paid dearly for it.  As a result they were cursed with a plague and 24,000 people died (Num. 25:9).  How often do we stop to think if our choices are going to be to the detriment of others?  We very seldom stop to think if they will be detrimental to ourselves let alone those who are within our influence.  Another lesson for us to learn from this story. It's a terrible thing to be the cause of someone's demise, whether physical or spiritual. This is why fornication is a sin with a double edge sword. When committed, you are not only damaging your spiritual welfare but are endangering the spiritual well being of another person.

The greatest lesson we can learn from Balaam is to trust God to direct our path. God knew that riches and prestige were Balaam's Achilles' heel and the adversary did too. In other words, God knew Balaam but obviously Balaam didn't know himself. Very often like Balaam we don't understand why God won't let us have something we want and we rationalise that we can handle that which we seek or that we can handle the temptation and so we flirt with disaster. We think we know how far we can go but we don't know how Satan will take that daring to his advantage and bring us to the point of no return.  If Balaam had trusted God he would have known that he couldn't handle the lure of riches and he would not have come to the point where he abandoned all common sense and ended up being an enemy to the god who once favoured him enough to reveal things of importance to him.  We are just children and God as our parent is trying to keep us away from the fire so it doesn't consume us. We need to trust that and we need to know our most prominent weakness which has the potential to take us away from Him.  We need to seek to know ourselves.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.....how oft would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matt 23:37).  How appropriate that the Lord would use a mother hen as a metaphor for his parental tender care. It is only under His safe wings that we can find refuge and safety. He knows us far better than we know ourselves. He can save us from our personal 'madness' by guiding us in the paths that we should go. His paths are sure and his protection never failing.

HE IS RISEN

Next month we commemorate the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood which took place on 15 May 1829. The Aaronic Priesthood when originally given to the Israelites was the single most important act of mercy performed by the Saviour prior to his mortal ministry. Israelites having rejected the higher law after having declared on a number of occasions, "all the words which the Lord hath said will we do", placed themselves in a precarious position and possibility of never coming into God's presence. By bringing them to Mount Sinai God sought to bring them into his presence and there endow them through covenant to be his people. They instead fashioned for themselves a golden calf.  What an insult and injury to the Saviour's loving heart after he had done so much to make them free.  How easily He could have rejected them too and left them in the wilderness to perish.  Instead the Saviour acted out of his merciful nature and gave the Israelites the lesser law administered through the preparatory priesthood to give them another chance. Just prior to this act of love, He declared Himself to be a god of mercy: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth" (Exodus 34:6). To the children of Israel that priesthood kept them looking forward to the atonement of Christ through the ceremony of animal sacrifice. When the Aaronic priesthood was restored through Joseph Smith, it became the gateway to modern day Israel to prepare them for the higher covenants administered through the Melchizedek Priesthood which would bring them to exaltation.  Just as the ancient Israel looked forward to the Atonement of Jesus Christ through animal sacrifice, we look back on this event through the ordinance of the sacrament which is administered by the Aaronic Priesthood.

I have often heard in the Church people expressing their belief in Saviour's love for them. They also believe that it is this love that motivated the Atonement. The love is undeniable, the Atonement, however, was borne out of mercy. When studying the scriptures, it is impossible not to come to the conclusion that the Saviour's most prominent characteristic is one of mercy. Joseph Smith said that without proper knowledge of the character of God it is impossible for us to gain sufficient faith unto salvation.  In other words, we cannot hope to turn to the Saviour for the remission of sins we continue to make on our life journey if we do not know and understand his merciful nature that allows him to forgive.  Some years ago I started to be watchful of His characteristics and His numerous names in the scriptures, most particularly the Book of Mormon.  Whatever I learnt about Him I recorded in the margins.  Today as I flip through my Book of Mormon I notice that just about every page tells me that the Saviour is merciful.

I believe it was mercy that enabled Him to drink the bitter cup and suffer unimaginable pain knowing that He would do so for many who would reject Him, deny Him and even not deserve such a sacrifice.  It is mercy that enables the Saviour of the world to forgive us over and over again when we sin repeatedly and repent as often. I stand in awe of a God that is so powerful yet so tender hearted that He would allow himself to be nailed to a cross.  A god who has created worlds without number by the power of his word and has all his creations in the palm of his hand, yet willed himself to enter a garden that would be his crucible.  This is the god we worship, a god of love and infinite mercy, a god of unrivalled power.  Consider his power through the numerous names that have been attributed to Him in the scriptures:

Jehovah
Jesus Christ
The Lord
The Son of God
The Son of the Eternal Father
The Lamb
Shepherd
Redeemer
Almighty God
The God of Israel
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
The Lord of Hosts
The Holy One of Israel
The Redeemer of Israel
King Immanuel
The Eternal God
Holy One
The Saviour
The Mighty One of Jacob
The Mighty One of Israel
Messiah
The Lord God
The Prince of Life
The Lord of Glory
Eternal King
Lord God Almighty
The Son of Righteousness
The Lord of Hosts
Alpha and Omega
The Great I Am
The Stone of Israel
Holy Messiah
The Great Mediator
Son Ahman
Firstborn
The Lord God of Hosts
The Father of Heaven and Earth
The Creator of All Things
Wonderful
Counselor
The Mighty God
The Everlasting Father
The Prince of Peace

"And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead......
"And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word". (Matthew 8:7,8)

The Saviour descended below all things, including your sins.  Because of this He knows you and has compassion and mercy toward you.  Most importantly, He knows you from the beginning and He wants to see you to the end.  It is also because of your sins, that He ascended up on high (D&C 88:6) having finished his preparations unto the children of men (D&C 19:19).  Because of you and me he willingly entered the Garden of Gethsemane and carried his cross to Golgotha, his triumph,  leaving an empty tomb.  What excitement and fear would have come upon his disciples at this discovery.  Here again the Saviour's mercy came into play.  He wanted them to know they have not been forgotten and would not be left comfortless, His desire to have them know that He will be with them always.  And so He lingered teaching them that on the road to Emmaus expounding the scriptures 'beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself' (Luke 24:27).  No new doctrine, no new laws, just what the scriptures had said about Him, the message being loud and clear, not me in person, but my spirit you will have always through the testimony of my prophets.

"And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?"  (Luke 24:32)  May his mercy burn within our hearts this Easter and may we rejoice that He is risen.

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.

THE GREAT DELIVERER

I love anything old.  My daughter and I live in the mountains, in a house that was built in the 50's.  As I walk past the original doors and intricate ceiling designs, I am filled with appreciation for bygone days.  As we drive around our small town we notice old buildings with the year of construction imprinted on them and marvel how much history those buildings contain.  I love antiques because they have belonged to people who have once lived and loved and suffered and rejoiced.  Anything old to me is a mirror of someone's experience on this earth.  I also love to know about people who have graced this earth and lived fighting for God's cause, labouring for the salvation of men, leaving an imprint on the sands of time with their worthwhile works.  I love people who have been courageous enough to be leaders, who have inspired others and lifted them to higher ground, who have marched without fear at the front lines defending the truth, not fearing what man can do.  Nowhere can we find such witnesses better than in the Old Testament.

I love the Old Testament with a passion.  To me it is not just a compilation of feel good stories taught to children in Sunday School or a historical account with difficult language and complicated spiritual meanings.  To me the Old Testament is where our roots are, where modern day Israel has its' beginning.  It helps me understand who I am and what my earthly responsibility is.  Most importantly it helps me see the Saviour as the Great Deliverer.  I think this is the whole purpose of the Old Testament which is replete with examples of the Saviour's power to deliver, whether from intimate bondage of sorrow and suffering or a communal one such as the Israelites' exit from Egypt.  When our lives are over, we will be able to look back and see proof of the Saviour's deliverance from ignorance, pain, loneliness, sickness, sin, trial and every adversity of this mortal life.  I love the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Nowhere else in scriptures is he better depicted as majestic and powerful, merciful and loving. Through this set of scripture we see a God who forgives over and over again and when he does, he does it quickly.  Often people view Him through the Old Testament as the God of vengeance and wrath, harsh and easily angered. If we however, examine the situations in which God has had to reprimand his people or punish them in some way and if we look at the whole story we will come to know a different God of our fathers and we will believe Him when he describes himself as: "The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth" (Exodus 34:6).

The exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt should 'stand as the salvation act that God will be known by until the days of the Millenium" (Phillip Allred, "Bondage, Passover and Exodus", Meridian Magazine).  It intrigues me then that when this mammoth event of history is brought up, Moses is the person that comes to people's mind as the deliverer of Israel. A great man, thoroughly committed to God and foreordained before this world began, he became a prolific figure throughout history due to the great task that he accomplished.  In him we find another prototype of the Saviour.  He is one of those who marched at the front lines that I admire but I believe the deliverance of Israel is not about Moses but about the God of Israel. The Saviour went to great lengths to impress upon the Israelites of the day and therefore us, who read of the account in our day, that even though he had chosen a man to accomplish his work, He was the true deliverer that brought Israel out of Egypt. This he proclaimed to the Israelites in a very clear message:

"I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.  And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD. (Exodus 6:6-8)

When the Lord made his intention of deliverance known to Moses, he simply said: "....for I know their sorrows" (Exodus 3:7).  Here is a God of love and compassion.  As the story progresses, it becomes obvious that He is not only delivering them from physical bondage but from a spiritual one too and offering them a covenant that will lead them to eternal life.  He brings them to Mount Sinai with the intention to bind them in this covenant, to seal them His forever: "If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people....and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation". (Exodus 19:5,6)  "The word 'treasure' in Hebrew is segullah, which refers to closely held personal wealth or property.  According to Hugh Nibley, the word also means 'set apart, sealed, removed from the rest of the world" (Breck England, OT Lesson 14, "Ye Shall Be a Peculiar Treasure Unto Me", Meridian Magazine") By bringing Israelites out of Egypt, the Lord sought to take Egypt out of Israelites. Imagine being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation and being known as the Lord's treasure. In this Israelites failed miserably and proved that they didn't really know the God of Abraham and of Jacob and of Isaac but they sure knew the gods of Egypt. The knowledge of their God had somewhat dimmed over the 400 years of their sojourn in Egypt plunging them into spiritual bondage as well as the physical one.  As soon as they took upon themselves the covenants of the priesthood, they abandoned them and fashioned for themselves a new god, a molten calf which represented the Apis Bull, a god particularly associated with Pharaoh. (Breck England, OT Lesson 14, Meridian Magazine)

If only Israel had trusted in the God of Israel who went to such great lengths to show them who He was and prove to them that there is no other above Him. For this reason God instructed Moses to send plagues and perform miracles in Egypt that could be replicated by the magicians and priests of Egypt for this is all that man can do. He then performed what no man or false god can do by smiting the firstborn of every household all at once, at the stroke of midnight. This spoke volumes that very clearly no wonder of Egypt could overshadow the one true and living God. I love symbolism in the Old Testament.  To me the parting of the Red Sea is symbolic of a new life the Lord would lead the Israelites to by clearing the way before them and drowning the Egyptians who pursued them, symbolic of the destruction of Israelites' physical and spiritual bondage.  And what greater proof could they have had that He was with them every step of the way than this:

"And the Lord went before them by day and in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:
"He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people".
(Exodus 13:21,22)

It seemed, however, that nothing was enough for the children of Israel.  Not the manna from heaven, not the water from a rock, not the serpent on a stick, nor their victory over Amelekites. Because of this it took Israelites 40 years to be ready to enter the promised land.  Because of their unwillingness to obey the higher law they were not allowed to 'enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fullness of his glory'. The fullness of that glory is exaltation which would not be available to the house of Israel until a new dispensation of the gospel in the meridian of time - our time.  We are the modern day Israel who can enjoy the fullness of the covenant and the blessings of exaltation.  How well do we know and trust the God who offers us this privilege through his never-ending mercy and love?  Are we like Israelites who kept promising "All the words which the Lord hath said will we do" (Exodus 19:8, 24:3,7) but then turned back to the gods of Egypt? Is there an acre or two of Egypt within us too? President Kimball puts it well:

"Few men have ever knowingly and deliberately chosen to reject God and his blessings.  Rather, we learn from the scriptures that because the exercise of faith has always appeared to be more difficult than relying on things more immediately at hand, carnal man has tended to transfer his trust in God to material things....Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; and if his god doesn't also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, that man is laboring in idolatry".

Do we know the God who we profess to believe in and do we trust Him enough to place our lives in His hands and to obey his covenants?  Do we trust Him enough to deliver us from our personal Egypt? Do we know Him as The Great Deliverer or do we trust someone else to bail us out of our darkness?  Do we know in whom we should trust?

"There is a story told that a company of botanists seeking some special flowers up in the Canadian Rockies, came one day to a very rare flower down on the side of a cliff.  To reach it they would have to retrace their steps and go back ten miles to come up from the valley below.  Someone suggested that if they had a rope they could let a boy down to pick the specimens.  That suggestion was prompted by the fact that a little boy had been following them for about an hour, watching them silently.  They got the rope and said:

'Here lad, we'll give you $5 if you will put this rope around you and permit us to let you down to get those flowers'.

Without saying a word the lad scampered off.  They thought they had frightened him.  He went to a house nearby and soon came back with a man by his side.  Then the little fellow answered:

'You may put that rope around me, and I'll get the flower, if you'll let my dad hold the rope'."
(President David O. McKay, CR. April 1944)