Alma 32:21

And now as I said, concerning faith –

faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things;

therefore if ye have faith

ye hope for things which are not seen,

which are true.

Krispy Kreme Friday

Week 13 - Looking Back

Since our stake conference was last weekend, we reviewed the Sunday session on Monday. I enjoyed hearing a few of the things that stood out to each of you. It seems that Pres. Caten’s remarks about video games caught all of your attention and that generated a lot of comments. “Auntie Gretchen’s” talk did, too. Sis. Gretchen Solomon’s (stake primary president) spoke about how small things can produce great results. As her example she talked about a dogwood tree that her mom wanted planted in the middle of the summer. She said that her dad, Bro. Hale, agreed because - "He would do anything for my mom." She explained how he planted the tree, drilled a small hole in a bucket and placed it beside the tree. Several times during the day he would fill the bucket so that the water could trickle down slowly to nurture the roots. She said she questioned him about it because she thought it was ridiculous for him to go to that much trouble. He then taught her that he did it because he knew that if he only gave water in abundance to the struggling dogwood every now and then, it would never make it. It was important that the roots receive constant moisture. She then went on to teach us about the importance of daily scripture study so that our spiritual roots can receive the constant nourishment that they need.

I shared something from the Saturday night session that really struck me with the vivid imagery that it evoked. Pres. Meredith, who is a master teacher, spoke to parents on Saturday night about our responsibilities to teach and protect our children. His youngest is 18 months old. He said that the toddler has started throwing everything he can into the toilet. As soon as he thinks he can get away with it, to the toilet he'll go. Pres. M then went a little deeper. He said that not only does the little boy throw random things in the toilet, he also throws things he really loves in there, too. His pacifier. His blankie, etc. The point he wanted to teach became very clear. We have to be careful ourselves - and then help our children and others - to be very careful that we don't throw things that really matter into the toilet.

We then covered some of the material included in a PowerPoint presentation by Bro.Halverson about how we can have greater success F-E-A-S-T-I-N-G on the word. Each of you had a section from Abinadi’s teachings to FEAST on and then teach. Some of you found the same principle taught by Abinadi in different ways. Here is the list you formed as you taught:

· The need for repentance

· Choices determine eternal outcome

· Temptations will come / Yield not to temptation

· Resist being offended when corrected

· Obedience

· Christ is our light

· The need for a prophet

· God will be with us and help us be successful as we strive to live His will

· Our disobedience prevents God from being able to bless us in the ways that both He and we want

We then finished the week with a day of me sharing what I had found to feast upon in the teachings of Abinadi. Abinadi was sent by the Lord to the people in the land of Lehi-Nephi at the time of King Noah. He was not welcomed, though, because he brought the message, “Repent.” To say he was not well received would be an understatement. When it became apparent that he would be killed for declaring such a message, he retreated to return two years later wearing a disguise. At first he was not recognized, but eventually, he was. This time, he not only brought the message of repentance, but also that of the Savior’s atonement. Again, his message stirred up the anger of the people and King Noah wanted him killed. With great courage and with a depth of understanding that perhaps we can hardly grasp, he declared that he would not be taken until he had said what he was sent to say. The priests in the king’s court questioned him and asked questions that were designed to convince Abinadi that they new concerning the scriptures. Unflinchingly, Abinadi declared to them that they didn’t just not understand the words of the prophets, they could hardly even claim that they followed them, even in the smallest degree. When he really wanted to drive his point home, he even quoted Isaiah – a prophet that they claimed to know. What exactly was that? Isaiah 53, one of the great Messianic passages.

So, we’re left to ask ourselves:

· If the Lord sent me on an “impossible mission”, would I go?

· When the heat really got turned up, would I stay?

· If I knew that my days were numbered, what would I want to declare to my family and friends and neighbors?

· Would I stay true to my message even when I knew I’d be killed if I didn’t retract it?

And lastly, we feasted on Mosiah 15:10-13 and the following comments by Elder Merrill J. Bateman on that passage of scripture:

“The Savior, as a member of the Godhead, knows each of us personally. Isaiah and the prophet Abinadi said that when Christ would ‘make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed’ (Isaiah 53:10; compare Mosiah 15:10). Abinadi explains that ‘his seed’ are the righteous, those who follow the prophets. In the garden and on the cross, Jesus saw each of us and not only bore our sins but also experienced our deepest feelings so he would know how to comfort and strengthen us.”

Mosiah 4:30

But this much I can tell you,
that if ye do not watch yourselves,
and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds,
and observe the commandments of God,
and continue in the faith of what ye have heard
concerning the coming of our Lord,
even unto the end of your lives,
ye must perish.
And now, O man, remember, and perish not.

Group Work

Week 12 - Looking Back

We spent a lot of time studying King Benjamin’s sermon to the faithful people of Zarahemla. Because they were striving to keep the commandments and live good lives, the king was able to teach them even more. These quotes by modern day prophets expound on what he taught:

“Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom. Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made. Knowing that service is what gives our Father in Heaven fulfillment, and knowing that we want to be where He is and as He is, why must we be commanded to serve one another? Oh, for the glorious day when these things all come naturally because of the purity of our hearts. In that day there will be no need for a commandment because we will have experienced for ourselves that we are truly happy only when we are engaged in unselfish service (Pres. Marion J. Romney, Enisgn, Nov. 1982, 93).

*****
“How can we ever repay the debt we owe to the Savior? He paid a debt He did not owe to free us from a debt we can never pay. Because of Him we will live forever. Because of His infinite Atonement, our sins can be swept away, allowing us to experience the greatest of all the gifts of God: eternal life [see D&C 14:7]. Can such a gift have a price? Can we ever make compensation for such a gift? The Book of Mormon prophet King Benjamin taught ‘that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess . . . [and] serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants’ [Mosiah 2:20-21]” (Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, Ensign, May 2004, 43).

*****
“We are extremely ungrateful to our Father and to his Beloved Son when in all humility with ‘broken hearts and contrite spirits’ we are unwilling to keep the commandments. The violation of any divine commandment is a most ungrateful act, considering all that has been accomplished for us through the atonement of our Savior.

“We will never be able to pay the debt. The gratitude of our hearts should be filled to overflowing in love and obedience for his great and tender mercy. For what he has done, we should never fail him. He bought us with a price, the price of his great suffering and the spilling of his blood in sacrifice on the cross.

“Now, he has asked us to keep his commandments. He says they are not grievous, and there are so many of us who are not willing to do it. I am speaking now generally of the people of the earth. We are not willing to do it. That certainly is ingratitude. We are ungrateful. Every member of this Church who violates the Sabbath day, who is not honest in the paying his tithing, who will not keep the Word of Wisdom, who willfully violates any of the other commandments the Lord has given us, is ungrateful to the Son of God, and when ungrateful to the Son of God is ungrateful to the Father who sent him” (Pres. Joseph fielding Smith in Doctrines of Salvation).

*****
“King Benjamin makes it clear how we can . . . have our natures changed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That is the only way we can build on the sure foundation and so stand firm in righteousness during the storms of temptation. [He] describes the change with a beautiful comparison, used by prophets for millennia and by the Lord Himself. It is this: that we can, and we must, become as a child – a little child.

“For some that will not be easy to understand or to accept. Most of us want to be strong. We may well see being like a child as being weak. . . . But King Benjamin, who understood as well as any mortal what it meant to be a man of strength and courage, makes it clear that to be like a child is not to be childish. It is to be like the Savior, who prayed to His Father for strength to be able to do His will and then did it. Our natures must be changed to become as a child to gain the strength we must have to be safe in the time of moral peril. . .

“We are safe on the rock which is the Savior when we have yielded in faith in Him, have responded to the Holy Spirit’s direction to keep the commandments long enough and faithfully enough that the power of the Atonement has changed our hearts. When we have, by that experience, become as a child in our capacity to love and obey, we are on the sure foundation.

“From King Benjamin we learn what we can do to take us to that safe place. But remember: the things we do are the means, not the end we seek. What we do allows the Atonement of Jesus Christ to change us into what we must be. Our faith in Jesus Christ brings us to repentance and to keeping His commandments. We obey and we resist temptation by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost. In time our natures will change. We will become as a little child, obedient to God and more loving. That change, if we do all we must to keep it, will qualify us to enjoy the gifts which come through the Holy Ghost. Then we will be safe on the only sure rock” (Pres. Henry B. Eyring, Ensign, May 2006, 15-16).

*****
“Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and other worlds, ‘astonished’! Jesus knew cognitively what He must do, but not experientially. He had never personally known the exquisite and exacting process of an atonement before. Thus, when the agony came in its fullness, it was so much, much worse than even He with his unique intellect had ever imagined! No wonder an angel appeared to strengthen him! (see Luke 22:43).

“The cumulative weight of all mortal sins – past, present, and future – pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11-12; Isaiah 53:3-5; Matthew 8:17). The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. ‘And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me’ (Mark 14:35-36).

“Had not Jesus, as Jehovah, said to Abraham, ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:14). Had not His angel told a perplexed Mary, ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible? (Luke 1:37). Jesus’ request was not theatre!

“In this extremity, did He, perchance, hope for a rescuing ram in the thicket? I do not know. His suffering – as it were, enormity multiplied by infinity – evoked His later soul-cry on the cross, and it was a cry of forsakenness. (see Matthew 27:46). Even so, Jesus maintained this sublime submissiveness, as He had in Gethsemane: ‘Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt’ (Matthew 26:39)” -- Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, May 2985, 72-73.

**********
We learned about the Hebraic literary device called chiasmus. A young missionary in Germany in 1967 named John Welch found this style of writing in the Book of Mormon after having been educated about it himself. The first example of it is found in Mosiah 5:10-12. Back in Mosiah 1 when King Benjamin was giving instruction as to the preparations that needed to be made for his sermon to the people, he stated that one of his purposes for bringing them together was “to give this people a name” (verse 11). That name is included in the chiasmus he used following his sermon. Using introverted parallelism he taught them this: The name they (we) shall take upon themselves (ourselves) is Christ; They (We) should hear and know the voice by whom they (we) are called; Those who would not take upon themselves would be called by another name and find themselves (ourselves) on the left hand of God; They (We) should always remember the name; The only way the name could be blotted out of their (our) lives is through transgression; They (We) should be careful not to let that happen.

“Family members bear the family name; by it they are known and called and identified; it sets them apart from all those of a different lineage and ancestry. . . . And so it is that the children of Christ, those who are born again, those who are spiritually begotten by their new Father, take upon themselves the name of Christ. By it they are known; . . .it identifies and sets them apart from all others. They are now family members, Christians in the real and true sense of the word.

“They do carry his name and are obligated to bear it in decency and dignity. No taint of shame or disgrace, no sliver of dishonor must ever be permitted to attach itself to that name. . . .The saints of God must remember who they are and act accordingly” (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ [1978], 363).

**********
King Benjamin died. King Mosiah II (his son) reigned. Ammon left Zarahemla to return to the Land of Lehi-Nephi. After some intrigue upon Ammon’s arrival, King Limhi was happy to see him. It should be noted that this king was the son of Noah who was the son of Zeniff. Their communication continued through chapter 8 and then we had a flashback of about 80 years to the time of Zeniff. The record of Zeniff is found in chapters 9 thru 22 and we have begun our study of that time period.

Mosiah 3:19

For the natural man is an enemy to God,

and has been from the fall of Adam,

and will be, forever and ever,

unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit,

and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint

through the atonement of Christ the Lord,

and becometh as a child,

submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,

willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit

to inflict upon him,

even as a child doth submit to his father.