by Steve Smith
Hello
Brethren,
As always, I
hope this finds you and your family well and healthy.
As I was
preparing this lesson, I reflected back on this week’s “Come, Follow Me” message
from Alma 30-31.
First, I
love the book of Alma because there are so many powerful missionary stories,
complete with gospel messages pertinent to our day. Of course, we probably
won’t be in a situation where we are called upon to “smote the arms” off our
adversaries, nor will we experience 14-year missions, but the messages and
inspiration provided us by Alma, Amulek, Ammon and Aaron are timeless, and as
we study their words, we can find ways to apply them to the present day. They
had to deal with strife and wickedness, we have to deal with strife and
wickedness.
Alma 30-31
describes Alma’s experience with the anti-Christ Korihor (chap 30) and the
wicked Zoramites (chap. 31).
From the
“Come, Follow Me” manual:
“Alma had unwavering faith that the
word of God would have a “more powerful effect upon the minds of the people
than the sword, or anything else” (Alma 31:5)—including
the words of Korihor and Zoram. Alma’s words expressed eternal truth and drew
upon the powers of heaven to silence Korihor (see Alma 30:39–50), and they invited heaven’s blessing on those who went with
him to bring the Zoramites back to the truth (see Alma 31:31–38). These are valuable examples for followers of Christ today,
when “great swelling words” and “great errors” again have a powerful effect on
the minds of the people (Alma 30:31; 31:9). But we can find truth by trusting, as Alma did, “the
virtue of the word of God” (Alma 31:5).”
I offer a
challenge to all of us to read the words of our former-day prophets and
teachers, and liken them to our prophets and apostles of today. The situations
may be different, but the messages are equally as important.
And now,
back to this week’s Elder’s Quorum message!
For this
week, we have chosen the April General Conference talk given by Elder Jeffrey
R. Holland, entitled “A Perfect Brightness of Hope”. Below are some of the
highlights of his talk that struck me as I read it. I encourage you to read his
entire talk if you haven’t already done so.
Have a
great week!
“A Perfect Brightness of Hope” by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland or the Quorum of the
Twelve Apostles
Because the Restoration reaffirmed the foundational truth that God
does work in this world, we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most
insurmountable odds.
Last October, President Russell M.
Nelson invited us to look ahead to this
April 2020 conference by each of us in our own way looking back to see the majesty of God’s hand in
restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sister Holland and I took that prophetic
invitation seriously. We imagined ourselves living in the early 1800s, looking
at the religious beliefs of that day. In that imagined setting, we asked
ourselves, “What’s missing here? What do we wish we had? What do we hope God will provide in response to our
spiritual longing?”
Well, for one thing, we
realized that two centuries ago we would have dearly hoped for the restoration
of a truer concept of God than most in that day had, hidden as He often seemed
to be behind centuries of error and misunderstanding. To borrow a phrase from
William Ellery Channing, a prominent religious figure of the day, we would have
looked for the “parental character of God,” which Channing considered “the
first great doctrine of Christianity.” Such a doctrine would have recognized
Deity as a caring Father in Heaven, rather than a harsh judge dispensing stern
justice or as an absentee landlord who had once been engaged in earthly matters
but was now preoccupied somewhere else in the universe.
Yes, our hopes in 1820
would have been to find God speaking and guiding as openly in the present as He
did in the past, a true Father, in the most loving sense of that word. He
certainly would not have been
a cold, arbitrary autocrat who predestined a select few for salvation and then
consigned the rest of the human family to damnation. No, He would be one whose
every action, by divine declaration, would be “for the benefit of the world;
for he loveth the world” and every inhabitant in it. That love would be His
ultimate reason for sending Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, to the earth.
Speaking of Jesus, had
we lived in those first years of the 19th century, we would have realized with
great alarm that doubts about the reality of the Savior’s life and Resurrection
were beginning to take significant hold within Christendom. Therefore, we would
have hoped for evidence to come to the whole world that would confirm the
biblical witness that Jesus is the Christ,
the literal Son of God, Alpha and Omega, and the only Savior this world will
ever know. It would have been among our dearest hopes that other scriptural
evidence be brought forward, something that could constitute another testament
of Jesus Christ, enlarging and enhancing our knowledge of His miraculous birth,
wondrous ministry, atoning sacrifice, and glorious Resurrection. Truly such a
document would be “righteousness [sent] down out of heaven; and truth [sent]
forth out of the earth.”
Our 1820 list of hopes could go on, but
perhaps the most important message of the Restoration is that such hopes
would not have been in vain.
Beginning in the Sacred Grove and continuing to this day, these desires began
to be clothed in reality and became, as the Apostle Paul and others taught,
true anchors to the soul, sure and steadfast. What was once only hoped for has
now become history.
Thus, our look back at
200 years of God’s goodness to the world. But what of our look ahead? We still
have hopes that have not yet been
fulfilled. Even as we speak, we are waging an “all hands on deck” war with
COVID-19, a solemn reminder that a virus 1,000 times smaller than a grain
of sand can bring entire populations and global economies to their knees.
We pray for those who have lost loved ones in this modern plague, as well as
for those who are currently infected or at risk. We certainly pray for those
who are giving such magnificent health care. When we have conquered this—and
we will—may we be equally committed to freeing the world from the virus of
hunger, freeing neighborhoods and nations from the virus of poverty. May we
hope for schools where students are taught—not terrified they will be
shot—and for the gift of personal dignity for every child of God, unmarred
by any form of racial, ethnic,
or religious prejudice. Undergirding all of this is our relentless hope for
greater devotion to the two greatest of all commandments: to love God by
keeping His counsel and to love our neighbors by showing kindness and
compassion, patience and forgiveness. These two divine directives are
still—and forever will be—the only real hope we have for giving our children
a better world than the one they now know.
Brothers and sisters, we
know what some of the religious deficiencies in the early 19th century were.
Furthermore, we know something of today’s religious shortcomings that still
leave the hunger and hope of some unfulfilled. We know a variety of those
dissatisfactions are leading some away from traditional ecclesiastical
institutions. We also know, as one frustrated writer wrote, that “many
religious leaders [of the day] seem clueless” in addressing this kind of
decline, offering in response “a thin gruel of therapeutic deism, cheap
symbolic activism, carefully couched heresy, [or sometimes just] uninspiring
nonsense”—and all at a time when the world needs so much more, when the rising
generation deserves so much more, and when in Jesus’s day He offered so much
more.
In this bicentennial
year, when we look back to see all we have been given and rejoice in the
realization of so many hopes fulfilled, I echo the sentiment of a beautiful young
returned sister missionary who said to us in Johannesburg just a few months
ago, “[We] did not come this far only to come this far.”
I give thanks, my
brothers and sisters, for all we have been given in this last and greatest of
all dispensations, the dispensation of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The
gifts and blessings that flow from that gospel mean everything to
me—everything—so in an effort to thank my Father in Heaven for them, I have
“promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I
sleep.” May we press forward with love in our hearts, walking in the
“brightness of hope” that lights the path of holy anticipation we have
been on now for 200 years. I testify that the future is going to be as
miracle-filled and bountifully blessed as the past has been. We have every
reason to hope for blessings even greater than those we have already received
because this is the work of Almighty God, this is the Church of continuing
revelation, this is the gospel of Christ’s unlimited grace and benevolence. I
bear witness to all of these truths and so much more in the name of Jesus
Christ, amen.
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