Abraham 3: Our Place in the Cosmos

 ABRAHAM 3, PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

Carl Sagan, the famous atheistic scientist, stated, “A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge (Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011) “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.71).

Well, Carl needed to read Abraham 3.

By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8788068

THE RELATIVITY OF TIME

As Abraham was using the Urim and Thummim to study the stars in the night sky, God spoke to him and taught him a bit about the relativity of time in the cosmos. Abraham noticed that there were some huge stars near God’s throne.

v. 3 “And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.” Whether great or small, all the celestial bodies stand in a relationship to each other, an order. The greater ones govern the lesser ones.

v. 6-8 “And the Lord said unto me: Now Abraham, these two facts exist, behold thine eyes see it; it is given unto thee to know the times of reckoning, and the set time, yea, the set time of the earth…and of the [sun]…and of the [moon].” Each planet’s time is different, but is relative to other celestial bodies’ times. They are connected in a system.

God teaches Abraham that the sun’s time is longer than the moon’s, which is longer than the earth’s time. Today’s science bears this out: Earth completes a rotation in about 24 hours, while the Moon takes roughly 27.3 days to rotate once. The moon’s speed is perfectly synchronized with its orbit around Earth due to tidal locking, which is why we always see the same side of the moon. The Sun is spinning faster on its own axis than the Moon is on its axis (Google A.I.). He also teaches him the times of all the stars between earth and Kolob.

v. 12 “And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these.” Following the same pattern as He used with Moses (Moses 1:4), God impressed upon Abraham how powerful He was; then immediately emphasized that Abraham was His son. What an empowering message!

v. 15 “And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.” Because of famine, Abraham and his family had to flee to Egypt (Genesis 12). The Egyptians were amazing students of the stars and planets. They knew the earth was round and had accurately calculated its size! Google A.I. tells me, “Ancient Egyptians were meticulous astronomers, using star observations for their 365-day calendar, religious festivals, temple alignment (like pyramids), and predicting the Nile's flood, developing concepts like Decans (star groups for timekeeping) and tracking planets, linking the cosmos to deities like Nut (sky goddess) and Sirius (Sopdet). They created star charts (diagonal star tables) for navigation and the afterlife, mapping constellations and even noting the variability of stars like Algol millennia before Western science.”

God loves seekers! Perhaps He wanted His prophet to give more to the seeking Egyptian scientists. Likely He wanted them to know Him as the Constructor of the cosmos and give up their worship of Nut and Sirius. And maybe He wanted Abraham to be recognized as a source of knowledge, so He could teach them of the one true God. We have little information about his sojourn in Egypt, but we do know about the nature of God and prophets.

v. 16 “If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore Kolob is the greatest of all the [stars] that thou hast seen, because it is nearest unto me.”

So there is an ascendancy of stars, each with relatively slower time. Kolob is the greatest, its time is the slowest, and it is the closest to God. Why do we need to know whether time slows as you get closer to God? So that we can know that “there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will [or can] do it” (v. 17).

THE RELATIVITY OF INTELLIGENCES

God then teaches Abraham that people are like stars. Their spirits are of different intelligences. They are eternal. And again, one will be more intelligent than another. “I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all” (v. 19). For example, He was so powerful that he could rescue Abraham from a deadly situation (v. 20).

v. 21 “I dwell in the midst of them all…my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens…and in the earth…in all wisdom and prudence over all the intelligences…”

v. 22-23 “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones. And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said, These I will make my rulers…” As the stars relate to and govern each other in a system, so do the spirits.

v. 24-26 “And there stood one among them that was like unto God…” and He had a plan to make an earth and let the spirits become humans and use their agency to grow and learn and gain glory (great knowledge and joy).

v. 27 “And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man [Man is capitalized; it’s one of the names of Christ]: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first.” If we read on into the next chapter, we will see that this question seems to be about who is willing to create the earth. (Remember that Abraham didn’t divide the book into chapters.) No Atonement is mentioned here!

In the corresponding story in Moses’ writings (Moses 4:1-3) we find out “That Satan…came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.”

And God’s Beloved Son offered, “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.”

Jesus is closest to the Father, just as Kolob is closest to His throne. Jesus “understood the assignment” because He shared the Father’s vision for us. Does Beloved Son mean Favorite Son? Well, maybe, but also godly love is unity with the Father. Jesus was the Son who was filled with Love.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORBITING

I love how S. Michael Wilcox taught about this great vision of Abraham. I’m paraphrasing him here. To teach us about the stars and their light and their relationship to Kolob and Kolob’s relationship to God is to teach us about ourselves and our intelligence and our relationship to God’s prophets, our leaders, who have greater light, and who orbit Christ, who is a twin star with Heavenly Father. Each time we look at the light of the stars in the heavens, it will be a reminder that we also are beings of light. (Remember light = intelligence.) We have our place, we should stay close to our leaders, who will stay close to Christ. By following the stars of God, our apostles, we will be able to “hie to Kolob” or come unto Christ.

Christus statue in Rome, Italy Temple visitor's center, encircled by the 12 apostles. My photo: feel free to copy.

The sun offers clarifying light, the moon offers gentle light, the stars offer guiding light. God sends all these types of light out to His children in the world, literally and metaphorically. That’s why many of our temples have these depicted on their walls, doors, and furnishings.

“Lucifer’s great mistake,” Brother Wilcox taught, “was that he could not orbit” (“The Great Visions of the Pearl of Great Price,” BYU Education Week lecture, August 2015, personal notes).

Images of sun, moon, and stars on doors of Washington, D.C. Temple

SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF GOD’S SYSTEMS

No one understands the physics of our world and universe. Nor do we understand time. No one has been able to explain gravity. No one really understands how the theory of relativity actually works. Quantum mechanics baffles everyone. (Look up quantum entanglement, just for fun!) Everything Einstein discovered left him with even more questions. There are even experiments that show time seeming to loop or fold where measurements in the present seem to effect the past of an entangled particle! Clearly there is a lot about the cosmos that we don’t know. Yet God found it was important to show Abraham (and us) that time is relative and slows down the closer it gets to Him.

You may have watched or read science fiction where the relativity of time is shown. Someone goes to Mars and ages at a much slower rate because the time is slower, while their friends and family age at the earth rate and will be dead when they return. Time is not the same everywhere and if you travel at the speed of light, it disappears altogether.

Light traveling from the sun to the earth takes 8 minutes according to earth’s time. But the light itself would experience it differently, like the man on Mars only more so. It would arrive on the earth at the exact same time it “left” the sun. It would be in both places at the same time.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE GOSPEL?

God is a Being filled with Light. This makes Him Omnipresent (present everywhere at once). And being Omnipresent makes Him also Omniscient (all-knowing). This also gives us a tiny clue about how the great Atonement may have been wrought.

Surprisingly, the first time that an Atonement is mentioned in the Creation stories in scripture is in Moses 5:6-9, after Adam and Eve have left the Garden of Eden. Adam follows God’s directive to offer animal sacrifices and an angel comes to explain that they are symbolic of “the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.” The angel tells Adam he must act in the name of the Son of God and repent and pray in His name. Then the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam and told him that, “as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will.”

The damage experienced in our “time” on earth by the mistakes of ourselves and others can be repaired by an infinite experience of healing and reunification performed for each one—an Atonement suffered by a Being so full of Light that He could experience extremely slow or even nonexistent time! 

Knowing about Jesus’ time and His intelligence in relation to our time and our intelligence (or lack of it) helps us understand His great power and helps us trust in Him and His ability to save.

As C.S. Lewis said, “God is not hurried along in the time stream of this universe…He has infinite time to spend with each one of us…When Christ died for you he died just as much as if you had been the only person in the world” (from his book, Mere Christianity).

Moses 1: Judging Between Good and Evil

 

MOSES 1, PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

Many Bible scholars are divided on how we got the book of Genesis. The reason for the question is that the first chapter of Genesis, which explains the authorship, is missing from the Bible.  This problem was solved in June of 1830 when the Lord gave that chapter back to us as Joseph Smith began work on his Bible translation.  It now can be found in the Pearl of Great Price as Moses chapter 1. 
But why would it have been missing in the first place?  Moses 1:23 gives us the answer:  "And now of this thing Moses bore record; but because of wickedness it is not had among the children of men."  The devil had chapter one removed from the Bible.

Why?

Satan wanted the first chapter of the Bible removed because it is the book of instructions for beating him.

Moses 1 teaches us the Battle Plan:

1) Who our Leader is and what his characteristics are
2) What the battle objective is
3) Who we are and how we fit in
4) Who the Enemy is, and what his main tactic is
5) That he is less powerful than God
6) How he can be defeated
7) How extensive the Lord's commitment is, and how great His help will be

The Book of Moses is an amazing tool to help us overcome any of the snares of the devil.  As an example, we can see how to avoid or escape pornography addiction in Moses 1.

Moses shares with us his first-hand experience with God. He was elevated to an exceedingly high mountain, transfigured, introduced to God and His character, and shown a glorious vision of God’s creations. Then he was told that he would have a part in God’s plans.

v. 6  "I have a work for thee, Moses, my son."  Heavenly Father has a great work for each of us and the devil knows it.  He'd love to derail it, just as he wished to stop Moses from being worthy of his great calling.

v. 12  "But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him.” The experience of being in the presence of God was electrifying and overwhelming! “And it came to pass that when Moses had said these words, behold, Satan came tempting him, saying: Moses, son of man, worship me."  Moses was still standing on holy ground, where he had had such a wonderful vision, when the devil showed up. The same thing happened to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove.  There are some people that Satan knows will never go out and get in trouble, so he tries to bring trouble to them. Accidentally seeing pornography will happen to most of us.

v. 12 Heavenly Father called Moses his son, a son of God.  What did the devil call him?  "Son of man."  The devil would say, "You're only human...It's only natural to desire porn (or commit any other sin)."  But we know the natural man is an enemy to God.  We are to rise above that to our true potential.

v. 13 "And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten."  So are we! The Young Men and Women recite it every Sunday.

v. 13-15 "Where is thy glory, that I should worship thee? For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him. But I can look upon thee in the natural man. Is it not so, surely?  Blessed be the name of my God, for his Spirit hath not altogether withdrawn from me, or else where is thy glory, for it is darkness unto me? And I can judge between thee and God."  Moses had never met the devil, but he confidently said, “You are not someone worthy of worship." The difference between his experience with the devil and with the Lord was vastly different.  A former bishop told me that every person who has come into his office to seek help because they were over their head in sin has said, "I knew it was wrong when I started, but..."  Every person has the Light of Christ, or what we call a conscience--even people who know nothing about Christ. 

v. 15 "God said unto me: Worship God, for him only shalt thou serve."  We cannot live a dual life.  We may think that we can view pornography and do everything else right and that it will be okay.  It will not work. The Spirit will not stay with us. But this does not mean we should stop going to church! Overcoming pornography and replacing it with holy stress-relieving habits takes time and it takes more exposure to the Spirit, not less!

v. 16  "Get thee hence, Satan; deceive me not; for God said unto me: Thou art after the similitude of mine Only Begotten."  Moses said God told him he was made to be like Jesus Christ. We likewise can say to the devil, "I have taken upon me the name of Christ, and I will not be sidetracked from my goal of becoming like Him.

v. 18 Moses said, "I will not cease to call upon God, I have other things to inquire of him."  No matter whether any other ill effects ever should come of viewing pornography, the loss of the Spirit would be so disastrous, that reason alone should make us want to stay as far away from it as possible.

v. 19   "And now, when Moses had said these words, Satan cried with a loud voice, and ranted upon the earth, and commanded, saying: I am the Only Begotten, worship me."  After Moses made it clear that Jesus Christ was the most important thing in his life, Satan said, "I am the Only Begotten, worship me."  This is what he does: he will try to find out what is important to each of us, and then he'll say, “I have that!” And then he introduces a harmful counterfeit.

But this tactic only works for people who know nothing about the gospel, and who ignore the Spirit of Christ within them.  Moses knew that the devil was not Christ, because he already knew Christ!  If we study the truth, we will recognize lies. 

v. 20-22  "And it came to pass that Moses began to fear exceedingly; and as he began to fear, he saw the bitterness of hell. Nevertheless, calling upon God, he received strength, and he commanded, saying: Depart from me, Satan, for this one God only will I worship, which is the God of glory. And now Satan began to tremble, and the earth shook; and Moses received strength, and called upon God, saying: In the name of the Only Begotten, depart hence, Satan.  And it came to pass that Satan cried with a loud voice, with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and he departed hence, even from the presence of Moses, that he beheld him not.” The devil's stellar characteristic is tenacity.  He never gives up. We have to be more tenacious! We may find, like Moses, that we need Priesthood help if we are embroiled in a fight with the devil.  It may be beyond what we can do, but it is never beyond Christ.  Who is his representative? The bishop.

v. 24-25 "And it came to pass that when Satan had departed from the presence of Moses, that Moses lifted up his eyes unto heaven, being filled with the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of the Father and the Son;  And calling upon the name of God, he beheld his glory again, for it was upon him; and he heard a voice, saying: Blessed art thou, Moses, for I, the Almighty, have chosen thee, and thou shalt be made stronger than many waters; for they shall obey thy command as if thou wert God."  When Moses won the battle, he once again was filled with the Spirit.  After we have repented, calling upon the name of Christ, we can leave it in the past. God will again be with us, “even unto the end of thy days” (v. 26).

Then Moses, once again, was able to talk with God, face to face, and behold even greater visions than before. His mission was not removed. And the truth he learned was earth-shattering.

vs. 39 “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Imagine how much fear and misery the Judeo-Christian religions could have been spared had this singular truth remained in the first pages of the Old Testament: God’s goal is not our condemnation or our damnation; it is our immortality and eternal growth! God wants us to win and will help us to succeed!

I wish I could remember the name of this artist. She offers her work freely online. If you know it, please drop it in the comments.

Welcome to Old Testament Study!

Image from FreePik.com

Welcome to our 2026 study of the Old Testament! Please follow this link to my previously posted lesson supplement: 

The Amazing King James Translation

Although the King James Translation is the official Bible version used in the English language scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the first time, the Church has issued a statement recommending using additional translations for better understanding. Here are those recommendations for using alternate English translations.

Examples of Other Translations (by Reading Level)

9th–11th Grade:

• English Standard Version (ESV)

• New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

6th–8th Grade:

• New International Version (NIV)

• New Living Translation (NLT)

• New King James Version (NKJV)

3rd Grade:

• New International Reader’s Version (NIrV)

[End of quote]

So should you run out and buy other editions? Maybe you will want to do that, but almost all of them are accessible for free online. The links provided in the Church's list above will take you to the YouVersion Bible app offered by Life.Church which is easy to use but requires a sign in.

Here are two other helpful apps for Bible study:

With Bible Hub, you can access the NIV, NLT, and ESV versions along with a dozen other translations and even study them in parallel, verse by verse. The number of things this app can do is almost overwhelming!

Blue Letter Bible or BLB offers NKJV and NIV on their app and even more translations on their website to study side-by-side with KJV. This app is simple to use.

Whichever way you choose to study, keep an open mind. The people of the Old Testament lived so long ago, it's almost like they are aliens from another planet. Their traditions and their views of God can be very foreign to us. Their culture has not undergone thousands of years of divinely-directed evolution as ours has, so they can be brutal, harsh, and warlike, even when talking about God. They did not use the term "Heavenly Father," and they did not even say the Old Testament name for Jesus Christ, "Jehovah," out loud. Their relationship to God was perhaps more removed, more distant than ours. And if God teaches His children, "line upon line, precept upon precept," as we Latter-day Saints believe, these people were millions of lines and precepts away from our understanding today. Extend them your charity. And don't believe everything they say about God.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

The Family: A Proclamation to the World, issued by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1995, is about the divine nature of each human being, the correct use of sexual drive, the claim that families are the ideal institution for nurturing human happiness and growth, and the call to governments to value and support that institution.

Photo from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

QUICK OVERVIEW--Read along here.

Paragraph One: Marriage is divinely mandated; family is everything!

Paragraph Two: Every human being is a child of God and is deeply loved—full stop! Our gender is important and eternal.

Paragraph Three: We participated in God’s plan for our growth willingly. Families can be forever through authorized temple covenants.

Paragraph Four: The mission of Adam and Eve was to become parents. That is still our mandate.

Paragraph five: Sex between a married man and woman is sacred and is divinely appointed. Life is sacred.

Paragraph six: Once a family is formed, the spouses are divinely obligated to love and care for each other. Once this family adds children, the parents are mandated to rear them in love and teach them what is right. Guidelines for this are given.

Paragraph seven: The institution of the family is divine. Children are entitled to a loving family with parents of both genders. Families achieve greater happiness the more they follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Fathers and mothers have different focuses of responsibility according to their gender. Guidelines for this are given.

Paragraph eight: Those who participate in sex outside of marriage or who abuse family members will have to account to God for disrupting the divine nature of the family.

Paragraph nine: It is imperative that governments recognize and strengthen family as the fundamental unit of society.

THE IDEAL FOR FAMILIES

The Proclamation to the World declares the truth about individual worth and about gender. It states the ideals for sexual relations, marriage, family, and government support. I love that clarity! That vision of perfection!

THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY

In the first three of the six accounts of the Creation found in the Old Testament and the Pearl of Great Price, the very first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve was to become parents.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them [married them?], and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth…” (Genesis 1:27-28; Moses 2:27-28; Abraham 4:27-28).

It’s interesting that all other Christian religions (that I’m aware of) skip over this primary commandment and consider the command to shun the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as the all-important one.

Without knowledge, Adam and Eve could not become parents. They had been given two commandments and could only keep one of them. They had to choose which one to keep.

Eve realized that the most important commandment was the first: to gain the knowledge/ability to have children and open the door to mortality for all the children of God. Once Eve made this choice, Adam had to choose between two opposing commandments: whether to honor his marriage covenant with Eve and join her in taking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge or whether to honor the commandment to stay safely in the Garden of Eden by himself.

Side note: Each of these three books of scripture has a second account of the Creation in the following chapter. In these accounts the commandment to not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is the first one (Genesis 2:15-16, Moses 3:15-16, and Abraham 5:11-13) and is given to Adam before Eve appears. However, the point is the same: one commandment must be broken in order to keep the other one.

THE TRUTH ABOUT FAMILIES

Life outside the Garden of Eden is a mess, saturated with opposition. Opposition creates confusion. Mortality is not an easy place to live! In fact, with two opposing commandments, life inside the Garden was a little messy, too!

Even from Premortal Life, life for God’s children has been a matter of choosing what is best from a selection of messy offerings. If we chose to follow Satan and guarantee perfection, we chose to give up agency and growth. If we chose to jump into our Heavenly Father’s plan for mortality, we chose to run into every kind of opposition and temptation and snare and would have to rely wholly upon Jesus Christ to save us. but we would grow!

Our daughter and son-in-law at the Bountiful, Utah Temple. Do not copy or share.

If we choose to follow Adam and Eve’s example, we choose to marry and give up our focus on self. If we have children, as we covenant to do in a temple sealing, we give up our honeymoon as a couple and choose joy and sorrow, sacrifice and reward, love and loss, but we also choose the way of greatest growth. To truly sacrifice for another’s spiritual growth is to love as Jesus Christ loved. It is the “more perfect way” mentioned at the end of 1 Cor. 12, which is the link to 1 Cor. 13 (Paul didn’t divide up the chapters). The ”more perfect way” of pure love is the messy way! It is the way that will hurt and will heal! It is the way that will crush and will thrill! In families, we start with the joy of romance or the sweetness of a newborn, the fun of new marriage or the delight of a toddler's laughter. 

But before long, things get hard.

Or maybe they were hard to start with for us: Maybe we didn’t even get to know one or both of our parents at all. The streets and orphanages of many countries in the world are filled with children of God without “parents kind and dear,” as Primary children sweetly sing. One of our children experienced that life before we adopted her. (I sang "I Am a Child of God" in Russian to her as soon as we met.)

I hold the copyright to this photo. 

Please do not share or reproduce.

Maybe we had parents, but they were neither “kind” nor “dear.” We parented the sweetest teenage girl for 4 years who had experienced this kind of childhood for 15 years before she moved into our ward and then lost her last semi-functional parent to jail.

Still The Proclamation to the World guides us through the mess. It guides us to “love and care for” our family members, right where we are. Sometimes loving and caring for family members may mean removing oneself from their abuse, because they cannot progress as long as they are able to manipulate and control. Sometimes it may involve seeking professional help to learn to be the exact opposite of one's own parents, which is what our sweet teen has done with her own family.

Sometimes it may involve letting children experience the consequences of their actions. I once had a clear message come into my brain when I was trying to prevent a child from making a terrible mistake: “You are preventing [them] from experiencing the consequences of [their] actions.” I stepped back and relaxed into faith in God. The consequences of their actions were hard, but they learned from them, day by day, and drew closer to Christ because they needed His help. In the end, those consequences provided the greatest joy they could have experienced.

It may be that our choices or another's will land us in an imperfect family situation. We may become a single parent with no support from the other parent. We can still follow the guidance of The Proclamation and claim our “sacred duty to rear [our] children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve…” 

Photo from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

I have a dear friend who had two children from her daycare dropped into her lap when their parents were ruled by a judge to be unfit. She was the adult they knew best, so she took them into her home, became a registered foster parent, and worked towards reunification of their family for two years. When the parents' rights were permanently revoked, she was offered the opportunity to adopt them. She went to the temple with the question, knowing she could not have these children sealed to her because she had no husband. The message Heavenly Father gave her was to become their mother. They had spent two years with her, they could face no more disruption; she was the best mother they could have.

Perhaps we never get to start a family of our own. Marriage never comes, or it does but divorce follows quickly. Then we paraphrase The Proclamation: “Happiness in [single] life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful [lives] are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities..." We look around ourselves and find people we can love and serve who are members of our eternal family--other children of God. Sometimes the perfect person for loving an individual or family that has lots of needs is a single person. How many families benefitted from the service of President Russell M. Nelson's second wife, Wendy Watts Nelson, in the decades before she was married? She was an esteemed family therapist and professor.

No matter the situation, the imperative is to love, because that will make us like Christ and unite us as a divine family with God.

“…that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love – but to persist in love.” –Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

It’s not a scripture but it’s true.

And that’s what The Proclamation is all about: the grand purpose of human life.

The love of Jesus Christ for His Father and for us caused Him the greatest pain anyone on this earth has ever experienced! How do we expect to become like Him without loving through pain? Yet, when He had completed that excruciating act of love, and he witnessed the product of that love in the Nephites, His joy was greater than it had ever been!

“And now, behold, my joy is great, even unto fulness, because of you, and also this generation; yea, and even the Father rejoiceth, and also all the holy angels…” (3 Nephi 27:30).

Image from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

P.S. If you are in a messy family (and if you’re not yet, you likely will be someday) or if you are loving and serving another messy family, I highly recommend this life-changing presentation by Joseph Grenny, the founder of the highly successful addiction recovery program in the Western United States, The Other Side Academy: "The Honest Truth About Messy Families."

Blog Title Change

It has come to my attention that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a copyright to the phrase "Come, Follow Me" and has asked other bloggers and podcasters to refrain from using that title in order to make it very clear which sites are produced by the Church itself and represent its official doctrine and which are produced by individuals and represent the individuals' viewpoints' or studies. That makes sense so I'm returning my blog title back to its original name (before the "Come, Follow Me" curriculum began) which is "Gospel Doctrine Plus."

It probably makes no difference to you, but in case you noticed it, this is the explanation.

Official Declarations 1 & 2

 OFFICIAL DECLARATION 1: “THE MANIFESTO”

After living the law of plural marriage for several decades, it was shock to members of the Church in Utah to have the practice halted by President Woodruff. They had sacrificed so much to live this law!

“It was just a coincidence that the doctrine of polygamy was abandoned on my birthday,” writes polygamous wife Annie Clark Tanner. “My first birthday was an event made possible by it [having been born the child of a polygamous union]; my whole life had been shaped according to it; and my faith that it was Divine and everlasting was so strong that I compare it with the faith of the three Hebrews who were to be cast into a fiery furnace for their convictions.

“But now I was beginning to wonder: Is God ‘the same yesterday, today, and forever?’

“I can remember so well the relief that I felt when I first realized that the Church had decided to abandon its position. For all of my earlier convictions [that polygamy was necessary for highest exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom] a great relief came over me. At that moment I compared my feelings of relief with the experience one has when the first crack of dawn comes after a night of careful vigilance over a sick patient. At such a time daylight is never more welcome; and now the dawn was breaking for the Church. I suppose its leaders may have realized, at last, that if our Church had anything worthwhile for mankind, they had better work with the government of our country rather than against it” (Annie Clark Tanner, A Mormon Mother: An Autobiography, Tanner Trust Fund, Salt Lake City, Utah: 1991, 129-130).

Annie Clark Tanner

(“Come,Follow Me” has links to many excellent, frank, scholarly essays on the topics of both polygamy and the Manifesto. It is well worth reading every one of them.)

From our vantage point 130 years in their future, we have no difficulty accepting the Manifesto—instead, we have difficulty accepting the practice of polygamy to begin with. Some of us would like to forget it ever happened.

Later in life, Sister Tanner explains to her posterity why so many members entered into plural marriages:

“If one can picture the sociological conditions in Utah Territory when the principle of polygamy was openly endorsed by the Church in 1852, one can better understand the reason for its development. Hundreds of young women came from the overcrowded section in the old country. They were thoroughly converted to the Gospel. To be the wife of a fine leader in Israel was the height of their ambition. Perhaps too, the effect of the increase in numbers it furnished to the Church was considered of some advantage.

“It must be remembered that the western immigration movement brought to Utah all kinds of people. Concerning some of the men folks, girls comparing their chances for matrimony, often said of a Mormon leader, ‘I’d rather have his little finger than the whole of a man outside the Church...’

“Many of the finest characters in Utah and surrounding states owe their existence to this doctrine of the Mormon Church. It is often remarked that all the headaches and heartaches caused by polygamy have, in some measure, been compensated by the fine…results [in the children].

"The women of the Church living this principle felt themselves greatly favored above nonmember women of other parts of our country. They felt it a great privilege to have a husband of their choice, a home, and a family" (Tanner, 23-24).

Sister Tanner noted that leadership and success was generally observed in the children of a polygamist’s family. And as those practicing polygamy were highly religious, “religious training was the rule in a polygamous home” (Tanner, 25).

THE ABRAHAMIC SACRIFICE OF PLURAL MARRIAGE

Although she boldly asserted (and evidence of the day agrees) that “No one could make the women of Utah feel that they had an inferior position,” she also acknowledged the extreme difficulties of living in polygamy.

“I am sure that women would never have accepted polygamy had it not been for their religion. No woman ever consented to its practice without a great sacrifice on her part” (Tanner, 132).

I’m not sure we will ever be able to understand why God commanded the practice of polygamy among the Latter-day Saints in this life, but the best thoughts I have found on it are offered by the extremely bright mind of former BYU professor, Valerie Hudson Cassler:

“God is not indifferent concerning how his children marry.  He actively and severely restricts the practice of polygamy, while leaving monogamy unrestricted. One can be ‘destroyed’ for practicing polygamy without God’s sanction, becoming ‘angels to the devil’ and ‘bring[ing] your children unto destruction, and their sins heaped upon your heads at the last day,’ but no such punishment attends the practice of monogamy (Jacob 2:33; 3:5-6, 10-12)…

“Joseph Smith restored marriage for ‘time and all eternity’ (D&C 132:18), which we now colloquially call ‘temple marriage.’ In restoring the principle of temple marriage, Joseph Smith restored both the general law of marriage and the lawful exception [of polygamous temple marriage] as elucidated by Jacob centuries before...

“No matter what the human inventory of emotions toward polygamy--joy, sorrow, or joy and sorrow mixed--the most mature and most knowledgeable viewpoint is that of the Lord, who appears to be stating that he views it as an Abrahamic sacrifice.” https://www.squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleCasslerPolygamy.html

For more on what an Abrahamic sacrifice is, please go to the link to read the rest of the article; it is too dense with scriptures for me to justly write an overview of it, but it is the best explanation I’ve ever read and was a great comfort to my mind.

OFFICIAL DECLARATION 2: THE REVELATION ON THE PRIESTHOOD

Please see my previous post on Blacks and the Priesthood here: https://gospeldoctrineplus.blogspot.com/2009/11/lesson-42-continuing-revelation.html

Sadly, there was much persecution, abuse, and racism in the United States during the history of the Restoration, including among the highly-imperfect members of the Church. Although some of the few Latter-day Saints who were slaveholders were "kind," (if such a thing cane be said of someone who is a slaveholder), some were not. But, acknowledging this, I would like to face forward in this blog post and focus on how we can be united. I hope the day comes that we don’t even use the word “race” in referring to different colors of skin and different ethnic backgrounds. We are all one race, the human race. For the solution to the problem labeled "racism," there is no better source than Elder Ahmad Corbitt, Philadelphia native, convert to the Church along with his parents and 9 siblings, former trial attorney, past director of the New York Office of Public and International Affairs for the Church, and once First Counselor in the Young Men's General Presidency.

Ahmad Corbitt

Speaking on a podcast Elder Corbitt said, “I believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…is the most empowered and best positioned to bring to pass racial unity and harmony throughout the family of God, among all the international organizations in the world.” [Firstly,] our apostles and prophets have the power and the keys to unify all of God’s children throughout the world of whatever background to become one in Christ. Secondly…the Church is…authorized, empowered, and positioned to effect [the] gathering [of Israel]…from all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.” (See D&C 45:69,71.)

“If we, together, look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, ‘having our hearts knit together in unity and love one toward another,’ we…can create a culture of total unity and inclusivity in the Lord’s church in preparation for the Second Coming…[See Mosiah 18:21.] Look forward with an eye of faith and see it! It’s prophesied and it’s promised!…Then do the things that lead to that kind of outcome…

"Be careful of a lot of online stuff which can be very strident and bitter and purport to be…carrying the banner of unity and racial harmony but kind of go about it in the world’s way rather than in the Savior’s way…Unity among God’s children (think of 4^th Nephi, think of Moses 7, and the City of Enoch and so on)—that’s God’s work!”

Elder Corbitt points out that the Book of Mormon is the one book of scripture in which God tells one group of people “to reach across a color barrier” to another group of people. The sons of Mosiah reached across the barrier to the Lamanites to bring them to Christ, and the prophet Samuel reached across the barrier back to the Nephites to do the same. They always referred to those “others” as their “brothers.”

“So a telltale sign of a truly converted person who really is seeking the mind of Christ is that they will see people of different backgrounds, different appearances as their brothers and sisters and they will refer to them as such.” (Ahmad Corbitt, with Hank Smith and John Bytheway, “Follow Him: A Come Follow Me Podcast,” Episode 50, Part II, available to watch on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNwlz5uqK3Q&t=20s or listen to it on any podcast app.) Conversely, f you catch yourself calling another political, cultural, religious, or ethnic group "them" and feeling at enmity with "them," you have some changing to do in order to build Zion. 

(You may also want to check out "Making Sense of the Church's History on Race," by W. Paul Reeve.)

GOD IS THE SAME TODAY, TOMORROW, AND FOREVER, EVEN IF THE CHURCH IS NOT

Revelations will change the Church, alter our belief systems, implement new policies and remove old ones as we are ready for more light and knowledge and as circumstances in the world change. Of course, they will! We would have no need of a prophet otherwise. But the doctrine of Christ is solid (2 Nephi 31) and His love is sure (Romans 8:35-39). If we strive to obey to the best of our ability, and if we seek to be filled with His love, we will be blessed.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

Wherever we find ourselves in life and in the history of the House of Israel and the Restoration of the Church, whatever color our skin or whatever principles and practices are in force during our lives, we will be blessed if we keep the commandments to our best ability. (See Galatians 3:26-29.) Any sacrifices we make will be compensated so that we can feel satisfaction in our efforts in the things that mattered most. As Annie Clark Tanner wrote:

"It is but a small part that the average person contributes to improve mankind. My life has been simple, full of love, devotion, and service for my family. I might have thought mine a hard row to hoe had not the plants I cultivated responded so magnificently to the culture I gave them" (http://www.byhigh.org/Alumni_A_to_E/Clark-Tanner/Annie.html). 

Doctrine and Covenants 137

(Originally published in 2009)

EMMA SMITH'S EXAMPLE

Joseph Smith taught that "Seeking after our dead is the most important responsibility we have to perform in this life...if we neglect it, it is at the peril of our own salvation." When Joseph Smith introduced the concept of performing ordinances for the dead, one of the first women into the water was his wife, Emma. She was baptized for her father, her mother, her uncle, her sister, and her aunts, all of whom had rejected the gospel in this life. (Later, the baptisms for the men were redone by men, as that necessity had not been understood at first.)

Emma was the first woman in this dispensation to receive her temple endowment and sealing. She was also the first female ordinance worker. Throughout the year of 1843 and into the early part of 1844, she administered temple ordinances to many women, in her home and in the red brick store before the Nauvoo Temple was completed.

Emma Smith with son David,

born after Joseph was killed

from Joseph Smith Papers

ROOTS AND BRANCHES

To live, a plant must have roots and branches. A tree with branches but no roots is just a temporary decoration, and a tree with roots but no branches is a stump. The punishment to the wicked is that they will have neither; they will be as a log, disconnected from ancestry and progeny. They will be without family. "For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch"(3 Nephi 25:1). Those who have the spirit of Elijah will live because they will be bound to their ancestors and to their descendants. Family history and temple work goes both directions. This is why without the sealing power the earth would be smitten with a curse (See 3 Nephi 25:6).

While Joseph Smith was alive, he and Emma taught their children the gospel. When Joseph left his family for the last time, he asked, "Emma, can you raise my sons to walk in their father's footsteps?" She cried, "Oh, Joseph! You're coming back!" He asked the same question again and she gave the same response. He asked the third time, and she began to cry. At the time of Joseph's martyrdom Julia was 13, Joseph was 11, Frederick, 8 and Alexander, 6. David would be born that fall.

After that fateful spring, most of the Smith women were widows, including three Smith brothers' wives who were widowed in connection with the martyrdom (Samuel's wife Levire, Hyrum's wife Mary Fielding, and Emma). More than two dozen Smith children were fatherless. All of them faced great hardship. It was at this point that these women made tough decisions that affected their families for generations.

At Joseph's death, Emma understandably entered into a state of depression. She had been a social, outgoing and hospitable woman, but now she withdrew from friends who desired to help her. She remained charitable, continually taking needy children into her home, and constantly serving her mother-in-law, but she kept her feelings to herself and chose to stay in Nauvoo with her mother-in-law, when the Church migrated west.

We could never place ourselves in Emma's shoes to understand or judge why, but she did not raise her children in the faith of their father as he had begged her to do. She did not teach her children anything about the gospel, and all she told the younger ones about their father was that he was a good man. Don Carlos's wife remarried and her new husband moved her away and made her promise that she would never mention that she was a member of the Church, or a sister-in-law to Joseph Smith. This was to ensure her freedom from the persecution of the past. Emma seems to have taken the same approach.

Lucy Mack Smith also stayed behind. She had three older daughters at home, and she continued to teach them the gospel, at great effort, but with no Church unit or Priesthood leadership in Nauvoo, it only lasted for one generation.

For four generations, none of Emma's and Joseph's descendants belonged to the Church, and the majority of them did not even know much about it. The Smith family tree had no permanent branches.

Meanwhile, Mary Fielding Smith took her children on to Salt Lake City amid great hardship, and lived only four years after arriving there. Prophets and apostles descended from her line, including President Joseph F. Smith, President Joseph Fielding Smith, Elder Melvin J. Ballard, and Elder M. Russell Ballard.

THE PROMISE TO EMMA

A few weeks before Emma died, however, she had a dream, which she related to her nurse. In the dream, Joseph took her to a beautiful mansion and showed her through many apartments. In one of the rooms she saw a baby in a cradle and recognized it as her baby, Don Carlos, who had died at age 14 months. She had previously said that he had been the hardest baby for her to lose because she had had him the longest and had more time to grow to love him. With great joy she rushed to him and snatched him up and held him tight, and asked where her other children were. Joseph replied, "Be patient, Emma, and you shall have all your children." Then Jesus Christ appeared standing beside Joseph. It seemed the heavens were smiling upon Emma for all she had endured. And yet her actions after Joseph's death had a consequence. She would have to wait for someone else to teach her children and grandchildren the gospel before they could be hers again. It would take over 100 years.

GRACIA JONES

On the 17th of March, 1956 a bud broke out on the stump of the Joseph Smith, Jr. family tree when Gracia Jones, Emma's great-great-granddaughter joined the Church. She was a teenager, and a Mormon family for whom she babysat introduced her to the gospel after she recognized the picture on their wall as her ancestor, Joseph Smith. She knew nothing of the Church. As the missionaries handed her the Book of Mormon, before she even opened the book, she was filled with a burning, and she heard the words, "It's true, it's really true."

With the zeal of a new convert, Gracia caught the Spirit of Elijah. She innocently did her four generations of genealogy and submitted the chart to Church headquarters, linking herself to Joseph and Emma. When that chart arrived in Salt Lake City, the Brethren were shocked. They sent a representative to Gracia's home in Montana. Then they encouraged her to seek out the rest of her family and bring the gospel to them, which she has taken on as a life-long mission. She has worked on both roots and branches of this family tree, doing temple work, locating relatives, traveling the world to meet them, taking them to the Legacy movie, putting their names on her huge family chart.

MIKE KENNEDY

Seventeen years later, Michael A. Kennedy, another descendant of Joseph's and Emma's, joined the Church. As a teenager, he was asked to do a school report on an ancestor. He asked his father for information. His dad brought out a box of family photos and records to the coffee table and said that some of their ancestors were famous for starting the Mormon Church. Mike decided that would make a great report, and started spreading out the materials. Just then--just then!--the doorbell rang. It was the Mormon missionaries. They were invited in. The missionaries glanced at the coffee table and were understandably surprised to see a picture of Lucy Smith. “I told them I was writing a report on my ancestry and had decided to pick a topic on some guy who started the Mormon Church,” Mike said. “They went ballistic. I think they tried to give us all six discussions in the next ten minutes.”

It took a few years, but Mike finally joined the Church as a young adult in 1973, attended BYU, married in the Provo Temple, and joined the work of gathering the family. He was the first direct descendant to become a priesthood holder. He is currently chairman of the board and president of the family historical society, which produced the wonderful feature film, "Emma Smith: My Story." (Gracia Jones is also a board member and chief historian.) The society has also produced a DVD, "Children of Joseph: The Unknown Story," about the family after Joseph's death. Their website is http://www.josephsmithjr.org/.

Emma Smith's sacrifice for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was immeasurable, and despite the choices and circumstances that left her posterity adrift from it, the promise of her deathbed dream is being realized. After four generations, the Smith family tree once again has branches. Emma's children are coming home.

(Sources: Ehat & Cook, The Words of Joseph Smith, p. 106-107; Stanley B. Kimball, On the Potter's Wheel: The Diaries of Heber C. Kimball, p. 56; Hyrum L. Andrus, They Knew the Prophet, p. 147; Gracia Jones, Emma & Joseph: Their Divine Mission, p. 292; Gracia Jones, "My Great-Great Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith," Ensign, Aug. 1992, p. 30; Gracia Jones, "Choices and Consequences: Traditions of the Mothers--Lucy Mack Smith and Emma Hale Smith," BYU Campus Education Week lecture, August 23, 2001.)

To read Gracia Jones' conversion story, see My Great-Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith in the August 1992 Ensign.

To read Michael Kennedy's conversion story, go to http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/54186
and http://www.mormontimes.com/people_news/newsmakers/?id=2590

To read Michael Kennedy's testimony, go to
http://josephsmith.net/josephsmith/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=0ec3cddbda088110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD&locale=0

For a fun article about the first huge family reunion of Joseph and Emma's descendants, follow this link.