A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car.
Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box.
Curious, but somewhat Disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the young man's name embossed in gold. Angrily, he raised his voice to his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible? and stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible.
Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search through his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. His father had carefully underlined a verse,
Matt 7:11, "And if ye then, being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?"
As he read those words, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.
Rejected gifts! People do it all the time. They don't know they do it and they may not consciously do it but they reject those gifts which are most precious and offend the giver and cripple their own opportunities, perhaps forever. Today I would like to share with you how God offers you a gift of unparalleled importance and value and how Satan seeks to persuade you to reject the gift.
We have a Father in Heaven who loves us. Long before we were born, he wanted us to become as He is, glorified, powerful above measure, surrounded by loving family and enjoying a fullness of joy. He knew this could happen only by assuring we were provided with a physical body and committed to righteous exercise of that infinite power which he would bestow upon us.
God proposed a plan which would give all his spirit children the opportunity to become as He is and inherit all that He has. The plan had risks. All of His spirit children would be exposed to evil and some would not survive the test. Lucifer, a spirit son of God and called "son of the Morning" rejected the plan and offered in its place a guarantee to survive the test: at great cost. He would save all mankind but deny them agency, a fundamental right of all living things. When God refused the proposal of Lucifer, he rebelled and a third of the hosts of heaven followed after him. Lucifer was cast down into the earth and called Satan. His only objective is to deprive those faithful children of the Father of the agency the Father preserved for them.
Knowing that the experience of mortality would be filled with challenges associated with learning good from evil, a loving Father has given his faithful children a Gift to guide them through the trials of mortality and secure them in the arms of his presence when we leave this mortality. This gift from a loving father includes three great blessings. And Satan intends to persuade us to reject them.
What is the gift from God and how does Satan seek to persuade us to reject the gift?
Adam is described in modern revelation as "the son of God, with whom God, himself, conversed" [Moses 6:22]. The prophet Joseph Smith taught that Adam and Eve were married in the Garden of Eden. We know they were taught the gospel by angels, by the voice of God, and by the power of the Holy Ghost [Moses 5:1-8, 58]. They were baptized, received the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enjoyed the quickening and renovating powers of the Spirit in their lives. We would also assume that Adam and Eve participated in sacred ordinances associated with the perpetuation of the family. To Adam, after he was driven from the Garden of Eden, the plan of salvation was revealed, and upon him the fullness of the priesthood was conferred. [Doctrines of Salvation 3:81]. This fullness of the Priesthood is to enter into the order of the Son of God. "To enter into the order of the Son of God is the equivalent today of entering into the fullness of the Melchizedek Priesthood, which is only received in the house of the Lord" . [E.T.Benson, Ensign, Aug 1985, p8]. It is known in our day and the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.
So, when Adam and Eve were married by God, He gave them a marriage gift in three parts:
1. An inheritance: for them, the whole earth.
2. Dominion over that inheritance: this means Priesthood power.
3. Power to multiply: that is, the right to create posterity and have their family together with them forever.
This gift was promised to all of the Children of Adam and was reasserted to the ancient patriarchs including Abraham. Over time the gift was called: the Covenant of Abraham.
The Gift of Inheritance
The blessing God gave to Abraham was of two parts: spiritual to be received after his exaltation and temporal, to be received in mortality, each being a type of the other. The temporal blessing of inheritance was the land of Canaan. These blessings of inheritance follow the parable of the talents as expounded by the Savior: One servant was given 5 talents, another 2 talents another 1 talent, each according to his ability. Those with 5 talents and 2 talents increased their stewardships and were made rulers over many things. Those who did not increase their talents, from them was taken even the one they had. [Matt 25:14-30]. As Abraham learned to multiply Canaan, he became eligible to be a ruler over many things, for example kingdoms of his own.
Each of us is given an inheritance from God. Among our inheritance are the family resources that we use to sustain ourselves. We have or will have a home, property, employment: whatever we need to sustain our family. As we increase this inheritance, we prove to the Lord we will be eligible to be made rulers over many things. For this cause, you have decided to come to this marvelous university and improve your capacity to increase your inheritance from God.
Satan seeks to influence us to reject that inheritance. How does he do it?
The Children of Israel were promised the land of Canaan to be their inheritance. They came to Sinai under the leadership of Moses who intended to introduce them into the presence of the Lord. While Moses tarried on the mountain, Israel crafted a golden calf and began to worship the calf. Satan is the author of evil and the clearest way to reject the inheritance of the Lord is to credit evil [i.e. Satan] with the gift which came from the Lord. Israel rejected the gift and wandered instead 40 years in the wilderness.
Solomon built a magnificent temple to the Lord. He received revelation on how the temple was to be built. He dedicated his energy to building that sacred edifice. For that, he was promised an inheritance of the kingdom of Israel. But, Solomon, being influenced by some of his wives to worship idols, gave credit for his power as king of all Israel to the source of all evil [i.e. Satan]. Thus, he rejected the gift and the giver of the gift. For rejecting the gift from God, the kingdom was taken from Solomon's posterity and Israel was divided and ultimately conquered by their enemies.
What is Satan's plan to deprive you of your inheritance? What do you prize more highly than your love for the Lord? What do you do on Sunday? What do you do with the Scriptures which have been revealed to increase your understanding of God and his gift to you? What occupies your thoughts in your private moments?
Some years ago, I was serving as a bishop and I invited a couple to come into my office where I invited them to accept a call as full time missionaries. They were retired, their family grown and they had available resources to serve the Lord. To my dismay, I was informed that after many years of service in the Church, they preferred golf and could not spare the time to serve a mission which would interfere with their leisure plans. Leisure, sports or any activity which diverts us from our service to God are idols which we worship and in so doing we reject the gift of inheritance offered by our loving Father in Heaven.
In the Hawaii, Honolulu Mission, a few years ago, I was instructed to travel to Christmas Island, one of the Line Islands belonging to the Republic of Kiribati. I was authorized to form a branch of the Church there if enough priesthood leaders could be found to sustain it. There were faithful priesthood leaders and many faithful and deserving saints who desperately wanted the church to become established on their remote island. When the branch was formed, it was apparent that the saints there were filled with righteous spirit and a determined desire to be faithful and devoted to the gospel. However, most had not had close contact with the organized church for many years and someone with a greater depth of experience was needed to teach, train and prepare them for independent church government. We needed a missionary couple.
We learned that local government regulations would not permit any of the government owned houses to be rented to missionaries. You can imagine the criteria that we advanced to the missionary department for a couple for this assignment:
Need to work with people who speak mostly the Kiribati language.
Need to build your own island house [called a kiakia].
Need to drill your own water well.
Need to dig your own latrine and make an enclosure for it.
Need to make your own portable shower and palm frond enclosure.
Do not plan on electricity, running water, any form of plumbing,
There is no furniture of any kind, but sand, crabs and insects in abundance.
Do not plan to be sick because there are no adequate medical facilities on the island.
Your only form of transport will be bicycles, and bring your own.
Actually, nobody signed up for that missionary call. We were feeling the urgent requirements of this newly formed branch and we remembered the extraordinarily faithful and loving saints there who needed gospel training very much. After much prayer from us, we received a phone call from a brother and sister on the mainland. They said they were emotionally prepared for a hardship mission and would agree to serve. They gave up retirement and the leisure time they so richly deserved. They came and established the Church on Christmas Island at great personal sacrifice. The gift of inheritance is theirs.
The Gift of Dominion
God gave Abraham dominion over all his inheritance. This is derived from priesthood power and the blessings of priesthood are shared by husbands and wives united together in the New and Everlasting Covenant of marriage.
We have learned that the rights of the Priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven and the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. [D&C 121:36]. In the exercise of this dominion, we are empowered to call upon the blessings of Heaven in relationships with our spouse, rearing our children, and administering our inheritance whether it be in our employment, family finances, acquiring or disposing of property, or anything with which the Lord has blessed us. We are entitled to that peace that comes knowing we are in the hands of the Lord and His angels are on our right hand and on our left. [D&C 84:88].
Satan's tool to cause us to reject the gift of dominion is called" hedonism" . Hedonism is defined as a philosophy which argues that pleasure, including the avoidance of pain, is the only object of life. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure.
The scriptures teach us that hedonism comes from seeking to be like the world. Instead of serving Jehovah in Sinai, the Israelites desired to return to the "fleshpots" of Egypt and their former bondage. The people under Samuel wanted a king "like all nations" [1Sam 8:5]. Israel repeatedly returned to idolatry.
What was it that made heathen religions so popular? The answer is not so much in the philosophy or the images but in the ritual. Heathen ritual was frequently devoted almost exclusively to the stimulating and satisfying of human passions, i.e. Hedonism. The words adultery and idolatry both come from the same derivation. The heathen religions institutionalized immorality. Throughout Canaan, Baal was worshipped. The name "Baal" was equivalent to "lord" and "ruler" . Baal was the symbol of creative power and was represented in human form riding on a bull, with bunches of grapes and pomegranates in his hands. By taking the power and excellence of the One Eternal God and attributing these qualities to a depraved patron of alluring debaucheries reflect the most sophisticated tactics in moral and spiritual subversion.
For that reason, the prophets constantly reminded the children of the covenant of their responsibility to choose between being distinguished from the world or being part of the world. Joshua issued this challenge: "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." [Joshua 24:15]. Elijah offered the same choice on Mount Carmel: "how halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him" [1 Kings 18:21].
The biblical challenge of being in the world without accepting its influences remains a major stumbling block today. The temptation is ever present to be "like all the nations" . The hedonism of the world pollutes all that is good. It invites adultery and fornication and clothes the wickedness in the term "tolerance" which has come to mean not so much tolerance as advocacy.
From a poem by Alexander Pope, we are reminded of this truth:
"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace"
Television, music and the internet portray happiness as abundant wealth without any attempt to show how to legitimately acquire it. They advance perverse sexuality without any reference to preservation of family or fidelity to Chris-like values. Violence is portrayed as satisfying revenge or uncontrolled exercise of unrighteous power. Who among us ever sees in the media a hardworking father or mother faithfully raising their children in an atmosphere of self-sacrifice and righteousness being portrayed as the hero or heroine? Satan controls the media and we are taught in the media that the only way to happiness is hedonism. When we embrace it, we reject the gift of God and throw it away.
We remember the story of Joseph sold into Egypt by his jealous brothers [Gen 39]. Things had not gone well for Joseph. His brothers sold him as a slave, he was deprived of all his hopes, he was in a strange land where nobody knew him, and for all practical purposes he could have said that God had forgotten him or perhaps rationalized that there was not God at all. In that difficult environment, he got assigned as a slave in the house of a very important official in Egypt. Rather than grieve over his losses, he simply decided to work as hard and as faithfully as he could. For his faithfulness, he was made steward over his master's house. Then came the big test. The master's wife said to Joseph: "lie with me" . But he refused. She was persistent. But he refused. Finally one day she saw an opportunity to compromise Joseph. "And it came to pass about this time that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within. And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me; and he left his garment in her hand and fled, and got him out" . [Gen 39:11-12].
For his virtue, Joseph was cast into prison. You might say that the reward of prison for virtue was not fair but in the eyes of God, Joseph became eligible for the Gift and he ultimately gained in mortality power second only to Pharaoh in Egypt. Most importantly, he proved to God he could be trusted with dominion over many things in the eternities.
If God cannot trust us with the gift of dominion in this mortality, how can we obtain dominion over many things hereafter?
The Gift of Continuation of the Seeds: Families are Forever
This gift of God to the faithful is of transcendent value. We are promised that families can be together forever. More than that, we can create families forever. The sacred and joyful relationship between a loving husband and wife first realized in mortality is perpetuated beyond the grave in an even more sacred and joyful sphere. Man and woman, in perfected state, are given the gift to populate worlds of their own without number and be joined to parents and grandparents and ancestors without number. They are joined by children and grandchildren and posterity without number; woven together in a sacred and joyful family unit.
Satan can never have this power; and he is jealous of it. He has devised a plan to get you to reject this gift. It is the same plan he used to get ancient Israel to reject the gift. He persuaded Israel to kill their own children.
During the reign of wicked King Ahab and Jezebel, human sacrifices were imposed upon the people of Israel. This included the worship of Moloch. The metal image of this god had a furnace inside with roaring flames which heated the metal statue to a glowing hue. When the metal was red hot, the priest places a tiny infant in the cradled arms of the image where it was instantly roasted. "The parents stilled the cries of the intended victims by fondling and kissing them: for their weeping would have been unpropitious: and their shrieks afterwards were drowned in the din of flutes and kettle drums." As early as the time of Moses, the Lord was compelled to cry forth, "thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech!" [Leviticus 18:21]
Today Molech is not worshipped in the same way. However, the result is the same in the name of abortion characterized by the world as a "woman's right" .
In the USA:
Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 3,700
Worldwide
Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 115,000
Can we not say that Moloch is still worshipped today?
There is another way that Satan persuades people to reject the Gift of God. Instead of killing a child, an equally effective way to reject the gift of eternal family is to prevent its creation in the first instance. Same gender marriage forecloses the creation of family in the manner acceptable to God and is another way to reject the gift. The persistent efforts of a vocal few to persuade governments and citizens to legalize and adopt same gender marriage as equal to traditional marriage under the misleading justification of "tolerance" results in a clear rejection of the Gift.
How Do We Acquire the Gift of the Abrahamic Covenant?
The restoration of the Abrahamic Covenant is an essential part of the restitution of all things [Acts 3:21]. In April 1836, Moses restored the keys to gather Israel, to bring people into the Church and kingdom through missionary work. Elias restored the keys associates with the patriarchal order, the power to organize the Saints into eternal families through the Abrahamic Covenant. And Elijah restored the keys associated with the fullness of the priesthood, the powers necessary to bind families and seal them up unto eternal life. The gift of the Abrahamic Covenant is thus obtained through the covenant and ordinance of eternal marriage; performed only in the House of the Lord.
In the House of the Lord at Kirtland, the elders preparing for missionary service had received a ritual cleansing and anointing called and endowment. Certain preparations were expected of them: to be morally clean and faithful, to strive for unison and harmony, and to avoid criticizing others.
Between the completion of the Kirtland Temple in March 1836 and his death at Carthage in June, eight years later, the Prophet Joseph Smith expanded the meaning of the endowment. He did not explain his own revelatory learning process but he shared these sacred things with others in early May 1842. The prophet invited to the upper room of his store a small group of friends and there introduced them to the temple endowment.
The teachings began with a recital of the creation of the earth and its preparation to host life. The story carried the familiar ring of the Genesis account, echoed as well in Joseph Smith's revealed book of Moses and book of Abraham. The disobedience and expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden set the stage for an explanation of Christ's atonement for that original transgression and for the sins of the entire human family. Also included was a recital of mankind's tendency to stray from the truth through apostasy and the need for apostolic authority to administer authoritative ordinances and teach true gospel principles. Participants were reminded that in addition to the Savior's redemptive gift they must be obedient to God's commandments to obtain a celestial glory. Those who received this endowment made covenants of personal virtue and benevolence and of commitment to the church. [Talmage, The House of the Lord, pp 84, 99-101]
Most of this same group and a few others met again in the upper room of President Smith's store more than a year later, on Friday, May 26, 1843. The report of that council says the Prophet gave them "instructions on the Priesthood, the new and everlasting covenant and specifically they were informed about the covenant of celestial marriage. Joseph Smith called this blessing "Abraham's patriarchal priesthood" .
Those receiving these ordinances remembered the Prophet's concerns. First, he wanted others to receive the ordinances even before the temple was finished. More importantly, he was anxious to authorize the Twelve to administer the blessings to others should his own life be cut short before the Nauvoo temple was ready.
President Brigham Young was concerned that the mobs would invade Nauvoo before the ordinances of the temple could be administered and the sacred gifts promised therein could be received by the struggling saints. Therefore, even before the Nauvoo Temple was completed, certain places in the temple were dedicated so the temple ordinances could be administered. So many saints urgently sought their temple blessings that they thronged the temple day and night. When at last the threats of the mobs became imminent, President Young decided to terminate temple ordinances in Nauvoo and urgently begin the trek to Utah. There was great reluctance to leave the temple even though the mobs were threatening. Brigham Young recorded in his journal:
Notwithstanding that I [Brigham Young] had announced that we would not attend to the administration of the ordinances, the House of the Lord was thronged all day, the anxiety being so great to receive, as if the brethren would have us stay here and continue the endowments until our way would be hedged up, and our enemies would intercept us. But I informed the brethren that this was not wise, and that we should build more Temples, and have further opportunities to receive the blessings of the Lord, as soon as the saints were prepared to receive them. In this Temple we have been abundantly rewarded, if we receive no more. I also informed the brethren that I was going to get my wagons started and be off. I walked some distance from the Temple supposing the crowd would disperse, but on returning I found the house filled to overflowing.
Looking upon the multitude and knowing their anxiety, as they were thirsting and hungering for the word, we continued at work diligently in the House of the Lord. Two Hundred and ninety-five persons received ordinances[that day]. History of the Church 7:579-580.
They knew the value of the heavenly gifts received in the Nauvoo Temple. They are the ones who travelled across the plains at great sacrifice and personal suffering. My great great grandfather, James Godson Bleak was one of those. He was a member of the Martin Handcart Company that suffered so severely in the trek to Utah. From his biography, we read:
Twenty-six-year-old James Bleak had already endured a lifetime of loss before he began the handcart journey. Four of his siblings had died very young, his father had died when James was 14, his mother when he was 16, and the only other member of his family, his younger brother John, when James was 18. His life began to reverse course the next year, when he married Elizabeth Moore. Two years later they both joined the Church, and the next year James was called to serve in the presidency of the Whitechapel Branch in London. He then served as branch president from 1854 until he emigrated in 1856.
James and Elizabeth Bleak and their four children all survived the handcart trek, though they suffered greatly. In September, James had been so ill that Francis Webster and others pulled him in their handcarts. During the last month of the journey, James's feet became so frozen that the flesh dropped off his heels.
The Bleaks also came close to losing their 5-year-old son, Thomas. Two women in the company were helping care for him, and after a cold night they awoke to find him lifeless between them. James described how Thomas was miraculously healed after the women brought him to his parents:
"[I] began by anointing him with consecrated oil, and praying over him, calling upon the Lord to keep His promise that not one of the family should fall by the way in gathering to Zion. Tests were applied, but not a heartbeat or other sign of life was in the child. . . . After what appeared to [be] a very long time, [I] thought [I] saw a slight flutter in the child's throat. . . . Finally, by God's power and blessing, the dear child unclosed his eyes and is now a resident of Salt Lake City, father of nine children and likewise a grandfather."
Despite these difficulties, James Bleak never wavered in his faith or even in his feelings of gratitude for the opportunity to come to Zion. On the day he arrived in Salt Lake City, crippled with frozen feet, he wrote, "I feel to rejoice greatly and give praise to God for my safe arrival in Zion with my wife and children."
Those who faithfully follow the covenants made with God accept the gift offered with the eternal blessings the gift offers.
You are offered the incomparable Gift from God which will enable you to become as He is. I testify that if you will not reject the gift, you will be filled with joy in this life and forever.