To Laugh
There is more to life than packing, and I had the chance to teach today, with a little more attention to my study than I felt I was offering last week. I am very grateful that last week and today [Wed.], the Lord stepped in and led me through. It has been hard to concentrate the time and the mind for the preparation I am used to doing.
We are studying the Old Testament now, and this is a new challenge for me as a teacher. I taught a portion of the Old Testament many, many years ago, for gospel doctrine class in Sunday School; that was just before and after Jonathan was born. I loved teaching the Doctrine and Covenants, which we have now finished, and diving into the sources for church history and the revelations specific for our own times. Now we are studying a period for which the record is often incomplete and framed within a different culture from our own.
We have the advantage of additional scriptures in the Pearl of Great Price (which I taught two years ago), which shed light on the creation, on the city of Enoch, and on Abraham. Abraham was our lesson today. We looked at the blessings and covenants of Abraham and what they meant.
We know from modern revelation that Christ's ministry was not the beginning of his gospel, but it was given and known to Adam. I put out the point today that the covenants of God far predate Adam, but reach back before time: they are the path and the plan for all of God's children, laid out before we were ever born, and Christ was always at the center.
The promises of the covenant are lined out three times, as you follow these chapters of Genesis. In the Book of Abraham, we read of the attempt on his life, his father seeking to sacrifice him on the altar of the gods of Elkenah. He is miraculously set free, and directed to go to a new land (Genesis 12). This is the first statement of the promise. There is a more powerful iteration of it in Abraham, as they leave Ur (Abraham 2):
This differentiates the blessings of his literal seed, his descendants, and the blessings of his spiritual posterity, those who enter and honor the covenant of the Redeemer. They settle in a land they call Haran, and when there was famine, he was directed into Egypt. In Egypt, the promises of the covenant (Genesis 13) are restated, the Lord telling him that his descendents will be as numberless as the dust of the earth. In the Book of Abraham he is told that they will be as uncountable as the stars.
They are kept safe in Egypt and returned to Canaan. Years have passed, and Abraham and Sarah (Abram and Sarai, still, at this point) have been faithful to all that they have promised God. There remains but one problem--this numberless, vast posterity requires children; at least one child. And no children have come to them. Maybe they are supposed to do something else to see this promise come to pass.
And so Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham as another wife, and she conceives and bears Ishmael. That should make everything all better, but it doesn't quite work out that way. The Lord comes to Abraham again, and gives those promises for a third time, and adds a very specific promise: it will be Sarah who bears the son through whom these promises will come. It will be Isaac, born of Sarah, who will bear the eternal birthright of the priesthood, and be the father of nations.
This is declared in the 17th chapter of Genesis to be a personal, face to face conversation.
I know what it is to continue to believe with no way to see how the promise of God will be accomplished. I know what it is to see his promises come to pass nonetheless.
Ishmael has his own promises, and will become a great nation, But Isaac, the miracle, the impossibility, will be the answer to the promises through all the generations of time.
Why did God wait so long? Maybe to fully prove their faith. Perhaps so that the miraculous, the impossible, was so undeniably clear to Abraham and to us all.
We are studying the Old Testament now, and this is a new challenge for me as a teacher. I taught a portion of the Old Testament many, many years ago, for gospel doctrine class in Sunday School; that was just before and after Jonathan was born. I loved teaching the Doctrine and Covenants, which we have now finished, and diving into the sources for church history and the revelations specific for our own times. Now we are studying a period for which the record is often incomplete and framed within a different culture from our own.
We have the advantage of additional scriptures in the Pearl of Great Price (which I taught two years ago), which shed light on the creation, on the city of Enoch, and on Abraham. Abraham was our lesson today. We looked at the blessings and covenants of Abraham and what they meant.
We know from modern revelation that Christ's ministry was not the beginning of his gospel, but it was given and known to Adam. I put out the point today that the covenants of God far predate Adam, but reach back before time: they are the path and the plan for all of God's children, laid out before we were ever born, and Christ was always at the center.
The promises of the covenant are lined out three times, as you follow these chapters of Genesis. In the Book of Abraham, we read of the attempt on his life, his father seeking to sacrifice him on the altar of the gods of Elkenah. He is miraculously set free, and directed to go to a new land (Genesis 12). This is the first statement of the promise. There is a more powerful iteration of it in Abraham, as they leave Ur (Abraham 2):
6 But I, Abraham, and Lot, my brother's son, prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared unto me, and said unto me: Arise, and take Lot with thee; for I have purposed to take thee away out of Haran, and to make of thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land which I will give unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession, when they hearken to my voice.7 For I am the Lord thy God; I dwell in heaven; the earth is my footstool; I stretch my hand over the sea, and it obeys my voice; I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot; I say to the mountains—Depart hence—and behold, they are taken away by a whirlwind, in an instant, suddenly.8 My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee.9 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations;
10 And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father;11 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.
This differentiates the blessings of his literal seed, his descendants, and the blessings of his spiritual posterity, those who enter and honor the covenant of the Redeemer. They settle in a land they call Haran, and when there was famine, he was directed into Egypt. In Egypt, the promises of the covenant (Genesis 13) are restated, the Lord telling him that his descendents will be as numberless as the dust of the earth. In the Book of Abraham he is told that they will be as uncountable as the stars.
They are kept safe in Egypt and returned to Canaan. Years have passed, and Abraham and Sarah (Abram and Sarai, still, at this point) have been faithful to all that they have promised God. There remains but one problem--this numberless, vast posterity requires children; at least one child. And no children have come to them. Maybe they are supposed to do something else to see this promise come to pass.
And so Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham as another wife, and she conceives and bears Ishmael. That should make everything all better, but it doesn't quite work out that way. The Lord comes to Abraham again, and gives those promises for a third time, and adds a very specific promise: it will be Sarah who bears the son through whom these promises will come. It will be Isaac, born of Sarah, who will bear the eternal birthright of the priesthood, and be the father of nations.
This is declared in the 17th chapter of Genesis to be a personal, face to face conversation.
1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.3 And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations....
15 ¶ And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
17 Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?That word, "laughed" has a footnote on the printed page: "Hebrew, also, 'rejoiced.' " This wasn't in any way a reaction of "yeah, sure...isn't this a little late?" You cannot be in the presence of God without being filled with his light and majesty, and you certainly cannot be anything but profoundly believing, both to get there and in the moment. He was astonished into joy; he rejoiced. His heart flew upwards in delight. What a different understanding, a different image that is!
I know what it is to continue to believe with no way to see how the promise of God will be accomplished. I know what it is to see his promises come to pass nonetheless.
Ishmael has his own promises, and will become a great nation, But Isaac, the miracle, the impossibility, will be the answer to the promises through all the generations of time.
Why did God wait so long? Maybe to fully prove their faith. Perhaps so that the miraculous, the impossible, was so undeniably clear to Abraham and to us all.
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