Top Love Quotes & Sayings of All Time
The following is our collection of Quotes about love or Romance that we feel are the top quoted quotes of all time. We have not placed these quotes in any particular order. Make sure to check them all out, they are great! (See what users like yourself ranked as the top Love Quotes.)
1. "A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes superfluous."
--Ingrid Bergmen
2. Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin6. "Love is the beauty of the soul."
--St. Augustine
3. "My night has become a sunny dawn because of you."
--Ibn Abbad
4. "In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person."
--Margaret Anderson
5. "In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities."
--Janos Arnay
7. "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."
--Aristotle
8. "Each moment of a happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life."
--Aphra Behn
9. "Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me."
--Sarah Bernhardt
10. "In my wildest dreams, you always play the hero. In my darkest hour of night, you rescue me, you save my life."
--Bliss and Cerney
11. "Come live with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove, of golden sands, and crystal beaches, with silken lines and silver hooks..."
--John Dunne
12. "What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes..."
--Elizabeth Barret Browning
13. "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach..."
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning
14. "Take away love, and our earth is a tomb."
--Robert Browning
15. "But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love her forever."
--Robert Burns
16. "She walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudness climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes..."
--Lord Byron
17. "Like music on the waters is they sweet voice to me."
--Lord Byron
18. "I love you, not only for what you are, But for what I am when I am with you."
--Roy Croft
19. "You're nothing short of my everything."
--Ralph Block
20. "The only true gift is a portion of yourself."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
21. "Thou art to me a delicious torment."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
22. "Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart."
--Euripides
23. "I love her and that's the beginning of everything."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald
24. "I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun-warmed, flower-bordered path."
--Andre Gide
25. "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
--Robert Heinlein
26. "Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
27. "What I feel for you seems less of earth and more of a cloudless heaven."
--Victor Hugo
28. "It's so easy, To think about Love, To Talk about Love, To wish for Love, But it's not always easy, To recognize Love, Even when we hold it.... In our hands."
--Jaka
29. "Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one."
--John Keats
30. "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
--Helen Keller
31. "... See there's this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It's the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me."
--Gretchen Kemp
32. "When you came, you were like red wine and honey, and the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness."
--Amy Lowell
33. "Make me immortal with a kiss."
--Christopher Marlowe
34. "Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."
--Christopher Marlowe
35. "Love is the enchanted dawn of every heart."
--Alphonse Marie de la Martine
36. "In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing."
--Mignon McLaughlin
37. "We came by night to the Fortunate Isles, And lay like fish Under the net of our kisses."
--Pablo Neruda
38. "The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain signing to it...you and you alone make me feel that I am alive...Other men, it is said, have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough."
--George Moore
39. "In love there are two things: bodies and words."
--Joyce Carol Oates
40. "I become a waterwheel, turning and tasting you, as long as water moves."
--Rumi
41. "I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal."
--Vita Sackville-West
42. "Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
43. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
44. "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved."
--George Sand
45. "Sometimes your nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say can find no voice. Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart."
--Robert Sexton
46. "My heart is ever at your service."
--William Shakespeare
47. "The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."
--William Shakespeare
48. "Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition."
--Alexander Smith
49. "I am my beloved, and my beloved is me."
--Song of Solomon
50. "Her breath is like honey spiced with cloves, Her mouth delicious as a ripened mango."
--Srzgarakarika
51. "To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven."
--Karen Sunde
52. "Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire..."
--A. C. Swinburne
53. "Love is friendship set on fire."
--Jeremy Taylor
54. "Within you I lose myself. Without you I find myself wanting to become lost again."
--Unknown
55. "Somewhere there's someone who dreams of your smile..."
--Unknown
56. "I see my fated stars in your eyes. They melt me like the sun does snow."
--Unknown
57. "The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart."
--Unknown
58. "To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed."
--Unknown
59. "If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you made me smile, I would have the whole night sky in the palm of my hand."
--Unknown
60. "If you love me only in my dreams, let me be asleep forever."
--Unknown
61. "Kiss me and you will see stars; love me and I will give them to you."
--Unknown
62. "Love is a dream that comes alive when we meet."
--Unknown
63. "The soul that can speak with its eyes can also kiss with a gaze."
--Unknown
64. "Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essense."
--Vincent van Gogh
65. "Harmony is pure love, for love is a concerto."
--Lope de Vega
66. "Here are fruits, flowers, leaves, and branches, And here is my heart which beats only for you."
--Paul Verlaine
67. "When a heart finds another, what's a cloud more or less in the sky?"
--Wolf and Page
68. "The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart.
--Josiah G. Holland
69. "From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being."
--Unknown
70. "The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life."
--Sir Hugh Walpole
71. "Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love."
--Erich Fromm
72. "You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."
--Sam Keen
73. "The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable."
--Victor Hugo
74. "True love begins when nothing is looked for in return."
--Antoine De Saint-Exupery
75. "Love is the emblem of eternity: it confounds all notion of time: effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end."
--Germaine De Stael
76. "The life and love we create is the life and love we live."
--Leo Buscaglia
77. "For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it."
--Ivan Panin
78. "Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals."
--J. Isham
79. "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
--Lao Tzu
80. "The most eloquent silence; that of two mouths meeting in a kiss."
--Unknown
81. "Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul."
--St. Augustine
82. "Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it."
--Thomas Fuller
83. "Paradise is always where love dwells."
--Jean Paul F. Richter
84. "True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart."
--Honore de Balzac
85. "We are all born for love... it is the principle existence and it's only end."
--Benjamin Disraeli
86. "Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
87. "Love doesn't make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile."
--Elizabeth Browning
88. " When you are in Love you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams. "
-- Dr Suese
89. "If I know what love is, it is because of you."
--Herman Hesse
90. "So dear I love him that with him,
All deaths I could endure.
Without him, live no life."
-- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
91. "Love is like a friendship caught on fire: In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable."
--Bruce Lee
92. "She walks in beauty,
Like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes."
--Byron
93. "....A simple I love you means more than money...."
--Frank Sinatra
94. "How delicious is the winning of a kiss at love's beginning."
--Thomas Campbell
95. "One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is Love."
--Sophocles
96. "Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."
--Mark Twain
97. " Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you' re just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have YOU... The one who turns to his friends and says, thats her... "
-- Unknown
98. "There is no remedy for love but to love more."
--Henry David Thoreau
99. "If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever."
--Alfred Lord Tennyson
100. "All love is sweet, given or returned."
--Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
2 Dec 2010 I am reposting this for all of you that did not have a chance to tread about the Lord Jesus Christ
The atonement of Jesus Christ is a broad topic but have chose to focus on three themes of the atonement. First the power of the atonement to forgive sins and to cover all things to allow us to enter into the kingdom of God, Second how the Lord Jesus Christ has the power to Succor his people because of his atoning sacrifice. Third through the atonement we will all be resurrected.
I think it's important to understand what the atonement is, as used in the Scriptures to atonement is to suffer the penalty for sins, thereby removing the effects of sin from the center and allowing him or her to be reconciled to God. It’s understood that the atonement could only be performed by Jesus Christ because he was the literal son of God in the flesh. Even he the greatest of all pleaded with his father if there was any other way that mankind could be redeemed but he did his father's will and partook of that bitter cup. Because of this great sacrifice all people will be resurrected from the dead no matter their condition or state. But only those that live his gospel and keep his commandments and truly apply his atoning sacrifice into their lives will receive the ultimate gift which is to live with God and your family for eternities.
When we started our journey here on earth your father gave you a gift he gave you a large backpack and a backpack had nothing in it. Every time you sin on this journey in immortality you must pick up a rock and place it in this backpack, some of the rocks are smaller some are larger but it comes to a point where the backpack is to heavy you cannot bare the wait or the load of the backpack unless some of the rocks are taken out. I want you to then image that your older brother comes along and wants to help you along this journey so he pleads with your father and is able to help you carry the load and wants to remove the rocks. But we all have been there when the backpack is too much to carry rocks must be removed, I know that the only way the rocks can be removed is through the Savior Jesus Christ. Our father has given him that power because he lived a perfect life, and because he is taken upon him all of our sins. I think this is hard to fathom them that someone could literally take upon them the sins of all mankind. But that is exactly what he did he bore every sin that was or will ever be committed. In D&C 19 16 -17 it explanes what will happen to us if we do not repent while we have the chance. “For behold, I, God suffered these things for all that they might not suffer if they would repent; but if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; which suffering caused myself God, have suffered these things for all, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer bold body and spirit and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink nevertheless, glory be to the father, and I partook and finish my preparations on to the children of men.”If we do not repent while in this state we will suffer even as Jesus Christ suffered for our own personal sins, as explained in doctrine and covenants 19 we cannot bear that burden we cannot comprehend the pain that the Savior went through for each of us. Then there is the joy of knowing that when we have repented of our sins, the lord has made us a promise. “Behold he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I the lord will remember them no more.” I have felt the true and lasting Joy that can be experienced from the gift of repentance. The lord will have no remembrance of your sins if you truly have repented of your sins I know that to be a fact.
The Lord suffered so much more pain than just taking upon himself our sins he also took upon him our heart ached our sorrow our grief anything that you can imagine the Lord suffered. I remember when I first heard this wondering how it is possible that someone could suffer all of these things then I remembered a passage in the book of Alma 7 11 -13 and it reads “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled witch saith he will take upon him the pains and the sickness of his people. And he will take upon him death that he may lose the bands of death witch bind his people; and he take upon him there infirmities, that his bowels may be filed with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. Now the spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out there transgressions according to the power of his deliverance and now behold this is the testimony which is in me.” This passage of scripture explains the atonement perfectly here was a perfect man or should we say God. He came down to a foreign land to redeem his people. To know that the Savior knows my temptations knows my weaknesses makes me stronger. To know that the Savior is taken upon him my sicknesses my infirmities humbles me. The definition of the word succor is as follows; Literally, to run to, or run to support; hence, to help or relieve when in difficulty, want or distress; to assist and deliver from suffering; as, to succor a besieged city; to succor prisoners. http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,succor. I know that I think of the word succor in a whole different way after understanding that it literally means that the Savior is running to us before we have even committed a sin, before we have even experienced the sorrow the grief with the pain of committing sin. The Savior wants to relieve us from our burdens. I know that the Savior Jesus Christ truly does succor his people he has succored me in my time of need. And has supported me and lifted me up in my time of heartache. There is no other way to be completely clean from sin and sorrow, we must use this atoning sacrifice in our lives daily. We must learn to repent morning and evening but we'll must also remember never to take for granted this great sacrifice which was preformed for mankind. I often think that Satan wants us to think that there is no way that the lord can help us when we are going through a hard time or thatwe are not worthy to speak to our father, there is no greater time to talk to the lord then when you are in need of his comfort or his guidance. As once said “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Winston Churchill I hope and pray that will we not give in to the adversary and his temptations, but that we may keep our self’s unspotted from this world and clean from the blood and sins of the generation.
Jesus Christ resurrection is the crowning event of the atonement someway incomprehensible to me; Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day. So it has been said at him as the father of mortality so Christ is the father of immortality. All men whether good or evil will be reunited with their body in a perfect state. “The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul. And every limb and joint shall be restored to its body may even a hair of the head shall not be lost but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.”Alma 40:23 that is a free gift that Jesus Christ gives to all men. I know that this resurrection that has been prophesied since the beginning of this world will come to pass. All men will be reunited with their body, this is the free gift of the atonement to enable the full effects of the atonement we must repent and keep the Commandments that God has outlined for through and by his holy prophets and Scriptures.
In conclusion I know that the atonement has the power to forgive sins, and has the power to succor us at all times and in all places may we strive to use this atoning sacrifice in our daily lives will before it is too late. All mankind will be resurrected I know that to be true. In closing I know that the Savior suffered for us personally that he knows us that he is there to help us and wants us to be reunited with him and with her father for eternity. His suffering I cannot comprehend but I do know that he suffered for me individually and for all mankind. I have come to the conclusion that there is no sin to great no burden to small that the Lord does not care about. My prayer is that we as a people may speak of the atonement on a more frequent basis thus enabling us to understand this great sacrifice. As elder Eyring once said if you are talking about anything that matters you are talking about the atonement.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Thrift, Industry, and Self- Reliance President Young -Caring for the poor President Romney
“If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money; but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his own advantage (DBY, 292).” I think that this quote kind of changed my point of view and that why I am going to use it and say that they should buy a smaller home that they can get a smaller mortgage on that way he can have more money to put away every year and save more I think that it is a great thing to have a huge home and everything that comes along with that life style but he should wait until as Dave Ramsey would say buy the home with cash.
“A few illustrations of the consequences of failing to perform according to our covenants
Should stimulate us to review our own performance, increase our fast offerings, and be
More faithful in our welfare work.” I think that he gave this talk in a good and bad way I came across thinking that he was trying to scare the saints into helping the poor but the more I got into the talk you would only think that if you were prideful and not in tune with the spirit. As I was reading it this sentence stuck out to me the most because it reminded me of the importance of fast offerings, When I was on my mission I received $130 a month and I remember I was paying $5 a month to fast offerings and once I was on exchanges and another Elder and I were talking about it and he asked why I did not pay more I said it is already hard to get by on $125 and he told me that I needed to sacrifice that there were people that needed it allot more than me. This was hard for me because I paid for my mission so it was my money or that was the thought that I had. I remember that I decided to pay $20 I remember thinking there is no way I am going to have enough money well we all know the way the lord works I never worried about money the rest of my mission. Reading this talk was a friendly reminder that I need to do better. I would say that I don’t disagree with anything that he said in his talk the one thing that is hard for me to understand is that we need to provide for the poor I think it is way better to teach them to provide for themselves so they can come self reliant but I will address this in my conclusion.
I love the Perpetual Education Fund I love the fact that we are not just giving the people the money but we are lending it to them interest free and they have a time period in which they will need to pay it back. I do have a biases and that is that every year my Dad goes down to Lagloria Mexico and builds homes for the people they will normally build 4-5 every year. For the longest time I never went with him I would always stay home one year I went and had an amazing experience with the people there but this is where my biases comes in, so they have organized something with the stake down there were they help members of the stake that really need help the stake president picks the people that will receive homes that year I was put on a job and worked for a few days then I realized that the people we were building the home for almost expected us to be there and in my option were very ungrateful that bothered me I talked to my Dad and told him first off that I think that we need to be teaching these people how to build so they can help other members build there homes and I also hated the fact that we were only helping members of the church so he told me I was on my own and that I could work on whatever I wanted so that night I found out that there were an elderly couple that needed a new roof on their home so the next day I went out there and there roof was caved in and O told them let’s get started the old man came out and watched me and helped me as I spent two days putting a new roof on their home the wife would bring us drinks every thirty min and ask if she could help I had such a great experience that old man told me that he knew of people that also needed new roofs and now that he knew how to do it he was going to offer the help to others. I personally think that we need to help the poor help themselves. I came home from that trip determined to help others in need but not just by giving them money. That’s when I found KIVA they are a non for profit company that gives micro loans to people in third world countries I was a skeptic at first but after the first two people I loaned to paid me back in full within months I was gung ho I have donated to over 8 people now ! it has been a great way for me to help the people in need and just not hand them money. http://www.kiva.org/
“A few illustrations of the consequences of failing to perform according to our covenants
Should stimulate us to review our own performance, increase our fast offerings, and be
More faithful in our welfare work.” I think that he gave this talk in a good and bad way I came across thinking that he was trying to scare the saints into helping the poor but the more I got into the talk you would only think that if you were prideful and not in tune with the spirit. As I was reading it this sentence stuck out to me the most because it reminded me of the importance of fast offerings, When I was on my mission I received $130 a month and I remember I was paying $5 a month to fast offerings and once I was on exchanges and another Elder and I were talking about it and he asked why I did not pay more I said it is already hard to get by on $125 and he told me that I needed to sacrifice that there were people that needed it allot more than me. This was hard for me because I paid for my mission so it was my money or that was the thought that I had. I remember that I decided to pay $20 I remember thinking there is no way I am going to have enough money well we all know the way the lord works I never worried about money the rest of my mission. Reading this talk was a friendly reminder that I need to do better. I would say that I don’t disagree with anything that he said in his talk the one thing that is hard for me to understand is that we need to provide for the poor I think it is way better to teach them to provide for themselves so they can come self reliant but I will address this in my conclusion.
I love the Perpetual Education Fund I love the fact that we are not just giving the people the money but we are lending it to them interest free and they have a time period in which they will need to pay it back. I do have a biases and that is that every year my Dad goes down to Lagloria Mexico and builds homes for the people they will normally build 4-5 every year. For the longest time I never went with him I would always stay home one year I went and had an amazing experience with the people there but this is where my biases comes in, so they have organized something with the stake down there were they help members of the stake that really need help the stake president picks the people that will receive homes that year I was put on a job and worked for a few days then I realized that the people we were building the home for almost expected us to be there and in my option were very ungrateful that bothered me I talked to my Dad and told him first off that I think that we need to be teaching these people how to build so they can help other members build there homes and I also hated the fact that we were only helping members of the church so he told me I was on my own and that I could work on whatever I wanted so that night I found out that there were an elderly couple that needed a new roof on their home so the next day I went out there and there roof was caved in and O told them let’s get started the old man came out and watched me and helped me as I spent two days putting a new roof on their home the wife would bring us drinks every thirty min and ask if she could help I had such a great experience that old man told me that he knew of people that also needed new roofs and now that he knew how to do it he was going to offer the help to others. I personally think that we need to help the poor help themselves. I came home from that trip determined to help others in need but not just by giving them money. That’s when I found KIVA they are a non for profit company that gives micro loans to people in third world countries I was a skeptic at first but after the first two people I loaned to paid me back in full within months I was gung ho I have donated to over 8 people now ! it has been a great way for me to help the people in need and just not hand them money. http://www.kiva.org/
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Safety for the Soul Elder Jeffrey R. Holland Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world . . . that the Book of Mormon is true.
Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.
But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective—a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth.1 If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus’s declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.”2
The encouraging thing, of course, is that our Father in Heaven knows all of these latter-day dangers, these troubles of the heart and soul, and has given counsel and protections regarding them.
In light of that, it has always been significant to me that the Book of Mormon, one of the Lord’s powerful keystones3 in this counteroffensive against latter-day ills, begins with a great parable of life, an extended allegory of hope versus fear, of light versus darkness, of salvation versus destruction—an allegory of which Sister Ann M. Dibb spoke so movingly this morning.
In Lehi’s dream an already difficult journey gets more difficult when a mist of darkness arises, obscuring any view of the safe but narrow path his family and others are to follow. It is imperative to note that this mist of darkness descends on all the travelers—the faithful and the determined ones (the elect, we might even say) as well as the weaker and ungrounded ones. The principal point of the story is that the successful travelers resist all distractions, including the lure of forbidden paths and jeering taunts from the vain and proud who have taken those paths. The record says that the protected “did press their way forward, continually [and, I might add, tenaciously] holding fast” to a rod of iron that runs unfailingly along the course of the true path.4 However dark the night or the day, the rod marks the way of that solitary, redeeming trail.
“I beheld,” Nephi says later, “that the rod of iron . . . was the word of God, [leading] . . . to the tree of life; . . . a representation of the love of God.” Viewing this manifestation of God’s love, Nephi goes on to say:
“I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, . . . [who] went forth ministering unto the people. . . .
“ . . . And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; . . . and they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out.”5
Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.”6 That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi’s vision—is a dying man’s testimony of the only true way.
May I refer to a modern “last days” testimony? When Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum started for Carthage to face what they knew would be an imminent martyrdom, Hyrum read these words to comfort the heart of his brother:
“Thou hast been faithful; wherefore . . . thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.
“And now I, Moroni, bid farewell . . . until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Christ.”7
A few short verses from the 12th chapter of Ether in the Book of Mormon. Before closing the book, Hyrum turned down the corner of the page from which he had read, marking it as part of the everlasting testimony for which these two brothers were about to die. I hold in my hand that book, the very copy from which Hyrum read, the same corner of the page turned down, still visible. Later, when actually incarcerated in the jail, Joseph the Prophet turned to the guards who held him captive and bore a powerful testimony of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.8 Shortly thereafter pistol and ball would take the lives of these two testators.
As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?
Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor.9 Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.”10
I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, . . . a rock of offence,”11 a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”12
Now, I did not sail with the brother of Jared in crossing an ocean, settling in a new world. I did not hear King Benjamin speak his angelically delivered sermon. I did not proselyte with Alma and Amulek nor witness the fiery death of innocent believers. I was not among the Nephite crowd who touched the wounds of the resurrected Lord, nor did I weep with Mormon and Moroni over the destruction of an entire civilization. But my testimony of this record and the peace it brings to the human heart is as binding and unequivocal as was theirs. Like them, “[I] give [my name] unto the world, to witness unto the world that which [I] have seen.” And like them, “[I] lie not, God bearing witness of it.”13
I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my “last days,” but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.
My witness echoes that of Nephi, who wrote part of the book in his “last days”:
“Hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, . . . and they teach all men that they should do good.
“And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day.”14
Brothers and sisters, God always provides safety for the soul, and with the Book of Mormon, He has again done that in our time. Remember this declaration by Jesus Himself: “Whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived”15—and in the last days neither your heart nor your faith will fail you. Of this I earnestly testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
NOTES
1. See Matthew 24:24; see also Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:22.
2. Luke 21:26.
3. See History of the Church, 4:461.
4. 1 Nephi 8:30.
5. 1 Nephi 11:25, 27–28, 31.
6. Moroni 10:32.
7. Ether 12:37–38; see also D&C 135:5.
8. See History of the Church, 6:600.
9. Joseph Smith, in History of the Church, 4:539.
10. George Cannon, quoted in “The Twelve Apostles,” in Andrew Jenson, ed., The Historical Record, 6:175.
11. 1 Peter 2:8.
12. “The Testimony of Three Witnesses,” Book of Mormon.
13. “The Testimony of Eight Witnesses,” Book of Mormon; emphasis added.
14. 2 Nephi 33:10–11; emphasis added.
15. Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:37.
Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.
But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective—a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth.1 If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus’s declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.”2
The encouraging thing, of course, is that our Father in Heaven knows all of these latter-day dangers, these troubles of the heart and soul, and has given counsel and protections regarding them.
In light of that, it has always been significant to me that the Book of Mormon, one of the Lord’s powerful keystones3 in this counteroffensive against latter-day ills, begins with a great parable of life, an extended allegory of hope versus fear, of light versus darkness, of salvation versus destruction—an allegory of which Sister Ann M. Dibb spoke so movingly this morning.
In Lehi’s dream an already difficult journey gets more difficult when a mist of darkness arises, obscuring any view of the safe but narrow path his family and others are to follow. It is imperative to note that this mist of darkness descends on all the travelers—the faithful and the determined ones (the elect, we might even say) as well as the weaker and ungrounded ones. The principal point of the story is that the successful travelers resist all distractions, including the lure of forbidden paths and jeering taunts from the vain and proud who have taken those paths. The record says that the protected “did press their way forward, continually [and, I might add, tenaciously] holding fast” to a rod of iron that runs unfailingly along the course of the true path.4 However dark the night or the day, the rod marks the way of that solitary, redeeming trail.
“I beheld,” Nephi says later, “that the rod of iron . . . was the word of God, [leading] . . . to the tree of life; . . . a representation of the love of God.” Viewing this manifestation of God’s love, Nephi goes on to say:
“I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, . . . [who] went forth ministering unto the people. . . .
“ . . . And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; . . . and they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out.”5
Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.”6 That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi’s vision—is a dying man’s testimony of the only true way.
May I refer to a modern “last days” testimony? When Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum started for Carthage to face what they knew would be an imminent martyrdom, Hyrum read these words to comfort the heart of his brother:
“Thou hast been faithful; wherefore . . . thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.
“And now I, Moroni, bid farewell . . . until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Christ.”7
A few short verses from the 12th chapter of Ether in the Book of Mormon. Before closing the book, Hyrum turned down the corner of the page from which he had read, marking it as part of the everlasting testimony for which these two brothers were about to die. I hold in my hand that book, the very copy from which Hyrum read, the same corner of the page turned down, still visible. Later, when actually incarcerated in the jail, Joseph the Prophet turned to the guards who held him captive and bore a powerful testimony of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.8 Shortly thereafter pistol and ball would take the lives of these two testators.
As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?
Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor.9 Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.”10
I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, . . . a rock of offence,”11 a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”12
Now, I did not sail with the brother of Jared in crossing an ocean, settling in a new world. I did not hear King Benjamin speak his angelically delivered sermon. I did not proselyte with Alma and Amulek nor witness the fiery death of innocent believers. I was not among the Nephite crowd who touched the wounds of the resurrected Lord, nor did I weep with Mormon and Moroni over the destruction of an entire civilization. But my testimony of this record and the peace it brings to the human heart is as binding and unequivocal as was theirs. Like them, “[I] give [my name] unto the world, to witness unto the world that which [I] have seen.” And like them, “[I] lie not, God bearing witness of it.”13
I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my “last days,” but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.
My witness echoes that of Nephi, who wrote part of the book in his “last days”:
“Hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, . . . and they teach all men that they should do good.
“And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day.”14
Brothers and sisters, God always provides safety for the soul, and with the Book of Mormon, He has again done that in our time. Remember this declaration by Jesus Himself: “Whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived”15—and in the last days neither your heart nor your faith will fail you. Of this I earnestly testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
NOTES
1. See Matthew 24:24; see also Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:22.
2. Luke 21:26.
3. See History of the Church, 4:461.
4. 1 Nephi 8:30.
5. 1 Nephi 11:25, 27–28, 31.
6. Moroni 10:32.
7. Ether 12:37–38; see also D&C 135:5.
8. See History of the Church, 6:600.
9. Joseph Smith, in History of the Church, 4:539.
10. George Cannon, quoted in “The Twelve Apostles,” in Andrew Jenson, ed., The Historical Record, 6:175.
11. 1 Peter 2:8.
12. “The Testimony of Three Witnesses,” Book of Mormon.
13. “The Testimony of Eight Witnesses,” Book of Mormon; emphasis added.
14. 2 Nephi 33:10–11; emphasis added.
15. Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:37.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Grandeur of God Great talk I found by Elder Holland
In word and in deed Jesus was trying to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.
Of the many magnificent purposes served in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, one great aspect of that mission often goes uncelebrated. His followers did not understand it fully at the time, and many in modern Christianity do not grasp it now, but the Savior Himself spoke of it repeatedly and emphatically. It is the grand truth that in all that Jesus came to say and do, including and especially in His atoning suffering and sacrifice, He was showing us who and what God our Eternal Father is like, how completely devoted He is to His children in every age and nation. In word and in deed Jesus was trying to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.
He did this at least in part because then and now all of us need to know God more fully in order to love Him more deeply and obey Him more completely. As both Old and New Testaments declare, "The first of all the commandments is . . . thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first [and great] commandment."1
Little wonder then that the Prophet Joseph Smith taught: "It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God." "I want you all to know Him," he said, "and to be familiar with Him."2 We must have "a correct idea of his . . . perfections, and attributes," an admiration for "the excellency of [His] character."3 Thus the first phrase we utter in the declaration of our faith is, "We believe in God, the Eternal Father."4 So, emphatically, did Jesus. Even as He acknowledged His own singular role in the divine plan, the Savior nevertheless insisted on this prayerful preamble: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God."5
After generations of prophets had tried to teach the family of man the will and the way of the Father, usually with little success, God in His ultimate effort to have us know Him, sent to earth His Only Begotten and perfect Son, created in His very likeness and image, to live and serve among mortals in the everyday rigors of life.
To come to earth with such a responsibility, to stand in place of Elohim—speaking as He would speak, judging and serving, loving and warning, forbearing and forgiving as He would do—this is a duty of such staggering proportions that you and I cannot comprehend such a thing. But in the loyalty and determination that would be characteristic of a divine child, Jesus could comprehend it and He did it. Then, when the praise and honor began to come, He humbly directed all adulation to the Father.
"The Father . . . doeth the works," He said in earnest. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."6 On another occasion He said: "I speak that which I have seen with my Father." "I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me." "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."7
I make my own heartfelt declaration of God our Eternal Father this morning because some in the contemporary world suffer from a distressing misconception of Him. Among these there is a tendency to feel distant from the Father, even estranged from Him, if they believe in Him at all. And if they do believe, many moderns say they might feel comfortable in the arms of Jesus, but they are uneasy contemplating the stern encounter of God.8 Through a misreading (and surely, in some cases, a mistranslation) of the Bible, these see God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son as operating very differently, this in spite of the fact that in both the Old Testament and the New, the Son of God is one and the same, acting as He always does under the direction of the Father, who is Himself the same "yesterday, today, and forever."9
In reflecting on these misconceptions we realize that one of the remarkable contributions of the Book of Mormon is its seamless, perfectly consistent view of divinity throughout that majestic book. Here there is no Malachi-to-Matthew gap, no pause while we shift theological gears, no misreading the God who is urgently, lovingly, faithfully at work on every page of that record from its Old Testament beginning to its New Testament end. Yes, in an effort to give the world back its Bible and a correct view of Deity with it, what we have in the Book of Mormon is a uniform view of God in all His glory and goodness, all His richness and complexity—including and especially as again demonstrated through a personal appearance of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
How grateful we are for all the scriptures, especially the scriptures of the Restoration, that teach us the majesty of each member of the Godhead. How we would thrill, for example, if all the world would receive and embrace the view of the Father so movingly described in the Pearl of Great Price.
There, in the midst of a grand vision of humankind which heaven opened to his view, Enoch, observing both the blessings and challenges of mortality, turns his gaze toward the Father and is stunned to see Him weeping. He says in wonder and amazement to this most powerful Being in the universe: "How is it that thou canst weep? . . . Thou art just [and] merciful and kind forever; . . . Peace . . . is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?"
Looking out on the events of almost any day, God replies: "Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands. . . . I gave unto them . . . [a] commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. . . . Wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?"10
That single, riveting scene does more to teach the true nature of God than any theological treatise could ever convey. It also helps us understand much more emphatically that vivid moment in the Book of Mormon allegory of the olive tree, when after digging and dunging, watering and weeding, trimming, pruning, transplanting, and grafting, the great Lord of the vineyard throws down his spade and his pruning shears and weeps, crying out to any who would listen, "What could I have done more for my vineyard?"11
What an indelible image of God's engagement in our lives! What anguish in a parent when His children do not choose Him nor "the gospel of God" He sent!12 How easy to love someone who so singularly loves us!
Of course the centuries-long drift away from belief in such a perfect and caring Father hasn't been helped any by the man-made creeds of erring generations which describe God variously as unknown and unknowable—formless, passionless, elusive, ethereal, simultaneously everywhere and nowhere at all. Certainly that does not describe the Being we behold through the eyes of these prophets. Nor does it match the living, breathing, embodied Jesus of Nazareth who was and is in "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his [Father]."13
In that sense Jesus did not come to improve God's view of man nearly so much as He came to improve man's view of God and to plead with them to love their Heavenly Father as He has always and will always love them. The plan of God, the power of God, the holiness of God, yes, even the anger and the judgment of God they had occasion to understand. But the love of God, the profound depth of His devotion to His children, they still did not fully know—until Christ came.
So feeding the hungry, healing the sick, rebuking hypocrisy, pleading for faith—this was Christ showing us the way of the Father, He who is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering and full of goodness."14 In His life and especially in His death, Christ was declaring, "This is God's compassion I am showing you, as well as that of my own." In the perfect Son's manifestation of the perfect Father's care, in Their mutual suffering and shared sorrow for the sins and heartaches of the rest of us, we see ultimate meaning in the declaration: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."15
I bear personal witness this day of a personal, living God, who knows our names, hears and answers prayers, and cherishes us eternally as children of His spirit. I testify that amidst the wondrously complex tasks inherent in the universe, He seeks our individual happiness and safety above all other godly concerns. We are created in His very image and likeness,16 and Jesus of Nazareth, His Only Begotten Son in the flesh, came to earth as the perfect mortal manifestation of His grandeur. In addition to the witness of the ancients we also have the modern miracle of Palmyra, the appearance of God the Father and His Beloved Son, the Savior of the world, to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. I testify of that appearance, and in the words of that prophet I, too, declare: "Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive. . . . God does not look on sin with [the least degree of] allowance, but . . . the nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs."17
I bear witness of a God who has such shoulders. And in the spirit of the holy apostleship, I say as did one who held this office anciently: "Herein [then] is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another"18—and to love Him forever, I pray. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.
NOTES
1. Mark 12:29–30; see also Matthew 22:37–38; Deuteronomy 6:5.
2. History of the Church, 6:305.
3. Lectures on Faith (1985), 38, 42.
4. Articles of Faith 1:1.
5. John 17:3.
6. John 14:10; 5:19.
7. John 8:38, 28; 6:38.
8. See William Barclay, The Mind of Jesus (1961), especially the chapter "Looking at the Cross" for a discussion of this modern tendency.
9. For example, 1 Nephi 10:18; 2 Nephi 27:23; Moroni 10:19; D&C 20:12.
10. Moses 7:29–33, 37.
11. Jacob 5:41; see also vv. 47, 49.
12. Romans 1:1.
13. Hebrews 1:3; see also 2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15.
14. Lectures on Faith, 42.
15. John 3:16–17.
16. See Genesis 1:26–27; Moses 2:26–27.
17. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 257, 240–41.
18. 1 John 4:10.
Of the many magnificent purposes served in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, one great aspect of that mission often goes uncelebrated. His followers did not understand it fully at the time, and many in modern Christianity do not grasp it now, but the Savior Himself spoke of it repeatedly and emphatically. It is the grand truth that in all that Jesus came to say and do, including and especially in His atoning suffering and sacrifice, He was showing us who and what God our Eternal Father is like, how completely devoted He is to His children in every age and nation. In word and in deed Jesus was trying to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.
He did this at least in part because then and now all of us need to know God more fully in order to love Him more deeply and obey Him more completely. As both Old and New Testaments declare, "The first of all the commandments is . . . thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first [and great] commandment."1
Little wonder then that the Prophet Joseph Smith taught: "It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God." "I want you all to know Him," he said, "and to be familiar with Him."2 We must have "a correct idea of his . . . perfections, and attributes," an admiration for "the excellency of [His] character."3 Thus the first phrase we utter in the declaration of our faith is, "We believe in God, the Eternal Father."4 So, emphatically, did Jesus. Even as He acknowledged His own singular role in the divine plan, the Savior nevertheless insisted on this prayerful preamble: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God."5
After generations of prophets had tried to teach the family of man the will and the way of the Father, usually with little success, God in His ultimate effort to have us know Him, sent to earth His Only Begotten and perfect Son, created in His very likeness and image, to live and serve among mortals in the everyday rigors of life.
To come to earth with such a responsibility, to stand in place of Elohim—speaking as He would speak, judging and serving, loving and warning, forbearing and forgiving as He would do—this is a duty of such staggering proportions that you and I cannot comprehend such a thing. But in the loyalty and determination that would be characteristic of a divine child, Jesus could comprehend it and He did it. Then, when the praise and honor began to come, He humbly directed all adulation to the Father.
"The Father . . . doeth the works," He said in earnest. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."6 On another occasion He said: "I speak that which I have seen with my Father." "I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me." "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."7
I make my own heartfelt declaration of God our Eternal Father this morning because some in the contemporary world suffer from a distressing misconception of Him. Among these there is a tendency to feel distant from the Father, even estranged from Him, if they believe in Him at all. And if they do believe, many moderns say they might feel comfortable in the arms of Jesus, but they are uneasy contemplating the stern encounter of God.8 Through a misreading (and surely, in some cases, a mistranslation) of the Bible, these see God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son as operating very differently, this in spite of the fact that in both the Old Testament and the New, the Son of God is one and the same, acting as He always does under the direction of the Father, who is Himself the same "yesterday, today, and forever."9
In reflecting on these misconceptions we realize that one of the remarkable contributions of the Book of Mormon is its seamless, perfectly consistent view of divinity throughout that majestic book. Here there is no Malachi-to-Matthew gap, no pause while we shift theological gears, no misreading the God who is urgently, lovingly, faithfully at work on every page of that record from its Old Testament beginning to its New Testament end. Yes, in an effort to give the world back its Bible and a correct view of Deity with it, what we have in the Book of Mormon is a uniform view of God in all His glory and goodness, all His richness and complexity—including and especially as again demonstrated through a personal appearance of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
How grateful we are for all the scriptures, especially the scriptures of the Restoration, that teach us the majesty of each member of the Godhead. How we would thrill, for example, if all the world would receive and embrace the view of the Father so movingly described in the Pearl of Great Price.
There, in the midst of a grand vision of humankind which heaven opened to his view, Enoch, observing both the blessings and challenges of mortality, turns his gaze toward the Father and is stunned to see Him weeping. He says in wonder and amazement to this most powerful Being in the universe: "How is it that thou canst weep? . . . Thou art just [and] merciful and kind forever; . . . Peace . . . is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?"
Looking out on the events of almost any day, God replies: "Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands. . . . I gave unto them . . . [a] commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. . . . Wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?"10
That single, riveting scene does more to teach the true nature of God than any theological treatise could ever convey. It also helps us understand much more emphatically that vivid moment in the Book of Mormon allegory of the olive tree, when after digging and dunging, watering and weeding, trimming, pruning, transplanting, and grafting, the great Lord of the vineyard throws down his spade and his pruning shears and weeps, crying out to any who would listen, "What could I have done more for my vineyard?"11
What an indelible image of God's engagement in our lives! What anguish in a parent when His children do not choose Him nor "the gospel of God" He sent!12 How easy to love someone who so singularly loves us!
Of course the centuries-long drift away from belief in such a perfect and caring Father hasn't been helped any by the man-made creeds of erring generations which describe God variously as unknown and unknowable—formless, passionless, elusive, ethereal, simultaneously everywhere and nowhere at all. Certainly that does not describe the Being we behold through the eyes of these prophets. Nor does it match the living, breathing, embodied Jesus of Nazareth who was and is in "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his [Father]."13
In that sense Jesus did not come to improve God's view of man nearly so much as He came to improve man's view of God and to plead with them to love their Heavenly Father as He has always and will always love them. The plan of God, the power of God, the holiness of God, yes, even the anger and the judgment of God they had occasion to understand. But the love of God, the profound depth of His devotion to His children, they still did not fully know—until Christ came.
So feeding the hungry, healing the sick, rebuking hypocrisy, pleading for faith—this was Christ showing us the way of the Father, He who is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering and full of goodness."14 In His life and especially in His death, Christ was declaring, "This is God's compassion I am showing you, as well as that of my own." In the perfect Son's manifestation of the perfect Father's care, in Their mutual suffering and shared sorrow for the sins and heartaches of the rest of us, we see ultimate meaning in the declaration: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."15
I bear personal witness this day of a personal, living God, who knows our names, hears and answers prayers, and cherishes us eternally as children of His spirit. I testify that amidst the wondrously complex tasks inherent in the universe, He seeks our individual happiness and safety above all other godly concerns. We are created in His very image and likeness,16 and Jesus of Nazareth, His Only Begotten Son in the flesh, came to earth as the perfect mortal manifestation of His grandeur. In addition to the witness of the ancients we also have the modern miracle of Palmyra, the appearance of God the Father and His Beloved Son, the Savior of the world, to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. I testify of that appearance, and in the words of that prophet I, too, declare: "Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive. . . . God does not look on sin with [the least degree of] allowance, but . . . the nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs."17
I bear witness of a God who has such shoulders. And in the spirit of the holy apostleship, I say as did one who held this office anciently: "Herein [then] is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another"18—and to love Him forever, I pray. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.
NOTES
1. Mark 12:29–30; see also Matthew 22:37–38; Deuteronomy 6:5.
2. History of the Church, 6:305.
3. Lectures on Faith (1985), 38, 42.
4. Articles of Faith 1:1.
5. John 17:3.
6. John 14:10; 5:19.
7. John 8:38, 28; 6:38.
8. See William Barclay, The Mind of Jesus (1961), especially the chapter "Looking at the Cross" for a discussion of this modern tendency.
9. For example, 1 Nephi 10:18; 2 Nephi 27:23; Moroni 10:19; D&C 20:12.
10. Moses 7:29–33, 37.
11. Jacob 5:41; see also vv. 47, 49.
12. Romans 1:1.
13. Hebrews 1:3; see also 2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15.
14. Lectures on Faith, 42.
15. John 3:16–17.
16. See Genesis 1:26–27; Moses 2:26–27.
17. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 257, 240–41.
18. 1 John 4:10.
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