First Act of Christ

The last thing that Christ did in his time on the earth was to die and become the Savior of the world.  But Christ helped people all through his life, and it seems as all too often we overlook the events of the Book of Mormon at Christmas time, yet one of the greatest of His miracles occurred there.  The first thing that Christ did was to save thousands of faithful Nephites from being killed.  3 Nephi 1:5-16 relates the story.  "But there were some who began to say that the time was past for the words to be fulfilled, which were spoken by Samuel, the Lamanite.  And they began to rejoice over their brethren, saying: Behold the time is past, and the words of Samuel are not fulfilled; therefore, your joy and your faith concerning this thing hath been vain.  And it came to pass that they did make a great uproar throughout the land; and the people who believed began to be very sorrowful, lest by any means those things which had been spoken might not come to pass.  But behold, they did watch steadfastly for that day and that night and that day which should be as one day as if there were no night, that they might know that their faith had not been vain.  Now it came to pass that there was a day set apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed in those traditions should be put to death except the sign should come to pass, which had been given by Samuel the prophet.  Now it came to pass that when Nephi, the son of Nephi, saw this wickedness of his people, his heart was exceedingly sorrowful. 

And it came to pass that he went out and bowed himself down upon the earth, and cried mightily to his God in behalf of his people, yea, those who were about to be destroyed because of their faith in the tradition of their fathers.  And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord all that day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying:

'Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets. Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both of the Father and of the Son—of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given.'

And it came to pass that the words which came unto Nephi were fulfilled, according as they had been spoken; for behold, at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; and the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came.  And there were many, who had not believed the words of the prophets, who fell to the earth and became as if they were dead, for they knew that the great plan of destruction which they had laid for those who believed in the words of the prophets had been frustrated; for the sign which had been given was already at hand."

Look Up pt. 2

Numbers 21:6-9 says, "And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.  Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."  Look up!

Titanic Failure

The Titanic was one of the most colossal failures in human history.  The largest passenger liner that had ever been built, the Titanic was touted as "Unsinkable".  Yet it sank, just four days into its maiden voyage.   What can be learned of economics from the demise of the Titanic?  The failure of the Titanic demonstrates that nothing is ever too big to fail.  

Nothing is too big to fail.  A bubble or boom that grows too large is going to crash.  It is going to crash hard, but it is going to crash eventually.  The only thing that we can change is how long it takes.  It can go quickly and be over with, or it can take a long and dramatic plunge, dragging out the crash over long periods of time.  The Titanic failed epically, but it failed, sunk, and people moved on.  While it was a while before people attempted something like that again, they did.  Ships today dwarf the Titanic, they are now more than one and a half times as long and more then twelve times the tonnage.  While the sinking of the Titanic was a temporary set back, it did not stunt long term growth.  Though things may seem bleak now, the future holds the promise of a brighter tomorrow.  

Blessings of a Mission

In the October 1995 General Conference Priesthood Session,  President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "I had been interviewed by a representative of the BBC Radio Worldwide Service. He had seen the missionaries and noted their youthful appearance. He asked me, "How do you expect people to listen to these callow youth?"

In case some of you do not know the meaning of callow, it means immature, inexperienced, lacking sophistication.

I replied to the reporter with a smile, "Callow youth? It is with these missionaries today as it was with Timothy in the days of Paul. It was Paul who wrote to his young companion, saying, 'Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity' (1 Tim. 4:12).

"The remarkable thing is that people do receive them and listen to them. They are wholesome. They are bright, they are alert, they are upstanding. They are clean looking, and people quickly develop confidence in them."

"Callow youth?" Yes, they are lacking in sophistication. What a great blessing this is. They carry no element of deception. They speak with no element of sophistry. They speak out of their hearts, with personal conviction. Each is a servant of the living God, an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their power comes not of their learning in the things of the world. Their power comes of faith, and prayer, and humility. As we have been reminded, the work is not easy. It has never been easy. Long ago Jeremiah said that the Lord would gather His people one of a city and two of a family and bring them to Zion and feed them with pastors after His own heart (see Jer. 3:14–15). In terms of the individual missionary, the harvest is not great in most instances, but in the aggregate it becomes tremendous. The work demands courage, it demands effort, it demands dedication, it demands the humility to get on one's knees and ask the Lord for help and direction.

I throw out a challenge to every young man within this vast congregation tonight. Prepare yourself now to be worthy to serve the Lord as a full-time missionary. He has said, "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" (D&C 38:30). Prepare to consecrate two years of your lives to this sacred service. That will in effect constitute a tithe on the first twenty years of your lives. Think of all that you have that is good—life itself, health, strength, food to eat and clothing to wear, parents, brothers and sisters, and friends. All are gifts from the Lord." Of Missions, Temples and Stewardship October 1995.

Run!

Genesis 39 tells us the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife.  Elder Hartman Rector, Jr. in the January 1973 Ensign, said, "Joseph did the very best thing he could do under the circumstances.  The scripture records, "... he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and or him out."  Or, in today's language, he ran.  Maybe it doesn't sound like a very sophisticated thing to do... Yet Joseph ran, and because he did, he was temporarily placed in prison, where he was shut out from society, but if he had not run, he would have been shut out from God perhaps forever, because he would not have been in condition to receive the necessary communications that made him the great prophet that he was." (Live above the Law to Be Free)  In Matthew 4:10 Christ says, "Get thee hence, Satan."  If you were to change this around, and speak to your self, it might be something like, "Get thee hence from Satan."  By our own actions we can get Satan out of our vicinity, even if we have to move ourselves away, leaving Satan behind.  In Galatians 5:7, Paul makes the statement, "Ye did well to run", but then poses the question, "Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?"  We are the only ones who can stop ourselves from running from Satan - running to Christ.

Intent

"How can we escape that nihilism that attends total attachment to the things of this world, and rejoice in goods of first intent without trespassing on religion, and how can we go that far without jeopardizing our religious freedom? The best education of the past has found an easy solution to that one, and it is to study whatever you study with real intent, Aristotle's spoudaiotes, "high seriousness." If you approach any study in a spirit of high seriousness, if you take it as a thing of first intent, your study, whether of science, literature, art, or philosophy, is necessarily a spiritual and a devout study." - Hugh Nibley Goods of First and Second Intent

Sacrifice Oratory

This is the text of my oratory on sacrifice:
Beginning in the book of Genesis and continuing throughout the old testament, God commanded his people to sacrifice.  Followers of God's command sacrificed the first of their flocks of fields - those things of greatest material worth.  The patriarch Abraham was even commanded sacrifice his son. 

In the Americas, the Aztecs and Incas sacrificed prisoners of war. Jews make burnt offerings. Muslims perform dahiba. Christians believe in the sacrifice of Christ.  Hindus perform yagya.  Fossil records even show evidence of animal sacrifice.  There is a ubiquitous presence of sacrifice across the world and throughout human history.  The reason for all this sacrifice?  Sacrifice defines value. 

Allow me to explain.  The famous English scholar William Tyndale lived for years in hiding, running from authorities, while translating the bible into English.  After he was captured and imprisoned for two years, he was declared a heretic. In 1536 he was burned at the stake.  Before he died, he cried out "Lord, open the king of England's eyes!"  He valued an English translation of the Bible more then his life.  Because of the great value he placed on the translation, other people saw its worth. A short four years after Tyndale's martyrdom, four translations of the bible were published in England. 

A more modern example is found in India.  A strict caste system, though outlawed in 1950, segregated the population there for nearly three thousand years, and is still a fundamental part of Indian society.  Narayanan Krishnan is a Brahman, a member of the highest caste. He was working as a chef in a five star hotel with plans to travel to Europe to work, when, in 2002, he visited his family in his home town. There he saw a starving man, an untouchable, lower than the lowest caste, eating human waste.  Shocked, Krishnan fed the man.  

He gave up his job at the hotel, and now works full time feeding the homeless and hungry in India. These people are considered worthless by many in India, yet Krishnan was willing to sacrifice his time and his career to serve them, demonstrating how valuable these people are to him. 

The value of an item, idea, or person is only as great as those ideas or things sacrificed for them.  Because sacrifice defines the value of ideals, looking at how a society applies the principle of sacrifice presents an image of what is valued. Unfortunately, this picture shows a disconcerting lack of worthy ideals in America.

God, Family, and Country have long been considered the three ideals of greatest worth, and have only recently been widely challenged.  We see the rising value of independence and individuality in the declining value of God, Family and Country.

A search for religious freedom motivated early American settlers to sail across the Atlantic ocean.  Thousands of people of a variety of religions came, and became the founders of America.  America was founded upon the concept of religion, but this value is fading in American society today.  According to Gallup, the number of American citizens who do not identify with any religion is 6 times as high as it was 50 years ago. 

 This is frightening.  Religion is losing value - to other, less worthy pursuits.  Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son because God commanded it. Yet people today are sacrificing their God on the alters of work, pride, or pleasure.  Organized religion requires attendance, service, and prayer, not to mention tithes and offerings.  The rise of "New Age", or "Unorganized" religions show the unwillingness of people to make these sacrifices.  Many people will tell you that God is the most important thing in their lives, even more than family. But this number is declining, as is the number of people who value family.

Most people have distinctive memories of their family, smells, quirks, traditions.  Perhaps the memories are fond, of waking up on Christmas morning, of traditional decorating, of lighting candles, or stringing popcorn.  The family provides a shelter where children can grow and learn about the world before they are on their own.

A family is founded upon the relationship between a husband and wife.  The more a husband is willing to sacrifice for his wife, the more he values her, and, if the wife values her husband as well, they have a successful marriage.  It is no coincidence that many marriages occur at an alter.   Once the couple begins to have children, they can apply this sacrificial principle to them as well. The more sacrifices that parents make for their children, the more they will value, or love them.  It is far more difficult to fall away from or grow tired of those people who are loved most.

Divorce arises out of an unwillingness to sacrifice for each other. By looking at divorce in our society today, we can how highly people value their marriage.  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, of the 2,000,000 couples who married in 2009, about half of them will divorce, finding something more desirable than their families.

As reported by the New York Times, a 2009 study performed by Professor Jeffery Dew at Utah State University found that couples who disagreed about finances once a week were over 30 percent more likely to get divorced than couples who disagreed only a few times a month.  The family is being sacrificed on the alter of money.  As the fundamental unit of society falls apart, people become disinterested in the larger institutions of society.  This trend is present in the unimpressive amount of participation in our political system.  

In 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 71% of the eligible population was even registered to vote, and that only 65% of the eligible population actually voted in the presidential election. In our society, the ability to vote for the president is not really considered worthy of the effort. Families and marriage are looked down upon as requiring too much work, too much sacrifice to keep. God is considered a waste of time. 

This depraved image of our society is disheartening. It is unacceptable for humanity to continue without understanding their priorities. The things we sacrifice are not as valuable to us as the things we sacrifice them for! Yet the most worthy things in the world are continually sacrificed. 

It is time to change. It is time for everyone to look at their lives, and ask themselves what they are sacrificing to get where they want to go. Priorities must be examined! If found to be lacking, or out of order, our priorities must be changed.  God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, so that Abraham would learn that he valued his God more than anything else in the world. In the same way, we can sacrifice appropriately to change our values. Sacrifice bestows the value of the offering upon its alter.  

A close examination of your life will reveal actions motivated by values that do not align with what you believe.  By sacrificing these actions, you can change these values.  Lay your time on the alter of your Country, your pride on the alter of your Family, and lay your life on the alter of your God!