Church Services This Week at Sullivan Hollow Second Ward Weber Heights Stake Ogden Utah 2-7-10

John 3:16

  16 ¶ For ^aGod so ^bloved the ^cworld, that he ^dgave his ^eonly begotten ^fSon, that whosoever ^gbelieveth in him should not perish, but have^heverlasting ⁱlife.

Elders' Quorum
I gave a lesson today. It was based on Elder Dallin H Oaks' October 2009 conference talk, Love and Law.
"The love of God does not supersede His laws and His commandments, and the effect of God’s laws and commandments does not diminish the purpose and effect of His love."

Some feel that accepting Jesus by a single prayer or voice confession is enough to supersede God's law with God's love.

I was listening to a country song I hadn't heard in a while (A Father's Love by George Strait) the other day and it seemed to take the above notion a step farther.  The song tells about a boy doing something bad and waiting to get his punishment from his father.  The father then comes in and tells him that father's love their kids no mater what.  After the boy grows has a son, his boy gets in trouble too.  He then tells him that father's love their kids no matter what.  Later he has a dream that he was outside the pearly gates.  He is confused because he has done things he is not proud of.  He then hears a voice telling him that father love their children no matter what.  The implication being that no matter what he did God loved him and was going to let him into Heaven.

The sentiment that father's love their kids no matter what is sweet and true, but let's not get the idea that God's love let's us off when we are deliberately disobedient and unrepentant.  

Matthew 7:21

  21 ¶ Not every one that ^asaith unto me, ^bLord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that ^cdoeth the ^dwill of my Father which is in^eheaven.

"... the kingdom of glory to which the Final Judgment assigns us is not determined by love but by the law that God has invoked in His plan to qualify us for eternal life..." - Elder Oaks

Hebrew 12:6

6 For whom the Lord loveth he ^achasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

"Real love does not support self-destructing behavior" (Russell M. Nelson, “Teach Us Tolerance and Love,” Ensign, May 1994, 71)

Sunday School
One the teacher handed out a list of 15 scriptures and quotes.  I have included the list below.

1. Moses 8.20-22

2. Moses 8.23-24

3. Hebrew1 1:7

4. President Ezra Taft Benson said, "The revelation to produce and store food maybe as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah"( in Conference Report, Oct.1987, 61; or Ensign, Nov.1987,49)

5. Elder W. Don Ladd taught: "When it starts raining it is too late to begin building the ark...We...need to listen to the Lord's spokesmen.  We need to calmly continue to move ahead and prepare for what will surely come.  We need not panic or fear, for if we are prepared, sp iritually and temporally, we and our families will survive any flood.  Our arks will float on a sea of faith if our works have been steadily and surely preparing for the future"( in Conference Report, Oct. 1994, 37; or Ensign, Nov.1 994, 29).

6. President Spencer W. Kimball explained  that when Noah built the ark, "there was no evidence of rain and flood...His warnings were considered irrational. .. How foolish to build an ark on dry ground with the sun shining and life moving forward as usual!  But time ran out. The ark was finished.  The floods came.  The disobedient and rebellious were drowned.  The miracle of the ark followed the faith manifested in its building"(Faith Precedes the Miracle [1972], 5-6).

7. Genesis7 .23

8. Genesis8 :8

9. Genesis8 :9-11

10. Genesis8 :12

11. Genesis8 .20

12. Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 9 :4

13. Genesis1 1.4

14. Mosiah1 8:8-10

15. Genesis1 1:5-9

We are sometimes considered foolish, paranoid, or weird for food storage much like people thought of Noah.

From the Bulletin:

Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of manl-blessed (happy, fotunate, and enviable) is he. (Proverbs 29:18 )

We have chosen, as a ward, to seek and achieve lofty goals in 2010.  All goals are well within (!!) our reach as we:

• obey God with exactness and consistency;
• unswervingly "do the basics;"
• eagerly serve and forgive one another;
• think, talk and act as if Jesus were at our sides.

Nothing is impossible to God and us, His servants, as (1) we have a vision, (2) pray like everything rests on Him, and (3) work like everything rest on us. We SHALL succeed.

We each OWN a piece of the success process.

Let us press on in such a worthy cause.