Church Services This Week at Ridge Crest Ward Northridge Stake Layton Utah 17 August 2014

Elders Quorum

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph fielding Smith chapter 17 - Sealing Power and Temple Blessings

Malachi 4:5-6

 5 ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

“May I remind you that when we dedicate a house to the Lord, what we really do is dedicate ourselves to the Lord’s service, with a covenant that we shall use the house in the way he intends that it shall be used.” (Joseph Fielding Smith,  “Ogden Temple Dedicatory Prayer,” Ensign, Mar. 1972, 6)

Authority

An ice cream truck could never pull you over and give you a speeding ticket because it has no authority to do so.   An ice cream truck had many good things about it,  but it will never be a police vehicle without that authority.

A church must have the Lord's authority to be able to be more than just another church.

You Can’t Be Perfect In An Instant

We are all in different places in life.   Start where we are and do as much as we can until our capacity is increased by the Lord as we work.

Sunday School

Old Testament Lesson 30

We should not trifle with sacred things.   We should not treat lightly the Temple or the scriptures or other sacred things.

Sacrament Service

A missionary recently called to serve in Taiwan spoke to us.

Having faith in God is like acting because we know wind or air is there even though we can not see it,  but we can see and feel its influence.

James 2:18-20

18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

"Day after day, on your path toward your eternal destiny, increase your faith. Proclaim your faith! Let your faith show " (Russell M Nelson

Everything in the book of Mormon points to christ.

Stake theme for the month:

"I will attend the Ogden Temple open house and invite others to go with me."

Fireside

Michael W Allred some to us.   He is the author of "You Might Be A Mormon If... "

A couple of youth shared experiences from a youth conference they had at Bear Lake.

Satan often can't get us to do bad things, so he will distract us with things that aren't necessarily bad,  but that keep us from paying attention to more important things.

A small amount of light can guide us through darkness.   The light of Christ even in a small portion can help us know the way.

Brother Allred's talk

When he was on his mission in Japan Gordon B Hinckley told the people there that, "The blood of Lehi runs through you."

Study journals can be helpful.

When we get inspiration it is as sacred as a patriarchal blessing,  so we should write it down.

2 Timothy  2:1-3

1 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

He mentioned scriptures.byu.edu which is an index of the scriptures and where they have been referenced in general authority talks.

A prophet's job is not just to receive revelation, his job is also to teach you to receive your own revelation.

Nephi called himself a wretched man because he was angry because his brothers tried to kill him. He had let Satan take his peace away because of what was in his heart.

Just because people are popular doesn't mean they are well liked. There is a difference between well known and we'll liked.

If you haven't partaken of good food and are enjoying it, how will you get others to eat it.

Sunday May 11, 2008 - Services Sullivan Hollow Second Ward

Mother's Day
Priesthood Opening
Ether 3:25-26
25 And when the Lord had said these words, he ^ashowed unto the brother of Jared ^ball the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he ^cwithheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth.

26 For he had said unto him in times before, that ^aif he would ^bbelieve in him that he could show unto him ^call things—it should be shown unto him; therefore the Lord could not withhold anything from him, for he knew that the Lord could show him all things.

Elders' Quorum
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith - Chapter 8: The Everlasting Priesthood pp. 101–13
Luke 9
28 And it came to pass about an ^aeight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a ^bmountain to ^cpray.

Moses and Elijah were conferring priesthood keys on Peter, James, and John.

The teacher quoted from an April 1983 Ensign article I Have a Question pp 21-23 - The question that was ask was "Who appeared to Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration? What was the purpose of their appearance?"

On the mount Heavenly Father spoke out of a cloud “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” We do not hear much from Heavenly Father in the scriptures. Mostly He just testifies of His Son and confirms that He is the one we are to listen to. In the Old Testament Jehovah did the speaking. Jehovah was the premortal Christ.

The Ensign article noted that John the Baptist was on the mount with them. No one seems to know why since Peter, James, and John already had the Melchizedek priesthood, which encompasses the Aaronic priesthood to which John held the keys.

They referred us to the Bible Dictionary entry on Elias that describes the different uses of the name/title.

Melchizedek Priesthood gives the ability to:
-Bestow the HG
-Baptize - because it encompasses the Aaronic priesthood
-Administer in the temple - sealings and so forth
-give blessings of healing and/or comfort
-Patriarical blessings - scripture specific to our individual life.

Sunday School
Book of Mormon - Lesson 17: “A Seer … Becometh a Great Benefit to His Fellow Beings” p.75

Zeniff - King Noah's Father
Limhi - King Noah's son and Zeniff's grandson

Sacrament Meeting
There were two youth speakers that talked about things their moms have taught them.

3rd Speaker
Mothers should show examples of Christ to their children. They will follow them and if they follow Christ, their children will follow Christ.
3 nephi 27
21 Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my ^agospel; and ye know the things that ye must ^bdo in my church; for the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do;

If children see their moms read their scriptures the children will learn to go to the scriptures and learn a love for them.
D&C 88: 118
"And as all have not ^afaith, seek ye diligently and ^bteach one another words of ^cwisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best ^dbooks words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith."

They referenced some things from President Monson's talk “Behold Thy Mother” referenced in the April 1998 Ensign.

4th Speaker
Every mother who has a testimony can have a profound effect upon their children. He cited Julie Beck's conference talk "Mothers Who Know"

Eph. 5: 25
25 ^aHusbands, ^blove your ^cwives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

5th Speaker
The bishop spoke briefly. He spoke of the blessing of the restoration of the gospel and the inspiration of the holy ghost.

He also talked a bit about his mother. He said that she taught him everything he needed to know except the gospel. She taught him standards. She talked about their family good name because of their standards and how they were respected by everyone in the community.

Sunday March 30, 2008 - Services South Ogden Sixth Ward

Joint Relief Society/Priesthood Meeting
The pews in this chapel were huge. Even the pews on the sides were full sized pews. Every ward I have been in that I can recall had little pews on the side that would barely hold a small family. Generally smaller families would sit in them or single people.

1st Speaker
To help us be one Christ organized His Church.

To help us be one Christ set up authority. Matt. 16: 19 - And I will ^agive unto thee the ^bkeys of the ^ckingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt ^dbind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The people went to Peter to get a "ruling" on circumcision.

The apostles died and the rulers of Rome took over the Church. Through the reformation people tried to bring back the

D&C 132: 8 - Behold, mine house is a house of ^aorder, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion.

2nd Speaker
-Heber J. Grant set up the Church's welfare plan.

The speaker talked a bit of prayer and cited some scriptures.

Matt. 6: 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy ^acloset, and when thou hast ^bshut thy door, ^cpray to thy Father which is in ^dsecret; and thy Father which ^eseeth in secret shall ^freward thee openly.

D&C 109: 8, 16

8 Organize yourselves; ^aprepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a ^bhouse of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of ^corder, a ^dhouse of God;

• • •

16 And that this house may be a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of glory and of God, even thy house;

He also quoted some from Mark Twain's Huck Finn, "It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It weren’t no use to try and hide it from Him … I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I weren’t square: it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing. But deep down in me, I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. YOU CAN’T PRAY A LIE … I found that out."

The bishop was the last speaker.
He talked about the challenges we have in our homes. One he mentioned was self control. He stated that as we keep our covenants we will find peace and joy.

"The opposite of fear is faith."

Sunday School
As we looked for the Gospel Doctrine class we were told they had two of them since the class was so big. That was something I had never seen in a ward. One was in the Relief Society room and one was in one of the seminary class rooms. Both of these were interesting to me.

Let's start with the seminary class rooms. Where I am from seminary is held early in the morning before school. I knew they has seminary as a part of school generally in Utah, but I hadn't expected that there was enough students in one building that they would need two class rooms. Ours are also either held in the teachers home or in a small classroom in the church with folding tables that they take down at the end of class. These classrooms were large rooms and they had actual school desks that stayed set up all the time.

The Relief Society room was the size of a small cultural hall. It had three doors and a folding divider in the middle. My experience with Relief Society rooms are that they are generally a small corner of the building, just a little bit bigger than a large classroom. Our RS room is not big enough for our gospel doctrine class. Their classes combined appeared to be twice the size of ours.

All right enough tourist commentary. Let's get to the lesson notes.

Book of Mormon Lesson 12: “Seek Ye for the Kingdom of God” p51

D&C 107: 99 - Wherefore, now let every man learn his ^aduty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all ^bdiligence.

D&C 58: 27 - Verily I say, men should be ^aanxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

Thoughts precede actions. One will more often give into temptations that they have been thinking about than temptations that we do impulsively. One's mind is a buffet and we are what we eat.

Thoughts that could affect us adversely could be negative self thoughts as well as temptations.

Sacrament Meeting
It was very loud in the meeting. It could've just been kids, but I'm not sure. Just seem a lot louder than my ward in Indiana.

The bishop announced a baptism that was coming up. It sounded like the missionaries would be bringing more than one person. It sounded like perhaps they would be bringing anyone who was ready by that date and it was not because there was one person that was ready for baptism. It kind of makes more sense about the way we were taught in the Missionary Training Center (MTC). The instructors always said, in giving us examples on how to invite someone to be baptized, "We are holding a baptism on ____..." Back home and even in my mission I only ever saw baptisms help for just one person or a family. Where their are more children being baptised you probably just schedule a baptism service for a certain day during the month and everyone just goes that day. Although when my oldest son was baptized there was talk that we might have to double up with another child's baptism if they were going to be baptized in the same month.

1st Speaker
She talked about preparing ourselves for conference and being ready to receive message for our lives and not just endure it. She said that when she was a kid they called it pajama church, since they got up, had breakfast, and turned on the TV and sat around and watched conference in their pajamas. Now more commentary on this from a "tourists" perspective. The day is usually well on its way by the time conference comes on in Indiana and when I was a kid you had to go to church to watch. Fortunately in the last few years the Church has had it on the internet. Generally all we have been able to get is audio, but the video stream gets more reliable each time.

She pointed out that God speaks to our leaders to teach them how to lead the entire church. We can listen to them to learn how to hear God to lead our own lives.

She said that we should not just say, "That was a great talk." We should apply each talk to our lives. Don't just turn on the TV and watch, but prepare in advance. Think during the week about your challenges and pray that you might be strengthened and inspired. Perhaps go to conference with a specific question you need answered. She talked about a couple that had ben raised differently. In the husband's home as a child the mother took care of the dishes. If the wife's home both had pitched in to get it done. They joked that they would take th question to conference. One of the speakers stated that men needed to help their wives around the house.

She quoted President Hinckley, "I will be a better man if I listen and apply these things to my life."

She recommended that we get to know our new prophet.

She noted that people, like her, that live in Utah should be grateful that they can turn ont heir TVs and watch conference. She said that not everyone in the world has that opportunity.

She said something about having gone to a marrieds ward. That was new to me. I have heard of singles wards and we have those in Indiana. I even saw as I was preparing to travel to Utah that there was a retireds ward. I guess I kind of understand the singles ward thing as it is important for singles to interact with other single people of their faith, but the retireds and marrieds wards concept is a little bit harder for me to get my head around why that would be important. Those groups do have unique needs and maybe it makes the congregation stronger having that commonality together.

After she spoke a lady played the chelo for us.

2nd Speaker
He said that he pondered what made up a good talk. He said that generally talks started either with a joke or a lie. He said, "I couldn't think of a joke, so I'm glad to speak to you today."

He talked about serving his mission in Norway. He said it is eight hours ahead of Salt Lake City, so the 12:00pm session of conference came at 8pm for him out there.

I was a little bit surprised at all the talk of how the rest of the world has things different than Utah. I guess some folks there notice the differences as they went other places as much as what I was noticing in coming to Utah.

He said that he likes snowmobiling and he just recovered from an accident where a guy in front of him had set off an avalanche and he got stuck in it. We have a lot of snowmobiling in Indiana, even though I have never done it, but one thing we never here about is an accident that was caused by someone setting off an avalanche.

The speaker noted that he wants to do better at forgiving.

Matt. 6: 14-15

14 For if ye ^aforgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye ^aforgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Moroni 10:32-33

32 Yea, ^acome unto Christ, and be ^bperfected in him, and ^cdeny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and ^dlove God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be ^eperfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye ^asanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the ^bblood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your ^csins, that ye become ^dholy, without spot.

He said that he has a testimony of paying tithing. He said that money has been tigh now that he has a wife, but they have continued to pay their tithing. He said that he has been surprised at how money has come in from places he would've never thought of.

Robert L. Millet - BYU Sperry Symposium 10-28-2006

An address given at the BYU Sperry Symposium on How the New Testament Came to Be.

Robert L. Millet - Department of Ancient Scripture - BYU
The Closed Canon: Blessings, Challenges, and Prospects
He talked of a canon of scripture being authoritative and books are included because they are deemed authoritative. There was a lot of discussion about books to be included in the Bible. There was a lot of Christian writings at the time, but they tried to determine which were authoritative.

Luke 24: 44-45
44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be ^afulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

45 Then opened he their ^aunderstanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

Jesus continued to teach His people from the Law of Moses, the words of the prophets, and other sacred writings. Those records testified of him to and it was of continued importance that the people learn and understand those scriptures too.

He described some of the history of how we got the Bible in the form we have it today. There was much debate of the the books to be included Old Testament and even the entire Old Testament itself. There were also disputes over what to include in the New Testament. There was also much that was removed and attempted to be removed that didn't match what some people wanted to believe. For example Martin Luther not like the Epistle of James because it talked so much about the need for works.

Some books were removed from the canon because they were not in narrative form. They didn't tell a story. They were trying to make Christianity more palatable to the rest of the world.

Professor N.T. Wright, a bishop in the Church of England stated, "The canonization of scripture, both Jewish and Christian, was no doubt complicated by all kinds of less than perfect human motivations."

Some writers in the early Church add titillation to their writings to make them more palatable to non Christians often taking liberties with the doctrines. The canonized books of the Bible helped keep some of that in check.

On the other hand too much reliance on the canon can shut off people to being open to further instruction from God. It can also lead to complacency if a point of doctrine is not dealt with directly in the Bible some may assume that God doesn't care how we deal with it. It can border on scripture worship.

Scripture points away from itself and toward God and delegated to Christ.

One Protestant scholar has inquired tellingly into the erroneous doctrine of a closed canon. He writes: “On what biblical or historical grounds has the inspiration of God been limited to the written documents that the church now calls its Bible? . . . If the Spirit inspired only the written documents of the first century, does that mean that the same Spirit does not speak today in the church about matters that are of significant concern?”(Lee M. McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon, rev. ed. (1995), 255–56.)

Who authorized the canon to be closed?

2 Nephi 28:26-31
26 Yea, wo be unto him that ^ahearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost!

27 Yea, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we ^aneed no more!

28 And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are ^aangry because of ^bthe truth of God! For behold, he that is built upon the ^crock ^dreceiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall.

29 Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we ^aneed ^bno more of the word of God, for we have enough!

30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon ^aprecept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn ^bwisdom; for unto him that ^creceiveth I will give ^dmore; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

31 Cursed is he that putteth his ^atrust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the ^bprecepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Didn't the apostles in New Testament times declare that the canon was no more closed .

The Bible is a wonderful tool in the hand of God, but horrible when used as a weapon.

We do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, but we do believe that what we have today is what God intended for us to have.

Before we can write the Gospel in our own book of life we must learn the Gospel as it is in the books of scripture. - Bruce R. McKonkie 1982

We read the Bible through the lenses of restoration scriptures. Christians have been likewise taught to read the Old Testament through the lenses of the New Testament. They would probably rather read the book of John or other writings of the apostles than the book of Leviticus they nonetheless confess a love for the entire Bible. The same is true for Latter-day Saints. We would most like modern scripture, but we love all scripture.