John 11:25
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
Sacrament Service
First Speaker
Christ’s entire life was built to provide the atonement.
“Christ's agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as to intensity and cause. The thought that he suffered through fear of death is untenable. Death to Him was preliminary to resurrection and triumphal return to the Father from whom He had come, and to a state of glory even beyond what He had before possessed; and, moreover, it was within His power to lay down His life voluntarily. He struggled and groaned under a burden such as no other being who has lived on earth might even conceive as possible. It was not a physical pain, nor mental anguish alone, that caused Him to suffer such torture as to produce an extrusion of blood from every pore; but a spiritual agony of soul such as only God was capable of experiencing. No other man, however great his powers of physical or mental endurance, could have suffered so; for his human organism would have succumbed, and syncope would have produced unconsciousness and welcome oblivion. In that hour of anguish Christ met and overcame all the horrors that Satan, "the prince of this world" could inflict...
In some manner, actual and terribly real though to man incomprehensible, the Savior took upon Himself the burden of the sins of mankind from Adam to the end of the world…”
“...The further tragedy of the night, and the cruel inflictions that awaited Him on the morrow, to culminate in the frightful tortures of the cross, could not exceed the bitter anguish through which he had successfully passed.” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 3rd ed. [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1916], pp. 613-14)
Whenever we have a bad day or bad emotion, he has felt that exact emotion.
Crucifixion was designed to be as painful and uncomfortable as possible.
Isaiah 1:18
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
“As I pondered the history of Dresden and marveled at the ingenuity and resolve of those who restored what had been so completely destroyed, I felt the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit. Surely, I thought, if man can take the ruins, rubble, and remains of a broken city and rebuild an awe-inspiring structure that rises toward the heavens, how much more capable is our Almighty Father to restore His children who have fallen, struggled, or become lost?” (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “He Will Place You on His Shoulders and Carry You Home”, April 2016 General Conference)
Second Speaker
“Those totally committed to Christ will come forth in the first resurrection.”
Sunday School
The Law of Consecration
Edward Partridge at first turned away early LDS missionaries as impostors. He later became the first bishop of the Church.
Consecrate means to set aside for a specific use. Once it is consecrated, you give up the right to direct it.
Doctrine and Covenants 42:30–31
30 And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support that which thou hast to impart unto them, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken.
31 And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me; and they shall be laid before the bishop of my church and his counselors, two of the elders, or high priests, such as he shall appoint or has appointed and set apart for that purpose.
The law of consecration is about the words “all” and “love”.
Doctrine and Covenants 59:5
5 Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment, saying thus: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him.
“Those who do not see their weaknesses do not progress. Your awareness of your weakness is a blessing as it helps you remain humble and keeps you turning to the Savior. The Spirit not only comforts you, but He is also the agent by which the Atonement works a change in your very nature. Then weak things become strong.” (President Henry B. Eyring, “My Peace I Leave with You”, April 2017 General Conference)
Elders Quorum
My lesson chapter 8
From the second paragraph under From the Life of Gordon B Hinckley till the end of that section
“We recently held an open house in the [Mesa] Arizona Temple. Following a complete renovation of that building, nearly a quarter of a million people saw its beautiful interior. On the first day of the opening, clergymen of other religions were invited as special guests, and hundreds responded. It was my privilege to speak to them and to answer their questions at the conclusion of their tours. I told them that we would be pleased to answer any queries they might have. Many were asked. Among these was one which came from a Protestant minister.
“Said he: ‘I’ve been all through this building, this temple which carries on its face the name of Jesus Christ, but nowhere have I seen any representation of the cross, the symbol of Christianity. I have noted your buildings elsewhere and likewise find an absence of the cross. Why is this when you say you believe in Jesus Christ?’
“I responded: ‘I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian brethren who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ.’
“He then asked: ‘If you do not use the cross, what is the symbol of your religion?’
“I replied that the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship. . . .
“. . . No sign, no work of art, no representation of form is adequate to express the glory and the wonder of the Living Christ. He told us what that symbol should be when he said, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments.’ (John 14:15.)
“As his followers, we cannot do a mean or shoddy or ungracious thing without tarnishing his image. Nor can we do a good and gracious and generous act without burnishing more brightly the symbol of him whose name we have taken upon ourselves.
“And so our lives must become a meaningful expression, the symbol of our declaration of our testimony of the Living Christ, the Eternal Son of the Living God. “It is that simple, my brethren and sisters, and that profound and we’d better never forget it.”
When I was on my mission we were teaching a lady. One day we were in the chapel with her and she asked about why there were no crosses. I asked her to think about what symbol churches would use to represent the Savior if he had been killed by hanging or beheading or by being shot.
This talks about tactics against Christ and his mission. It says:
“[Jesus] fasted for 40 days and was tempted of the devil, who sought to take Him from His divinely appointed mission. To the adversary’s invitation, He responded, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God’ (Matt. 4:7), again declaring His divine sonship.”
We are not sons of God in the same way Jesus is The Son of God, but we are sons of God. Thinking of Christ’s temptations, does Satan use the same temptations on us to attempt to take us away from our divine mission?
Let’s read Matthew 4:1-11, thinking about the ways Satan has come at you to tempt you. Think about the things that you would have been sacrificing if you caved to that temptation.
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
When you have declined to take Satan’s bait, have you ever felt Satan leave and angels minister unto you?
Would someone read the first two paragraphs in section 2 on Page 133?
“There is a . . . battle being waged for the faith of men, but the lines are not always . . . clearly drawn, for even among the forces of Christianity there are those who would destroy the divinity of the Christ in whose name they speak. They might be disregarded if their voices were not so seductive, if their influence were not so far-reaching, if their reason were not so subtle.
“. . . Multitudes will gather on a thousand hills to welcome the dawn of the Easter day and to remind themselves of the story of the Christ, whose resurrection they will commemorate. In language both beautiful and hopeful, preachers of many faiths will recount the story of the empty tomb. To them—and to you—I raise this question: ‘Do you actually believe it?’”
They will recount the story of the empty tomb. We live in a day of rich stories of superheroes that heal and don't die, and of zombies and vampires that come back from the dead.
Is Christ's resurrection just another story? Is the promise of our own resurrection to immortality just another story to make us feel powerful?
Now let’s think about the questions that the lesson asks us next.
“Do you actually believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the literal offspring of the Father?
“Do you believe that the voice of God, the Eternal Father, was heard above the waters of Jordan declaring, ‘This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased’? (Matt. 3:17.)
“Do you believe that this same Jesus was the worker of miracles, the healer of the sick, the restorer of the infirm, the giver of life to the dead?
“Do you believe that following his death on Calvary’s hill and his burial in Joseph’s tomb, he came forth alive the third day?
“Do you actually believe that he yet lives—real, vital, and personal— and that he will come again as promised by the angels at
his ascension?
“Do you actually believe these things? If you do, then you are part of a shrinking body of literalists who more and more are being smiled at by philosophers, who more and more are being ridiculed by certain educators, and who more and more are being considered ‘out of it’ by a growing coterie of ministers of religion and influential theologians.”
President Hinckley goes on to say:
“. . . In the eyes of these intellectuals, these are myths—the birth of Jesus as the Son of God of whom the angels sang on Judea’s plains, the worker of miracles who healed the sick and raised the dead, the Christ resurrected from the grave, the ascension and the promised return.
“These modern theologians strip him of his divinity and then wonder why men do not worship him.
“These clever scholars have taken from Jesus the mantle of godhood and have left only a man. They have tried to accommodate him to their own narrow thinking. They have robbed him of his divine sonship and taken from the world its rightful King. . . .
“. . . I give our solemn witness that God is not dead, except as he is viewed with a lifeless interpretation. . . .”
