Dear Sister McAlpin,
Grandma Debbie and I are doing great.
Family will be here this week and we will get to spend time with some more of
the grandchildren. Your Aunt Beth taught a good lesson today during our
church service. I took time to put some thought together about the
priesthood and covenants.
I took the covenant (promise) I made at baptism
very seriously. I thought to myself as I came up out of the water, “Now, you
have gone and done it for sure. For the rest of your life, you have to keep the
covenants you made here today.” I was twenty-two years old when I was baptized.
Since that day in March 1966. (The baptism and confirmation date got
recorded on Church membership records as Sunday, 20th March
1966.) I was not keeping a journal then, but I am almost sure it was
before Sunday; probably Saturday, 19th of March 1966. Anyway I
have tried to keep my covenants, and I pray I will continue to do so until the
end.
When I was growing up I was taught, no, more than
taught, it was drilled through my head, “a man’s word is his bond; a man is no
better than his word; you make a good deal with someone you stick tight, if you
make a bad deal, you stick even tighter”.
Now I had made a promise, contract, a covenant not with man
but with God and if I was not going to break a promise I had made with a man I
was sure not going to break a promise I had made to God.
Things have changed in this world since I was a boy,
probably as much or more than any other time in the history of the world. In the Book of Mormon, when Zoram promised
Nephi he would go with him and his brothers into the wilderness and not escape
back to Jerusalem. Nephi turned him
loose; he knew he would not break his word.
The Anti-Nephi-Lehies would allow themselves to be killed rather than
take up arms to defend themselves because of the covenant they had made with
God. Even the wicked Laminates would not
make an oath or covenant they knew they would break.
All this ties with inter charter of the people in the Bible
even though the people in the Bible made some allowances with the
covenants. They divided them into 3
types.
The
first was a shoe covenant. An example,
Boaz in the book of Ruth 4:6-8 “6. And
the kinsman said, I cannot aredeem it for myself, lest
I bmar mine
own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.
7 Now
this was the manner in
former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning achanging,
for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his bshoe,
and gave it to
his neighbour: and this was a tes timony in Israel.
8 Therefore
the kinsman said unto Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe.
If the time ever came when the two wanted to disavow the
covenant they would come back together.
Give the other person his shoe and receive his from him and both agree
is so doing they were disavowing the covenant.
The second was a salt
covenant. 2 Chrornicles 13:5 Ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over
Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a acovenant of bsalt?
In this example the two
men after agreeing to make a covenant would each take a pinch of salt out of
the other man’s salt pouch they carried with them and put it in their salt
pouch. If the time ever came when they
wanted to disavow the covenant they would get back together and spread their
pieces of salt crystals on a table, each would pick the salt crystals that was
his from the other man’s pouch. When
they did this, they could then disavow the covenant.
The
third was the most difficult (more impossible than the shoe and salt covenant)
to disavow. It was known a blood
covenant like the one the Lord made with Abraham. Two men would
take an animal, slice it down the middle so the two halfs lay on each side of a
path. Then the two men would walk up and
down between the animal and repeat their covenant. Then if they ever wanted to disavow or break
the covenant they would have to come back to the spot where the animal lay,
walk up and down between the animal and both disavow the covenant. Then the animal would have to get up and come
back together and the three, the animal and the two men walk off. Example
of this covenant was Abraham and the Lord, Genesis 15: 3-17 and 17: 18-19 ……… 9 And he said unto him, take me an
heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of
three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
10 And
he took unto him all these, and adivided them
in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he
not. ………. 17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was
dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that apassed between those pieces.
The Lord had Abraham take 3 animals
and two birds and then as a smoking furnace and a burning lamp went up and down
between the pieces that had been cut in half.
Here
the Lord puts an exclamation point on what he says and does, not one animal but
3 and 2 birds and the Lord made a covenant with Abraham.
After
this the Lord proved (tested) Abraham to see if he loved the Lord with all his
heart and would not put anything or anyone before Him. Was Abraham willing to do what he had covenanted?
Would Abraham kill and offer Isaac his son as
a sacrifice?
The
Lord stayed Abraham’s hand with the knife before he could kill Isaac. On the other hand
Heavenly
Father’s hand was not stayed; He gave his son, Jesus, as a sacrifice to atone
for the sins of the world, a sacrifice without sin or blemish, the final and
last living sacrifice until the sons of Levi do offer again a sacrifice to the
Lord in righteousness.
The
covenants we make with the Lord are of no small importance and are not to be
taken lightly.
Covenant-making goes back to before the foundations of the
earth were laid. “through the shedding
of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the
remission of your sins”. Moroni
10:33
President John Taylor explained that Christ agreed to atone
for the sins of the world and became the Lamb slain before the foundation of
the world.
President Boyd K. Packer quoted a stake president in
England, “Exaltation is achieved by keeping the covenants, not by holding any
high position in the church.”
Our faithfulness to the covenant we have made will exert a
righteous influence and will affect how we and our posterity spend eternity.
President Henry B. Eyring, Ensign May 2014, p. 22
We love you and you and your companion are in our prayers morning,
and night.
Grandpa and Grandma Debbie
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