The Atonement

In the early days of the church, the Prophet Joseph Smith had a vision in which he saw the 12 in distant lands.  They were dressed in rags and it was obvious that they had seen their share of hardship.  They were discouraged and looking down at the ground as though their burden was too much for them.  Standing above them in the air was the Savior.  His arms reached out to them and tears in his eyes.  The implication of the vision was that all they had to do to receive comfort and strength was to look up.

Often, we find ourselves looking down, immersed in worldly cares, not noticing the hand of God in all things, the miracles of each day, or the richness of our lives.  Our reluctance to look up is not always with the rebelliousness of the Israelites who refused to look at the raised serpent to be healed but more often with the apathy of the wealthy Nephites who seemed to need the Savior when times were bad but congratulated themselves when they received abundant blessings.

Tragically, some of us, lulled into apathy by the background of the world, are led away from the narrow path dictated by our Master.  We sometimes figure that we have done enough of the things the Lord expects of us.  But other times we might actually ignore the principles and understandings upon which we have based our lives.  We rationalize what we do.  Sometimes, we find that we are paying attention to the mocking voice of the evil one but other times we are thrown off simply by our own laziness and lack of discipline.  Doubt follows, and doubt can open the door to compromise and slam the seemingly unbreechable door behind the sinner.  Doubt, skepticism, and misplaced focus are the enemies of the children of God.

When I served my mission in Italy, my friend, Elder Paul Cannon, was assigned to the island of Sardegna.  While there, he met, taught, baptized and became close friends with a young man.  He kept in constant touch with him as he planned his own mission and future church service.  After he was transferred, my friend got a letter from the parents of the boy.  After reading the letter he was obviously crushed and his companion, noticing, asked what was wrong.  He said, “Something horrible has happened to my friend in Sardegna.”  The companion asked, “Oh no, did he fall away from the church?”  Elder Cannon replied, “No, nothing that bad.  He drowned.”

My friend’s backhand witness struck me.  Death to him would not be nearly as bad as turning one’s back on the Savior.  There is no tragedy in Death, only in sin.  Shortly after I heard the story of the young man in Italy, the same message was brought home to me clearly and close to home.  My mother and her brother, one of my favorite uncles, died within 4 or 5 months of each other.  Both of them were loved and revered by the extended family and by all who knew them.  At my mother’s funeral, those who came left filled with the Spirit.  Of course, we wept and were sad but only because of the temporary separation.  But, we were also full of peace and happiness for the reward awaiting her and our future glorious reunion, if we lived as she had.  At the funeral of my uncle, a whole different spirit was evident.  He had not clung closely to the iron rod.  The speakers at his funeral spoke of him as a man who was loved despite of his faults.  We wept and were sad, not only because we would miss him but also because of a realization that he had not consistently chosen the path to leading back to our Father.

Satan’s ways have been institutionalized.  Televisions, magazines, books, pressure groups, movies, literature, commercials, art, all promote compromise of the strict adherence to the Lord’s way.  Media and popular tolerance draw our attention away from what is really important and what we should be spending our time thinking about, that being things eternal.

He makes it so easy.  He will get you to make the smallest compromise and then convince you that it was not really wrong.  That makes the step to the next level even easier.  Suddenly, we might be criticizing or mocking the righteous for their righteousness and secretly hoping for others downfall to make ourselves feel better.

Is this not the way of Satan?  In the great council before this world, his whole plan was based on holding us down to build himself up.   He tried to deceive us into believing that we could return to our Father and become like Him without ever needing our free agency.  And now, his whole objective is to bring us down to be miserable even as he is miserable with the great satanic substitutes for the Light.

 Who among us has not suffered greatly because we, ourselves, or someone we love has been drawn away from the Light by the attractiveness of Satan’s trap.  But after experiencing Satan’s ways, which seemed so attractive, we find out that is more like drinking raw sewage.  One can wash but cannot get clean.  For any that are thus lured away, there is only one way to become clean.

The Father saw through Satan’s plan and intent and chose to send Jehovah, our beloved Master, as the one who would cleanse the world from Satan’s ravages.  Knowing that if we had free agency we would make mistakes, God’s plan provided a Savior who could offer an infinite sacrifice for the sins of the world.  Without a Savior, the eternal law of justice could not be satisfied and none of us would be able to live again with our Father.  The most important moment in the battle for our souls occurred on that Thursday night, two thousand years ago.

I have often wondered what Christ must have thought as He prepared for His sacrifice.  Following the dinner in the upper room, Jesus walked with His eleven faithful Apostles around the wall of the city, nearly in the shadow of the temple, to the garden of Gethsemane.  He left 8 by the entrance to the Garden and took Peter, James, and John with Him further.  Then the record says, “He…began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy and He said unto them, ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.’”  He was amazed.  The Bible says that the word for amazed in the Greek could also be translated astonished or awestruck.  We learn from modern prophets that Christ was aware in concept of what He had to do and had even seen in vision how it was to be done.  But even so, when He began to experience the process of the Atonement, He was amazed, astonished and awestruck by what was really involved.   Now that He was in the middle of the process, it caused Him even God “to tremble because of pain and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit, and would that He might not drink the bitter cup and shrink.”

 I was discussing this with my wife, Karen, and she compared it to childbirth.  As you prepare for the child, you have such a feeling of wonder and mission.  However, when labor hits, she says all you want to do is to not have to go through it.  This happened to the Savior.  I remember in years past thinking, “How could it be so bad.  I lasted a matter of hours.  Anyone can go through anything for a few hours; especially when so much was at stake.”  Such a thought could only be borne in ignorance and naivete.  Though He was the Son of God, the Greatest of all, the pain and agony of the actual atonement amazed even Him.  We are accustomed to hearing that Christ bled from every pore, but the implications of that give us some small insight into the magnitude of His suffering.  Our finite minds cannot now comprehend how He took upon Himself the sins of the world but some time in that night by descending below all things, Jesus Christ paid the price to cleanse our sins.  Because of the Atonement all the promises, ancient and modern can be fulfilled:

“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.”

He that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven.

No man can be saved except his garments are washed white; yea his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain through the blood of Him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem His people.

For I will forgive their iniquity and remember them no more.

He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven and I, the Lord, remember them no more.

President Kimball related this story, which he said was his favorite in his book, the Miracle of Forgiveness:

A lady came up to him at a conference and said, “Elder Kimball, do you remember me?” ”Oh, sister, I am sorry, I meet so many people, I…” and the Lady said, “Thank the Lord.  Years ago, I came before you with a story of sin.  Possibly, the worst you have ever heard.  It was you that started me on the path back.  And if you have forgotten, maybe the Lord has.

In the scriptures, we read of many miraculous events resulting from the power of God resting on his servants.  Our family has been the recipient of many miracles, where the Lord through His servants, has blessed our lives both temporally and spiritually.  All of us have been witness to marvelous spiritual and temporal miracles.  But no miracle compares with the mighty change of heart that comes when a person seeks the forgiveness of the Lord with all his heart and is cleansed.  That miracle is the miracle of Christ’s matchless Atonement.  Even those who have committed serious transgression can be made alive again in Christ through their faithfulness.

The Lord told Joseph Smith, “He that receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious.”  If we truly receive all things with thankfulness, we will find ourselves thanking the Lord first for the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

If we accept the Atonement and activate it in our lives, what will become of us?  Lorenzo Snow gave us some insight:

There is just one thing that a Latter-day Saint, an Elder in Israel should never forget.  It should be a bright illuminating star before him all the time–in his heart, in his soul, and all through him–that is, he need not worry in the least whether he should be a deacon or President of the church.  It is sufficient for him to know that his destiny is to be like his Father, a God in eternity.  He will not only be President but he may see himself president of a Kingdom, President of worlds with never-ending opportunities to enlarge his sphere of dominion.

This thought in the breasts of men, filled with the light of the Holy Spirit, tends to purify them and cleanse them from every ambitious or improper feeling.

This glorious opportunity of becoming truly great belongs to every faithful Elder in Israel; it is his by right divine and he will not have to come before this or any other quorum to have his status defined.  He may be a God in eternity; he may become like his Father, doing the works, which his father did before him and he cannot be deprived of the opportunity of reaching this exalted state.

Is this not the way of Christ?  Whereas Satan’s objective is to hold us down to make himself great, our Master’s objective is to build us up to His level and in so doing, the work itself will make Himself even more joyful and glorious, because of the glory of those He loves.

The greatest obstacle to being able to take advantage of the atonement of the Savior is what I mentioned earlier: doubt.

Truman Madsen spoke of the Apostle, Thomas, being characterized as a doubter because he said what the others had said earlier, “I will believe when I see.”  The others, according to Luke, rubbed their eyes in disbelief when they did see.  It is a beautiful phrase, Luke says, “They believed not for Joy.”  Meaning it was too good to be true.  They could hardly believe their eyes.  They all had some doubt.  Christ said to Thomas, “Thomas, blessed art thou because thou hast seen and believed.  More blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”  It seems as though the Lord is putting a premium on belief that is insupportable by the evidence of actual sight.  That is not the case.  What He is saying is that there is one thing that can burn doubt out of us, one thing that is even more powerful that sight, and that is the Holy Ghost.  

What is the witness of the Holy Ghost like?  We get some insight from the Prophet Joseph Smith.  Of his visit from the Father and the Son, he said that he saw a light that descended, the brilliance and glory of which defied all description.  It drove out the evil darkness that had sought to destroy him and enveloped him.  So powerful was the effect of that light that he had expected the grove around him to be consumed by it.  In the record of the vision, Joseph left an incredible statement, “Thereafter, I was filled with love for many days and I could rejoice with great joy.  And the Lord was with me.”  Giving us an insight into what happens inside when we experience the influence of the Savior through the witness and power of the Holy Ghost: Joy, Love and No Doubt.

The one thing that the adversary cannot duplicate is the witness and power of the Holy Ghost.  When that power is upon us, there is no doubt.  And that is what bears witness of the Father and His Son, our Master.

Enos related one of the most beautifully recorded experiences in all of history.  The words of the Prophet, his father, sank deep into his heart, and, he says, “My soul hungered” leading him to pray in the wilderness all day and into the night.  And finally the word of the Lord came to him and said, “Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee and thou shalt be blessed.”  And this is the beautiful phrase, “And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore my guilt was swept away…and I said, Lord how is it done.  And He said unto me, Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou has never before seen.”  No Doubt.  Enos then proceeded to pray for his family, then the Nephites, then all the earth.  Love.  He closes his record with a magnificent out pouring,  “I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before Him; then shall I see His face with pleasure and He will say unto me, Come unto Me, ye blessed.”  Joy, Love and No Doubt.

Brigham Young once said that our first realization when we go to the next world will be how stupid we were in this life.  The things that we currently focus on and spend the majority of our lives thinking about are decoys, to use Brigham’s word, drawing our attention from our real target.  I recently read an article in which the author observed that many of us are trying to save ourselves, using Christ as an advisor.  This will never do.  Only by complete submission to the will of the Master and living our lives in such a way that we are willing to sacrifice all earthly things to keep His commandments can we gain exaltation.

I learned a profound lesson when I read a story by Elder Boyd K. Packer.  When he had first been called as a General Authority in the sixties, he took a problem to Elder Harold B. Lee, who at that time was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.  Elder Lee said that he should discuss the problem with President McKay.  After Elder Packer explained the problem, President McKay gave him council and recommended a course of action to be taken.  After his meeting with the Prophet, Elder Packer went back to report to Elder Lee.  He explained that President McKay had told him what to do but that he could not see any possible way for the problem to be resolved through that course of action.  Then Elder Lee gave him the following council, which he said was a lesson for a lifetime: “You need to learn to walk to the edge of the light and then take a few steps out into the darkness.  Then the Lord will shine the light and illuminate your way.”  That is the essence of Faith.

“I have made this my rule, said Joseph Smith, When God commands, DO IT.”

May I conclude with a word of testimony.

Years ago, on my son, Jimmie’s, birthday, in circumstances that to some no doubt will appear trivial, I was taught a lesson for my lifetime.  It was a difficult time in my life and I was struggling with a few things, the details of which are not important.  The Yankees were in town to play the A’s and since it was Jimmie’s birthday, it was automatic that we were going.  We went early so that we could try to catch some of the batting practice balls that were hit into the stands.  We came very close to getting one a couple of times but didn’t.  We went to our seats in the 2^nd deck.  One inning into the game, I remembered how much Jimmie had wanted to catch one of the balls and I bowed my head quickly and offered a silent prayer that the Lord would allow Jimmie to catch a foul ball during the game.  I thought to myself even as I prayed that I was asking for something that was not worth praying about but even as I thought that thought I immediately felt at peace about asking and that it was appropriate at the time.  However, with my weak faith, I, of course, waffled and made excuses why it couldn’t possibly happen and put my prayer out of my mind.  Two innings later, one of the A’s hit a foul ball our way but not too near us.  Jimmie got out of his seat and took a step or two toward the place where the ball was coming down 30 feet away.  The ball bounced off the hands of the fans and flew straight toward my son.  He barehanded it, held it up, and the crowd went wild.  As we sat down, the Spirit of the Lord swept through me, giving me a powerful reminder of my prayer and then the following words came clearly to my mind, “Do you believe now that I can do anything that I want?”  I was in the Lord’s hands, not in my own.  Skeptics no doubt would call this a mere coincidence, but I am content to believe that the Lord reached out to his weak and needful son to give him a lesson to carry him through his life.

Luke recorded what, for me, was the most moving testimony of the resurrection in the New Testament.  On the road near Emmaus, Jesus appeared to two of His disciples but they did not recognize him.  The disciples were confused regarding the events of the day and excitedly explained what they had heard regarding the Savior’s resurrection.  Then Jesus spoke to them and opened the scriptures to them, chastening them to a certain extent for being surprised by the news.  As they approached the village, they convinced Jesus to stay and eat with them.  This He did and as He broke bread and blessed it, their eyes were opened and they knew Him and He vanished out of their sight.  Then the beautiful phrase: “Did not our hearts burn within us when He spoke to us along the way.”

 

I stand all amazed

I know that my Redeemer lives

I need thee every hour

He lives and loves me to the end

Oh it is wonderful,

And one old song that I had almost forgotten,

Perverse and foolish have I strayed

And yet in love He found me

And on His shoulders gently laid

And home rejoicing brought me

Hymns like these have caused my heart to burn within me with a greater intensity than ever before in my life.  The greatest desire in my life is that my children’s hearts burn within them with love for the Savior, and a determination to submit their lives to His will.

In the 1830’s someone once was asked, “What is the greatest miracle you have ever seen in the Church?”  She replied, “Joseph Smith”.  The greatest miracle I have ever seen is Karen Nelson.  She fills my life with light and joy.  I cherish every moment with her and will love her forever.

I have received a truer and deeper testimony of what is real.  I know that the Lord sends His angels to be round about us to bear us up.  I know that those on the other side under God’s direction are more involved in our lives than we know.  I know of the Love of the Savior.  I know of the power and reality of the Atonement.  Elder Bruce McConkie, in his final public address said, “I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears.  But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God’s Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way.”

I pray that one day I will be in a position to kneel before my Master, to bathe His feet with my tears, and worship Him.  But I will know no better then than I know now that He lives.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.