The New and Everlasting Covenant

Dallas Institute

Religion 234

Just a warning…

President Kimball

If we live in such a way that the considerations of eternity press

upon us, we will make better decisions.

(Ensign, Jan 1977, p.3)

Your generation?

My generation?

“Baby Boomer”

What would you call your generation?

The NOW Generation

Commitments- Pres. Hinckley

Said she: “I met my husband when he was a freshman. He was from a very active family with many years of service in the Church. He was so enthused about serving a mission. I thought we shared the gospel as our most important value in this life. We both enjoyed music and nature and had a high priority on gaining knowledge. We dated a few months, easily fell in love, and wrote to one another while he served an honorable mission.

When he came back home, he got back into school and we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. We followed the counsel of Church leaders and began our family. I had been attending [the university] on an Honors at Entrance scholarship, but I became pregnant and sick and left school to devote my time and energy to my husband and infant son.

“For the next eighteen years I supported my husband while he finished school, got some work experience, and started his own business. We both served in leadership positions in the Church and community. We had five wonderful children. I taught the children the gospel, how to work, how to serve, how to communicate, and how to play the piano. I baked bread; canned peaches, apples, tomatoes; sewed dresses and quilts; cleaned house; and tended my flowers and vegetables. In many ways it seemed that we were an ideal family.

Our relationship was sometimes sweet and sometimes difficult. Things were never perfect because I am not a perfect woman and he is not a perfect man, but many things were good. I did not expect perfection; I just kept trying.

“Then came the crash. About a year ago he decided that he never loved me and that our marriage was a mistake from the beginning. He was convinced that there was nothing in our relationship for him. He filed for divorce and moved out.

‘Wait,’ I kept saying. ‘Oh, no. Stop! Don’t do this.

Why are you leaving? What is wrong? Please, talk to me. Look at our children. What of all our dreams? Remember our covenants. No, no! Divorce is not the answer.’ He would not hear me. I thought I would die. “Now I am a single parent. What an enormous load of heartache, pain, and loneliness is behind that statement. It explains so much trauma and so much anger from my teenage sons. It explains so many tears from my little girls. It explains so many sleepless nights, so many family demands and needs. Why am I in this mess? What did I choose wrong?

Daniel Jones

In Feb, the first Indian came to our camp…At the time of his arrival we were out of everything, having not only eaten the hides taken from the cattle killed, but had eaten the wrappings from the wagon-tongues, old moccasin-soles were eaten also, and a piece of buffalo hide that had been used for a foot mat for two months…

-A few weeks later-

When [another] company arrived, some of our boys were getting the pack saddle soaked up ready for cooking the hide covering. Boyd always calls me the man that ate the pack saddle. But this is slander. The kindness of him and others prevented me from eating my part of it. I think if they had not arrived, probably I would have taken a wing or leg, but don’t think I would have eaten the whole of it.. As it was, the saddle was allowed to dry up again, and may be in existence yet and doing well so far as I know…

Elder Russell M. Nelson

If you really want to be like the Lord—more than anything or anyone else—you will remember that your adoration of Jesus is best shown by your emulation of Him.

Then you will not allow any other love to become more important than love for your companion, your family, and your Creator. You will govern yourself not by someone else’s set of rules but by revealed principles of truth.

Which is right?

Do not “blindly” followChurch Leaders

Follow the Prophets?

Hugh B. BrownApril 1963 Conference

Elder George Q. Cannon

[Many young people] with no particular desire, only to get married, without realizing the character of the obligations that they take upon themselves or the covenants that they make and the promises involved in the taking of these covenants.

The result is that hundreds among us go to the house of the Lord and receive these blessings and come away without having any particular impression made upon them."

Kirtland Temple

Sacrament prayer

…and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son…

So, what does it mean to take the “Lord’s name in vain”

Why was this Earth created?

D&C 49

16 Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation;

17 And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made

Brigham Young

“The whole subject of the marriage relation is not in my reach, nor in any other man’s reach on this earth. It is without beginning of days or end of years; it is a hard matter to reach.

We can tell some things with regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of Salvation—of the Gospel of the Son of God; it is from eternity to eternity” (in Discourses of Brigham Young, 195).

Abrahamic Covenant

Abraham 26 But I, Abraham, and Lot, my brother's son, prayed unto

the Lord, and the Lord appeared unto me, and said unto me: …

8 My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee.

9 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations;

10 And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father;

D&C Section 84

33 For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods of which I have spoken, and the magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies.

34 They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God.

Covenants

The Lord His Children

The Holy SpiritOf Promise

Question

Are there any covenants and commitments in dating and courtship?

D&C 131

1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;

2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man [and woman] must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];

3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.

4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.