Today, we are studying a famous episode in the Old Testament, when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. But to really understand this story, we have to backtrack to something we studied previously.
As the Israelites neared the Promised Land, the Lord commanded Moses to send 12 men, one from each tribe, to survey the situation to see if they could retake the land of their inheritance.
So these 12 men went, analyzed the situation, and then they returned, and 10 of them gave Moses this report:
“We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.
“Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great” (Numbers 13:27-28).
These men focused on the difficulty of conquering. But another of the 12, Caleb, took a different approach. Caleb said, “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:29).
“But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
“... all the people that we saw in [that land] are men of a great stature.
“And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:31-33).
Now, it was decision time for the children of Israel. These were the ones who had walked across the Red Sea while it was parted; these were the ones who had survived on manna; these were the ones who had looked to the brass serpent—in other words, had looked to Christ—and had been healed. And, now, here, they were, just about to receive their reward, if they could but hope for one more miracle and put their trust in God one more time. Surely, these people who had seen many mighty works of God would believe in one more.
Sadly, they did not. Instead, we read that they took this attitude:
“AND all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
“And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
“And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
“And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt” (Numbers 14:1-4).
Amazingly, these followers of Moses, one of the greatest of prophets, these beneficiaries of the Lord’s many blessings, who had been delivered from Egypt and sustained in the wilderness, refused to receive their reward.
How could these people, of all people, have forgotten the greatness of their God?
How could these people, of all people, fail to put their trust in God?
Of them, Neal A. Maxwell once said, “If one is without the faith that remembers, past benefactions are forgotten because of present deprivations. Thirst for water caused some to forget that they were once rescued from far too much water at the Red Sea. It is ironical that the very repetition of some blessings can routinize these blessings. The ration of the daily miracle of manna was taken for granted, even complained about by some.”
[Translation: They had forgotten the Lord because of their present trials and because they failed to acknowledge God’s hand in all things.] The same thing can happen to us. Under the struggles of a present adversity, we may forget how the Lord has blessed us in times past, and we may forget how he has seen us through previous adversity. We may lose our courage and our faith, and cowardly proclaim, “Why has God forsaken me?” Through many experiences in my life, I know God has never abandoned me. Yet, when faced with a trial, I, like the ancient Israelites, am quick to say, “It won’t work out because of this and this and this.”
Yet when I do so, I am leaving out the most important factor in the equation: the Lord. I should say, “It will work because the Lord is on my side.”
The faith Caleb shows here is similar to the faith Nephi showed when Nephi said, “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7). Nephi was essentially saying what Caleb said: Whatever obstacle the Lord puts in our path, we are well able to overcome it.
The faithlessness of the 10 other spies and the people is reminiscent of the faithlessness of the Book of Mormon’s most notorious characters, Laman and Lemuel. On the journey for the brass plates, where Mr. Go and Do, went and did, his brothers took a different approach. They began by complaining that it would be difficult; halfway through, they wanted to give up and return. Even after being rebuked by an angel and being commanded to try one last time, “Laman and Lemuel again began to murmur, saying: How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?” (1 Nephi 3:31). So Nephi went, and Nephi, because he relied on the Lord, succeeded, much to the surprise of Laman and Lemuel.
But there is another example from the journey of Lehi’s family that correlates more directly with Caleb and Joshua’s experience. That is when they had to cross the sea to the get to the Promised Land. Just like the inhabitants of Jericho were the final impediment for the ancient Israelites in their journey, the sea was the final obstacle for Lehi’s family in the journey to the Promised Land. Nephi, as always, was willing to finish the journey; Laman and Lemuel, as always, were not.
Amazingly, in his speech to persuade Laman and Lemuel to go to the Promised Land with him, Nephi quotes the experience of Caleb and Joshua. Nephi starts by recounting the miracles that brought the ancient Israelites to that point. Then Nephi says:
“And notwithstanding they being led, the Lord their God, their Redeemer, going before them, leading them by day and giving light unto them by night, and doing all things for them which were expedient for man to receive, they hardened their hearts and blinded their minds, and reviled against Moses and against the true and living God” (1 Nephi 17:30).
Despite assurances and pleas from Moses, Joshua and Caleb, that their trials would be like bread (Numbers 14:9), the Israelites saw those challenges as too impossible to overcome. Since the ancient Israelites didn’t trust God enough to receive the blessings He had prepared from them, they didn’t receive the blessings. Likewise, God has many blessings in store for us. In order to receive those gifts, we just need to trust him enough and live according to the words He gives to His prophets. We cannot take the Laman and Lemuel approach and say, “Oh, He’s not going to hear my prayers; He’s not going to help me.” Such an approach is illogical because it disregards thousands and thousands of years of recorded history, and years and years of personal history in which the Lord has shown us that He does hear our prayers and that He does answer them and that he does help us out whenever He can. We must take the Nephi approach and say, “Of course, I will be blessed.” The Lord has commanded us to “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” Isn’t that what Nephi did? Isn’t that what Caleb and Joshua did? Isn’t that what Laman and Lemuel failed to do? Isn’t that what the ancient Israelites failed to do? Look at the difference that made!
Only two of the original Israelite company lived to receive the blessings of the Promised Land: Caleb and Joshua.
It’s how they received that blessing that really ties into what we’re talking about today. Why didn’t those ancient Israelites want to receive the Promised Land? Because the feared the high walls of the city and the inhabitants therein. But when their children go to invade the city, what happens? We read in Joshua 6:20-21:
“So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
“And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city. . .”
The obstacle so feared by their parents was easily overcome. It wasn’t much of an obstacle because the Lord was on their side. In fact, the obstacle wasn’t worth the worry. Neal A. Maxwell once said, “Mostly, to avoid muttering, we need to trust more. So many of the things muttered about beforehand turn out to be marvelous experiences later, and we are inwardly, and deservedly, ashamed for having grumbled.” Man, if that hasn’t happened to me a million times. I wish I’d spend less time worrying and more times trusting.
S. Michael Wilcox wrote of the Joshua and Caleb experience: “The high walls of Canaan far too often serve as an effectual mist that paralyzes our efforts. The Lord, understanding this, many times offers his own forms of encouragement … The truth is, there are no walls high or thick enough to stop us. Has not the Lord sent us? I do not think it is coincidental that the first story we are told about the eventual conquest of Canaan by the younger generation is the fall of Jericho. The walls came tumbling down. The greatest fears of the earlier generation were simply unfounded. If we are willing to move forward, the Lord often removes the barriers standing between us and the rich harvest. I have often asked myself, How many walls that have caused me to hesitate in the past were in reality a mirage?”
Of this, Nephi told his brethren: “And it came to pass that according to [God’s] word he did destroy [the inhabitants of Jericho]; and according to his word he did lead [the Israelites]; and according to his word he did do all things for them; and there was not any thing done save it were by his word” (1 Nephi 17:31).
Three times, Nephi said to them, according to his word, and then tells them what the Lord did. Our God keeps His promises! That is one of the great messages of the Book of Mormon. It is a lesson Nephi learned and trusted in. Ditto for Caleb and Joshua. But it is a lesson Laman and Lemuel and the ancient Israelites, sadly, failed to grasp.
Nephi concludes this sermon by saying to Laman and Lemuel:
“And I said unto them: If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done.
“And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship?” (1 Nephi 17:50-51).
He’s essentially saying, “Look, if the Lord has done all these great things for people in the past, then surely He can help out here. If He can bless them, He can bless me, and He will bless me.” Interestingly, Nephi is saying what Laman and Lemuel said when they feared returning to Jerusalem to get the plates. At that time, Laman and Lemuel said, “Why not us?” Now, Nephi says, “Hey, why not us?” But he uses that phrase in a completely different context. Where Laman and Lemuel feared man, Nephi trusted the Lord.
When we face a trial, we can be like Nephi and say, “Why wouldn’t God bless me? I am His child, made in His image! In me, lies the potential to become as He is! As a loving Father, he wants me to achieve my potential! Therefore, whatever He can do to help me, He will do it! Whether it’s helping us out with a project, such as building a boat to cross the great sea; or if it’s comforting us in a moment of despair; or if it’s giving us the help we need to grow and progress, or aiding us in whatever way He can, the Lord will help us out! Because He loves us! And that has already been proven, for He sent His Beloved Son to suffer, to bleed and to die for each of us that we may have the chance to become like and return to Our Father in Heaven!
When we come to realize the Great Love our Father in Heaven and our Brother, Jesus Christ, have for us, we cannot doubt that the Lord watches over us. We begin to see ourselves not as grasshoppers, as the ancient Israelites did, but as God’s offspring, full of divine potential. We come to know that God’s love is unending, and we agree with Paul, when he said:
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Ruth-like faith and devotion
President Hinckley once said, “Of all the creations of the Almighty, there is none more beautiful, none more inspiring than a lovely daughter of God who walks in virtue, with an understanding of why she should do so, who honors and respects her body as sacred and divine, who cultivates her mind and constantly enlarges the horizon of her understanding, who nurtures her spirit with everlasting truth.”
Today, we’ll examine the lives of Ruth and Hannah and their beautiful stories, and, as we do so, I think you’ll come to see that these were the type of women President Hinckley described. They were women of virtue and honor—who put the things of God first in their lives and were blessed because they did so.
For now, we’ll just look at the life at Ruth. When a famine hit Israel, Elimelech; his wife, Naomi, and their two sons moved to Moab, which was not affected by the famine. While there, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi a widow. Her two sons soon married, one married Orpah; the other married Ruth. But, after 10 years, they too passed away. So Naomi’s family was reduced to just her two daughters-in-law, both of whom were Moabites, the longtime enemies of Israel.
It was at this point that Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. Naomi knew that Bethlehem wouldn’t be the best locale for her widowed daughters-in-law. There, they were likely to face bigotry and have to scavenge for food. Naomi told them of the troubles that would lie ahead and begged them to stay in Moab.
Ruth and Orpah were both converts to the church. They had both entered into covenants with their husbands when they married them. But now that they were widowed, both would have to decide just how much those covenants meant to them. Would they choose the comfort, familiarity and ease of Moab or the difficulties that lie ahead in Bethlehem? In likening this to us, the ease of Moab represents the ease that comes in following the world; the difficulty of Bethlehem represents the difficulty of coming unto Christ. Whether Orpah or Ruth would decide to remain in Moab or go to Bethlehem depended on just how deeply the word of the Lord had sunk into their hearts.
The Savior once told the Parable of the Sower, saying:
“Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
“And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
“Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
“And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
“And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
“But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold” (Math 13:4-8).
Now, let’s look at Orpah and Ruth’s decision and see which seeds they proved to be. Orpah chose Moab and returned unto her gods. After 10 years of conversion, the fear of what lay ahead choked off her faith. So what kind of seed was planted in Orpah’s heart? She was like a seed who fell among thorns. The Savior in explaining this type of convert said: “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
Indeed, no fruit came forth from Orpah because she had turned her back on the eternal family because of the cares of the world.
It’s at this point that Naomi once again pled with Ruth to do the same, saying, “Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law” (Ruth 1:15).
I want you to listen to the nobility and the love in Ruth’s reply:
“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).
So what kind of seed was Ruth? Obviously, she was the kind that fell into the good ground. Of her and those like her, the Savior said: “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
The more we discuss Ruth, the more impressed you will be by her. But it’s important to know that the good things she did in her life started because she let the Spirit write upon her heart the truths that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. She was the kind of person Paul was describing when he talked about those whose testimonies are “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3). I have felt that Spirit testify often in my life that Christ is real; that He does live and that He did love me enough to come to Earth and endure all the shames, persecutions, sufferings, bleedings, etc. that He did so that I might have a chance to be cleansed and return to my Heavenly Father. I have learned so often how much Christ really is there for me—even when it seems no one else is. And, indeed, I feel that the Spirit has written on my heart, like it did on Ruth’s heart, this truth: I know my Redeemer lives.
So what fruit did Ruth bring forth? In time, she would marry and have a son. That line continued on. And, among her offspring is the One who gave the parable of the sower. The mortal Christ descended from Ruth.
I want us to return to that beautiful statement Ruth made to Naomi:
“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).
In these verses, Ruth is showing a great amount of loyalty. She knows the difficulties that lay ahead. But that doesn’t deter her. Because she loves Naomi, she doesn’t want Naomi to be alone in her old age. I think that in her decision to forsake all that she had in Moab to take care of her mother-in-law in a strange land, Ruth is teaching us about the importance of the eternal family relationship.
How could Ruth, who had loved her husband so deeply, turn her back on his mother?
How could Ruth turn her back on the covenants that sealed her to her husband?
Moreover, what is it that makes life meaningful? Is it your possessions, your comforts or your Halo scores? When He was on the Earth, Christ once said, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15)
So if it’s not possessions that matter, what does? I submit that what really matters is your relationships—and what relationships really matter? Your relationships with your family members and with your God. We are sent here to create, build and maintain eternal family relationships through following the pattern our Heavenly Father has shown. If we are successful in building those relationships here, we can share in His work there.
Earlier this week, I talked to a friend who recently got engaged. And she told me that some people had told her that she making a huge mistake—they said to her that love doesn’t last, and you’re better off staying single. Fortunately, she was smart enough to not buy what they were selling. Still, it really ate at me, so I told her later, “It really bothers me that some [people] take such a negative view on marriage. I think it’s great you have found that special eternal love. [And] I predict that when you get to the end of your life and you look back you will say that everything good in my life came from my decision to marry [him in the temple]. I believe the quality of our lives is marked by the quality of our relationships, if someone were to be single forever they would miss out on the best life [because they would miss out on the best relationships—the relationships between husband and wife and parent and child].”
I think Ruth is teaching us that nothing is as important as family. Let’s take a more in-depth look at verse 16: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” (Ruth 1:16). In families, we go where our families go because we love them and, if they can’t take care of themselves or if they are in trouble, we want to be there for them.
“Thy people shall be my people,” Ruth said. Isn’t this true: When you get married, you’re saying, “I want your family to be my family. I love you so much I want the people you love to be the people I love?” Isn’t that what Ruth did? She loved Naomi’s son, and because she loved Naomi’s son, she felt a great love and loyalty toward his mother. In thinking about that, I thought back to one of my English professors at BYU, Sister Gunn. One Monday, Sister Gunn started off class by telling us how happy she was that her daughter-in-law got married over the weekend. It was a strange sentence, so it caught my attention. Daughter-in-law got married? That makes no sense. If she’s your daughter-in-law, shouldn’t she already be married?
But then Sister Gunn explained that her son had died a few years earlier. And, then, Sister Gunn broke down and cried, and then she said, “When you love someone, you don’t want them to be alone forever. And I’m just so glad that this daughter-in-law that I love has found someone who loves her.”
I think you see the same attitude in Sister Gunn that Naomi had toward her widowed daughters-in-law, when Naomi was asking them not to come with her, Naomi said, “Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?” (Ruth 1:11). In other words, Naomi is saying, “I have no one for you to marry. Stay here and find someone who will love you so that you won’t be alone.” But, in another way, Naomi’s statement lacked a little faith—because she didn’t trust that God would provide a husband for her daughters-in-law in Israel. As it turned out, Ruth didn’t forsake Naomi, and God didn’t forsake Ruth.
Another thing Ruth said to Naomi “Thy God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16).
We want to share our God with them because it is through Jesus Christ that our families are made eternal.
I think you’ll see in Ruth’s life that this isn’t just something she said one time; this great statement of hers is how she lived her life. And if you examine the story of Ruth and Naomi, I think you’ll come to see just how much Naomi needed her, and just how wonderfully Ruth treated her. I think the story teaches us how much we need each other and why families are so important. Our parents, our brothers, our sisters, our nieces and nephews—and, someday, our own spouses and children—their our support, and their our cause for carrying on. They are the people that matter most to us.
But there’s something that Brother Solomon once said that really sticks out in my mind: “The people we love the most are oftentimes the people we treat the worst.” And, of course, Brother Solomon was trying to encourage us to treat the people we love most the best. Ruth did that. She loved Naomi, and she treated Naomi with honor and love, and Ruth made great sacrifices to ensure Naomi was taken care of.
One of the first things I did this week in preparing this lesson was to search the Church Web site. I typed in Ruth’s name, and one of the first things I found was a talk by Elder F. Burton Howard about his wife’s obsession with silverware. I want to read a good portion of that talk because it really demonstrates the importance of treating those we love most—our family members—with the utmost love.
Elder Howard starts off his talk this way:
“A number of years ago my wife and I went to a garden wedding reception. Earlier that day we had been to the temple, where two young people we knew had been married for time and all eternity. They were much in love. The circumstances of their meeting had been almost miraculous. Many tears of happiness were shed. We stood in the reception line at the end of a perfect day. Ahead of us was a close friend of the family. As he approached the couple, he stopped and in a beautiful, clear tenor voice sang to them the stirring words from the book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die” (Ruth 1:16–17). We were deeply touched and felt reassured about their prospects for happiness—this in part, I suppose, because my wife and I have had these same words on the wall of our home for many years. Sadly, the significance of these beautiful words is subsiding. Far too many marriages today end in divorce. Selfishness, sin, and personal convenience often prevail over covenants and commitment.”
Obviously, if people came to a marriage—or any other type of familial relation—with the same commitment Ruth showed to Naomi, those relationships would work out.
Elder Howard then gets into the story of his wife’s silverware obsession:
“I think eternal marriage cannot be achieved without a commitment to make it work. Most of what I know about this I have learned from my companion. We have been married for almost 47 years now. From the beginning she knew what kind of marriage she wanted.
“We started as poor college students, but her vision for our marriage was exemplified by a set of silverware. As is common today, when we married she registered with a local department store. Instead of listing all the pots and pans and appliances we needed and hoped to receive, she chose another course. She asked for silverware. She chose a pattern and the number of place settings and listed knives, forks, and spoons on the wedding registry and nothing else. No towels, no toasters, no television—just knives, forks, and spoons.
“The wedding came and went. Our friends and our parents’ friends gave gifts. We departed for a brief honeymoon and decided to open the presents when we returned. When we did so, we were shocked. There was not a single knife or fork in the lot. We joked about it and went on with our lives.
“Two children came along while we were in law school. We had no money to spare. But when my wife worked as a part-time election judge or when someone gave her a few dollars for her birthday, she would quietly set it aside, and when she had enough she would go to town to buy a fork or a spoon. It took us several years to accumulate enough pieces to use them. When we finally had service for four, we began to invite some of our friends for dinner.
“Before they came, we would have a little discussion in the kitchen. Which utensils would we use, the battered and mismatched stainless or the special silverware? In those early days I would often vote for the stainless. It was easier. You could just throw it in the dishwasher after the meal, and it took care of itself. The silver, on the other hand, was a lot of work. My wife had it hidden away under the bed where it could not be found easily by a burglar. She had insisted that I buy a tarnish-free cloth to wrap it in. Each piece was in a separate pocket, and it was no easy task to assemble all the pieces. When the silver was used, it had to be hand washed and dried so that it would not spot, and put back in the pockets so it would not tarnish, and wrapped up and carefully hidden again so it would not get stolen. If any tarnish was discovered, I was sent to buy silver polish, and together we carefully rubbed the stains away.
“Over the years we added to the set, and I watched with amazement how she cared for the silver. My wife was never one to get angry easily. However, I remember the day when one of our children somehow got hold of one of the silver forks and wanted to use it to dig up the backyard. That attempt was met with a fiery glare and a warning not to even think about it. Ever!
“I noticed that the silverware never went to the many ward dinners she cooked, or never accompanied the many meals she made and sent to others who were sick or needy. It never went on picnics and never went camping. In fact it never went anywhere; and, as time went by, it didn’t even come to the table very often. Some of our friends were weighed in the balance, found wanting, and didn’t even know it. They got the stainless when they came to dinner.
“The time came when we were called to go on a mission. I arrived home one day and was told that I had to rent a safe-deposit box for the silver. She didn’t want to take it with us. She didn’t want to leave it behind. And she didn’t want to lose it.
“For years I thought she was just a little bit eccentric, and then one day I realized that she had known for a long time something that I was just beginning to understand. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by.”
I love that talk. And I think it’s so appropriate that Elder Howard used the example of Ruth to start off the talk. Because Ruth did treat Naomi differently; she treated her in a way that suggested Ruth wanted that relationship to last. Indeed, Ruth’s actions toward Naomi was consistent with her great love for Naomi. I think the challenge for each us is to treat those we love with love, with kindness and to put their own interest ahead of our own. That’s not always easy.
But it’s part of who we need to become. Because we want to be like our Savior—who thought never of Himself, but always of us, and who performed the greatest act of selflessness the world has ever seen, the Atonement, and we all have the chance to be beneficiaries of that Atonement. When we talk about relationships, we cannot ignore our relationship with Him. We should treat Him with respect. As we come to know Christ, as we come to love Christ, we must begin to treat Him with respect. We must treat His Great, Merciful and Infinite Sacrifice with sacredness, and we must come to know we truly were purchased with a price. And when come to realize what He has done for us, then it become our desire to walk in His paths, so that the Sacrifice he made for us can reclaim us. We don’t ever wish to abuse His Atonement in a sin-now-and-repent later scheme. Rather, we seek to honor His Atonement by keeping our covenants, learning of His ways and trying, as best we can, to walk in His established path. And we humbly live lives of gratitude—gratitude that He loved us enough to give us a chance.
We can never repay Him for what he has done for us, but what we can do is let our knowledge and our appreciation of His Atonement change us. When it changes us, it should change the way we treat others, for we know that He has said: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:45). The way we treat others reflects how we really feel about our Savior. Ruth let the gospel change her, and this woman, born into a nation that was the enemies of Israel, became an example to the Israelites because she let her light so shine. Perhaps this was best summed up by Ruth’s future husband, Boaz, who told her, “all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman” (Ruth 3:11).
Ruth honored her covenants; she let the gospel change her; she treated the people whom she loved most the best; and she let her light shine. Her life reflected that of her Savior’s. May we be like Ruth and walk in the path the Savior has set.
Today, we’ll examine the lives of Ruth and Hannah and their beautiful stories, and, as we do so, I think you’ll come to see that these were the type of women President Hinckley described. They were women of virtue and honor—who put the things of God first in their lives and were blessed because they did so.
For now, we’ll just look at the life at Ruth. When a famine hit Israel, Elimelech; his wife, Naomi, and their two sons moved to Moab, which was not affected by the famine. While there, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi a widow. Her two sons soon married, one married Orpah; the other married Ruth. But, after 10 years, they too passed away. So Naomi’s family was reduced to just her two daughters-in-law, both of whom were Moabites, the longtime enemies of Israel.
It was at this point that Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. Naomi knew that Bethlehem wouldn’t be the best locale for her widowed daughters-in-law. There, they were likely to face bigotry and have to scavenge for food. Naomi told them of the troubles that would lie ahead and begged them to stay in Moab.
Ruth and Orpah were both converts to the church. They had both entered into covenants with their husbands when they married them. But now that they were widowed, both would have to decide just how much those covenants meant to them. Would they choose the comfort, familiarity and ease of Moab or the difficulties that lie ahead in Bethlehem? In likening this to us, the ease of Moab represents the ease that comes in following the world; the difficulty of Bethlehem represents the difficulty of coming unto Christ. Whether Orpah or Ruth would decide to remain in Moab or go to Bethlehem depended on just how deeply the word of the Lord had sunk into their hearts.
The Savior once told the Parable of the Sower, saying:
“Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
“And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
“Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
“And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
“And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
“But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold” (Math 13:4-8).
Now, let’s look at Orpah and Ruth’s decision and see which seeds they proved to be. Orpah chose Moab and returned unto her gods. After 10 years of conversion, the fear of what lay ahead choked off her faith. So what kind of seed was planted in Orpah’s heart? She was like a seed who fell among thorns. The Savior in explaining this type of convert said: “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
Indeed, no fruit came forth from Orpah because she had turned her back on the eternal family because of the cares of the world.
It’s at this point that Naomi once again pled with Ruth to do the same, saying, “Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law” (Ruth 1:15).
I want you to listen to the nobility and the love in Ruth’s reply:
“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).
So what kind of seed was Ruth? Obviously, she was the kind that fell into the good ground. Of her and those like her, the Savior said: “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
The more we discuss Ruth, the more impressed you will be by her. But it’s important to know that the good things she did in her life started because she let the Spirit write upon her heart the truths that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. She was the kind of person Paul was describing when he talked about those whose testimonies are “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3). I have felt that Spirit testify often in my life that Christ is real; that He does live and that He did love me enough to come to Earth and endure all the shames, persecutions, sufferings, bleedings, etc. that He did so that I might have a chance to be cleansed and return to my Heavenly Father. I have learned so often how much Christ really is there for me—even when it seems no one else is. And, indeed, I feel that the Spirit has written on my heart, like it did on Ruth’s heart, this truth: I know my Redeemer lives.
So what fruit did Ruth bring forth? In time, she would marry and have a son. That line continued on. And, among her offspring is the One who gave the parable of the sower. The mortal Christ descended from Ruth.
I want us to return to that beautiful statement Ruth made to Naomi:
“And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).
In these verses, Ruth is showing a great amount of loyalty. She knows the difficulties that lay ahead. But that doesn’t deter her. Because she loves Naomi, she doesn’t want Naomi to be alone in her old age. I think that in her decision to forsake all that she had in Moab to take care of her mother-in-law in a strange land, Ruth is teaching us about the importance of the eternal family relationship.
How could Ruth, who had loved her husband so deeply, turn her back on his mother?
How could Ruth turn her back on the covenants that sealed her to her husband?
Moreover, what is it that makes life meaningful? Is it your possessions, your comforts or your Halo scores? When He was on the Earth, Christ once said, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15)
So if it’s not possessions that matter, what does? I submit that what really matters is your relationships—and what relationships really matter? Your relationships with your family members and with your God. We are sent here to create, build and maintain eternal family relationships through following the pattern our Heavenly Father has shown. If we are successful in building those relationships here, we can share in His work there.
Earlier this week, I talked to a friend who recently got engaged. And she told me that some people had told her that she making a huge mistake—they said to her that love doesn’t last, and you’re better off staying single. Fortunately, she was smart enough to not buy what they were selling. Still, it really ate at me, so I told her later, “It really bothers me that some [people] take such a negative view on marriage. I think it’s great you have found that special eternal love. [And] I predict that when you get to the end of your life and you look back you will say that everything good in my life came from my decision to marry [him in the temple]. I believe the quality of our lives is marked by the quality of our relationships, if someone were to be single forever they would miss out on the best life [because they would miss out on the best relationships—the relationships between husband and wife and parent and child].”
I think Ruth is teaching us that nothing is as important as family. Let’s take a more in-depth look at verse 16: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” (Ruth 1:16). In families, we go where our families go because we love them and, if they can’t take care of themselves or if they are in trouble, we want to be there for them.
“Thy people shall be my people,” Ruth said. Isn’t this true: When you get married, you’re saying, “I want your family to be my family. I love you so much I want the people you love to be the people I love?” Isn’t that what Ruth did? She loved Naomi’s son, and because she loved Naomi’s son, she felt a great love and loyalty toward his mother. In thinking about that, I thought back to one of my English professors at BYU, Sister Gunn. One Monday, Sister Gunn started off class by telling us how happy she was that her daughter-in-law got married over the weekend. It was a strange sentence, so it caught my attention. Daughter-in-law got married? That makes no sense. If she’s your daughter-in-law, shouldn’t she already be married?
But then Sister Gunn explained that her son had died a few years earlier. And, then, Sister Gunn broke down and cried, and then she said, “When you love someone, you don’t want them to be alone forever. And I’m just so glad that this daughter-in-law that I love has found someone who loves her.”
I think you see the same attitude in Sister Gunn that Naomi had toward her widowed daughters-in-law, when Naomi was asking them not to come with her, Naomi said, “Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?” (Ruth 1:11). In other words, Naomi is saying, “I have no one for you to marry. Stay here and find someone who will love you so that you won’t be alone.” But, in another way, Naomi’s statement lacked a little faith—because she didn’t trust that God would provide a husband for her daughters-in-law in Israel. As it turned out, Ruth didn’t forsake Naomi, and God didn’t forsake Ruth.
Another thing Ruth said to Naomi “Thy God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16).
We want to share our God with them because it is through Jesus Christ that our families are made eternal.
I think you’ll see in Ruth’s life that this isn’t just something she said one time; this great statement of hers is how she lived her life. And if you examine the story of Ruth and Naomi, I think you’ll come to see just how much Naomi needed her, and just how wonderfully Ruth treated her. I think the story teaches us how much we need each other and why families are so important. Our parents, our brothers, our sisters, our nieces and nephews—and, someday, our own spouses and children—their our support, and their our cause for carrying on. They are the people that matter most to us.
But there’s something that Brother Solomon once said that really sticks out in my mind: “The people we love the most are oftentimes the people we treat the worst.” And, of course, Brother Solomon was trying to encourage us to treat the people we love most the best. Ruth did that. She loved Naomi, and she treated Naomi with honor and love, and Ruth made great sacrifices to ensure Naomi was taken care of.
One of the first things I did this week in preparing this lesson was to search the Church Web site. I typed in Ruth’s name, and one of the first things I found was a talk by Elder F. Burton Howard about his wife’s obsession with silverware. I want to read a good portion of that talk because it really demonstrates the importance of treating those we love most—our family members—with the utmost love.
Elder Howard starts off his talk this way:
“A number of years ago my wife and I went to a garden wedding reception. Earlier that day we had been to the temple, where two young people we knew had been married for time and all eternity. They were much in love. The circumstances of their meeting had been almost miraculous. Many tears of happiness were shed. We stood in the reception line at the end of a perfect day. Ahead of us was a close friend of the family. As he approached the couple, he stopped and in a beautiful, clear tenor voice sang to them the stirring words from the book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die” (Ruth 1:16–17). We were deeply touched and felt reassured about their prospects for happiness—this in part, I suppose, because my wife and I have had these same words on the wall of our home for many years. Sadly, the significance of these beautiful words is subsiding. Far too many marriages today end in divorce. Selfishness, sin, and personal convenience often prevail over covenants and commitment.”
Obviously, if people came to a marriage—or any other type of familial relation—with the same commitment Ruth showed to Naomi, those relationships would work out.
Elder Howard then gets into the story of his wife’s silverware obsession:
“I think eternal marriage cannot be achieved without a commitment to make it work. Most of what I know about this I have learned from my companion. We have been married for almost 47 years now. From the beginning she knew what kind of marriage she wanted.
“We started as poor college students, but her vision for our marriage was exemplified by a set of silverware. As is common today, when we married she registered with a local department store. Instead of listing all the pots and pans and appliances we needed and hoped to receive, she chose another course. She asked for silverware. She chose a pattern and the number of place settings and listed knives, forks, and spoons on the wedding registry and nothing else. No towels, no toasters, no television—just knives, forks, and spoons.
“The wedding came and went. Our friends and our parents’ friends gave gifts. We departed for a brief honeymoon and decided to open the presents when we returned. When we did so, we were shocked. There was not a single knife or fork in the lot. We joked about it and went on with our lives.
“Two children came along while we were in law school. We had no money to spare. But when my wife worked as a part-time election judge or when someone gave her a few dollars for her birthday, she would quietly set it aside, and when she had enough she would go to town to buy a fork or a spoon. It took us several years to accumulate enough pieces to use them. When we finally had service for four, we began to invite some of our friends for dinner.
“Before they came, we would have a little discussion in the kitchen. Which utensils would we use, the battered and mismatched stainless or the special silverware? In those early days I would often vote for the stainless. It was easier. You could just throw it in the dishwasher after the meal, and it took care of itself. The silver, on the other hand, was a lot of work. My wife had it hidden away under the bed where it could not be found easily by a burglar. She had insisted that I buy a tarnish-free cloth to wrap it in. Each piece was in a separate pocket, and it was no easy task to assemble all the pieces. When the silver was used, it had to be hand washed and dried so that it would not spot, and put back in the pockets so it would not tarnish, and wrapped up and carefully hidden again so it would not get stolen. If any tarnish was discovered, I was sent to buy silver polish, and together we carefully rubbed the stains away.
“Over the years we added to the set, and I watched with amazement how she cared for the silver. My wife was never one to get angry easily. However, I remember the day when one of our children somehow got hold of one of the silver forks and wanted to use it to dig up the backyard. That attempt was met with a fiery glare and a warning not to even think about it. Ever!
“I noticed that the silverware never went to the many ward dinners she cooked, or never accompanied the many meals she made and sent to others who were sick or needy. It never went on picnics and never went camping. In fact it never went anywhere; and, as time went by, it didn’t even come to the table very often. Some of our friends were weighed in the balance, found wanting, and didn’t even know it. They got the stainless when they came to dinner.
“The time came when we were called to go on a mission. I arrived home one day and was told that I had to rent a safe-deposit box for the silver. She didn’t want to take it with us. She didn’t want to leave it behind. And she didn’t want to lose it.
“For years I thought she was just a little bit eccentric, and then one day I realized that she had known for a long time something that I was just beginning to understand. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by.”
I love that talk. And I think it’s so appropriate that Elder Howard used the example of Ruth to start off the talk. Because Ruth did treat Naomi differently; she treated her in a way that suggested Ruth wanted that relationship to last. Indeed, Ruth’s actions toward Naomi was consistent with her great love for Naomi. I think the challenge for each us is to treat those we love with love, with kindness and to put their own interest ahead of our own. That’s not always easy.
But it’s part of who we need to become. Because we want to be like our Savior—who thought never of Himself, but always of us, and who performed the greatest act of selflessness the world has ever seen, the Atonement, and we all have the chance to be beneficiaries of that Atonement. When we talk about relationships, we cannot ignore our relationship with Him. We should treat Him with respect. As we come to know Christ, as we come to love Christ, we must begin to treat Him with respect. We must treat His Great, Merciful and Infinite Sacrifice with sacredness, and we must come to know we truly were purchased with a price. And when come to realize what He has done for us, then it become our desire to walk in His paths, so that the Sacrifice he made for us can reclaim us. We don’t ever wish to abuse His Atonement in a sin-now-and-repent later scheme. Rather, we seek to honor His Atonement by keeping our covenants, learning of His ways and trying, as best we can, to walk in His established path. And we humbly live lives of gratitude—gratitude that He loved us enough to give us a chance.
We can never repay Him for what he has done for us, but what we can do is let our knowledge and our appreciation of His Atonement change us. When it changes us, it should change the way we treat others, for we know that He has said: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:45). The way we treat others reflects how we really feel about our Savior. Ruth let the gospel change her, and this woman, born into a nation that was the enemies of Israel, became an example to the Israelites because she let her light so shine. Perhaps this was best summed up by Ruth’s future husband, Boaz, who told her, “all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman” (Ruth 3:11).
Ruth honored her covenants; she let the gospel change her; she treated the people whom she loved most the best; and she let her light shine. Her life reflected that of her Savior’s. May we be like Ruth and walk in the path the Savior has set.
Be grateful for who you are and what you have
In the movie “Hoosiers,” there’s a scene where the new coach introduces his team to the townspeople. Rather than focusing on the boys who have worked hard to represent that high school on the court, the townspeople choose to focus on who is not there: their star player who has chosen to sit the year out. The townsfolk let their disappointment be known. It’s then that coach steps to the mike and says, “I would hope you judge us for who we are—not who we are not.”
One of the most effective mists Satan uses is to have us focus on who we are not as well as what we don’t have. When we start doing that we forget just how much progress we really have made—and we tend to discount our qualities and give unbalanced importance and attention to our faults. This can quickly lead to bitterness.
Take Naomi, for instance. She had been blessed with the companionship of one of the most wonderful women of all time. She had been fortunate have a daughter-in-law was completely loyal to her and stuck with her and gave her companionship when Ruth didn’t have to do so. You would think Naomi would have been most grateful. But, at least initially, she was not.
“And [Naomi] said unto them, Call me not Naomi [which means pleasant], call me Mara [which means bitter]: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.
“I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21).
True, she had lost her husband and her sons. But she hadn’t returned empty.
The Almighty had in fact blessed her to have the companionship of a loving daughter-in-law.
Naomi’s friends later told her that “thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15).
A similar statement was made by Elkanah to his wife, Hannah, when she wept over the fact that she had no sons: “Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8).
In both cases, these women are asked by those who care about them to count their blessings and to not focus on the blessings they don’t have. But it’s so easy to focus on what we don’t have, and that’s why coveting is something that perhaps all of us struggle with.
Said Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: “If left unresisted, we can see how this inclination [to covet] so embellished by the world will ultimately bring a resentful, demeaning view of God and a terribly destructive view of ourselves. Most "thou shalt not" commandments are meant to keep us from hurting others, but I am convinced the commandment not to covet is meant to keep us from hurting ourselves.”
This comes from a General Conference talk Elder Holland gave called “The Other Prodigal,” which I think is one of the best talks I ever heard, so I want to read a lengthy portion of it to you:
“Among the most memorable parables the Savior ever told is the story of a foolish younger brother who went to his father, asked for his portion of the estate, and left home to squander his inheritance, the scripture says, in "riotous living."1 His money and his friends disappeared sooner than he thought possible—they always do—and a day of terrible reckoning came thereafter—it always does. In the downward course of all this he became a keeper of pigs, one so hungry, so stripped of sustenance and dignity that he "would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." But even that consolation was not available to him.
“Then the scripture says encouragingly, "He came to himself." He determined to find his way home, hoping to be accepted at least as a servant in his father's household. The tender image of this boy's anxious, faithful father running to meet him and showering him with kisses is one of the most moving and compassionate scenes in all of holy writ. It tells every child of God, wayward or otherwise, how much God wants us back in the protection of His arms.
“But being caught up in this younger son's story, we can miss, if we are not careful, the account of an elder son, for the opening line of the Savior's account reads, "A certain man had two sons"—and He might have added, "both of whom were lost and both of whom needed to come home."
“The younger son has returned, a robe has been placed on his shoulders and a ring on his finger, when the older son comes on the scene. He has been dutifully, loyally working in the field, and now he is returning. The language of parallel journeys home, though from very different locations, is central to this story.
“As he approaches the house, he hears the sounds of music and laughter.
“And he called one of the servants [note that he has servants] and asked what these things meant.
“And [the servant] said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
“And [the older brother] was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him."
“You know the conversation they then had. Surely, for this father, the pain over a wayward child who had run from home and wallowed with swine is now compounded with the realization that this older, wiser brother, the younger boy's childhood hero as older brothers always are, is angry that his brother has come home.
“No, I correct myself. This son is not so much angry that the other has come home as he is angry that his parents are so happy about it. Feeling unappreciated and perhaps more than a little self-pity, this dutiful son—and he is wonderfully dutiful—forgets for a moment that he has never had to know filth or despair, fear or self-loathing. He forgets for a moment that every calf on the ranch is already his and so are all the robes in the closet and every ring in the drawer. He forgets for a moment that his faithfulness has been and always will be rewarded.
“No, he who has virtually everything, and who has in his hardworking, wonderful way earned it, lacks the one thing that might make him the complete man of the Lord he nearly is. He has yet to come to the compassion and mercy, the charitable breadth of vision to see that this is not a rival returning. It is his brother. As his father pled with him to see, it is one who was dead and now is alive. It is one who was lost and now is found.
“Certainly this younger brother had been a prisoner—a prisoner of sin, stupidity, and a pigsty. But the older brother lives in some confinement, too. He has, as yet, been unable to break out of the prison of himself. He is haunted by the green-eyed monster of jealousy. He feels taken for granted by his father and disenfranchised by his brother, when neither is the case. He has fallen victim to a fictional affront. As such he is like Tantalus of Greek mythology—he is up to his chin in water, but he remains thirsty nevertheless. One who has heretofore presumably been very happy with his life and content with his good fortune suddenly feels very unhappy simply because another has had some good fortune as well.
“Who is it that whispers so subtly in our ear that a gift given to another somehow diminishes the blessings we have received? Who makes us feel that if God is smiling on another, then He surely must somehow be frowning on us? You and I both know who does this—it is the father of all lies.”
How does coveting hurt us?
Ø It embitters us.
It’s important that we learn to be grateful for what we have. To quote Sheryl Crow, “It’s not getting what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got.” It would be easy for me to look at, say, Jeremy Schudde and say he has Casa de Schudde and all I have is Room de Sledgehammer. But to do so, would ignore the many, many blessings God has given me. Perhaps the worst thing we can do is to focus on our wants when we should be focusing on the things of God. After all, we cannot take the cars, the TVs or the X-boxes with us. Our boats won’t be at our funerals. Our things cannot exalt; they cannot comfort us, and they cannot come with us. They are completely useless to us after we leave this mortal earth. To focus exclusively on these things can warp one’s view of what’s important and can lead people into dangerous situations:
Ø It can cause us to do things that hurt ourselves, our loved ones and others.
An instance that began a chain of events that led to great destruction occurred in the Jaredite civilization. It started with a Jaredite prince, Jared, who coveted his father’s throne. Because he coveted it so much, Jared began a Civil War. When the Civil War failed, Jared’s father mercifully spared his son’s life. Rather than being grateful for the kindness and forgiveness shown him, “Jared became exceedingly sorrowful because of the loss of the kingdom, for he had set his heart upon the kingdom and upon the glory of the world” (Ether 8:7). Notice how embittered by his coveting Jared become—and you won’t believe the terrible things that come because he was embittered.
Now, Jared was fortunate because he had a daughter who loved him. And when she saw him so saddened by his loss, her heart went out to him. And she tried to find a way to solve the problem—except she came up with a very foolish plan. Having read in the Jaredite record about secret oaths, she devised a plan.
This was her plan, as found in Ether 8:10: “And now, therefore, let my father send for Akish, the son of Kimnor; and behold, I am fair, and I will dance before him, and I will please him, that he will desire me to wife; wherefore if he shall desire of thee that ye shall give unto him me to wife, then shall ye say: I will give her if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king.”
In other words her plan was this: She would dance before an evil man named Akish—perhaps the most evil man around—for the purposes of making him lust after her—or in other words, covet her. And she knew that she could dance seductively enough that he would desire her enough to kill for her. And once he did, she would marry him.
Now, I want you happen in most cases if daughter came to a father and said, “I want to dance seductively in front of this evil guy who kill—literally kill—to have me. But don’t worry, I won’t marry him until he does murder grandpa!” Now, I’ll bet that none father would let this guy get within a restraining order of his duaughter. I guarantee no rational father who loves his daughter would consent to such a plan.
Yet Jared does. He is so consumed by his coveting that he will allow his daughter to dance in front of and marry a guy who is a monster in every sense of the word. He loved the position more than he loved her. In fact, it’s can safely be said that Jared had so focused himself on coveting that he had lost the ability to love—he had already waged war against his father, and now he was sending his daughter into a terrible situation.
So the plan goes through, and Akish begins making preparations to kill the king, so he can marry Jared’s daughter. But the king is warned in a dream of the plot and flees. Jared takes the throne by default, and Akish marries his daughter. But Jared’s not on his throne long before Akish begins to covet the kingdom. So Akish killed Jared and got the kingdom. But Akish continued to covet, and it consumed him like it had Jared. And Akish began to be jealous of his son; I don’t know what Akish’s son had, but whatever it was, Akish coveted it. So much so that he locked his son away in a prison and starved him to death. So Akish killed his father-in-law and son because of his coveting. Eventually, his other sons began to covet the kingdom, and they were able to raise an army because “the people of Akish were desirous for gain, even as Akish was desirous for power; wherefore, the sons of Akish did offer them money, by which means they drew away the more part of the people after them.
“And there began to be a war between the sons of Akish and Akish, which lasted for the space of many years, yea, unto the destruction of nearly all the people of the kingdom, yea, even all, save it were thirty souls, and they who fled with the house of Omer [Jared’s father, the king who had fled]” (Ether 9:11-12).
So coveting pretty much destroyed a nation. Jared, for his coveting, lost his life and allowed his daughter to be married to a monster who murdered his son. Akish, for his coveting, murdered family members and eventually lost his kingdom and his life.
Now, your coveting will not produce such dramatic results, but it will harm you, and it will leave you unsatisfied. And it is even dangerous enough that it may cause you to harm those you love.
Ø It can cause to forget what God has done for us.
Consider what Nephi told the Nephites:
“O, how could you have forgotten your God in the very day that he has delivered you?
“But behold, it is to get again, to be praised of men, yea, and that ye might get gold and silver. And ye have set your hearts upon the riches and the vain things of this world, for the which ye do murder, and plunder, and steal, and bear false witness against your neighbor, and do all manner of iniquity” (Helaman 7:20-21)
Here were a people who had been saved by God’s grace. Their civilization had almost been overrun by enemies. But the missionary work of Nephi and Lehi saved their nation. Rather than living a life of gratitude, they begin to live to get gain and praise. They didn’t set their hearts on God because they forgot about Him—even though He had only just recently spared each and every one of their lives.
Ø It gives us an attitude to compete with—rather than—help our fellow man.
Look at what happened in the Nephite nation:
When all things were equal: READ 3 Nephi 6:5
"And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression."
When they started to compete with each other: READ 3 Nephi 6:10-12
"But it came to pass in the *twenty and ninth year there began to be some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions;
"For there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers.
"And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. "
It should be noted that they went from a state of peace to, four years later, seeing the great destruction that happened on the American continent at the time of Christ's death. The prosperity that could only be disrupted by transgression was disrupted by transgression—and in a terrible way. The circumstances that brought this tragedy upon the Nephite nation started with their decision to covet and create divisions among the people because they placed extra importance on their riches and intelligence.
Ø It makes us ungrateful.
Ø It can make us hateful.
Ø It can make us do illegal acts
The prisons are full of people who have embezzled, swindled, stolen and even killed because they didn’t keep their coveting in check. The allure of money was so much that they committed unthinkable crimes to get what they wanted.
Overcoming Coveting
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND
How can we overcome such a tendency so common in almost everyone? For one thing, we can do as these two sons did and start making our way back to the Father. We should do so with as much haste and humility as we can summon. Along the way we can count our many blessings and we can applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all, we can serve others, the finest exercise for the heart ever prescribed. But finally these will not be enough. When we are lost, we can "come to ourselves," but we may not always be able to "find ourselves," and, worlds without end, we cannot "save ourselves." Only the Father and His Only Begotten Son can do that. Salvation is in Them only. So we pray that They will help us, that They will "come out" to meet and embrace us and bring us into the feast They have prepared.
They will do this! The scriptures are replete with the promise that God's grace is sufficient. This is one arena where no one has to claw or compete. Nephi declares that the Lord "loveth the [whole] world" and has given salvation freely.
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND
Brothers and sisters, I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us—insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn't measure our talents or our looks; He doesn't measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other. I know that if we will be faithful, there is a perfectly tailored robe of righteousness ready and waiting for everyone, "robes . . . made . . . white in the blood of the Lamb." May we encourage each other in our effort to win that prize
Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.
Psalms 119:36
One of the most effective mists Satan uses is to have us focus on who we are not as well as what we don’t have. When we start doing that we forget just how much progress we really have made—and we tend to discount our qualities and give unbalanced importance and attention to our faults. This can quickly lead to bitterness.
Take Naomi, for instance. She had been blessed with the companionship of one of the most wonderful women of all time. She had been fortunate have a daughter-in-law was completely loyal to her and stuck with her and gave her companionship when Ruth didn’t have to do so. You would think Naomi would have been most grateful. But, at least initially, she was not.
“And [Naomi] said unto them, Call me not Naomi [which means pleasant], call me Mara [which means bitter]: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.
“I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21).
True, she had lost her husband and her sons. But she hadn’t returned empty.
The Almighty had in fact blessed her to have the companionship of a loving daughter-in-law.
Naomi’s friends later told her that “thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15).
A similar statement was made by Elkanah to his wife, Hannah, when she wept over the fact that she had no sons: “Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8).
In both cases, these women are asked by those who care about them to count their blessings and to not focus on the blessings they don’t have. But it’s so easy to focus on what we don’t have, and that’s why coveting is something that perhaps all of us struggle with.
Said Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: “If left unresisted, we can see how this inclination [to covet] so embellished by the world will ultimately bring a resentful, demeaning view of God and a terribly destructive view of ourselves. Most "thou shalt not" commandments are meant to keep us from hurting others, but I am convinced the commandment not to covet is meant to keep us from hurting ourselves.”
This comes from a General Conference talk Elder Holland gave called “The Other Prodigal,” which I think is one of the best talks I ever heard, so I want to read a lengthy portion of it to you:
“Among the most memorable parables the Savior ever told is the story of a foolish younger brother who went to his father, asked for his portion of the estate, and left home to squander his inheritance, the scripture says, in "riotous living."1 His money and his friends disappeared sooner than he thought possible—they always do—and a day of terrible reckoning came thereafter—it always does. In the downward course of all this he became a keeper of pigs, one so hungry, so stripped of sustenance and dignity that he "would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." But even that consolation was not available to him.
“Then the scripture says encouragingly, "He came to himself." He determined to find his way home, hoping to be accepted at least as a servant in his father's household. The tender image of this boy's anxious, faithful father running to meet him and showering him with kisses is one of the most moving and compassionate scenes in all of holy writ. It tells every child of God, wayward or otherwise, how much God wants us back in the protection of His arms.
“But being caught up in this younger son's story, we can miss, if we are not careful, the account of an elder son, for the opening line of the Savior's account reads, "A certain man had two sons"—and He might have added, "both of whom were lost and both of whom needed to come home."
“The younger son has returned, a robe has been placed on his shoulders and a ring on his finger, when the older son comes on the scene. He has been dutifully, loyally working in the field, and now he is returning. The language of parallel journeys home, though from very different locations, is central to this story.
“As he approaches the house, he hears the sounds of music and laughter.
“And he called one of the servants [note that he has servants] and asked what these things meant.
“And [the servant] said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
“And [the older brother] was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him."
“You know the conversation they then had. Surely, for this father, the pain over a wayward child who had run from home and wallowed with swine is now compounded with the realization that this older, wiser brother, the younger boy's childhood hero as older brothers always are, is angry that his brother has come home.
“No, I correct myself. This son is not so much angry that the other has come home as he is angry that his parents are so happy about it. Feeling unappreciated and perhaps more than a little self-pity, this dutiful son—and he is wonderfully dutiful—forgets for a moment that he has never had to know filth or despair, fear or self-loathing. He forgets for a moment that every calf on the ranch is already his and so are all the robes in the closet and every ring in the drawer. He forgets for a moment that his faithfulness has been and always will be rewarded.
“No, he who has virtually everything, and who has in his hardworking, wonderful way earned it, lacks the one thing that might make him the complete man of the Lord he nearly is. He has yet to come to the compassion and mercy, the charitable breadth of vision to see that this is not a rival returning. It is his brother. As his father pled with him to see, it is one who was dead and now is alive. It is one who was lost and now is found.
“Certainly this younger brother had been a prisoner—a prisoner of sin, stupidity, and a pigsty. But the older brother lives in some confinement, too. He has, as yet, been unable to break out of the prison of himself. He is haunted by the green-eyed monster of jealousy. He feels taken for granted by his father and disenfranchised by his brother, when neither is the case. He has fallen victim to a fictional affront. As such he is like Tantalus of Greek mythology—he is up to his chin in water, but he remains thirsty nevertheless. One who has heretofore presumably been very happy with his life and content with his good fortune suddenly feels very unhappy simply because another has had some good fortune as well.
“Who is it that whispers so subtly in our ear that a gift given to another somehow diminishes the blessings we have received? Who makes us feel that if God is smiling on another, then He surely must somehow be frowning on us? You and I both know who does this—it is the father of all lies.”
How does coveting hurt us?
Ø It embitters us.
It’s important that we learn to be grateful for what we have. To quote Sheryl Crow, “It’s not getting what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got.” It would be easy for me to look at, say, Jeremy Schudde and say he has Casa de Schudde and all I have is Room de Sledgehammer. But to do so, would ignore the many, many blessings God has given me. Perhaps the worst thing we can do is to focus on our wants when we should be focusing on the things of God. After all, we cannot take the cars, the TVs or the X-boxes with us. Our boats won’t be at our funerals. Our things cannot exalt; they cannot comfort us, and they cannot come with us. They are completely useless to us after we leave this mortal earth. To focus exclusively on these things can warp one’s view of what’s important and can lead people into dangerous situations:
Ø It can cause us to do things that hurt ourselves, our loved ones and others.
An instance that began a chain of events that led to great destruction occurred in the Jaredite civilization. It started with a Jaredite prince, Jared, who coveted his father’s throne. Because he coveted it so much, Jared began a Civil War. When the Civil War failed, Jared’s father mercifully spared his son’s life. Rather than being grateful for the kindness and forgiveness shown him, “Jared became exceedingly sorrowful because of the loss of the kingdom, for he had set his heart upon the kingdom and upon the glory of the world” (Ether 8:7). Notice how embittered by his coveting Jared become—and you won’t believe the terrible things that come because he was embittered.
Now, Jared was fortunate because he had a daughter who loved him. And when she saw him so saddened by his loss, her heart went out to him. And she tried to find a way to solve the problem—except she came up with a very foolish plan. Having read in the Jaredite record about secret oaths, she devised a plan.
This was her plan, as found in Ether 8:10: “And now, therefore, let my father send for Akish, the son of Kimnor; and behold, I am fair, and I will dance before him, and I will please him, that he will desire me to wife; wherefore if he shall desire of thee that ye shall give unto him me to wife, then shall ye say: I will give her if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king.”
In other words her plan was this: She would dance before an evil man named Akish—perhaps the most evil man around—for the purposes of making him lust after her—or in other words, covet her. And she knew that she could dance seductively enough that he would desire her enough to kill for her. And once he did, she would marry him.
Now, I want you happen in most cases if daughter came to a father and said, “I want to dance seductively in front of this evil guy who kill—literally kill—to have me. But don’t worry, I won’t marry him until he does murder grandpa!” Now, I’ll bet that none father would let this guy get within a restraining order of his duaughter. I guarantee no rational father who loves his daughter would consent to such a plan.
Yet Jared does. He is so consumed by his coveting that he will allow his daughter to dance in front of and marry a guy who is a monster in every sense of the word. He loved the position more than he loved her. In fact, it’s can safely be said that Jared had so focused himself on coveting that he had lost the ability to love—he had already waged war against his father, and now he was sending his daughter into a terrible situation.
So the plan goes through, and Akish begins making preparations to kill the king, so he can marry Jared’s daughter. But the king is warned in a dream of the plot and flees. Jared takes the throne by default, and Akish marries his daughter. But Jared’s not on his throne long before Akish begins to covet the kingdom. So Akish killed Jared and got the kingdom. But Akish continued to covet, and it consumed him like it had Jared. And Akish began to be jealous of his son; I don’t know what Akish’s son had, but whatever it was, Akish coveted it. So much so that he locked his son away in a prison and starved him to death. So Akish killed his father-in-law and son because of his coveting. Eventually, his other sons began to covet the kingdom, and they were able to raise an army because “the people of Akish were desirous for gain, even as Akish was desirous for power; wherefore, the sons of Akish did offer them money, by which means they drew away the more part of the people after them.
“And there began to be a war between the sons of Akish and Akish, which lasted for the space of many years, yea, unto the destruction of nearly all the people of the kingdom, yea, even all, save it were thirty souls, and they who fled with the house of Omer [Jared’s father, the king who had fled]” (Ether 9:11-12).
So coveting pretty much destroyed a nation. Jared, for his coveting, lost his life and allowed his daughter to be married to a monster who murdered his son. Akish, for his coveting, murdered family members and eventually lost his kingdom and his life.
Now, your coveting will not produce such dramatic results, but it will harm you, and it will leave you unsatisfied. And it is even dangerous enough that it may cause you to harm those you love.
Ø It can cause to forget what God has done for us.
Consider what Nephi told the Nephites:
“O, how could you have forgotten your God in the very day that he has delivered you?
“But behold, it is to get again, to be praised of men, yea, and that ye might get gold and silver. And ye have set your hearts upon the riches and the vain things of this world, for the which ye do murder, and plunder, and steal, and bear false witness against your neighbor, and do all manner of iniquity” (Helaman 7:20-21)
Here were a people who had been saved by God’s grace. Their civilization had almost been overrun by enemies. But the missionary work of Nephi and Lehi saved their nation. Rather than living a life of gratitude, they begin to live to get gain and praise. They didn’t set their hearts on God because they forgot about Him—even though He had only just recently spared each and every one of their lives.
Ø It gives us an attitude to compete with—rather than—help our fellow man.
Look at what happened in the Nephite nation:
When all things were equal: READ 3 Nephi 6:5
"And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression."
When they started to compete with each other: READ 3 Nephi 6:10-12
"But it came to pass in the *twenty and ninth year there began to be some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions;
"For there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers.
"And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. "
It should be noted that they went from a state of peace to, four years later, seeing the great destruction that happened on the American continent at the time of Christ's death. The prosperity that could only be disrupted by transgression was disrupted by transgression—and in a terrible way. The circumstances that brought this tragedy upon the Nephite nation started with their decision to covet and create divisions among the people because they placed extra importance on their riches and intelligence.
Ø It makes us ungrateful.
Ø It can make us hateful.
Ø It can make us do illegal acts
The prisons are full of people who have embezzled, swindled, stolen and even killed because they didn’t keep their coveting in check. The allure of money was so much that they committed unthinkable crimes to get what they wanted.
Overcoming Coveting
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND
How can we overcome such a tendency so common in almost everyone? For one thing, we can do as these two sons did and start making our way back to the Father. We should do so with as much haste and humility as we can summon. Along the way we can count our many blessings and we can applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all, we can serve others, the finest exercise for the heart ever prescribed. But finally these will not be enough. When we are lost, we can "come to ourselves," but we may not always be able to "find ourselves," and, worlds without end, we cannot "save ourselves." Only the Father and His Only Begotten Son can do that. Salvation is in Them only. So we pray that They will help us, that They will "come out" to meet and embrace us and bring us into the feast They have prepared.
They will do this! The scriptures are replete with the promise that God's grace is sufficient. This is one arena where no one has to claw or compete. Nephi declares that the Lord "loveth the [whole] world" and has given salvation freely.
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND
Brothers and sisters, I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us—insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn't measure our talents or our looks; He doesn't measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other. I know that if we will be faithful, there is a perfectly tailored robe of righteousness ready and waiting for everyone, "robes . . . made . . . white in the blood of the Lamb." May we encourage each other in our effort to win that prize
Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.
Psalms 119:36
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