[The following is a letter I wrote to a friend a year ago. It repeats many ideas I have written elsewhere, it is a bit lengthy, but it is convenient to simply cut-and-paste it here.]
Jesus’ statement in the Garden of Gethsemane, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt,” is the supreme example of submission. Sacrifices are intimidating to say the least. But such submission brings a gift that comes through no other means. When we submit our wills to God’s, we receive the Holy Ghost to a greater extent, to the point that it actually begins to change us. Much has been said about receiving light in our eyes, of having Jesus’ image “graven upon our countenances” (Alma 5:19). John records Jesus’ prayer the night he entered Gethsemane: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). His sacrifice was linked somehow to His premortal glory.
Moses’ face shone when he came off from the mountain, and the people were so fearful that they requested he wear a veil. What was the circumstance in which this manifestation occurred? The people had just sinned by making the golden calf, and Moses was going before the Lord, pleading for the Lord to “forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Deut. 32:32). In other words, Moses requested that if the Lord sent them to hell, send Moses there too. He was not just risking death; he was risking spiritual death. He was willing to give all, to die in every sense to “make an atonement for” their sin (Deut. 32:30). “And he said unto Moses, Thou canst not see my face at this time, lest mine anger be kindled against thee also, and I destroy thee, and thy people; for there shall no man among them see me at this time, and live, for they are exceeding sinful. And no sinful man hath at any time, neither shall there be any sinful man at any time, that shall see my face and live” (JST Deut. 33:20). Deut 34:30 “And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.” Moses’ willingness to risk harm to himself, to put it all on the line, to die, preceded the radiant beams of light coming from his face.
Abinadi also scared people with the immense glory shining from his face. Abinadi begins to recite the Ten Commandments (like Moses), and King Noah decides it is time to kill him: “…now when the king had heard these words, he said unto his priests: Away with this fellow, and slay him…” Upon hearing his death sentence pronounced, Abinadi’s face begins to shine: “…the people of king Noah durst not lay their hands on him, for the Spirit of the Lord was upon him; and his face shone with exceeding luster, even as Moses’ did while in the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord.” What was it that caused his face to shine? I believe it was his willingness to die. “Ye see that ye have not power to slay me, therefore I finish my message…and then it matters not whither I go, if it so be that I am saved.” He believed his life was still forfeit: “But this much I tell you, what you do with me, after this, shall be as a type and a shadow of things which are to come” (Mosiah 13:1, 5, 7-10).
There are many recorded instances when Joseph Smith’s face shone with that same kind of luster. Wilford Woodruff recorded that “he called the Twelve together the last time he spoke to us, and his face shone like amber. And upon our shoulders he rolled the burden of the Kingdom, and he gave us all the keys and powers and gifts to carry on this great and mighty work. He told us that he had received every key, every power and every gift for the salvation of the living and the dead, and he said: ‘Upon the Twelve I seal these gifts and powers and keys from henceforth and forever. No matter what may come to me. And I lay this work upon your shoulders. Take it and bear it off, and if you don’t you’ll be damned.’” President Woodruff spoke into an early phonographic recorder in 1897: “At that meeting he stood on his feet for about three hours and taught us the things of the kingdom. His face was as clear as amber, and he was clothed with a power that I had never seen in any man in the flesh before.” Joseph’s words from that same meeting: “It may be that my enemies will kill me. And in case they should and the keys and power which rest on me not be imparted to you, they will be lost from the earth. But if I can only succeed in placing them upon your heads, then let me fall a victim to murderous hands if God will suffer it, and I can go with all pleasure and satisfaction, knowing that my work is done, and the foundation laid on which the kingdom of God is to be reared in this dispensation of the fulness of times” (In Declaration of the Twelve, Brigham Young Office Files, 1832–1878, Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah).
He was willing to die. Benjamin F. Johnson recorded the following private conversation between him and Joseph: “‘Oh! I am so tired—so tired that I often feel to long for my day of rest. For what has there been in this life but tribulation for me? From a boy I have been persecuted by my enemies, and now even my friends are beginning to join them, to hate and persecute me! Why should I not wish for my time of rest?’ His words to me were ominous, and they brought a shadow as of death over my spirit, and I said: ‘Oh, Joseph! how could you think of leaving us? How as a people could we do without you?’ He saw my feelings were sorrowful and said kindly: ‘Bennie, if I were on the other side of the veil I could do many times more for my friends than I can do while I am with them here” (They Knew the Prophet: Personal Accounts From Over 100 People Who Knew Joseph Smith, Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, pg. 94).
Jesus is called “The Lamb of God,” Moses is associated with the death of the first born and the blood of the Pascal lamb, Abinadi taught from Isaiah 53 about the Savior, “…he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter…,” and Joseph Smith said “I am going like a lamb to the slaughter” (D&C 135:4).
The ability and willingness to part with one’s most precious possession seems to be a trait of God. Jesus speaks to His Father throughout the ordeal of the Atonement, yet we do not hear the Father responding. But the incident of Abraham offering Isaac gives us a symbolic look at Father in heaven during the Savior’s ordeal. Both of them were making a sacrifice, not just the Savior. Just as Abraham and Isaac were willing to go through with the sacrifice God required of them, the Father and the Son were also willing to make their Ultimate Sacrifice. Doing the right thing, no matter how painful, seems to be a trait of Godhood. God’s actions are dictated by truth, not by convenience, instinct, or comfort. For Abraham, and Jesus, the outcomes of their offering were visible with an eye of faith. God gave His Only Begotten Son, His only perfectly obedient child, for the possibility of reclaiming His other children. Abraham received a promise of unlimited posterity when he showed his willingness to offer Isaac.
We are not left out of the loop. Rev. 12:7-11 “And there was war in heaven…and Satan…was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.” How did we triumph in the war in heaven? “And [we] overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of [our] testimony; and [we] loved not [our] lives unto the death.” Jesus’ prayer for premortal glory to be restored (John 17) was also in the context of His own death and sacrifice.
Sacrifice and the Pattern of the Old Temple
The Old Temple shows us a pattern of sacrifice and reward, repeated over and over again. There are various objects and stations in the Old Temple. Each was set up to teach the people through symbolism. But it was not the familiar Menorah or the table of Shewbread the Lord ordained for His people to see day and night. It was the Altar of Sacrifice, placed right next to the gate in the open air courtyard, visible to all. This large, square platform was connected to the ground by a ramp, was almost cube-shaped, and resembled a giant barbeque grill. Blood, fire, and smoke, along with the smell of burning hair, fat, and flesh, the bleating of sheep and the bellowing of cattle, all accompanied the Altar.
It stood as a vivid reminder that if one were determined to approach God, sacrifice was a requirement. It also echoed the beginnings of the world—Jesus had to agree to pay for our sins even before creation could proceed. The blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on everything; the priest himself, and all the furniture of the Temple, even the Ark of the Covenant, were all touched by the blood. It is as if the sacrifice legitimized everything that happened from that point forward.
After the initial sacrifice, the next piece of furniture we come to is the Brazen Sea, what we would immediately recognize as a baptismal font upon twelve oxen. We sacrifice first, and then we receive a cleansing and a new birth as a reward. Smoke and blood are washed away as we emerge from the water, clean and whole and new. We abase ourselves in a prominent public place, and receive our reward in a submissive, almost hidden point representing a grave.
The Table of Shewbread is also square-shaped, and altars are sometimes called “The table of the Lord.” We know what sacrifices are connected with partaking of the sacrament—a kind of intermediate righteousness in which we struggle with less carnal commandments. No one who murders or commits sexual sins, or is dishonest, can partake of the bread and water. But those who struggle with the refining process, giving up profane language, taking the gospel seriously, getting out of bed early, not overeating, and other mid-range sins, partake of the sacrament to get a weekly wash and a fresh start. We evaluate our progress at giving up the little sins that cause us to stumble. We remember the Savior, and our great dependence on Him to be saved.
The sacrifice associated with partaking of bread and water is followed, in the Old Temple, by a massive increase in light—the Candlestick, or Menorah, representing the Tree of Life. Made of solid gold, its seven lamps burn olive oil continuously. Water, or refreshing and cleansing and rebirth are the reward for our first offering; oil, the substance used to anoint kings, and the light it produces, is our reward for our intermediate offering.
The next offering is one of prayer and unity. The process of going through the Temple to this point has been one of getting cleaned up—shedding sins at the Altar and the Table, and receiving washing and light in return. Now we come to another altar, the Altar of Incense, a miniature version of the giant Altar of Sacrifice outside. The Table had twelve loaves of bread, one for each tribe. There were also twelve rocks of incense on the Table. When we are clean enough, what we have left to offer God is clean enough to be used to build, rather than be destroyed. Sacrifice is destructive (throw away those movies, books, magazines, friendships, behaviors, etc.) Consecration is constructive, because what is left behind is so refined that the Lord can actually use it to build something.
The priest would enter the Temple and put stones of incense on the Altar of Incense. All twelve tribes were symbolically offered up in this manner. The outer Altar was smoking black and noisy, covered in blood and hair. This inner Altar was quiet, private, and the smoke was white and sweet, ascending up before the veil of the Temple separating the Holy of Holies from everything else. The priest would pray for himself, for Israel, and for the strangers who knew not God. This prayer was offered day and night. Zachariah was offering this prayer at the Altar of Incense when Gabriel appeared and told him that he and his wife were healed of their infertility. Consecration involves offering our all to God in order to build up his kingdom, and Zachariah and Elizabeth got that opportunity.
The reward for this last sacrifice is the presence of Jehovah Himself. One day of the year, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies, and the elements of each sacrifice were present. Blood from the outer Altar, incense from the Table lit with the fire of the inner Altar, were present in the Holy of Holies. The blood was placed on the Ark, and the smoking incense was put through the veil in a pan to fill the room with smoke. The room was entirely dark, but the High Priest would enter, and if the all was well in the ordinances of the Temple, the Shekinah, the presence of Jehovah, would light the darkness of the room. (The admitted differences between Solomon’s Temple and the Temple of Herod were 1. The absence of the Ark, and 2. The absence of God’s presence.)
Sacrifice, reward, sacrifice, reward—that was the pattern of the Old Temple.
Sacrifice and the First Principles and Ordinances
Sacrifice requires faith in God. If all action is dependent on faith, how much more is the action which requires submission and childlike trust towards Father in Heaven? Our faith in Christ leads us to make a sacrifice “in the similitude of the Only Begotten” (D&C 138:13).
Repentance and sacrifices are inextricably bound up, not only because repentance involves giving up sin, but because of the requirements of the plan of salvation. Moses 5:4-9 “And Adam and Eve, his wife, called upon the name of the Lord, and they heard the voice of the Lord from…the Garden of Eden…And he gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord. And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me. And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth. Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore. And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam, which beareth record of the Father and the Son, saying: I am the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and forever, that as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will.” We are to sacrifice, not matter how righteous we seem by comparison to others. Our repentance and sacrifice link us to the Atonement.
Baptism requires a sacrifice. It represents the death of the old man, and the resurrection or birth of a new man. It represents a bath, a cleansing from sin. It also denotes great humility, since being dipped backwards in water is an extremely compromising position. The sacrificial animals in the Old Temple were washed at various ceremonial lavers by the priests before they were offered. Jesus (THE Lamb of God, the actual Sacrifice for sin) was also baptized by an Aaronic priest, John the Baptist. John bore witness that Jesus was in fact the Lamb, and was called to do so.
Our ability to obey the commandment, “…receive the Holy Ghost,” is directly tied to our willingness to sacrifice. We no longer shed blood when we offer sacrifices. (Killing a sheep back then was parting with wealth, a source of livelihood and life itself; food, clothing, and status were proportional to the size of one’s flocks. Imagine driving a new car into the parking lot of the Temple, and having a deacon flip a switch to crush it into a cube of scrap metal.) 3Ne. 9:19-20 “And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.” I know of only one phrase in the scriptures that uses stronger language to describe the reception of the Holy Ghost. D&C 109:13-15 “And that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord’s house may feel thy power, and feel constrained to acknowledge that thou hast sanctified it…And that they may grow up in thee, and receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost…” (emphasis added). Notice the shift from outward, public sacrifice, to an inward, deeper one? This is characteristic of all Jesus’ modifications to the old law—he intensifies the commandments by making them a matter of the mind and heart as well as behavior. “Don’t commit murder” is easy—“Don’t get angry” requires much more of us. This shift reflects Aaronic and Melchizedek functions—Aaronic is outward ordinances, Melchizedek, inner.
Willing Sacrifice and a Changed Heart
Humility does not generate homogeneity. This attitude sets the greatest leaders and prophets in the kingdom apart from others. It is one thing you can point to, amidst people of different mindsets, professions, and gifts, as a common element. Below are some quotes from modern prophets that reflect their submission to God. Notice how each quote embodies humility, yet the individual expressing the submission gives it his own personal flavor.
Joseph Smith
“I made this my rule: When the Lord commands, do it” (Joseph Smith Jr., History of the Church, 2:170).
President Thomas S. Monson
“The sweetest experience I know in life is to feel a prompting and act upon it and later find out that it was the fulfillment of someone’s prayer or someone’s need. And I always want the Lord to know that if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him” (President Monson, “On the Lord’s Errand”).
Gordon B. Hinckley
President Hinckley’s struggles as a missionary are well known, but only half of the story is told. Some mistake his father’s letter for the punch line of the story—that President Hinckley, through his own strength and diligence, gritted his teeth and pulled himself up by his bootstraps through his tireless work ethic. His penchant for tireless work was real, but that is not the main point. He described what happened:
“When I arrived there I was not well. I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere in the missionary work. I became discouraged. I wrote a letter to my father and said ‘I’m wasting my time and your money. I don’t see any point in my staying here. And in due time a letter came back from him, in which he simply said, ‘Dear Gordon, I have your letter of such-and-such a date. I have only one suggestion: Forget yourself and go to work.’”
“I pondered that, and next morning in our scripture class, we read that great statement of the Lord: ‘He that saveth his life shall lose it; he that loseth his life for my sake and the Gospel’s shall find it.’ It touched me—that statement, that promise, in conjunction with my father’s letter, prompted me to go upstairs in the little bedroom at 15 Wadham Road, Preston, Lancashire where we lived, and get on my knees and make a covenant with the Lord that I would try to forget myself and go to work. I count that as the day of decision in my life. Everything good that’s happened to me since then, I can trace back to the decision I made at that time” (From the video Gordon B. Hinckley: Man of Integrity). Another description of the experience gives further insight: “That July day in 1933 was my day of decision. A new light came into my life and a new joy into my heart. The fog of England seemed to lift, and I saw the sunlight. I had a rich and wonderful mission experience, for which I shall ever be grateful” (“Taking the Gospel to Britain: A Declaration of Vision, Faith, Courage, and Truth,” Ensign, July 1987, 7). He met the qualification of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and was subsequently baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost.
President Boyd K. Packer
“I’ve found in my life that it has been critically important that this was established between me and the Lord so that I knew that He knew which way I had committed my agency. I went before Him and in essence said, ‘I’m not neutral, and You can do with me what You want. If You need my vote, it’s there. I don’t care what You do with me, and You don’t have to take anything from me because I give it to You—everything, all I own, all I am.’ And that makes the difference.” (President Boyd K. Packer, That All May Be Edified, pg. 272).
“Just after my call as a General Authority 16 years ago, in a stake conference where I accompanied President Boyd K. Packer, he said something I have not forgotten. As he addressed the congregation, he said, ‘I know who I am.’ Then after a pause, he added, ‘I am a nobody.’ He then turned to me, sitting on the stand behind him, and said, ‘And, Brother Andersen, you are a nobody too.’ Then he added these words: ‘If you ever forget it, the Lord will remind you of it instantly, and it won’t be pleasant.’” (President Packer, quoted by Elder Anderson, “Come Unto Him,” April 2009 General Conference).
President Henry B. Erying
“We are safe on the rock which is the Savior when we have yielded in faith in Him, have responded to the Holy Spirit’s direction to keep the commandments long enough and faithfully enough that the power of the Atonement has changed our hearts. When we have, by that experience, become as a child in our capacity to love and obey, we are on the sure foundation.
“From King Benjamin we learn what we can do to take us to that safe place. But remember: the things we do are the means, not the end we seek. What we do allows the Atonement of Jesus Christ to change us into what we must be. Our faith in Jesus Christ brings us to repentance and to keeping His commandments. We obey and we resist temptation by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost. In time our natures will change. We will become as a little child, obedient to God and more loving. That change, if we do all we must to keep it, will qualify us to enjoy the gifts which come through the Holy Ghost. Then we will be safe on the only sure rock.
“Like you, I have felt what King Benjamin meant when he said that we could become like a little child before God. I have prayed, as you have, to know what to do when choices that I faced would have eternal consequences. Over many years I have seen a recurring pattern in the times when the answers to such a prayer have come most clearly.
“Once, for instance, I prayed through the night to know what I was to choose to do in the morning. I knew that no other choice could have had a greater effect on the lives of others and on my own. I knew what choice looked most comfortable to me. I knew what outcome I wanted. But I could not see the future. I could not see which choice would lead to which outcome. So the risk of being wrong seemed too great to me.
“I prayed, but for hours there seemed to be no answer. Just before dawn, a feeling came over me. More than at any time since I had been a child, I felt like one. My heart and my mind seemed to grow very quiet. There was a peace in that inner stillness.
“Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself praying, ‘Heavenly Father, it doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t care anymore what I want. I only want that Thy will be done. That is all that I want. Please tell me what to do.'"
(Conditional surrender is not surrender at all in this context. Our submission cannot have conditions and stipulations and price tags all over it.)
“In that moment I felt as quiet inside as I had ever felt. And the message came, and I was sure who it was from. It was clear what I was to do. I received no promise of the outcome. There was only the assurance that I was a child who had been told what path led to whatever He wanted for me” (President Eyring, “As a Child,” April 2006 General Conference).
Ezra T. Benson
“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lost his life to God will find he has eternal life” (President Benson, New Era, May 1975, p. 20).
Wilford Woodruff
“Be it known that I Willford Woodruff do freely covenant with my God that I freely consecrate and dedicate myself together with all my properties and affects unto the Lord for the purpose of assisting in building up his kingdom even Zion on the earth that I may keep his law and lay all things before the bishop of his Church that I may be a lawful heir to the Kingdom of God even the Celestial Kingdom,” and then lists his property (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 1:16, Dec. 31, 1834). (This was the first anniversary of his baptism.) “I made a firm resolution that I would seek the Lord to know His will, to keep His commandments, and to follow the dictates of His Holy Spirit….I was determined to…spend my future life in the maintenance of these convictions” (Wilford Woodruff, His Life and Labors, 26-27).
Brigham Young
“I have heard a great many tell about what they have suffered for Christ’s sake. I am happy to say I never had occasion to. I have enjoyed a great deal, but so far as suffering goes I have compared it a great many times, in my feelings and before congregations, to a man wearing an old, worn-out, tattered and dirty coat, and somebody comes along and gives him one that is new, whole and beautiful. This is the comparison I draw when I think of what I have suffered for the Gospel’s sake—I have thrown away an old coat and have put on a new one” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 348).
These are modern examples of prophets with submissive, humble, obedient attitudes. There are also venerable non-priesthood holders who express this attitude of submission. Scripture records this attitude of humility in sacrifice. When Mary was hailed by Gabriel, she also submitted to the Lord’s will for her. Her response echoes her Son’s later statement of submission to God’s will: “…Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Again, each person listed above puts their signature spin on the central principle of submissiveness and humble obedience to the Lord.
Unprofitable Servants
God owns everything already. Why are we asked to give Him things? In all this giving, offering, and sacrificing, the thing the Lord wants is us, our whole being, our total love and devotion. Things we offering as sacrifices are things He already possesses. Giving them up shows ourselves and the Lord that we love Him more than what we part with at His request. This is the idea of a “heave” offering. You take the item and throw it over a wall into an enclosure, showing you no longer have access to it. The Lord can take anything from us, whether it is on our side of the wall or not. Our agency is inviolable to Him; that is what He is really after, the only thing we really CAN give Him. The worth of gold and silver, sheep and cattle and oxen and cars and money is negligible to the creator and owner of stars and planets. But the worth of souls is great in the eyes of God.
William Tyndale expressed it beautifully, that sense of unconditional surrender to the Lord, and the acknowledgement that we are “unprofitable servants.” As difficult as our sacrifices may seem to us, we really are not doing anything for the Lord He cannot already do for Himself. King Benjamin calls us “unprofitable servants” even when we are giving our best. Tyndale says, “Faith, when she prayeth, setteth not her good deeds before her, saying, ‘Lord, for my good deeds do this or that’; nor bargaineth with God, saying ‘Lord, grant me this, or do this or that, and I will do this or that for thee,’…But she setteth her infirmities and her lack before her face, and God’s promises, saying, ‘Lord, for thy mercy and truth, which thou hast sworn, be merciful unto me’” (S. Michael Wilcox, Fire In The Bones: William Tyndale, Martyr, Father of the English Bible, pg. 101). All things are God’s anyway; He is just asking us to return a few of them to Him to show we love Him more than the things we are sacrificing. (Often the Lord will give us more after one sacrifice, and see if we are willing to then give THAT up; this can go on over a lifetime.)
Notice also in Tyndale’s quote the absence of any conditions for sacrifice. Daniel 3:5-12 “Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of…all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” 14-18 ...if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” They are in fact cast into the furnace, AND delivered from it. Verse 25: “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Mosiah 24:14 “And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.”
The real opportunity of sacrifice is not God’s; it is ours. “For this cause came I into the world,” said Jesus of His own sacrifice, and it is the same test we are undergoing. Abr. 3:25 “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.” The antecedent for “herewith” is the materials of which this earth is made, including the elements of our mortal bodies. Do we horde them, love them, and serve them, or do we subordinate that tendency in favor of God’s commands? This life is our time to prove our willingness to do that very thing, though the opportunity to demonstrate loyalty to God is rarely mentioned in talks about trails and pain. Occasionally, we get a happy physical body, and a joyful Father in heaven, at the same time. But in sacrifice, God pulls us in one direction, the flesh pulls us in another direction, and we must sacrifice one to hold onto the other.
Sacrifice Makes Obedience Real
All sacrifice is obedience, but not all obedience is sacrifice. If we get some strange command from the prophet, such as “Everyone is to wear blue on their person every Sabbath,” we shrug our shoulders, ask why, but we wear blue anyway. “No big deal,” we say. But if the prophet were to say, “Ice cream is prohibited under the Word of Wisdom,” how many of us would surrender our recommends rather than comply? “Ouch! That’s hard!” Sacrifice makes obedience real to us, vivid in our hearts and minds. It calls on us to assess our priorities. How is my heart organized? Is the Lord at the top of the pile, or is he subordinate to my affections for this or that thing?
I believe spiritual rebirth is a process for most people, not because we are waiting for the Lord, but because the Lord is waiting for us to reach the point where we are willing to give up anything in preference to Him. The instant we meet that qualification, we are reborn. Alma the Younger and Lamoni’s Father are examples of this. They deposited their whole soul, sincerely, in the Lord’s hands, and were immediately blessed with instantaneous rebirth. The rest of us mumble and fumble, halting between two opinions, and the Lord marks our progress as we reorder our hearts with Him at the front of the line.
Upon understanding this idea—rebirth is a function of our willingness to give all—we may be tempted to think that we can make a one-time convenient deposit of our own choosing, and “get it over with.” But a broken heart and a contrite spirit means giving our whole self, including our futures. That means that we are always on call. We cannot make a one-time deposit, and then go out to play.
The Lord can ask for sacrifices through Church leaders, as at Kirtland:
“Now go with me to a place called Kirtland, Ohio, and recall that on one occasion when the people are asking ‘Why, O why when we hardly have enough for hominy and milk do we have to build a temple? What is a temple? And why at such great cost?’ At one point the prophet replied, ‘The Angel Gabriel couldn’t explain it to you now. But have faith and continue and the Lord will make it plain.’ Well, according to the late Elder John A. Widtsoe, the cost of that building, using the measuring rod of the widow’s mite—what they had proportional to what they gave—the Kirtland Temple cost more per capita than any building in American religious history. An unprecedented sacrifice! That sacrifice was met, as you all know, with an unprecedented outpouring of the Lord’s Spirit” (The Temple and the Atonement, Truman G. Madsen, Abridged from a lecture delivered in Saratoga, California, October 16, 1994).
The outpouring of the Spirit and heavenly manifestations are proportional to the magnitude of the sacrifice.
Also, the Lord demands specific, tailor-made sacrifices of individuals. We do not determine what or when we sacrifice to the Lord. (Cain paid dearly for trying to sacrifice, yet not at the Lord’s request.) We must stand like waiters in a restaurant, and wait upon the Lord. We hand Him the menu of our possessions, time, talents, bodies, and everything else, and wait for Him to pick something. Often he will ask, through the Holy Ghost, for the thing we are least ready to part with. “Don’t attend that college, refuse that scholarship, don’t date that person,” are all potential sacrifices the Lord can ask us to make through the still small voice of the Spirit. And we can argue that there is nothing bad about them. Indeed, education and marriage are commandments, things we must wisely pursue. But there is one law that trumps all others—obedience to God. Nephi and Abraham were asked to take human life rather than follow the injunctions of the written law, and they followed that voice of the Spirit as though it were commandment from Sinai on stone tablets, or booming voice from the sky.
“God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and, if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God” (Joseph Smith, quoted by John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 24:264). Sacrifice often means giving up good things as well as sins.
Abraham is the greatest mortal example of this. How could he kill his own son at God’s request? He was not just sacrificing Isaac, but all the house of Israel (we were on that altar too!). Sarah would have left Abraham. All of their converts would have rejected the Gospel on hearing what Abraham had done to his miraculously-born son. What kept that knife suspended in the air? “How could Abraham undertake the task?...How did his heart not break? How did not…Abraham…fall dead on the altar?...It is by the power of faith he stands there, the knife…raised to strike” (W. P. F. Noble, quoted by E. Douglas Clark, “The Blessings of Abraham,” pg 214-15).
We do not determine what or when we sacrifice to the Lord. But the more willing we are to sacrifice, the more we become like the Lord. I believe that the essence of humility is strict deference to the truth. Whatever the truth indicates is best, that is what God does. Eternity, worlds, bodies, lives, pain, sacrifice, all conform to invisible, weightless, intangible truth. You cannot hold a pound of truth. What does it smell like? Yet it is the hinge on which eternity swings. (Compare that to our world, wherein the truth is mutilated to accommodate anything, to deceive and get rich and powerful, to avoid discomfort and sacrifice.) But in heaven, truth is followed with exactness, and the result is the discomfort of sacrifice. God and Christ did not want to sacrifice, but they knew that for God to give His Only Begotten, and for Him to Suffer, would ultimately lead to the most good down the road. They could see the end result of the sacrifice before it was visible materially in the present. Faith precedes our sacrifices, too.
Isaiah 53:11 “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” There is the sacrifice.
12 “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” There is the payoff—we, His children, are able to be saved from sin.
John 3:14-16 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Love for us was the motivation behind the great and last sacrifice, and it is easy to forget that it was our pain Jesus was bearing in the garden and on the cross. Perfect love casts out fear; maybe that is what propels us through the sacrifices we are called on to make—the intimidation is real, but the love for God and others gives us courage to face our sacrifices.
