185: Suffering, Part 2

This is part two of a series looking at the role of suffering in the life of the Savior, and how our own suffering brings us closer to Him. From what, then, were your spirits organized? Light and truth. Okay... At your core, at your nub, at the very essence of what it is that constitutes you to be you, what is it that constitutes you to be you? Light and truth. There’s another place where a description is given of the Lord—Christ—in the pre-existence: In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1; see also Testimony of St. John 1:1 RE). Now, that’s an interesting thought, that word. So, what you have at your core is light and truth or intelligence, which is...what? The glory of God—God the Father; you’re derivative from Him. He is the Creator or the Organizer. But what He created or organized you from is light and truth. Okay. Now, this ought to become increasingly obvious to you as you look at what we were reading in section 93. Why is it necessary, therefore, for you to keep His commandments in order for you to receive truth and light? Why? Why is that the way it works? Why must you keep the commandments if you want to get more of this? We’re trying to harmonize ourselves with Him. We’re trying to get back to Him. We’re trying to get ourselves aligned correctly so that when we resonate in the same way that He resonates, we can pick up on things that are not pick-up-able in the absence of that resonance. We’re trying to get in harmony with God. So, what are the commandments? What use are they? Well, He’s giving us a blueprint. And some portions of the blueprint may appear altogether ridiculous. We’re supposed to do them anyway. And why are we supposed to do the things that may seem even ridiculous anyway? Because at your very core, you know... You know if it comes from Him, and you know when you’re getting light and truth from Him. There is never a futile act. You know when you pay tithing that you’re doing something He asked you to do. And you know what? If it involves a sacrifice, you know all the more by that sacrifice. This is what Joseph was trying to get across in the Lectures on Faith. Would you like to know God? Then go inconvenience yourself by following what He asks of you, and you will unlock inside yourself resonance with the light and truth of God. And it’s an unfolding process. It grows... That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. (D&C 50:24; see also T&C 36:4) Proverbs 4:18 (Proverbs 1:18 RE) is a similar thought. But it’s a dynamic process. It involves your (again, you know, we’re victims of our time), your interface with God—another 500 years and the gospel will be perverted by computer terminology—but the way you link up to God (See? There it goes again!) is by this mechanism of obeying the commandments that He’s given you. And it’s never futile, and it’s never superfluous. It’s how you, as a being at your core made of light and truth, know that you’re pleasing God. In the Lectures on Faith, Joseph said you had to know that the sacrifice that you are making was pleasing to God. How can you know that? You can know that because in your core you have light and truth, that’s why I read the quote a few minutes ago. The nearer you come to God and the more obedient you are—the more “heed and diligence” were the words he used in that statement—the more heed and diligence that you give, the more correct your understanding will be. Well, why is that the case? Because you are enlightened, because you are enlivened, because you are drawing closer to Him. One of the great descriptions of how Christ did what He did—in addition to 93—is in section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants, beginning at verse 21: I mean, we do not attain to perfection in this life. The visions that we read in Scripture all have a constant theme. And the constant theme is a wretch managed to make it into the presence of God, and then God fixes the wretch. What was the very first thing—not in our current version of the First Vision, but it is in the earlier versions that Joseph wrote—what is the very first thing God does when Joseph’s in His presence? He forgives his sins; He cleans the mess up. “Joseph, you know you’re a wretch; let’s fix that. Okay, now, now you can endure My presence.” Isaiah, in the temple: Woe is me! ...I am undone; ...I am a man of unclean lips, ...I dwell [among] a people of unclean lips. (Isaiah 6:5; see also Isaiah 2:2 RE) Fetch the coal; fix the guy. Coals from the altar, touched to the lips—there; purged; you’re okay. You do... Look, we really are comedic. Our religion promises the fantastic; it promises the perfection of us frail, messed-up, insecure human souls. We get hungry; we get thirsty; we get tired. We’re vulnerable; we’re subject to pain; we’re gonna ultimately die, every one of us. We have infirmities, and they progress over time. What about us can possibly be perfected? And you look at it and say, I can’t detect a thing. Oh, wait there is one thing. You can be perfect in your desire. You can hope for it. And for God, that’s enough. As long as you make the kind of sacrifice that He would like to have you make preliminarily. And we’re talking about that at this point. And we’re reading from verse 21 of D&C section 20, where it says: Wherefore, the Almighty God gave his Only Begotten Son, as it is written in those scriptures which have been given of him. He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them. He was crucified, died, and rose again the third day; And ascended into heaven.... (See also Joseph Smith History 16:6 RE) See, “He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them.” Turn back to D&C section 130. Verse 19 in section 130 says, If a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come. That’s what Christ did. Christ gave no heed to the things that were pulling Him in the one direction, and He gave strict heed to the things that were enticing Him to the other direction. And He obtained (as section 93 explains) a fullness of that. So, if there is an increasing flow of light/an increasing flow of truth that comes to someone by their heed and diligence in following the commandments, then that seems like a fairly simple formula for someone to follow if they’re interested in obtaining further light and knowledge. There was a time when all of these words crept into our language, and their usage in our common vernacular became popular when everyone simply assumed that we all were in contact with the mystic, with the mythic, with the forces that were around you. Everyone simply assumed that was the case. There was a way of describing the phenomenon, and the way that the idea was reduced to words was by using the concept of a third eye. Well, why that? It was because, physically, your eyes are the source that light gets into you. You perceive light through your eyes. So, if you’re gonna collect light from somewhere else, two things are essential: the first thing is you have to realize that it’s there, and then you have to be willing to see it. Well, it was a fairly common thing because people weren’t as well educated as they are now. They weren’t... Yeah, they weren’t schooled in naturalism and the philosophies of men, which we have so successfully commingled with Scripture that we have essentially supplanted, in all of Christendom, the gospel of Christ and replaced it with the doctrines of men and the precepts of men and the creeds of men. (And we’re beginning to develop our own set of creeds.) You see, it’s hard. It’s hard to keep the commandments. It involves inconvenience and sacrifice. It’s hard. And for some folks, in a trial and error kind of way, it’s like riding a bicycle. And when you start riding a bicycle, you get bloodied elbows and bloodied knees, and you make mistakes, and it’s unhappy. But you know what? You can write a Ph.D. thesis on riding a bicycle without ever getting on a bike or ever suffering an injury. Well, isn’t that interesting? Because that’s essentially the trade-off that we’ve made. That’s the trade-off that Christendom made, and that’s the trade-off that is rapidly, rapidly advancing right now... I... Why would Satan ever change his agenda? Why would he ever invent a new tool if the old one works perfectly well? If I can use the sexual appetite of men to destroy a David, well, why not just bust that thing out all the time and aim it at whoever happens to promiscuously get in front of me? (In that context, the word means “randomly,” and it was a pun.) In any event, why invent a new way of corrupting the truth when the old way has been so entirely serviceable? When the Jews returned from the discipline of Babylon, they learned the wrong lesson. And they became sophisticates in the Babylonian system of thought—which, as Lehi would tell us, was necessary because they were the only people that would kill their God, and they had to be in the right frame of mind (which is to say, “screwed up”) in order to be willing to kill their God, because no one else would do it. It takes a lot of learning to really be in hell, because the gospel of Christ beckons people to become childlike and to become simple. That’s not to say the gospel is simplistic, because it comprehends all truth, and it involves light, and it involves everything that is—everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be. And there are enormous surprises along the way. The gospel of Christ ought to be a delightful process of discovering new things all the time. Where did Christ come from? 93, beginning at verse 11, this is John (and I’m starting at verse 11, but we’ll back up in a minute): And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory,...