The Will of the Father | Jeffrey R. Holland, Jan 1989

she really does love you and so do I and I certainly love her let me once again compose myself then I'll try to start my talk how to University it somehow seems appropriate to introduce my message as your president with a piece of great literature but I've decided to use this verse instead Rudyard Kipling eat your heart out if you can smile when things go wrong and say it doesn't matter if you can laugh off cares and woe when trouble makes you fatter if you can keep a cheerful face when all around are blue then have your head examined examine but there's something wrong with you for one thing I've arrived that there are no ands and buts a guy that's grinning all the time must be completely nuts I begin with that only because the task I wish to discuss with you this morning is a sobering one not something we can laugh at not something that we can say doesn't matter it is not an issue limited to university educated people but it may be a particularly poignant one for them it is a matter central to our salvation and it may involve great pain unless we are nuts we probably won't grin through it all let me take a moment to set the stage if I may I use the word advisedly I want to imply Divine Theater Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote if the stars should appear one night in a thousand years how would men believe and adorn and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the City of God which had been shown them in the spirit of that very provocative thought I invite you to consider another startling and much more important scene which should evoke belief and adoration a scene which like the Stars at night we have undoubtedly taken too much for granted imagine yourselves if you will to be among the people of Nephi living in the land of bountiful in approximately 34 AD tempest and earthquakes and Horrell winds and storms quickened and cut by thunder and sharp lightning have enveloped the entire face of the land some cities entire cities have bushed into flame as if by spontaneous combustion others have disappeared into the sea never to be seen again still others are completely covered over with mounds of soil and some have been carried away with the wind the whole face of the land has been changed the entire earth around you has been totally deformed then if you're as you are milling about the temple grounds with your neighbors a place that has suddenly seemed too many to be a very good place to be you hear a voice and see a man clothed in a white robe descending out of heaven it's a dazzling display he seems to emanate the very essence of light and life itself a splendor in sharp contrast to the three days of death and darkness just witnessed he speaks and says simply with a voice that penetrates to the very marrow of your bones I am Jesus Christ whom the prophets testified shall come into the world there it is or more correctly speaking there he is the focal point and principle figure behind every fireside and devotional and family home evening held by those Nephites for the last 600 years and those of their Israelite forefathers for thousands of years before that everyone has talked of him and sung of him and prayed of him and dreamed of him but here he actually is this is the day and yours is the generation what a moment but you find you're less inclined to check the film in your camera then you are the faith in your heart I am Jesus Christ whom the prophets testified come into the world of all the message then that could come from the scroll of eternity what has he brought to us get a pencil where's your notebook better turn on every tape recorder in town he speaks I am the light in the life of the world I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the father hath given me and have glorified the father in taking upon me the sins of the world I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning that's it eight lines 52 words and when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth close quote this introductory utterance from the resurrected son of God himself constitutes my only text today I've thought very often about this moment in the fight history and I cannot think it either accident or mere whimsy that the good shepherd in his newly exalted state appearing to a most significant segment of his flock chooses to speak first of his obedience his deference his loyalty and loving submission to his father in an initial and spellbinding moment of absolute profound wonder when surely he has the attention of every man woman and child as far as the eye can see it is his submission to his father that's the first and most important thing he wishes us to know about himself now frankly I'm a bit haunted by the thought that this then will be the first and most important thing he may want to know about us when we meet him one day in similar fashion did we obey even if it was painful did we submit even if the cup was bitter indeed did we yield to a vision higher and holier than our own even when we may have seen no vision in it at all one by one he invites us to feel the wounds in his hands and his feet and his side and as we pass and touch and wonder perhaps he whispers to each of us If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me if such cross bearing self-denial was by definition the most difficult thing Christ or any man has ever had to do an act of submission which would by the Savior's own account cause him quote God the greatest of all to tremble because of pain and de bleeded every pore and to suffer both body and spirit if yielding and obeying and bowing to divine will holds only that ahead then no wonder that even the Son of God the only begotten would that he might not drink and shrink even as we rehearse this greatest of all personal sacrifices in this beautiful setting this morning you can be certain at this very hour that in much of the world it is not fashionable nor flattering to speak of submitting to anybody or anything at the threshold of the 21st century it sounds wrong on the face of it it sounds feeble and wimpish it just isn't the American Way as elder Neal a Maxwell wrote recently in today's society at the mere mention of the words obedience and submissiveness hackles rise and people are put on nervous alert people promptly furnish examples from secular history to illustrate how obedience to unwise Authority and civility to bad leaders have caused much human suffering and misery it's difficult therefore he concludes to get a hearing for what the words obedience and submissive really mean even when the clarifying phrase to God is attached close quote after all we come to a university at least in part to cultivate self-reliance to cultivate independence to learn to think and act and pursue for ourselves didn't Christ himself say you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free such freedom is exactly what universities are about especially this one we try very hard here to unshackle you from the bondage of ignorance and the captivity of wrong opinions we want you to be strong and to have the most enlightened intelligence possible we want you to be powerful and high principled free agents so how do we speak of such spiritual freedom and intellectual independence in one breath only to plead with you to be submissive and very dependent at least in a special way in the next breath we do so because no amount of university education or any other kind of desirable and civilizing experience in this world will help us at that moment of our confrontation with Christ if we have not been able and are not variable to yield to bow to offer all that we are all that we have and all that we ever hope to have to the Father and to the son the path to a complete Christian education passes through the Garden of Gethsemane and we will learn there if we haven't learned it before that our Father will have no other gods before him even especially if that would be God is our self I assume you are all far enough along in life to be learning that great discipline already it will be required of each of us to kneel when we may not want to kneel to bow when we may not want to bow to confess when we may not want to confess perhaps a confession born of painful experience that God's thoughts are not our thoughts neither are his ways our ways saith the Lord I think that is why Jacob says to be learned or we would presume any other worthy thing is good if one harkens under the counsels of God but education or public service or social responsibility or professional accomplishment of any kind is in vain if we cannot in those crucial moments of pivotal personal history if we cannot then submit ourselves to God even when all our hopes and all of our fears may tempt us otherwise we must be willing to place all that we have not just our possessions they may be the easiest things of all to give up we must place our ambition and our pride and our stubbornness and our vanity we must place it all on the altar of God kneel in silent submission and willingly walk away I believe what I am describing here is the scriptural definition of a saint one who will yield to the enticings of the holy spirit and through the atonement of Christ B cometh as a child submissive meek humble patient full of love willing to submit in all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him even as a child does submit to his father so says King Benjamin it is no wonder then that the great exemplar and a star of our lives it is no wonder that Christ chooses first and foremost to divine to define himself in relation to his father that he loved him and obeyed him and submitted to him like the loyal son he was and what he as a child of God did we must try very hard to do also obedience is the first law of heaven and in case you haven't noticed some of these Commandments are not easy and we frequently may seem to be in for much more than we bargained for at least if we're truly serious about becoming a saint I think we will find that this is indeed the case now let me use an example from what is often considered by many our foes and sometimes our friends as one of the most unsavory moments in the entire Book of Mormon I choose it precisely because there is so much in it that has given offense to many it's a pretty bitter cup all the way around I speak of Nephi's obligation to slay Laban in order to preserve a record save a people and ultimately lead to the restoration of the gospel in the dispensation of the fullness of times how much is hanging in the balance as Nephi stands over the drunken and adversarial Laban I cannot say but it is a very great deal indeed the only problem is that we know this but Nephi doesn't and regardless of how much is at stake how can he do this thing he's a good person perhaps even a well-educated person he's been taught from the summit of Sinai thou shalt not kill and he has made gospel covenants I was constrained by the spirit that I should kill Laban but I shrunk and would that I might not slay him a bitter test a desire to shrink sound familiar we don't know why those plates could not have been obtained some other way perhaps accidentally left at the plate polishers one night or falling out of the back of Laban chariot on a Sabbath afternoon drive I don't know why it couldn't have happened that way for that matter why didn't if I just leave the story out of the book altogether why didn't he say something like and after much effort and anguish of spirit I did a plant to obtain the plates of lead Laban and did depart into the wilderness under the tent of my father and have it over with at the very least he might have buried the account somewhere in the Isaiah chapters thus guaranteeing that they would be undiscovered to this day but there it is squarely in the beginning of the book page 8 where even the most casual reader will find it and must deal with it it is not intended that either Nephi or we be spared the struggle of this account I believe that story was placed in the very opening verses of a 530 Plus page book and then told in painfully specific detail in order to focus every reader of that record on the absolutely fundamental gospel issue of obedience and submission to the communicated will of the Lord if Nephi cannot yield to this terribly painful command if he cannot bring himself to obey then it is entirely probable that he can never succeed or survive in the tasks that lie just ahead I will go and do the things which the LORD hath commanded I confess that I winced a little when I hear that promise quoted so casually among us Jesus knew what it meant to say that and now Nephi does and so will a host of others before it is over that vow to Christ to the cross and it remains at the heart of every Christian covenant I will go and do the things which the LORD hath commanded well we shall see in all of this of course we're probing Lucifer's problem he of the raging ego he who always took the Burger King motto too far and had to have everything his way Satan would have done well to listen to that wisest of Scottish pastors George MacDonald who warned there is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is the fewer proselytes he makes the worship of himself but Satan's performance can be instructive the moment you have a self there is the temptation to put it forward to put it first to put it at the center of things and the more we are socially or intellectually or politically or economically the greater the risk of increasing self worship perhaps that's why when a newborn baby was brought before the venerable robert e lee the hopeful parents asked for this legendary man's advice what should we teach this child they asked how should he make his way in the world teach him to deny himself the wise old general said teach him to say no now often such an experience in submission is as lonely as it is wrenching sometimes in those moments when we seem to need the Lord the very most we're left to obey seemingly unaided the psalmist cries out on behalf of all of us in such times why standest thou a far off Oh Lord why hide us now self in times of trouble why are though so far from helping me I cry in the daytime but thou here is not and in the night season I am NOT silent hide not thy face far from me Lord leave me not neither forsake me O God of my salvation be not silent and to me that psalmist spli rings most painfully of that ultimate anguish on Calvary the cry which characterized an act of supreme submission my God my God why hast thou forsaken me and to a lesser degree we hear the supplication from Liberty jail Oh God where art thou and where is the pavilion that cover a thigh hiding-place how long shall die hand be stayed yay Oh Lord how long we know a good deal about the abuse Joseph and his colleagues suffered at the hands of their jailers furthermore we know Joseph submissive spirit at the time choosing then of all moments to pen some of the most sublime language in Holy Writ the appeal to maintain influence only by persuasion by long-suffering by gentleness and meekness and love unfeigned what a setting in which to speak so kindly what a brutal context in which to bring out such compassion but part of the story we don't remember as well is that of fellow prisoner Sidney Rigdon Sidney was actually released from jail some two months before the Prophet Joseph and the others but Rigden left muttering and I quote that the sufferings of Jesus Christ were foolishness compared to mine close quote now it would not behoove us here in the security of our Pleasant quarters to pass judgment on brother Rigden or anyone else but to say that Christ's atoning sacrifice bearing the weight of all the sins of all mankind from Adam to the end of the world was foolishness compared to brother ignorance confinement in Liberty jail smacks of that defiant and finally fatal arrogance we so often see in those who end up in spiritual trouble professor Keith Perkins of our church history department has written that this moment marks the turning point for ill in Sidney Rigdon --zz life after this experience he was no longer the distinguished leader he truly had been in the early years of the dispensation soon Joseph Smith no longer felt him to be of use in the First Presidency and after the prophets death rigged and plotted against the twelve in an effort to gain unilateral control over the church in the end he died a petty and bit man one who had lost his faith his testimony his priesthood and his promises Joseph on the other hand would endure and would be exalted when it was over perhaps he remembered from early in his life the Lord speech the patient Joseph in afflictions for thou shalt have many but endure them for lo I am with thee even unto the end of thy days who are those arrayed in white nearest to the throne of God asks John the Revelator wrapped in his mighty vision the answer these are they who have come up through Great Tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb now sometimes it seems especially difficult to submit to great tribulation when we look around and see others seemingly much less obedient triumph even as we weep but time is measured only under none demands as alma and god has a very good memory elder Dean Elle Larson writes of a Sabbath observing farmer who was troubled and dismayed to see his flagrantly Sabbath breaking neighbor bring in far better crops with a much higher more profitable yield but in such times of seeming injustice we must remember that God's accounts are not always settled in October sometimes too we underestimate the Lord's willingness to hear our cry to confirm our wish to declare that our will is not contrary to his and that his help is there only for the asking president Dee Anderson recently shared with us the following an example taken from elder Burton Howard's biography of president Marion G Romney in 1967 sister Romney suffered a very serious stroke the doctors told then elder Romney that the damage from the hemorrhage was very severe they offered to keep her alive by artificial means but did not recommend it the family braced for the worst brother Romney confided to those closest to him that in spite of his anguished personal yearning for Ida's restored health and their continued companionship above all he wanted an I quote the Lord's will to be done and to take what he needed to take without whimpering close quote as the day's wore on sister Romney became less responsive she had of course been administered too but elder Romney was reluctant to counsel the Lord about the matter that's his phrase because of his earlier unsuccessful experience of praying that he and Ida might have children he knew that he could never ask in prayer for something which was not in harmony with the will of the Lord he fasted that he might know how to show the Lord that he did have faith and that he would accept God's will in their lives he wanted to make sure that he done all that he could do she continued to fail one evening in a particularly depressed state with Ida unable to speak or recognize him brother Romney went home and turned as he always did to the scriptures in an effort to commune with the Lord he picked up the Book of Mormon and continued where he had left off just the night before he'd been reading in the book of Helaman about the Prophet Nephi who had been falsely condemned and unfairly charged with sedition following a miraculous deliverance from his accusers Nephi returned home pondering the things which he had experienced and as he did so he heard a voice now although Marian Romney had read that story many times before it struck him this night as a very personal revelation the words of the scripture so touched his heart that for the first time in weeks perhaps months he felt some tangible peace it seemed as if the Lord was directly to him the scripture read blessed art thou for those things which thou has done thou hast not sought thine own life but thou has sought my will and to keep my Commandments and now because thou hast done this I will bless thee forever and I will make the mighty in Word and in deed in faith and in works yay even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will it was his answer he had sought to know and obey the will of the Lord only and the Lord had spoken he fell to his knees and poured out his heart and as he concluded his prayer with this phrase thy will be done he either felt or actually heard a voice which said Marion it is not contrary to my will that I to be healed he rose to his feet quickly it was past two o'clock in the morning he knew what he must do he put on his tie in his coat went out into the night and made his way to the hospital he arrives shortly before 3:00 his wife's condition was unchanged she did not stir as he placed his hands upon her pale forehead with undeviating faith he invoked the power of the priesthood in her behalf he pronounced a simple blessing and then uttered the incredible promise that she would recover her health and her mental powers and yet perform a great mission upon the earth even though he did not doubt elder Romney was astonished to see Ida's eyes open as he concluded his blessing somewhat stunned by all that was happening sat down on the edge of the bed only to hear his wife's frail voice for the first time in months she said for goodness sakes Marian what are you doing here he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry he said Ida how are you with that flash of humor so characteristic of both of them she replied well compared to what Marian compared to what Ida Romney began her recovery from that very moment soon left her hospital bed and lived to see her husband sustained as a member of the First Presidency of the church a mission upon the earth indeed so we must be careful not to miss the hand of the Lord when it is offered when it is his desire to assist my daughter Mary who seems to be getting her share of credit in these talks this morning made this point in a recent conversation and I asked her permission to repeat it she was speaking of this ironic tendency to fear and avoid the very source of our help and our deliverance perhaps in real humility to retreat rather than to go toward our safety she recalled the account of the 14th chapter of Matthew when a storm arose on the Sea of Galilee in the ship containing the disciples was tossed with waves for the wind was contrary in the midst of this anxiety the disciples looked toward the shore and see a beam a ghost an apparition walking directly toward them this only increases their panic and they begin to cry out in fear but it is Christ walking on the water toward them be of good cheer he calls out it is I be not afraid he was coming to help in their very moment of need and they misunderstanding were fleeing this miracle is rich in symbolism and suggestion writes elder James II talmadge by what law or principle the effect of gravitation was superseded so that a human body could be supported upon a watery surface man is unable to affirm the phenomenon is a concrete demonstration of the great truth that faith is a principle of power where by natural forces may be conditioned and controlled into every adult life come experience like the Battle of the storm-tossed voyagers with contrary winds and threatening seas off times the night of struggle and danger is far advanced before succor appears and then too frequently the saving aid is mistaken for a greater terror as it came unto Peter and his terrified companions in the midst of the turbulent waters so comes to all who toil in faith the voice of our deliverer it is I be not afraid close quote with that image of Christ again appearing in grandeur before us let me conclude this drama where I began it we're taught that each of us will come face to face with Christ to be judged of him just as the world itself will be judged at his dramatic Second Coming I close with an adaptation of an account by CS Lewis entitled the world's last night which I commandeered and have changed rather drastically for our purposes here this morning in King Lear there is a man who was such a minor character that Shakespeare has not even given him a name he is simply called first servant all the other characters around Regan Cornwall and Edmund they all have very fine long-term plans they think they know how the story is going to end and they are very wrong the serpent however has no such delusions he has no notion how the play is going to go but he understands the present scene he sees an abomination the blinding of old Gloucester he sees it taking place and he will not stand for it his sword is out and pointed at his master's breast in an instant then Regan stabs him dead from behind that's his whole part eight lines all told but Lewis says if that were real life and not a play that's the part he would like best to have acted the doctrine of the second coming teaches us that we do not know and cannot know when Christ will come and the word world drama will end he may appear and the curtain may be rung down at any moment say before we filed out of this devotional this morning this kind of not knowing seems to some people and tolerably frustrating so many things would be interrupted perhaps you're going to get married next month or perhaps you're going to graduate this spring perhaps you're thinking of going on a mission or paying your tithing or denying some indulgence surely no good and wise God would be so unreasonable as to cut all that short not now not of all moments but we think this way because we keep on assuming that we know the play and in fact we don't know much of it we believe we're on in act 2 but we know almost nothing of how act 1 went or how act 3 will be we're not even sure we know who the major and who the minor characters are the author knows and the audience to the extent that there's an audience of angels filling the loads and the stalls they have an inkling but we never seen the play from the outside as sister Holland has just suggested and meeting only the tiny minority of characters who are on in the same scenes as ourselves largely ignorant of the future and very imperfectly informed about the past we cannot tell then at what moment Christ will come and confront us we will face him one day of that we may be sure but we waste our time in guessing when that will be that this human drama has a meaning we may be sure but most of it we cannot fully see when it is over we will be told we are led to expect that the author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each has played so plain well then is what matters most to be able to say at the final curtain I have suffered the will of the father in all things is our only Avenue to an ovation at the end the work of Devils and darkness is never more certain of defeat than when men and women not finding it easy or pleasant but still determined to do the Father's will look out upon their lives from which it may seem every trace of God has vanished and asking why they have been so forsaken still bow their heads and obey that it may be so in your rich and beautiful and blessed young lives I pray in the name of Jesus Christ amen for more information on this program please visit our website at BYU broadcasting org this Brigham Young University devotional by Elder Jeffrey R Holland and sister Patricia Holland was given January 17th 1989 you

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Length: 38min 45sec (2325 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 21 2013