A Perfect Brightness of Hope
Because the Restoration reaffirmed the foundational truth that God does work in this world, we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds.
Last October, President Russell M. Nelson invited us to look ahead to this April 2020 conference by each of us in our own way looking back
to see the majesty of God’s hand in restoring the gospel of Jesus
Christ. I think we are looking back to see how God will SHOW his majestic hand in the CONTINUING restoration! This whole talk is about looking ahead. Sister Holland and I took that prophetic invitation seriously.
Now I will take his prophetic words seriously...We imagined ourselves living in the early 1800s, looking at the
religious beliefs of that day.Consider the religious beliefs of our day... In that imagined setting,We can only imagine our future as well... we asked
ourselves, “What’s missing here? What do we wish we had? What do we hope God will provide in response to our spiritual longing?” I ask the same questions?
What's missing here? (I have been feeling that we are missing one good clearing of the secret combinations, and one (or many)solid heavenly manifestation that Jesus is Lord).
What do we wish we had? (I wish we had more visitations, more direct "thus saith the Lord" revelation, more direct preaching.)
What do we hope God will provide in response to our spiritual longing? (I hope he will provide heavenly manifestations, mass conversions, and the "fire of the covenant" and a massive "born again" experience by the saints.)
Well,
for one thing, we realized that two centuries ago we would have dearly
hoped for the restoration of a truer concept of God than most in that
day had, hidden as He often seemed to be behind centuries of error and
misunderstanding. To borrow a phrase from William Ellery Channing, a
prominent religious figure of the day, we would have looked for the
“parental character of God,” which Channing considered “the first great
doctrine of Christianity.”1
Such a doctrine would have recognized Deity as a caring Father in
Heaven, rather than a harsh judge dispensing stern justice or as an
absentee landlord who had once been engaged in earthly matters but was
now preoccupied somewhere else in the universe.Have we lost a correct concept of God? Do we have error and misunderstanding about him? As we await the "end times" do we forget the parental character of God? I think he wants very much to unveil himself to mankind before the final and total destruction. Before Noah, there was Enoch. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be now. We will become Enoch-like and be joined by them. What did they have/experience that took so many of them to that exalted state? Why did the Nephites get an appearance from the Savior? It wasn't his first coming or His Second Coming and they had a Zion society for 200 years afterwards. Why did they get that? They certainly weren't previously the most righteous of people. The Lord told them they were needed to repent and return to Him and be converted. Why did they need that experience? It would take 200 more years until total destruction of the Nephites. We are looking forward to a time where there will be total destruction of the wicked. Does that merit a similar "fulness" like the Nephites got? Yes, there is evil and wickedness that the angels have been held back from destroying, but there are also many many good people who don't deserve to be destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Yes, our hopes in 1820 would have been to find God speaking and guiding as openly in the present as He did in the past, a true Father, in the most loving sense of that word. Yes, let's have God speaking and guiding openly again, just as he did in the past, because our loving Father knows we need that right now!He certainly would not have been a cold, arbitrary autocrat who predestined a select few for salvation and then consigned the rest of the human family to damnation. If we head into the evil endtimes destructions that Satan has planned, many will enter Spirit Prison because they will die without the gospel. It seems like without massive conversion, people will just spiral into wickedness and the majority will be lost. Wouldn't God want to save as many children as he can? We always compare the Savior's appearance to the Nephites as representing the Second Coming in our day. What if it's not? What if He's going to come like He did to the Nephites to help us establish Zion? No, He would be one whose every action, by divine declaration, would be “for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world”2 and every inhabitant in it. God loves every sinner and wants them to turn from their wicked ways. He doesn't just want to throw the book at them and lock them up and throw away the key..That love would be His ultimate reason for sending Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, to the earth.3
Speaking
of Jesus, had we lived in those first years of the 19th century, we
would have realized with great alarm that doubts about the reality of
the Savior’s life and Resurrection were beginning to take significant
hold within Christendom. This is happening in our day! I didn't know that was happening in the 19th century. Therefore, we would have hoped for evidence to
come to the whole world that would confirm the biblical witness that
Jesus is the Christ, the literal Son of God, Alpha and Omega,
and the only Savior this world will ever know. TAKE THAT ANTI-CHRIST! I am looking for evidence to come to the whole world that confirms Jesus is the Son of God and the head of this church. I know the First Vision was evidence to the whole world, but the whole world did not know about it. It would have been among
our dearest hopes that other scriptural evidence be brought forward,
something that could constitute another testament of Jesus Christ,
enlarging and enhancing our knowledge of His miraculous birth, wondrous
ministry, atoning sacrifice, and glorious Resurrection. Truly such a
document would be “righteousness [sent] down out of heaven; and truth
[sent] forth out of the earth.”4 We must receive new scripture too. It will enhance our knowledge and confirm our testimony of Christ. Receiving the promised sealed portion of the Book of Mormon should be one of our "dearest hopes".
Footnote 4:this is a FUTURE prophecy!! This is one reason I think he's speaking in "code"
62 And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; and truth will I send forth out of the earth, to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten; his resurrection
from the dead; yea, and also the resurrection of all men; and
righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood,
to gather
out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, unto a place which I
shall prepare, an Holy City, that my people may gird up their loins,
and be looking forth for the time of my coming; for there shall be my
tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem.
We could consider the Book of Mormon "truth out of the earth", and certainly the visitations of the Restoration were "righteousness sent down out of heaven", but...have righteousness and truth swept the earth as with a flood? Sweeping the earth as with a flood is quite an image. That is not the same as missionaries knocking on doors one by one. There is great hope in this image in our day of deep state control and conspiring men in secret chambers. Have all the elect been gathered from the four quarters of the earth to the New Jerusalem? Notice it is all before his coming. This is yet to happen! I believe the 144,000 aren't called until the ten tribes return. And what if....the return of the city of Enoch IS the righteousness sent down from heaven and the return of the ten tribes IS the truth sent forth out of the earth? (Some people say they live inside the earth somehow/somewhere...hollow earth theory? under the ice? Antarctica is consider "under" the world. THAT would be cool! And that would certainly cause truth to sweep the earth and would be followed by the gathering of the elect by the 144,000. What, oh what, do we still have ahead of us?
Observing the Christian world in that day, we would have hoped to find someone authorized by God with true priesthood authority who could baptize us, bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost, and administer all gospel ordinances necessary for exaltation.This was for all the other Christians watching. WE have that! In 1820, we would have hoped to see fulfilled the eloquent promises of Isaiah, Micah, and other ancient prophets regarding the return of the majestic house of the Lord.5 In the footnotes, one scripture is clearly early church fulfillment and one is clearly the Zion of Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem. This is another possible clue that these "hopes" are dual in nature...We would have thrilled to see the glory of holy temples established again,right now they are closed. We hope to see them open again. with the Spirit, the ordinances, the power, and the authority to teach eternal truths, heal personal wounds, and bind families together forever. When we go back to the temple we need to see and treat them as places of power. I would have looked anywhere and everywhere to find someone authorized to say to me and my beloved Patricia that our marriage in such a setting was sealed for time and all eternity, never to hear or have imposed on us the haunting curse “until death do you part.” I know that “in [our] Father’s house are many mansions,”6 but, speaking personally, if I were to be so fortunate as to inherit one of them, it could be no more to me than a decaying shack if Pat and our children were not with me to share that inheritance. And for our ancestors, some of whom lived and died anciently without even hearing the name of Jesus Christ, we would have hoped for that most just and merciful of biblical concepts to be restored—the practice of the living offering up saving ordinances on behalf of their kindred dead.7 The love of God will demand that the temple reopen and this work continues until Christ says "it is finished". No practice I can imagine would demonstrate with more splendor a loving God’s concern for every one of His earthly children no matter when they lived nor where they died.
Well, our 1820 list of hopes could go on, but perhaps the most important message of the Restoration is that such hopes would not
have been in vain. So my hopes are not in vain. The promises of this ongoing Restoration make that clear. Beginning in the Sacred Grove and continuing to this
day, these desires began to be clothed in reality CONTINUING TO THIS DAY! In 1820, they just BEGAN! I love the expression "clothed in reality". All things are created spiritually. Even our hopes. And then through faith they are "clothed in reality". "clothed" also has temple implications...
"such" hopes -
- a truer concept of God
- God speaking and guiding openly in the present
- every action being done for the benefit of the world
- evidence to the whole world that Jesus is the Christ
- other scriptural evidence brought forward
- righteousness sent down from heaven and truth sent forth out of the earth
- prophecies fulfilled regarding the temple
- temples reopened
LOOK FOR ALL THESE TO COME
and became, as the
Apostle Paul and others taught, true anchors to the soul, sure and
steadfast.8 What was once only hoped for has now become history.And history always repeats itself...remember we are looking back to know how to look forward.
Thus our look back at 200 years of God’s goodness to the world.Come Follow Me this week emphasized that remembering the goodness of God is one of the ways we retain a remission of our sins But what of our look ahead? We still have hopes that have not yet been fulfilled. Yes, so many hopes yet to be fulfilled! Even as we speak, we are waging an “all hands on deck” war with COVID-19, a solemn reminder that a virus9 1,000 times smaller than a grain of sand10
can bring entire populations and global economies to their knees. Satan knows that and his terrorists and globalists know that. Pres. Ballard just said we'd see "increasingly man-caused calamities". At the time he gave this talk our hopes for deliverance via the first fast were not yet fulfilled. We
pray for those who have lost loved ones in this modern plague,It's modern because it's man-made. "Normal" plagues are not "modern" plagues. This plague has been called the "novel" coronovirus. It's supposed to be a "new" strain. But the mother virus is not modern at all. as well
as for those who are currently infected or at risk. We certainly pray
for those who are giving such magnificent health care. When we have
conquered this—and we will—Conquered means to gain victory; subdue; It also implies, along with his saying we are at "war" with this virus, that the pandemic is our enemy and we all know who our ultimate enemy is may we be equally committed to freeing the
world from the virus of hunger, freeing neighborhoods and nations from
the virus of poverty. May we hope for schools where students are
taught—not terrified they will be shot—and for the gift of personal
dignity for every child of God, unmarred by any form of racial,
ethnic, or religious prejudice. Take all this "concern" for the safety of others and their welfare, to the point of personal sacrifice and keep that attitude towards ongoing plagues. That concern won't be mandated by the government, but it is mandated by God. Who will you follow? I saw this quote today and want to save it somewhere. This might be as good a time as any:
In addition to having these global desires, many in this audience today have deeply personal hopes: hope for a marriage to improve, or sometimes just hope for a marriage; hope for an addiction to be conquered; hope for a wayward child to come back; hope for physical and emotional pain of a hundred kinds to cease. Because the Restoration reaffirmed the foundational truth that God does work in this world, I am just hoping that we will SEE, really SEE God working in the world, with total ownership and visibility. Maybe that infringes on faith too much, but...we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds. Get used to this - insurmountable odds. Everything here on out will take faith and then the miracles will confirm your faith. And then something else will seem impossible and test your faith again, and then another miracle will confirm that faith. This pandemic is starting to seem like conquering it has insurmountable odds. He is telling us we can and should hope even against all hope. That is what the scripture meant when Abraham was able to hope against hope13—that is, he was able to believe in spite of every reason not to believe—that he and Sarah could conceive a child when that seemed utterly impossible.So believe and hope, in spite of every reason the world experts and the masses say is utterly impossible. Like we're going to open things soon, or get back to normal... So, I ask, “If so many of our 1820 hopes could begin to be fulfilled with a flash of divine light to a mere boy kneeling in a patch of trees in upstate New York, why should we not hope that righteous desires and Christlike yearnings can still be marvelously, miraculously answered by the God of all hope?” We all need to believe that what we desire in righteousness can someday, someway, somehow yet be ours.Right here, Elder Holland is "educating our desires". Believe more. Hope more. Hope bigger. Someday, someway, somehow, they can be ours! Remember He is the God of all hope. Why would He not have prepared marvelous, miraculous things to counter His greatest enemy?
Brothers and sisters, we know what some of the religious deficiencies in the early 19th century were. Furthermore, we know something of today’s religious shortcomings that still leave the hunger and hope of some unfulfilled. Here, he's bringing the parallel of hopes together, to show we can take the hopes of the past and make them ours today. We know a variety of those dissatisfactions are leading some away from traditional ecclesiastical institutions. We also know, as one frustrated writer wrote, that “many religious leaders [of the day] seem clueless” in addressing this kind of decline, offering in response “a thin gruel of therapeutic deism, cheap symbolic activism, carefully couched heresy, [or sometimes just] uninspiring nonsense”14—and all at a time when the world needs so much more, when the rising generation deserves so much more, and when in Jesus’s day He offered so much more. We all need sooo much more than we have right now in the world. Ironic that at the height of our prosperity, we've never been in more desperate need of "more"! As disciples of Christ, we can in our day rise above those ancient Israelites who moaned, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost.”15 Indeed, if we finally lose hope, we lose our last sustaining possession. It was over the very gate of hell that Dante wrote a warning to all those traveling through his Divina Commedia: “Abandon all hope,” he said, “ye who enter here.”16 Truly when hope is gone, what we have left is the flame of the inferno raging on every side.In this pandemic when it feels like our freedoms are being siphoned off, day by day, it feels like soon we might be down to our last "sustaining possession" - hope. Without it, it truly feels like the battle has already been lost, until Christ comes to free us from this bondage.
So, when our backs are to the wall and, as the hymn says, “other helpers fail and comforts flee,”17 among our most indispensable virtues will be this precious gift of hope linked inextricably to our faith in God and our charity to others.Is that where we are? Do we have to wait until our backs are to the wall and other helpers fail and there's no comfort? If so...we must never lose hope and we must never lose charity. Much as I rebel, maybe I'll have to wear a mask to show charity to others?
In
this bicentennial year, Remember it's not just the month of the First Vision we are remembering...it's the whole YEAR! when we look back to see all we have been given
I assume he's referring to looking back since 1820, but could he also be saying, when we look back on this year? and rejoice in the realization of so many hopes fulfilled,I hope it will be an eventful year! I echo the
sentiment of a beautiful young returned sister missionary who said to us
in Johannesburg just a few months ago, “[We] did not come this far only
to come this far.”18 This calms my "we're doomed until Christ comes" fears. We did not come this far to only come this far. There are so many amazing things to come - soon!
Paraphrasing one of the most inspiring valedictories ever recorded in scripture, I say with the prophet Nephi and that young sister:
“My beloved brethren [and sisters], after ye have [received these first fruits of the Restoration], I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. …
“… Ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. … If ye shall[,] … saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”19 How does one obtain a "perfect" brightness of hope? How does it compare to an "imperfect" brightness of hope?
I
give thanks, my brothers and sisters, for all we have been given in
this last and greatest of all dispensations, Don't limit it being the greatest of all dispensations because of what happened 200 years ago. It is also because of what happens these coming years the dispensation of the
restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The gifts and blessings that flow from
that gospel mean everything to me—everything—so in an effort to thank
my Father in Heaven for them, I have “promises to keep, and miles to go
before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”20 I'm wondering what Elder Holland really meant by quoting this in response to his desire to thank his Father in Heaven. Does sleep represent death? Is he saying that he knows he's not going to die soon? That he has much to do before that day? Or that perhaps he knows he'll live on through the millennium? That would certainly be "miles" to go. How is enduring to the end of these 'miles' show his gratitude to Father in Heaven? Is he tired? Is he distressed by what still has to happen? What other possibilities do you see? May we press forwardmakes me think of the iron rod and the mist of darkness with love in our hearts, walking in the “brightness of hope”21
that lights the path of holy anticipation we have been on now for 200
years. And what have we been anticipating? The building of Zion; the gathering of Israel, including the return of the Ten Tribes, and of course the return of our Savior to rule and reign for 1000 years of peace. I testify that the future is going to be as miracle-filled and
bountifully blessed as the past has been. We have every reason to hope
for blessings even greater than those we have already received because
this is the work of Almighty God, this is the Church of continuing
revelation, this is the gospel of Christ’s unlimited grace and
benevolence. I bear witness to all of these truths and so much more in
the name of Jesus Christ, amen.When he speaks of the past and blessings already received, it follows he's speaking of the past 200 years and the blessings mentioned in this talk. Those are the one we can expect to compare to the even greater one we're going to receive. Believe in Christ's unlimited grace and unending desire to bless us and help us. What is the "so much more" he's witnessing to? Is it the unspoken? Is it the truths within these truths? I HOPE so:)
