My Come, Follow Me studies for this week took me to Genesis 28-33 and Jacob’s story. As you may remember from last week’s lesson, Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons who were opposites. The birthright was to go to Esau, the eldest of the two sons, but he sold it to Jacob for a mess of pottage. Then nearly blind Isaac gave Jacob the birthright blessing, thinking that he was giving it to Esau. Esau hated Jacob and planned to kill him after the death of Isaac.
Rebekah was informed of Esau’s plan
to kill Jacob and convinced Isaac to send Jacob to “Padan-aram, to the house of
Bethuel thy mother’s father” to take a wife from among the daughters of Laban,
Rebekah’s brother (Geneses 28:2). So, Jacob left the home of his father and
mother and traveled to Laban’s house.
The reading material for this week
tells of two spiritual experiences given to Jacob. Both experiences happened in
the wilderness, one on the way to Laban’s house and the other after leaving Laban’s
home. On his way to his mother’s homeland to find a wife, Jacob spent the night
on a pillow of stones.
12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder
set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels
of God ascending and descending on it.
13 And, behold, the Lord stood above
it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac:
the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of
the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the
north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of
the earth be blessed.
15 And, behold, I am with thee, and
will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into
this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have
spoken to thee of (Genesis 28:12-15).
When Jacob awoke the next morning,
he recognized that he had had a spiritual experience: “Surely the lord is in
this place; and I knew it not” (Genesis 28:16). He set a stone as a pillar and
poured oil on it. He then named the place Bethel.
As we can see from the above verses,
God renewed with Jacob the same covenants He had made with Abraham and Isaac. The
principle for this post comes from this experience: I am promised the blessings
of Abraham in the temple. President Marion G. Romney explained why Jacob’s
vision of heaven was shown in the form of a ladder and why Jacob called the
place Bethel:
When Jacob traveled from Beersheba toward
Haran, he had a dream in which he saw himself on the earth at the foot of a ladder
that reached to heaven where the Lord stood above it. He beheld angels
ascending and descending thereon, and Jacob realized that the covenants he made
with the Lord there were the rungs on the ladder that he himself would have to
climb in order to obtain the promised blessings – blessings that would entitle
him to enter heaven and associate with the Lord.
Because he had met the Lord and entered
into covenants with him there, Jacob considered the site so sacred that he
named the place Bethel, a contraction of Beth-Elohim, which means literally “the
House of the Lord.” He said of it: “this is none other but the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:17.)
Jacob not only passed through the gate of
heaven, but by living up to every covenant he also went all the way in. Of him
and his forebears Abraham and Isaac, the Lord has said: “… because they did
none other things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into
their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not
angels but are gods.” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:37.)
Temples are to us all what Bethel was to
Jacob. Even more, they are also the gates to heaven for all of our unendowed
kindred dead. We should all do our duty in bringing our loved ones through
them. (“Temples – The Gates to Heaven,” Ensign, March 1971, 16).
One clear message from the chapters
studied this week is the significance that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob placed on
marriage in the covenant. Latter-day prophets continue to emphasize the
importance of covenant marriage. The following messages come from Brigham
Young, Joseph F. Smith, and Spencer W. Kimball, all latter-day prophets of the
Lord.
Be careful, O ye mothers in Israel, and do
not teach your daughters in future, as many of them have been taught, to marry
out of Israel. Woe to you who do it; you will lose your crowns as sure as God
lives. (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 196).
Some people feel that it does not make
very much difference whether a girl marries a man in the Church, full of the
faith of the Gospel, or an unbeliever. Some of our young people have married
outside of the Church; but very few of those who have done it have failed to
come to grief…. There is nothing that I can think of, in a religious way, that
would grieve me more intensely than to see one of my boys marry an unbelieving
girl, or one of my girls marry an unbelieving man (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel
Doctrine, p. 279).
Many times, women have come to me in tears.
How they would love to be able to train their children in the gospel of Jesus
Christ! But they are unable to do so because of religious incompatibility with
a nonmember husband. How they would like to accept for themselves positions of
responsibility in the Church! How they would like to pay their tithing! … How
they wish they could be sealed for eternity and have the promise of having their
own flesh and blood, their children, sealed to them for eternity! Sometimes it is
men in this predicament. But they have locked the doors, and the doors have
often rusted on their hinges (Spencer W. Kimball, Miracle of Forgiveness, p.
241).
The ladder that Jacob saw in his
dream has often been compared to the covenants made in the temple. Those
covenants are part of the covenant path that President Russell M. Nelson urges
us to travel.
At baptism we covenant to serve the Lord and keep His commandments. When we partake of the sacrament, we renew that covenant and declare our willingness to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ. Thereby we are adopted as His sons and daughters and are known as brothers and sisters. He is the father of our new life.
Ultimately, in the holy
temple, we may become joint heirs to the blessings of an eternal family, as
once promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their posterity. Thus, celestial
marriage is the covenant of exaltation.
When we realize that we are children of
the covenant, we know who we are and what God expects of us. His law is written
in our hearts. He is our God and we are His people. Committed children of the
covenant remain steadfast, even in the midst of adversity. When that doctrine
is deeply implanted in our hearts, even the sting of death is soothed and our
spiritual stamina is strengthened (“Covenants,” Ensign or Liahoma, Nov.
2011, 88).
The covenant path starts at baptism
and continues through the covenants of the temple. Our safety lies in getting
on the covenant path and staying on it.
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