Saturday, March 5, 2022

Do You Know How to Get on the Covenant Path?

            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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