Below are the quotes that were used in the video.
Sometimes I pray to God and say "God, please give me patience. And give it to me right now." I can only imagine the patience and faith that Sarah and Abraham had in God after they had waited 24 years for a child and still did not have one yet. I can imagine their joy, and maybe a little doubt when they again were promised that they would have a child. "Is there anything that is too hard for the Lord?" Of course not. This week we look at how God will always fulfill his promises - in his way and in his time.
President Joseph Fielding Smith: “We are not justified in teaching that our Heavenly Father, with other heavenly persons, came down, dusty and weary, and ate with Abraham. This is not taught in the 18th chapter of Gen. The first verse of that chapter should read as follows: "And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre." That is a complete thought. The second part of this paragraph has nothing to do with the Lord's appearing to Abraham, and there should be another paragraph or sentence saying: "And he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him." These three men were mortals. They had bodies and were able to eat to bathe, and sit and rest from their weariness. Not one of these was the Lord. (Doctrines of Salvation, 3:16)
Elder James E. Talmage: “Who then were Abraham's three visitors at his encampment? They are not designated by name, but it is apparent that they were messengers sent by the Lord. I venture to express an opinion an inference only for which I am personally and alone responsible that the probabilities point to the great High Priest, Melchizedek, and two associates who may have stood by him in the capacity of counselors. ("Abraham's Three Visitors," Editorial Note: Improvement Era, Aug. 1931)
Elder Bruce R. McConkie suggested that these three were there to minister to Abraham. “We know that one of them blessed Abraham” (Inspired version, Gen 18:9 …” and suggested that one of these could have been Melchizedek and the three “comprised the First Presidency of the Church in their day” (DNTC 3:235).
Abraham’s unique dialog between God and himself teaches 2 vital lessons:
1.The supreme value of righteousness
2.God’s readiness to pardon.
Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 19:9-11
19:9a And they said unto him, Stand back. And they were angry with him. And they said again among themselves, This one fellow man came in to sojourn among us, and he will needs be now make himself to be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee; him than with them.
Wherefore they said unto the man, We will have the men, and thy daughters also; and we will do with them as seemeth us good.
Now this was after the wickedness of Sodom.
19:8 And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you, and ye shall not do ye to unto them as is seemeth good in your eyes:..
For God will not justify his servant in this thing; wherefore, let me plead with my brethren, this once only, that unto these men ye do nothing, that they may have peace in my house; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. (verse order changed by JST)
19:9b And they pressed sore upon the man, even were angry with Lot and came near to break the door.
19:10 But the angels of God, which were holy men, put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house unto them, and shut to the door.
19:11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: , that they could not come at the door. And they were angry, so that they wearied themselves to find the door, and could not find it.
A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Elder Jeffery R. Holland: “Just what did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong? As a student of history, I have thought about that and offer a partial answer. Apparently , what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before she was past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1 926-2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once said, such people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon.It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind. We certainly know that Laman and Lemuel were resentful when Lehi and his family were commanded to leave Jerusalem. So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.” (The Best Is Yet to Be, Ensign Jan. 2010)
Elder Neal A. Maxwell: “There is another kind of looking back which may not be associated with sinfulness, but which may also be destructive of the great possibilities of life. It is the looking back which is obsessed with the memory of old failure and lets whole hearted energy be paralyzed because the forces of personality are split. Half of them are pulling back to yesterday, and what remains of imagination is too feeble to go forward. This may be a danger for men who essentially are good--or want to be. They realize that in certain critical moments and matters they have failed. If only they could go back and 1ive life over, they say to themselves, how different the present then would be. That course is a natural and almost inevitable movement of the mind, and it has in it this good element: it testifies to a sensitive conscience....
“Nevertheless, the past must be faced, acknowledged, and written off with unflinching recognition of the red ink ledger; but then the page must be resolutely turned to a new one where another and more positive record can begin. That is the lesson which brave souls have to learn....Paul looking back on his earlier life,...might have been sucked down into a quicksand of vain regrets; but, as he wrote to the Philippians, he had learned instead to be as one who, "forgetting those things which are behind," must be "reaching forth unto those things which are before" (Phil. 3:13).” (The Smallest Part, p. 51)
Elder Jeffery R. Holland: “So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.
“… I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2010/01/the-best-is-yet-to-be?lang=eng)
President Gordon B. Hinckley: “I do not know that things were worse in the times of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see similar conditions today. They prevail all across the world.” (Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting January 10, 2004)
President Boyd K. Packer: “The world is spiraling downward at an ever-quickening pace. I am sorry to tell you that it will not get better.
“I know of nothing in the history of the Church or in the history of the world to compare with our present circumstances. Nothing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which exceeds in wickedness and depravity that which surrounds us now.
“Words of profanity, vulgarity, and blasphemy are heard everywhere. Unspeakable wickedness and perversion were once hidden in dark places; now they are in the open, even accorded legal protection.
“At Sodom and Gomorrah these things were localized. Now they are spread across the world, and they are among us.” (“The One Pure Defense,” Address to CES Religious Educators, 6 February 2004, p. 4)
Video: The binding – 13 min
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media-library/video/2011-03-027-akedah-the-binding?lang=eng&clang=ase
Teaching Idea – consider having students follow along in their scriptures as you show this video. Ask what is similar between Isaac and Jesus Christ.
Genesis 21:1-3 Isaac as a type
Joseph Smith: “And now, beloved brethren, we say unto you that inasmuch as God hath said that He would have a tried people, that He would purge them as gold, now we think that this time He has chosen His own crucible [container for molten material], wherein we have been tried; and we think if we get through with any degree of safety, and shall have kept the faith, that it will be a sign to this generation, altogether sufficient to leave them without excuse; and we think also, it will be a trial of our faith equal to that of Abraham, and that the ancients will not have whereof to boast over us in the day of judgment, as being called to pass through heavier afflictions; that we may hold an even weight in the balance with them; but now, after having suffered so great sacrifice and having passed through so great a season of sorrow, we trust that a ram may be caught in the thicket speedily, to relieve the sons and daughters of Abraham from their great anxiety, and to light up the lamp of salvation upon their countenances, that they may hold on now, after having gone so far unto everlasting life. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 135-36)
Ezra Taft Benson: “Every generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself. Would you like to know of one of our toughest tests? Hear the warning words of President Brigham Young, “The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth.” Ours then seems to be the toughest test of all for the evils are more subtle, more clever. It all seems less menacing and it is harder to detect. While every test of righteousness represents a struggle, this particular test seems like no test at all, no struggle and so could be the most deceiving of all tests. (Quoted in Larry E. Dahl’s chapter in A Witness of Jesus Christ: The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Old Testament, p. 58)
Truman Madsen: “I believe there are those even in the Church who would say in their hearts that the test of Abraham is too much; that a loving God would not require such a thing of any man, least of all someone as faithful as Abraham. Those who have such thoughts had better think again. Modern revelation indicates at least three times that each of us who seeks eternal life must one day be tried, even as Abraham. I put the question once to President Hugh B. Brown, when we were in Israel: Why was Abraham commanded to go up on that mountain (traditionally Mount Moriah in Jerusalem) and offer as a sacrifice his only hope for the promised posterity? President Brown wisely replied, "Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham.” By being tested, all of us will one day know how much our hearts are really set on the kingdom of God. (Joseph Smith the Prophet, p. 92)
Neal A. Maxwell: “These really are our days, and we can prevail and overcome, even in the midst of trends that are very disturbing. If we are faithful the day will come when those deserving pioneers and ancestors, whom we rightly praise for having overcome the adversities in their wilderness trek, will praise today's faithful for having made their way successfully through a desert of despair and for having passed through a cultural wilderness, while still keeping the faith.” (If Thou Endure It Well p. 28)
Joseph Smith: "A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation" (Lectures on Faith [1985], 69).
Gen 23 - Jewish and Islamic traditions put the tomb of the twelve patriarchs in Hebron. A mosque was erected during Saladin's time on top of the tombs where they are believed to be.
Teaching Thoughts:
President Joseph Fielding Smith: “We are not justified in teaching that our Heavenly Father, with other heavenly persons, came down, dusty and weary, and ate with Abraham. This is not taught in the 18th chapter of Gen. The first verse of that chapter should read as follows: "And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre." That is a complete thought. The second part of this paragraph has nothing to do with the Lord's appearing to Abraham, and there should be another paragraph or sentence saying: "And he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him." These three men were mortals. They had bodies and were able to eat to bathe, and sit and rest from their weariness. Not one of these was the Lord. (Doctrines of Salvation, 3:16)
Elder James E. Talmage: “Who then were Abraham's three visitors at his encampment? They are not designated by name, but it is apparent that they were messengers sent by the Lord. I venture to express an opinion an inference only for which I am personally and alone responsible that the probabilities point to the great High Priest, Melchizedek, and two associates who may have stood by him in the capacity of counselors. ("Abraham's Three Visitors," Editorial Note: Improvement Era, Aug. 1931)
Elder Bruce R. McConkie suggested that these three were there to minister to Abraham. “We know that one of them blessed Abraham” (Inspired version, Gen 18:9 …” and suggested that one of these could have been Melchizedek and the three “comprised the First Presidency of the Church in their day” (DNTC 3:235).
Abraham’s unique dialog between God and himself teaches 2 vital lessons:
1.The supreme value of righteousness
2.God’s readiness to pardon.
Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 19:9-11
19:9a And they said unto him, Stand back. And they were angry with him. And they said again among themselves, This one fellow man came in to sojourn among us, and he will needs be now make himself to be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee; him than with them.
Wherefore they said unto the man, We will have the men, and thy daughters also; and we will do with them as seemeth us good.
Now this was after the wickedness of Sodom.
19:8 And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you, and ye shall not do ye to unto them as is seemeth good in your eyes:..
For God will not justify his servant in this thing; wherefore, let me plead with my brethren, this once only, that unto these men ye do nothing, that they may have peace in my house; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. (verse order changed by JST)
19:9b And they pressed sore upon the man, even were angry with Lot and came near to break the door.
19:10 But the angels of God, which were holy men, put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house unto them, and shut to the door.
19:11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: , that they could not come at the door. And they were angry, so that they wearied themselves to find the door, and could not find it.
A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Elder Jeffery R. Holland: “Just what did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong? As a student of history, I have thought about that and offer a partial answer. Apparently , what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before she was past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1 926-2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once said, such people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon.It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind. We certainly know that Laman and Lemuel were resentful when Lehi and his family were commanded to leave Jerusalem. So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.” (The Best Is Yet to Be, Ensign Jan. 2010)
Elder Neal A. Maxwell: “There is another kind of looking back which may not be associated with sinfulness, but which may also be destructive of the great possibilities of life. It is the looking back which is obsessed with the memory of old failure and lets whole hearted energy be paralyzed because the forces of personality are split. Half of them are pulling back to yesterday, and what remains of imagination is too feeble to go forward. This may be a danger for men who essentially are good--or want to be. They realize that in certain critical moments and matters they have failed. If only they could go back and 1ive life over, they say to themselves, how different the present then would be. That course is a natural and almost inevitable movement of the mind, and it has in it this good element: it testifies to a sensitive conscience....
“Nevertheless, the past must be faced, acknowledged, and written off with unflinching recognition of the red ink ledger; but then the page must be resolutely turned to a new one where another and more positive record can begin. That is the lesson which brave souls have to learn....Paul looking back on his earlier life,...might have been sucked down into a quicksand of vain regrets; but, as he wrote to the Philippians, he had learned instead to be as one who, "forgetting those things which are behind," must be "reaching forth unto those things which are before" (Phil. 3:13).” (The Smallest Part, p. 51)
Elder Jeffery R. Holland: “So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.
“… I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2010/01/the-best-is-yet-to-be?lang=eng)
President Gordon B. Hinckley: “I do not know that things were worse in the times of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see similar conditions today. They prevail all across the world.” (Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting January 10, 2004)
President Boyd K. Packer: “The world is spiraling downward at an ever-quickening pace. I am sorry to tell you that it will not get better.
“I know of nothing in the history of the Church or in the history of the world to compare with our present circumstances. Nothing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which exceeds in wickedness and depravity that which surrounds us now.
“Words of profanity, vulgarity, and blasphemy are heard everywhere. Unspeakable wickedness and perversion were once hidden in dark places; now they are in the open, even accorded legal protection.
“At Sodom and Gomorrah these things were localized. Now they are spread across the world, and they are among us.” (“The One Pure Defense,” Address to CES Religious Educators, 6 February 2004, p. 4)
Video: The binding – 13 min
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media-library/video/2011-03-027-akedah-the-binding?lang=eng&clang=ase
Teaching Idea – consider having students follow along in their scriptures as you show this video. Ask what is similar between Isaac and Jesus Christ.
Genesis 21:1-3 Isaac as a type
- Isaac means to laugh or rejoice.
- He was the firstborn of his parents (Gen 21:1-7).
- He is called the only begotten son of his father (Gen 22:2; Heb 11:17). Although his father had other children (Gen 16:15; Gen 2.5:1-2).
- He was the long-awaited son of promise (Gen 21:2; Gal 4:22-23).
- He was in the exact image of his father. (L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Vol. 1, p. 262; Hugh Nibley, Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, p. 131.)
- He is called the Son of Abraham (Gen 21:3; see also Matt 1:1).
- His name was revealed from heaven before his birth (Gen 17:19).
- His mother was visited by God and then she conceived (Gen 21:1-2).
- He was born at the "set time of which God had spoken" (Gen 21:2).
- His mother's conception was a miracle (Gen 18:11-14).
- He was circumcised at eight days old (Gen 21:4).
- He had a brother who mocked him (Gen 21:9).
- He was accepted of his father while his brother was cast out of his father's presence (Gen 21:9-12).
- The son of the bondwoman was cast out by his father when the son of promise came (The law of Moses was done away with by The Father when Christ came) (Gal 4:22-31).
- God was with him and blessed him (Gen 26:3).
- He was a mighty man (Gen 26:16).
- He is remembered as a man of peace (Gen 26:19-31; see also A Theodore Tuttle, CR, Oct 1972, pp. 68-69.).
- As his father's beloved son, he was to be offered as a sacrifice (Gen 22:2; Jacob 4:5).
- The father and son took a three-day journey to the place of sacrifice.
- He was 33 years old at the time of sacrifice (Gen 21:5; Gen 23:1).
- His father told him "God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8).
- He yielded himself to his father's will, and willingly offered his blood to be shed (Genesis 22:Heading).
- Those who went with him were told to stay and wait while he went a little way off to worship (Gen 22:5).
- As the moment of sacrifice was upon him an angel appeared and helped him (Gen 22:11).
- He carried the wood of the sacrifice on his back to the place of the offering (Gen 22:6).
- He was secured to the wood (Gen 22:9). •He was not guilty of death.
- The lamb given by God was sacrificed (Gen 22:13).
- The sacrifice took place on mount Moriah (Gen 22:2,14).
Joseph Smith: “And now, beloved brethren, we say unto you that inasmuch as God hath said that He would have a tried people, that He would purge them as gold, now we think that this time He has chosen His own crucible [container for molten material], wherein we have been tried; and we think if we get through with any degree of safety, and shall have kept the faith, that it will be a sign to this generation, altogether sufficient to leave them without excuse; and we think also, it will be a trial of our faith equal to that of Abraham, and that the ancients will not have whereof to boast over us in the day of judgment, as being called to pass through heavier afflictions; that we may hold an even weight in the balance with them; but now, after having suffered so great sacrifice and having passed through so great a season of sorrow, we trust that a ram may be caught in the thicket speedily, to relieve the sons and daughters of Abraham from their great anxiety, and to light up the lamp of salvation upon their countenances, that they may hold on now, after having gone so far unto everlasting life. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 135-36)
Ezra Taft Benson: “Every generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself. Would you like to know of one of our toughest tests? Hear the warning words of President Brigham Young, “The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth.” Ours then seems to be the toughest test of all for the evils are more subtle, more clever. It all seems less menacing and it is harder to detect. While every test of righteousness represents a struggle, this particular test seems like no test at all, no struggle and so could be the most deceiving of all tests. (Quoted in Larry E. Dahl’s chapter in A Witness of Jesus Christ: The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Old Testament, p. 58)
Truman Madsen: “I believe there are those even in the Church who would say in their hearts that the test of Abraham is too much; that a loving God would not require such a thing of any man, least of all someone as faithful as Abraham. Those who have such thoughts had better think again. Modern revelation indicates at least three times that each of us who seeks eternal life must one day be tried, even as Abraham. I put the question once to President Hugh B. Brown, when we were in Israel: Why was Abraham commanded to go up on that mountain (traditionally Mount Moriah in Jerusalem) and offer as a sacrifice his only hope for the promised posterity? President Brown wisely replied, "Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham.” By being tested, all of us will one day know how much our hearts are really set on the kingdom of God. (Joseph Smith the Prophet, p. 92)
Neal A. Maxwell: “These really are our days, and we can prevail and overcome, even in the midst of trends that are very disturbing. If we are faithful the day will come when those deserving pioneers and ancestors, whom we rightly praise for having overcome the adversities in their wilderness trek, will praise today's faithful for having made their way successfully through a desert of despair and for having passed through a cultural wilderness, while still keeping the faith.” (If Thou Endure It Well p. 28)
Joseph Smith: "A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation" (Lectures on Faith [1985], 69).
Gen 23 - Jewish and Islamic traditions put the tomb of the twelve patriarchs in Hebron. A mosque was erected during Saladin's time on top of the tombs where they are believed to be.
Teaching Thoughts:
- We know in our minds that nothing is “too hard for the Lord.” Create a case study on “waiting on the Lord.” Pick a real-life example. What advice would you give them?
- What are examples that apply to the “don’t look back” principle?
- What helps you to not look back?
- What are the lifelines that God has thrown to us to help us in a day when wickedness seems to flood the world.
- Faithful women in scriptures – What evidence to you see that Hagar was a woman of faith?
- Make a list of how Abraham and Isaac were “a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son.”