Volume 3, Issue 2 – September 2007

Posted on 9/22/2007 at 12:40:17 PM

Contents

Forgotten Hymns – Forgotten Doctrines

The Sons of Levi & Animal Sacrifice

Why Don’t We Get What We Want

Read the rest of this entry »

Why Don’t We Get What We Want

Posted on 9/8/2007 at 7:33:14 AM

For at least some period of a young child’s life anything is conceivable in their imaginations and seems achievable in reality. Thus it was with me when at a young age a friend and I were convinced we could fly. We fashioned wings out of cardboard, and I was the first elected to test them out by climbing on the top of some bails of hay next to my friend’s house.

It seemed to me that my launching point was as high as his roof, and when I had reached the top and put on my wings I launched myself without hesitation into the air, only to find myself falling rather than sailing. The ground, which I wasn’t expecting to see, hurt both my pride and my backside. I wondered after the event what went wrong: should I have jumped from a greater height? Should my wings have been longer? Did I need to flap them vigorously?

On that maiden flight I didn’t lack any confidence in the outcome before I jumped. There were no doubts in my mind, and I had the expectation of me soaring through the skies. I lacked no faith in God either: If the birds could fly why couldn’t I? Yet gravity and God had other plans that involved me crashing rather than sailing with the wind.

When I grew to be a young man I came upon scriptures which stated that “with God all things are possible”¹, and the saying of Jesus that “if you have faith as much as a mustard seed we could move mountains.”² I thought back to my attempts at being a human airplane and wondered why God hadn’t granted my vertical desires at that time.

I have since considered that many might read the same passages and apply them to their business endeavors. Entrepreneurs selling worthy products with the intent of helping their fellow men, and with the hope of supporting their families might indeed find encouragement in such passages. They may hope to lay hold upon their seeming promises. But they too might find themselves disappointed after their maiden voyages, or even after longer journeys of self-sacrifice and dedication.

Was it that they didn’t have enough faith, or because they doubted, that their business failed? Was there some great secret they didn’t understand and implement?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Sons of Levi & Animal Sacrifice

Posted on 9/8/2007 at 7:31:29 AM

When John the Baptist came to Oliver Cowdery and the Prophet Joseph Smith, and ordained them he promised them that the Aaronic Priesthood “shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.”¹

Many Latter-day Saints have never considered the implications of this statement. Who are the sons of Levi? What kind of offering would the sons of Levi need to make? How did this relate to the Priesthood conferred in 1829?

Levi was the son of Jacob and Leah, whose children became known as the tribe of Levi. In a revelation to Moses, God gave Aaron (his brother and descendant of Levi) and his sons a special priestly responsibility, and designating his cousins functions to perform within the temple.

Although their principle duties were primarily temporal, such as dealing with the furnishings in the temple and musical accompaniment, they were also involved in purification rituals, prayers of thanksgiving, and assisting the Priests with burnt offerings.

John the Baptist seems to be quoting an earlier prophesy by Malachi that “God shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”²

Malachi lived in a time when much of Israel had fallen into apostasy, when the temple had been desecrated, and most of the tribes were in Babylonian exile. He was looking forward to a time when the Messiah would come in power (through the second coming of Jesus) to the New Jerusalem, and when the Levites would again be able to fulfill their temple responsibilities.

That Malachi is speaking of the second coming of Jesus as the time period in which his prophesy will take place is verified by a latter-day revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1842, in which the Saints are told to offer the Lord a record of their genealogy, to be acceptable before Him before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.³

Read the rest of this entry »

Forgotten Hymns & Forgotten Doctrines

Posted on 9/8/2007 at 7:29:53 AM

“The song of the righteous is a prayer unto me”¹ said the Lord to Emma Smith in a revelation received by her husband, the Prophet Joseph. God had instructed her to compile a hymnbook, and with the help of William W. Phelps they put together a uniquely Mormon set of sacred songs to be sung by the Latter-day Saints whenever they might meet together.

Hymns praise God, but also tells stories and illustrate the beliefs of those that sing them. Within their pages different editions of hymn books trace the history of the faiths to which they belong. At different times and under different circumstances there may have been more hymns on persecution, or the passing of loved ones, or a longed for blessing.

A look at different Mormon hymn books since the time the first was published can also give us a record of changes that might have occurred in the beliefs in the LDS Church. It is hard to argue that the Saints didn’t believe in something they sung about in every congregation throughout the world, and which was printed in hymn books for that purpose by the church they were members of.

Read the rest of this entry »