Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Genesis 12-17, Abraham 1-2 -- Part 2 : Dr. Jennifer C. Lane

Episode Date: February 6, 2022

Dr. Jennifer Lane continues and relates how covenants with the Lord bless the entire human family through sacrifice. We also discuss “cutting a covenant,” the essential nature of the temple, and how our Kinsman-Redeemer will consecrate every loss for our benefit. Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/episodesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsKrystal Roberts: French TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. Okay, so we're going to switch books now. We have the biblical account of Abraham. And what we're going to see here is the articulation of the covenant is spread out over multiple chapters. You're going to see it in chapter 12, you can see it chapter 13, you do chapters 15 and 17. And of course, we know that these are texts that were compiled later. And so if there's one dimension of why things are spread out, but another thing I think can help us make sense is our own experience with the new never lasting covenant. Is we make this multiple times? It's extended over time. We have a covenant at baptism. Then we have a covenant

at the endowment. In fact, with this great quote from President Herb-Bee Lee, Ray Tot, that the endowment expands the gospel path we started at baptism. He says, the receiving of the endowment requires the assuming of obligations by covenants, which are in reality, but an embodiment or an unfolding of the covenants each person should have assumed at baptism. It's a restatement of a covenant, but it just slowed down. And it's more precise. It's more articulated. I love that unfolding. It's an unfolding of all of the things we promised in baptism. We're promising again with the Covenants we make in the endowment, but they're being expanded. The promise of exaltation is even more explicit, of course, in temple marriage.

But all of them were kind of implied if we're faithful, we receive all the Father half. One way to think about the statements and the experiences in chapter 12, chapter 13, chapter 15, chapter 17, our covenant renewal experiences. In fact, we have covenant renewal experiences every Sunday. When we take this acumen, we're not doing it vicariously. We are covenanting. This is us promising again. And so the fact that the Lord is restating his promises to Abraham at different points, I think might be part of it is different stages of receiving the blessings. Part of it is just a renewal that it's okay to have a covenant renewal. I think it's helpful to have a covenant renewal. So promises we're going to see is of course posterity. That's

super famous, right? The stars of the sea, the dust of the earth, countless posterity, promised land. We're going to see blessings, a relationship, almost this language of adoption again, that he's going to take him to be sort of his God. And all of these blessings are going to have specific fulfillment and mortality, but really important for us is remembering they also point to the eternal blessings of exaltation. So the covenant blessings are the blessings of being able to inherit celestial kingdom, to receive exaltation, even though they may have immediate earthly fulfillment as well.

You talked about all of these chapters kind of are continually restating the Abrahamic covenant. I think we usually look at Genesis 12 verses like 2 and 3, as here's the Abrahamic covenant. I love that because I think the Lord is into repetition and we need it. We need repetition. And so we do things again and again. I'm intrigued with what the Lord wants us to do again and again. But I just love verse three in these shall all families of the earth be blessed.

It's about blessing all of the families of the earth. So he's going to bless him, but they're going to bless others through him. And I think this is really key when we more fully come into Christ, take upon ourself his name means we're going to act the way he would act. We're going to do what he would do And so we're going to live out That being a blessing to those around us that it's a covenant obligation to live in the world to be a blessing to other people and

Abraham's doing that and And then these promises that through him and his poster, part of it is also pointing ahead to Christ. The Christ is going to come through his posterity, but also that this is what a covenant life looks like is living to bless other people. And it's interesting to me, Jennifer, back in Abraham one, he said, I want greater happiness, peace, and rest.

And the Lord gives him children and work. And you're like, wait. I wanted to. No, no, no. You didn't understand the question. That's not what I asked for. Right. And this is another ancient word.

I actually have another chapter in my book on this about the rest of the Lord. It means the presence of the Lord and the presence of the Lord means having a spirit. And of course, ultimately, literally being back in his presence. So it doesn't mean napping. It doesn't mean not doing anything.

The rest of the Lord is a condition of being busily engaged in blessing other people. Maybe we should call the Sabbath a day of rest with that definition because when I was a bishop, it was not a day of rest. Definitely that kind of resting in the Lord is not sitting idle. Yeah. It's interesting that it's kind of a paradox because the Lord preaches this in the New Testament all the time. If you want to find your life, lose it in service. And probably the two things that exhaust me the most are being a parent and being a church member. We waste and wear out our lives as Joseph Smith taught in this, but that really is the source of greater happiness and peace. It really is.

And it seems paradoxical. It really does. Yeah, but that's what eternal life is, right? The kind of life that God lives where he's living to bless us, He's living for us. Where there's an apprenticeship stage, where we're practicing serving, we're practicing blessing others. And because, and this is, I think, where the faith comes in, this is truly the nature of happiness. Living to serve, living to bless, living holy lives is the right way, is the happy way. But it does take faith when it can be challenging. Yeah, I mean the natural man or natural woman in this would say happiness is found in less work

and less and and being alone right and not helping others. Sounds exhausting. I remember hearing one time when I was younger about was it Brigham Young who saw Joseph Smith in the spirit world and he was super busy You're running somewhere and I thought are you kidding? I thought oh man, you mean we're still just busy all the time You know even in the next life. Yeah, and this is why I think it does take faith to making keep covenants Is trusting that this is a kind of life that is the abundant life. This is a kind of life. And you sort of even a little hint right here in chapter 5 where Abraham takes his family

and their substance. And then it also says he takes the souls that they had gotten in Haran. So he's already inviting people to come in verse 5. He's inviting people to come. He's sharing the good news and that this is a pattern that's pretty powerful. So in Genesis 12, we get the blessings for Abraham and blessings through Abraham. And then in Genesis 13, if you flip over to 13, that's where we start to see just some other restatement. We see again, that is peaceable walk with the children of men that you see in Maroni 7. This is how you can tell your on the right path. And this is where Abraham lets lot choose. They were going together,

whatever you want, I'll take the other thing. And there's a beautiful quote by Elder Cook about that, about let's be like Abraham. Let's not like rile people up unnecessarily. Let's eliminate strife. To have peaceful relationships, we should be willing to compromise and limit strife with respect matters that do not involve righteousness. So just let let we let a lot of things go. So Abraham's showing us how to live peace of late with people. Yeah, pick your battles, right? What really matters? And then to have peace. So we have restatements in 13. We see the life that he's living. He's trying to not have strife, try not to have contention. And then in 14 and

16 we saw in 14 we see again the promise of land. So look around, this is the land that I'm giving you. And we also see the promise of posterity, the dust, your seed shall be as the dust of the earth. So we have this covenant renewal, this covenant restatement. Then we flip over to 15 and we're going to see this again. I love this in the beginning of chapter 15 where he speaks to him and says, fear not, Abraham. I am thy shield. I really, to me, this is underappreciated. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. So what is it we get by serving the Lord? He's giving it us himself. And when we go through the the ordinance as we realize we're receiving Christ We're receiving right Christ in this acumen receiving Christ in baptism receiving Christ. He's giving us himself

And that's part of why we have the courage to keep moving forward is the closer we grow The more of him that we receive and we partake of into our life and then again chapter 15 we have these Restatements his posterities compared to the stars. So you can't number them, you're not going to really cut number. I think we're getting to a point where he's, he's realizing in chapter 15 that, maybe I'm not sure if this is really going to happen. The Lord says, trust me. You have to trust me. I've given you this promise. And verse 6, I think, is again, is a verse that speaks through the ages. It shows up in multiple places in the New Testament. He believed in the Lord. And he, and I think this is the Lord, counted it to Abraham for righteousness,

that the Abraham's willingness to trust the Lord and his covenant promises kept Abraham going. And there are many of us who have made promises and we don't see the fulfillment right away. My husband, I've never been all that children. Now we know that's a blessing, a covenant promise. But it's not going to happen in this life for us. But trusting the Lord and knowing that the covenants are real, even if they're not fulfilled in this immortality, that it's okay. Now, in Abraham's case, it had to be fulfilled in mortality

because that's where the covenant family was going to come out. So he had to have confidence in that. But all of chapter 15 is this really beautiful Covenants being redone, essentially I think part of it maybe just to buck up Abraham and to give him confidence that the Lord has to make the sacrifice. And then in 1718, we see this, this is again, ritual action, very common in the ancient Near East, that the sacrifices we put in half. And then the person who is making the covenant, and usually it's a lesser party, making a covenant to a greater party, walks between them to sort of to commit themselves. It's sort of like, I think what's implied is, if I break my covenant, may I be cut in half as these sacrifices been cut in half.

But what you see in verse 17 of chapter 15 is that the sun goes down, it's dark. And then what do you see? You see these signs of the presence of the Lord, a smoking furnace, a burning lamp, past between the pieces. The Lord himself, Jehovah, is committing himself to Abraham,

binding himself to Abraham, saying, I will not abandon you. I will, I remember the promise I made. And having that confidence, the Lord remembers his promises, and it gave Abraham confidence to keep going. And again, we see in chapter, you know, he renews the promise of getting the land, the

posterity in chapter 16, things start to get hard. Like, well, let's have a second wife and they have a baby. And this is a whole interesting, fascinating and complicated chapter where Hagar and Ishmael, but Ishmael is not the child of the covenant. The baby is going to come from Sarah. So even though there are particular promises given to Ishmael and his descendants, he's not going to be the covenant line. All that background, you get to chapter 17.

He's been through years and years, decades of covenant faithfulness. And he's 99. Lord appears to him again and look with verse one, it's really interesting. He says, I, I am the Almighty God. And then you get this this language of covenant faithfulness walking the path, the covenant path walk before me. And we've talked with this earlier, be that perfect, better translated. So the time I mean is integrity, wholeness. So if we make a mistake, we confess, be forsaken, we get back on the path to stay faithful. So this is a covenant expectation, which is the first time we've really seen this really articulated. I think it's implied all the way along.

Again, we see the worship. So Abraham's falling on his faith, so going to bowing down and he's talking with God. He renews the promise of posterity. So I will multiply the exceedingly. And then he gets some more specifics. And four and five, he talks about many nations in verse 6. He's going to talk about kings. And then it's the first five where we do get the name changed.

Up to this point, we've been calling him Abraham, but he was Abraham. And at this point, now he's not going to be known as Abraham. He's going to, the name change, again, kind of points to that new, new nature. So father of a multitude. It's like for, for real, for sure, you may not believe it. You're 99, but this is who you are. This is who you are. And you just have to believe me.

So the Lord's telling you, you have to believe me. This is who you are. You just have to believe me. So the Lord's telling you, you have to believe me, this is who you are. You are the father of a multitude. And it's also interesting where you see in verse 15, that Sarai has her name changed as well. So again, you're seeing, I don't know how, you know, the ordinances work exactly for them, but, but you have these promises that are being really explicit here.

And that, that her name is now from Sarai to Sarah, which means princess. So this this posterity, you see rule, relationship, land, all of these covenant promises are coming out. And again, I think it's important to note, and this is where, you know, President Nelson has talked about, some things can change and other things don't change. The way that covenants are enacted in this ancient world was a way, and I know Carrie

Mielstein talked about this, that ritual action is a way of communicating. And that Lord is communicating to them and asking them to communicate in a way that makes sense in their cultural world. So in Hebrew, you cut a covenant. That's the verb people in the ancient world would cut themselves. They might cut their face or their hand to indicate that they'd made this pledge or this covenant. And so here's where circumcision enters in. It's part of the covenant. It uses the term in verse 11. I mean, it should be a token of the covenant between me and you, so that

there's this external way of indicating, even though it's still private, it's still external. And it's going to be even more public when you get to the Hellenistic era, and people are exercising in gymnasiums in the nude and becomes an issue for the Jews in the sort of leading up to the New Testament. But this is, and it is actually going to stay, we're going to be part of the law of Moses as well in the eighth day to circumcise all the little baby boys. And so this becomes, again, this external way of indicating this covenant relationship. So the name and this, these show up for the first time in 17.

So you have this pattern. Yeah. This is part of entering their world. Like we talked about earlier. Exactly. This would have made perfect sense. This is what have been a way that they communicate. You literally cut a covenant. That's what you do in the ancient world. And that's the language. The Lord's communicating with them and they're communicating with him in a way that makes sense for them in their cultural context. I love Sarah's line here in Abraham's line. We're gonna have a child and he's saying,

we're gonna have a baby. She says, I'm almost a hundred years old. I don't know if changing my name is going to be the, it's gonna be the solution, but it happens. Yeah, yeah. And that's, I think it solution, but it happens. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I think, it's just an extraordinary thing. I love in the New Testament.

I don't have this open, but Hebrews 11, 11, through faith, Sarah herself, I think this is where covenant promises matter because we can hold on to them. We can trust the Lord. He's true to his word. And so through faith, trusting the Lord's word, Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed. So her trust in the Lord gave her power to do something that would have physically, I mean, sure, like menopause, she's what?

She's so old, right? But she was delivered of a child when she was past age, why? Because she judged him faithful who had promised. She trusted the Lord and the Lord's promise that the Lord had more powerful than nature and nature had probably moved her well beyond decades before childbearing years, but she had confidence that the Lord was more powerful

and that really I I think, helps us understand why we make covenants, and how we keep covenants is we trust the Lord, and that we keep moving forward. The Bible gives us, and gave the, not just the Christian world, but all the Muslims. The sense of Abraham as the father of the faithful, the example of Abraham is just extraordinary. And then we're just so blessed as Latter-day Saints to have additional Scripture to help us appreciate even more power of the covenant and then also just to have the covenant restored in our day. It's, I don't think we begin to understand how important this is and what a privilege it

is. And then as we've discussed, that's sort of the obligations that come with that privilege. And so actually, if we flip over to Abraham, go back to the Pearl of Great Price. And so in Abraham chapter two, we actually get some of the gospel dimension. So you see the promises in the Bible,

posterity rule, have a relationship, land. But when you get to Abraham, you see that there's a gospel dimension for the children of Abraham to take the gospel to the world. But also the flip side is that everyone accepts the gospel becomes the children of Abraham. And it's hinted out in the New Testament. You get a sense of that with Paul where he says whoever is baptized into Christ is Abraham's seed and heirs according to promises. I said, you know, that people, you don't have to literally be a descendant of Abraham, receive the covenant blessings, but it becomes even more clear

but it becomes even more clear with Abraham to verses 9 and 10. Maybe we can look at those a little bit together. So we have the Lord appearing to Abraham. And again, he's introducing himself in verse 7. I am the Lord thy God, I dwell in heaven, the earth is my foot still. So his power, we can trust in him. He gives his name and ate my name as Jehovah. I know the end from the beginning my hand shall be over the

and then the promises. If you look in verse Abraham 2 9 and 10 that the promises have this additional gospel dimension. I will make of the a great nation. So we have some of that in the Bible. I will bless the above measure. Again, we have that in the Bible. I will make that great name great among all nations. So still in the Bible. I will make that great name great among all nations. So still in the Bible. So it's reiterating, restating what the Bible promises are, but look how it goes on. Thou shall be a blessing unto thy seed after thee,

that in their hands, they shall bear this ministry and this priesthood unto all nations. And I will bless them through thy name for as many as receive this gospel shall be called after thy names." This is part of why we call the Abraham a covenant, right? And we become the the seed of Abraham, the heirs of Abraham, and be accounted thy seed and shall rise up and bless thee as their father. As we become the children of Christ, we also become the children of Abraham, that we become heirs of all the blessings

that Abraham was promised. And that happens as we invite other people to come into Christ and to make covenants that everyone is invited to receive all these blessings. And that's what the Restorations for. The gathering of Israel, again, President Nelson, just his last conference, the gathering Israel is really to fulfill the covenants made to Abraham

and to allow all of God's children to make the same covenants. He says, where it's his ponder these truths, the restorations of process, not an event, and will continue until the Lord comes again. And then, too, the ultimate objective of the gathering of Israel is to bring the blessings of the temple to God's faithful children. So we're gathering Israel so that all of the seed of Abraham can receive the blessings of Abraham.

But this is President Nelson. He said, everything we believe, and every promise God is made to his covenant people come together in the temple. In every age, the temple is underscored, the precious truth, the those who make the covenants with God and keep them are the children of the covenant in the House of Lord again, who mentioned before, we can make the same covenants with God, that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may, we can receive the same blessings.

And then he emphasizes, this is about Christ. It focuses on Christ. The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith in spiritual fortitude because the Savior and his doctrine are the very heart of the temple. Everything taught in the temple through instruction and through the Spirit, increases our understanding of Jesus Christ. His essential ordinances bind us to Him through sacred priesthood covenants.

Then as we keep our covenants, He endows us with His healing, strengthening power, and oh, we will meet his power in the days ahead. But, Lord, wants to give us help to do what he is going to ask us to do. He's not asking us to do it himself. He's telling us, I will be with thee and that it's through making keeping covenants that we allow him to be with us. I remember as a missionary, we would talk often about the restoration being

a restoration of the New Testament church. The more I learned the more I realized the restoration is New Testament, yes, but it's a restoring of Old Testament Covenant. The New and Everlasting. Isn't it fun how often we have quoted President Nelson in taking us back to this covenant consciousness? I heard Robert Millett call it, we have a lack of covenant consciousness. And I think President Nelson, since Robert Millett said that many years goes, really helped us have a covenant consciousness of what that is and what it means. And it's so deeply rooted that more we have that, the more we're going to get out of all of the old testament, all the new testament, book of Mormon doctrine, Covenants, that because this is the

Lord's way, this is how He works with us, this is how He connects us, how He brings us home. This is the plan, this is the gospel. Yeah. So the prophet Joseph Smith said, what was the object of gathering? The people of God in any age of the world. The main object was to build unto the Lord a house whereby he could reveal unto his people the ordinances of his house and the glories of his kingdom and teach the people the way of salvation. So the idea of why do we gather will the ultimately to bless all the families of the earth, the best thing we can offer the families of the earth, what the Lord offers is be sealed together in the temple. Jennifer, I wanted to ask you something that you mentioned earlier.

When you talked about here, Saraya and Heagar and Ishmael, and you said things get real and difficult. So I think that's got to be part of this story is, okay, covenant, you're gonna be with God and all these wonderful blessings are gonna be part of this. But even with the originals, Abraham and Sarah, things got difficult and messy and human. How might our listeners, I don't know if this is helpful

or not, it might be like, well, I already knew this, Hank, I already knew things were difficult. But we shouldn't expect with our covenants easy, right? I think that's got to be part of what I'm learning. As I've read through Genesis 12 through 17, there's always great blessings. But it was, you know, this whole situation with, with Hagar and Ishmael, this is, this is difficult stuff. And it's going to get even harder later on where Ishmael and Hagar essentially banished. And so I think there's a couple of dimensions that maybe part of it is that we're on the path to becoming godly, but we're human. And so we have fears and jealousies and resentments and anxiety,

and all of these things that make life together harder. It just imagine, you know, we're looking to poor marriage situation here with chapter 16, and we know, and I had ancestors that we're willing to do that, but that it had to have been difficult to share your spouse. And then here you have that built into that, the sense of there's a covenant promise and a covenant line because Sarah's the one who proposes it, right? She, back in 16 verse 2, says, I haven't been able to have children. Let's try this. So, that's have you and in Hagar have children and Abraham listens to Sarah and I think there's going to be a well spring of complicated emotions that are involved in well put. Just can't even

imagine what's going on inside of all of them trying to do the right thing. Even you back to chapter 15 where Abrams like, well, I know I'm supposed to have posterity, but maybe my steward's going to be my heir. And the Lord's like, no, that's not it. And then they're like, well, maybe Hager's child's going to be there. And the Lord's like, no, no, that's not it. And that's sort of like Nephi. I'm going to try this. No, I'm going to try that. No. And I think the fact there's

a trial and error dimension. Okay, the third time, this is the right one. You two, you are the ones who are going to literally bear in your old age, this covenant child, you're going to be Isaac's parents. And that's a promise in 1718, Sarah thy wife shall bear the sun. Indeed. And that shall cause name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and seed with him. But by the time they get to this, it gone through decades of complication and anxiety, trial and error of different ways of getting to the result. And the Lord finally says, no, this is how it's going to happen.

But I think it's clear from 15 and 16 that they're trying to figure out, well, how is this going to happen? That in the process of, you know, just the human dynamics of how does it feel to think your stewards going to be your heir, but then then know he's not going to be your air and then you take another wife and have a child but no that's not going to be you know just a lot of complicated sad and sometimes perhaps even disturbing and then I

think where faith comes in is just trusting the Lord even though we go through maybe years maybe decades of not understanding the faith to keep going, the faith to trust that his promises are short, but we don't necessarily know when they're gonna be fulfilled or how they're gonna be fulfilled. And we don't have to know that because we know him.

We know he loves us and that that can bring us comfort and peace even when we don't, we don't have answers. Yeah, because as we look back on Abraham's life, we can see the whole picture where in the middle of it, he had to go through his life, like we go through our lives and he didn't have the answers, he just kept going. And that's what I think the Lord expects of us is just to keep going. Just the irony of, hey, you're going to be the father of many nations. Okay, take your son and go sacrifice. What? Talk about a test of trusting.

I think that I like that a lot, Jennifer. I just think those listening are going to say, this sounds so perfect. I'm going to take my covenants and I'm going to have all these blessings and I'm going to bless the earth and the Lord's going to be my reward but that That comes in time. It doesn't yeah, it doesn't take away it didn't take away from Abraham and Sarah and it doesn't take away from us years and decades of just keeping going and

holding on and and holding on and trying to be faithful to the covenants we've made, even though we may not have the answers or may not see the blessings that faith in the trust it keeps us going knowing the Lord loves us. And you just have to, you know, the darkest moments to go back and say, you know, you promise you'd be there for me and I need to know that. And that personal relationship with the Lord is going to be the answer when he doesn't necessarily, he's not necessarily in a position to give us other answers other than to say, I'm with the... Yeah, and like Genesis 156, and Abraham, and the Lord saw that, right? The Lord counted that to him for righteousness. He's like, I will remember that. I remember present-monger telling a story once about a man who gives up a career to go

on a mission a long time ago. And the man wrote in his journal, the greatest decision I ever made in my life was to give up something I loved to the God I loved even more. He has never forgotten me for it. And that's this kind of idea of like, the Lord's not going to take away life, but when we keep believing the Lord remembers that. He does, he does.

And that's what's part of the covenant. That gives us the confidence to trust him because we have this relationship, because we have become the children of the covenant. So we know our Heavenly Father loves us, but we were also, we've created this covenant relationship with our Savior so that he's our spiritual father as well. And we know that he's bound to us. And if we look to him, he will deliver us. And the way that deliverance is going to look is individual, it's personal, but that he has promised that he, that's what it means to be a kensmen redeemer.

And that's who he is to us individually because of the covenants we've made. Thank you for bringing that full circle. Kinsman Redeemer, how we started. I want to read more about that. You have more about the Kinsman Redeemer. I've got multiple articles, but the volume has a summary for a general audience. So, but religious studies, and if you want in-depth articles, lots of things online. Yes. A lot of available.

That it just helps to know the Redeemer was an idea. They already knew about being bought back from slavery and so forth. That's really interesting. I can hear a listener at home saying, OK, I get it, why does it have to be so hard get it. Why does it have to be so hard? Right? Why does it have to be so hard?

For Abraham, even for the originals here that we're talking about, the Lord is gonna constantly say, look to your fathers, look to your fathers. And when we look at our fathers, it was hard for them. Right, and this is outside of our reading, and I know you touched on the sacrifice that Abraham was asked to make.

And this is, you'll get to it with a different podcast, but I think this idea of having to decide, it actually came twice for Abraham because he had to give up Ishmael and then he had to be willing to give up Isaac. So going back to the idea of worship and what do we love the most. The Lord put all his trust in that the existence of Abraham, then he would never have been willing. That wasn't where the source of his confidence, his source of his confidence was in the Lord's promise. And again, there's a beautiful discussion in Hebrews where it talks about what gave Abraham the courage to do that. And this is a Hebrews 1117 by faith. So he's trusting the Lord's promise by faith. Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said in Isaac, shall I see be called. So he knew, if he gave up Isaac, it's all off. He's

not going to have his promise. But he knew the promise was sure. And so verse 19, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. So his confidence in the Lord's promise and the Lord's power was so strong, he was willing to be obedient because he knew that the Lord had promised in Isaac. They see, she'll be called. And so he's like, well, the Lord's not gonna back down. He's not going to take Isaac away permanently. And so I think this is a little insight in the book of Hebrews is how deep the faith was,

the Abraham that he was willing to obey. And so I think the Lord, when he asks us to obey, he wants to see if we trust him. And that always goes back to faith. Yeah, my faith isn't in an outcome. My faith is in the Lord. And we talk about Shadrach, Nishak, and the Vendigo, right, that's it, nevertheless, like maybe we're not going to be saved, right?

Yeah. That that's, that they were willing to do what they needed to do. What is it? Our Lord is able to save us, but if not, we will still not worship the idols. And there's, there has to be something and both of you can speak to this.

There has to be something about the difficulty of human life that prepares us, right? I don't think the Lord just says, well, you know, I'm going to let you suffer for a little while just because. So all of this figuring out, all of this, what did you call it? You said this wellspring of emotion. Yeah, wellspring of complicated emotions. That has to be good for us in the long run, right? But it means part of a learning process. We know Christ Himself went through where He talked about Him learning obedience by the things He suffered.

So Christ is learning to be obedient to the Father. And if we want to become like Him, we have to be willing to be obedient. And so obedience takes faith. And so Christ was so faithful, who's willing to be obedient to Father, even to the point of where, yes, the point where he's like, maybe I don't want to do what you want me to do. But then he says, no, no, I do. I do, I really do. And I'm willing to.

But that's the kind of, if Abraham again is pointing us to Christ, and so to be becoming like Abraham, to be willing to be obedient like Abraham is trying to become obedient like Christ, and have the faith in Christ, like Christ had faith in the Father. And this is for me, I think, is one of my favorite passages in the book of Mormon, second, Eve by 26, because it's like, how do we know, like, how can we trust God? And this is, this is, Nephi where he says, the witness he had, and I felt this witness in hard times as well, I say into the Lord God work of not in darkness. So verse 23, 24, he do with not anything save it be for the benefit of the world. No, it doesn't mean that he causes things to happen. Sometimes

we get confused and think bad things happen. God hates me. Well, he's not causing things to happen. There's this beautiful talk by President Kimball and where President Kimball essentially says, we don't know why bad things happen. And we're not promised that God's controlling everything that's happening, but he promises that he can consecrate things for our gain. He can have things work together for our gain. He doesn't mean he's making the bad things happen to him.

Is it the one death, tragedy, or destiny? Yeah. President Kimball's talk, yeah, keep going. No, but it is, I think and so we get confused and think all that is the sort of the gods make everything happen, but part is mentioning that the second if I to or Lehigh's promising Jacob says all things will work together for good. They'd be consecrated for that good and that Lord can can help things be consecrated for a good doesn't mean he necessarily makes them happen. So, but part of it is trusting, trusting enough to know that when he at, he does ask us

to do something even if it seems counterintuitive or it seems hard or says, well, I don't think that's what's going to make me happy. I think I should, I should live this way and that's going to make me happy and the Lord says, no, you know, these are my commandments. These are the laws and expectations of holiness. And so to trust that holiness is happiness, to trust that following the Lord's way is the path of happiness, can take a lot of faith. And so I think understanding his nature and that's why I think I think Abraham was able to do what Abraham did

because Abraham had come through Why does it have to be so hard? It's the survivors of the Martin hand card company, right when they said in our extremities Yeah, we've come to know how I mighted with God in our history. Yeah Yeah, President Hinckley loved to tell that story about the church meeting somewhere in southern Utah We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it.

We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it.

We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it.

We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. We've come to have it. was worth it because we became acquainted with God in our extremities. And somebody wrote, Andrew also wrote a book called The Price We Paid. It's the one of the most gratitude inducing. I'll never complain again, type books I've ever read about. And you said it over and over again today. Dr. Lane about trusting the Lord and then trusting his timing. Abraham shows us that he definitely does. And I see kind of the opposite in Lot who faces his tent towards Sodom, right? He's not too interested in the Lord, Genesis 13, 12. Lot says, I'll go over here. And then I noticed in the next chapter, so that's chapter 13, verse 12,

he's facing Sodom. And then in chapter 14, verse 12, lot lives in Sodom. It didn't take too long. It didn't take too long from facing Sodom to go and just move on in. And that makes me nervous. I should. All of us face my, yeah, that I face my tend away from the Lord, I might end up just packing and moving into the world. I think this is part of why, you know, we've heard this certainly, you know, with President Hunter and then President Nelson's reiterated to worship in the temple, as often as circumstances allow, that it actually, it's the flip side of what happens when you're facing your tent towards Sodom, you become more comfortable and you, you want to go there. The more time we spend worshiping the Lord, the more time we spend facing in our daily lives as well, with reading the book of Mormon every day, praying morning and night, doing

whatever we can to be faithful to our covenant. So we we faced towards the Lord, we're bowing down, we're serving that we're we want to to move there. We want to go there. And so we spent whatever we spend time with is going to change us. And these are sobering. They should, I think their stories are supposed to be sobering. And they're there for a reason because we can easily switch. Any of us can get off track. And it's important, just on these daily practices and the regular Templates, regular scripture study, are there because they orient us to what's real, they keep us connected to God. Yeah. And if your faith is in outcomes and you don't get your outcome, you just walk. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll go somewhere else for my, for my happiness, where the Lord, the Abraham, what'd you say, has faith in the Lord? Not necessarily in Isaac or in any of the efforts he's tried to make. I like this story because it's so human, it's so complicated. And there's, I'm going to remember that forever. A wellspring of complicated emotions. That's that's got to be that's a great just a title for people. How are you doing today? Oh, it's a wellspring complicated emotions Right a lot of mortality. Yeah, yeah

And when people say why does it have to be so hard? I you know, I don't know I don't know why it has to be so hard, but there is something about the process that changes you for me Abraham Just gives me a vision for the kind of life that I want to live to keep seeking for what's real and to stay oriented to to the Lord because the alternate visions of mortality that are presented are so abundant and that the covenant path is a source of stability and peace Doesn't mean complications aren't real. It just means that that we know we're going someplace that there's a meaning to The journey and that we we actually can get there through Christ and with his help. He's there To reach out and to lead us along. He's promised that, that he will lead us along.

And when we stay close to him, we try to take his hand and walk with him, then we can have the help we need to get through those hard years and maybe sometimes hard decades. Yeah. And what did he say to Joseph Smith? The Son of Man has descended below them all. I'm doing this too What did Isaiah call him a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? We hit our faces from him. I mean imagine what that

feels like he was despised. Yeah, I Think it's simple answer Maybe too simple sometimes that we give to our kids is, hey, you always learn more from your hard times than from your easy times. And maybe the Lord loves you too much to let your life be easy. But I also think that when I've learned so much more and been blessed so much more by people that I know that have had hard times who have blessed me with their faith, then somebody, I've never really been through anything hard, you know, but when I know somebody who's been through a lot, it's a little bit of same boat therapy that, wow, we went through that.

We went through that. Let me tell you how we, what we did and how we did that. And we can say, this is how we survived that. And then we become a blessing to each other. And that's worshiping because we're serving each other. We all need each other. We're doing this way. The Lord has a church that we're here together. We're journeying together. Even in an endowment ceremony, we go through as a company. We need each other to make the journey. But the Lord is going to be there with us. He'll lead us along, but I think we can,

our faith, we can strengthen each other. And that's a blessing. And there's a privilege when we do see somebody who's gone through so much. And yet has faith, it's a privilege to hear their witness. And the Lord, I think puts them in our way sometimes in our path, I mean, so that. Definitely. They can bless us. You meet somebody who's in our way sometimes in our path. I mean, so that definitely they can bless us.

If you meet somebody who's never had a trial in their life, they're not going to help you much. No, everything's been easy. Never had a trial. Oh, okay. Well, I'd like to visit with someone else who can help me through this problem. Yeah.

I want to make sure that any listening doesn't feel like Sarah is like a side character to Abraham. Couldn't you call this the Abrahamic Saraya covenant? I mean, she's going through all of this as well. And I love that you pointed out she has her name changed. This is something that happened to them together as a couple that they went through together. I love that. And I think that's probably why I think it's helpful to actually use the word, I mean, there's nothing wrong with Abraham, my covenant.

It's amazing. But the new and everlasting covenant is really what it is. And this is why I'm so grateful for President Nelson and the clarity that we have today that this isn't something that's, well, Abraham was the one who had priesthood office, and so this is all about him. And it's like, no, the both of them had this covenant promised together, and that that's the Lord wants to make covenants with his sons and his daughters. So seeing them and their covenant helps and their faithfulness to their covenant.

And again, that Hebrew's passage is, she had that confidence. She had the faith that allowed the Lord to work in her life and to do something that she could not have done. So that capacity that we need to get power, and that's precisely what the restoration is for again, President Nelson, every woman and every man who makes covenant with God and keeps those covenants who participates, worthy and priesthood ordinances, has direct access to the power of God. And so I think as we increasingly as President Nelson's taught us to do, put our emphasis on the blessings of the priesthood in the endowment, that we're just beginning to understand the gift that we're being given.

Like we know we're baptized and receive the gift of Holy Ghost, and we know we go through the temple and we receive the endowment, but I think we're just beginning to understand what the Lord wants to give us. And Abraham and his story and Sarah and her story that the two of them and their willingness to start a new life together points us to the kind of

new life that we're receiving through Christ, he wants to give us a better life, he wants to give us his kind of life and that that is it's absolutely universal and that it's for women and for men so to not feel as though that there's something different or special about Abraham, when this is something that the Lord wants to do for each and every one of us. Excellent. Absolutely excellent. Dr. Lane, can you talk about people that identify with Abraham, because many religious traditions do? Absolutely. Yes. Abraham is known as the father of the faithful. And so, you know, we look at Judaism, and then of course Christianity and Islam. So all of the faith traditions that look back to the Bible, look back to the prophets revere Abraham.

He is an example of faithfulness. As a term, the Abrahamic faith traditions that those sort of coming out of that are going to be so important in the Western tradition. Of course, there are other wonderful religious traditions throughout the world, and we know from the first presidency statement that they were also religious leaders that were inspired of God, but the influence that Abraham has had on God, but the influence that Abraham has had on really as a founding figure for the Muslims, of course, that they see the covenant going in different direction. They look at Ishmael, but they still look back to Abraham. And they see the example.

Abraham is seen in term Islam actually means, again, bow down to submit. And so Abraham has seen is sort of a model for true worship. And just as I think as we can look at Abraham and say, he is a model of true worship, of true obedience and true faithfulness, that so many millions and millions of our brothers and sisters in Islam look to Abraham. And they, in fact, part of the worship is tied to following an example of Muhammad who's also understood as a follower of God, but that they go back to Abraham who is seen as archetype of a human being and walking in the way of the Lord.

And so I think this idea of following God, walking his way, isn't unique to Christianity, that with adjudism in Islam, Abraham really has set a model for how to walk away from the world, how to walk towards God. And I think that that resonates with people of faith throughout the world, even those who aren't in Islamic faith traditions. The idea that there's a right way to walk, there's a right way to be in the world, and so the discipleship is choosing to walk the way Abraham walked, choosing to bow down, to serve, to worship God. People who feel something sort of calling to them that Abraham exemplifies that, and he models it for us. Yeah.

So the three Abrahamic faiths would be Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Yes, absolutely. Amazing, which is so much of the planet. Amazing heritage that the blessings that people would remember his name, that happened. That's part of the covenant. Yeah, and it happens. Yes, and blessed the earth, exactly, that so many people live better lives

because of following this example. Yeah, wow. I don't know Hank, I'm kind of having a wellspring of complicated emotions. Yes, I will be using that for a long time. I'm glad to articulate what we all deal with from time to time. I want to see an illustration of that. This fountain of love. The other thing that made me laugh is that he says, I want greater happiness, peace and rest. And I was like, okay,

so here's a bunch of problems. Yeah, that's great. That's a great, that's like, wait, wait, wait, that's not what I asked for. That's not what I wanted. It's like, Jail's a smith. All I wanted to know is what church to join. Yeah.

I said, Mary, I'm a Liberty Jail. So did I sign up for this? Right. Yeah, I have it. It reminds me of John, we have our friend Meg Johnson, who's in a wheelchair and she was an accident when she was in her early 20s and is in a wheelchair and she said in a dream, she kind of saw herself

in the pre-mortal life and they were explaining what how difficult it was gonna be and her spirit, she said, oh, okay, oh, okay, all right, all right. And then, you know, her now saying, you naive little spirit. Don't say, you know, I signed up for this. Yeah. Well, it's like a, he killed her Maxwell talked about in the book of Job. It says, when the sons of God shouted for joy, and he said, now that we're here, we're wondering what all this shouting was about. and you said, now that we're here, we're wondering what all this shouting was about. Yeah.

Definitely a long-term view to, yeah. Yeah, that's it. Dr. Lane, this has been fantastic, really. I've learned so much. And I thought I knew a lot, right? But coming now, I feel like, wow, I'm looking at these chapters differently than I ever have. I think our listeners would be interested

in your journey personally and professionally. Here you are, a biblical scholar and a faithful Latter-day saint. I think our listeners would say, yeah, Hank, ask her about that journey, What's that been like? Sure. Well, actually, I started out a little bit with it because of my own studies. So I got back from my mission and I was studying history.

And I honestly was thinking of going in and being a history professor because I love the human experience and trying to understand it. But I kept drawing, being drawn more and more towards scripture study. But in the, what's been fascinating for me is that the more educated I become, the more I in depth I researched, that the better understand the gospel. So the process, like again, I graduated with University Honors, which meant I had to write an honor ceases. Well, it's in the process of writing the honor ceases that I made the connections between redemption and covenant. And that scholarship continued my master's thesis looking at the

relationship between covenant and redemption in the writings of Paul. And then as I went on to get a PhD, my field's history of Christianity, I was kind of moving more and more towards the early Christian era. And what was the meaning of baptism, what was the meaning of the ordinances for the early Christian, sort of growing out of my master's thesis, and was interesting. The work I did with Christianity, a lot of people do get nervous. They say, oh, you're going on for a PhD. I didn't even get the question when I was working on my PhD. I was not shaking your testimony. I said, no, I appreciate the restoration even more. Because being a student of a history of Christianity, I know that there

are people of faith in many religious traditions and throughout Christian history, amazing people, but the clarity and the answers that came to Joseph Smith, the additional light and knowledge we have with the restoration, and I just appreciate what the covenant is, the restoration of the covenant, restoration of priesthood blessings, because I can see what it looks like to be taking the Bible and trying to make sense of it yourself, and all these different traditions, and people are so good people, even earned the early period, where they're just trying to figure things out, but just the difference between having prophets and apostles who are

authorized representatives of the Lord and the kind of clarity that comes. I think sometimes people think that because we have revelation, we should have all the answers, and that's not the way the Lord works. He wants us to use our mind. We learn by studying by faith. Elder Maxwell wrote some wonderful things about this, that the vast majority of things we learn, we learn through our own study, and the faith is just to keep studying to find answers. But the things that matter the most, the things had to do with Jesus Christ, the plan of redemption.

Those are the things that only the Lord can reveal to us. And so seeing how the Lord sends prophets, and the Lord sends apostles. And then when there are prophets and apostles, the Lord sends angels. And so looking for revelation and seeing how revelation comes and then what do you do with that revelation? That's what matters.

But again, my own studies, I just appreciate him so grateful. It's not a sense of competition at all. I love people of faith in so many religious traditions. I'm so grateful for them that they're living up to the light they have is extraordinary and that's going to take them back because people are faithful like they have. They're going to be willing to receive more and more light. The question is of what am I doing with the light I have? Because of the restoration, I know that what I've been given isn't just more truth, but that again, we've been talking about covenant and covenant power. And that's something I came to know for myself even before I went on a mission.

The way I've come to understand analysis and close reading of scriptures. But you give him before an admission, I began to understand that taking upon our self the name of Christ through baptism, just by reading it over and over again. Secondly, 531 trying to memorize some of those passages that just the clarity of of what the baptism will covenant is that learning true learning, I think, brings close reading. It brings good thinking. So when you understand, okay, any assumptions you start with, you're going to logically follow

out from that and come to conclusions. So it really matters what assumptions you start with. What are the premises you're working from? And nobody can give that to you. You have to know for yourself. So having lived experience that there is a God that he loves me. He loves all his children, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he's a Savior of the world. Nobody can give you that. That those are the witness you have to come to yourself. But when you know that, then what follows from that is it follows. God loves us. Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. That God called His servant, Joseph Smith

to restore priesthood, covenants, and blessings again on the earth and that brought forth His word through the Book of Mormon. And when you know that, you know, through personal experience, each of those things are true, then it doesn't mean you have answers to everything, but for me, I found that that I know what matters, and which is getting on the path, staying on the path, keeping that relationship with the Lord. And so anything that I learn about things that are complicated, things are complicated, it's mortality. It's okay, I don't have the answers, that's okay.

Because I know the Lord loves me and I know that it is promises are sure. And so I don't have to, the prophets don't have to have done everything right or said everything right, because they're human beings. I don't have my confidence isn't them them. My confidence is in the Lord Jesus Christ and he's working with them. He's working with me. We're going to be fine. As long as we just are true to him and the covenants we've made, he'll get us there. That's that's what I've come to know. And everything I study deepens my my conviction that that's real and makes deepens my appreciation for the privilege of being part of his work in our day.

I don't have a wellspring of complicated emotions right now. I'm just grateful I was here. That's all it's coming right now. It's just grateful I was here, enabled to learn from you. We're all learning it. That's the great thing. I mean, everything I study and dig deeper,

it's like more insight, more understanding. The gospel is so deep, it's so rich. The scriptures are just the never ending because we can just keep coming to know the Lord and how to walk in his ways and appreciating, you know, how do we do that amidst all the other things we may not understand. And we've got a lot of people in the scriptures that have walked that path. I love it. I absolutely love it.

Me too. I've got it. So if I go to the religious study center and I do a search for Kinsman Redeemer, you can actually, if you Google Jennifer C Lane, there's a list of all my publications with the religious study center. And you've always looked at title. Yeah, there's adoptive redemption.

Yeah, there's many, there's several articles that are on that theme. In one of my Book of Mormon classes, I talk about what's your favorite name for the Planet Salvation? And everybody, oh, a plan of happiness, they all love that and everything. But when we look at the Book of Mormon, the one that is, I think it's 15 times,

is plan of redemption. It's much more common than Planet of salvation in the book Mormon. And when we look at who used to the term, it was Alma, the sons of Mosaic, who knew they needed to be redeemed. I did love that insight into the, and so I like to call it plan of redemption because that's what the book Mormon calls it.

And I recognize the need, I need a redeemer. And so you're talking about that. It was just a blessing to me today. I thought, oh, this is so good. I got to research this some more. It's powerful. And it just, again, the more we understand the Bible, the more we're going to understand all of scripture because redemption, a theme of redemption, understanding that Jesus Christ

is our redeemer, the price he paid for us and the pattern of buying out a book bondage and why he does it. Because of his covenant relationship with us, we were the children of the covenant and he's our handsome Redeemer of that. It goes throughout scripture and the more we understand and more confidence we have in him and his relationship to us. We had a sister in our ward who gave an entire sacriot meeting talk on two words of Abinadi redemption cometh. This great talk on just that redemption cometh. So good, thank you.

It's so deep, you can go. Yeah. Darrow, because there's so much depth. There's so much depth. Awesome, awesome. So, you have to be careful because there's so much depth. There's so much depth. Awesome. Awesome. We want to thank Dr. Jennifer Lane for being here today. We want to thank all of you for listening.

We need to thank Steve and Shannon Sonson, our executive producers, our sponsors David and Verla Sonson. We love you. And we hope all of you will join us on our next episode of follow. Hey, we want to remind everybody that you can find us on social media, come find us on Facebook and Instagram. We would love it if you would subscribe to, rate and review the podcasts, share it with your friends.

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