Lesson 29: Advanced Math

I won't actually be teaching the lesson on Sunday, so I'll try hard not to steal any thunder. One of my favorite scriptures is covered in this week's reading, so I couldn't resist jumping in.

It seems the Lord repeatedly tries to teach Israel that He does math a little differently than we do. A couple of examples to set the stage:

1. Gideon (Judges 6-7)
The armies of the Midianites and Amalekites came up against Israel and Gideon was chosen by an angel to lead the armies against them. The Lord told Gideon there were too many people in the army and they would boast of their own strength rather than attribute the victory to God. Gideon tells them they can go home if they want and 22,000 leave. The Lord tells Gideon the 10,000 who remain are still too many, so Gideon calls a break and selects 300 men who remain watchful. These 300 men go into battle armed only with trumpets and lanterns and are lead to victory without ever having to raise a sword (don't be surprised when the Lord doesn't answer your prayers in the way you expect).

2. Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20)
The Moabites, Ammonites, and another group identified only as "other beside the Ammonites" (verse 1) come up against the newly appointed king Jehoshaphat. He is a little worried and prays to God for help while instituting a city-wide fast. He gathers the people together and offers a prayer asking for deliverance. The answer comes, "Be not afraid, nor dismayed... for the battle is not yours, but God's" (verse 15). They are to go down to the battle against their enemies with the reassurance "Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you..." (verse 17).

Just imagine being told to show up to a battle (unarmed, no less) when you are vastly outnumbered, and not to worry because somehow you'll win without having to fight.

The king "appointed singers unto the Lord" (verse 21) who went out in front of the Israelite army. When they started to sing, their enemies began attacking and killing each other to the point where "none escaped" (verse 24). Makes me wonder, just how bad was their singing? But I digress...

To give us an idea of how vast the defeated armies were, the record indicates it took three days for the Israelites to gather all the spoils from dead soldiers.

Okay, ground work set, now onto the story (2 Kings 6). The king of Syria is a little upset with the Prophet Elisha, who keeps warning the king of Israel what the Syrians are planning. So the king of Syria's master plan is to surround Elisha during the night with "horses, and chariots, and a great host" (verse 14). Elisha gets up early in the morning and sees the army surrounding him, and his servant gets a little stressed about the situation. Elisha calmly responds, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (verse 16).

The poor servant is probably hoping the ninja convention is in town, because he's not seeing all these people who are supposed to outnumber the Syrians. I'm sure Elisha could sense the fear in his servant and prayed, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see" and sure enough, there were horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha (verse 17).

It is so easy in life to get caught in the trap of believing we have to do everything ourselves. Walk into a bookstore and check out the self-help section, there are shelves of books devoted to all the different ways you can help yourself overcome various problems from gambling to addictions to depression to debt to time-management and more. I strongly believe one of Satan's most effective tools is getting us to believe we have to fix ourselves before the atonement will work in our lives. "You've sinned, you can't pray now" or "how can you even think of reading your scriptures after what you've done?!"

I think we try to fight too many battles which the Lord has designated as being His, not ours. We should follow Jehoshaphat's example more closely in our lives. Start with prayer, real prayer, not your pre-recorded "prayer #7" (admit it, you have prayers you pull out when you don't want to put in the effort). Whenever possible, we need to "study it out in your mind; then you must ask [God] if it be right" (Doct and Cov 9:8), but there are times when all we can do is admit we have no idea what to do and plead for guidance. Sometimes fasting is needed, and you might have to enlist the help of those around you as well.

Once you've done all you can and receive your answer, go out to the front of the battle and sing praises to the Lord and let Him take care of the rest. Be where you should be, doing the things you should be doing and you'll find there are more that be with you than against you. Stop to open your eyes and see the horses and chariots of fire set to protect you.

"Any two people can be a majority, as long as one of them is God."

Lesson 27: Wachutalkinbout Willis??

There's a brief story tucked away in the reading for this week's lesson (#27) which is a bit confusing on the first time through. It's not really covered in the lesson, so I thought I'd go through it here.

As a brief preface, the end of Solomon's rule wasn't a happy one for the people, unless you were lucky enough to be of the tribe of Judah. King Solomon placed a heavy tax on the people and placed them in conditions similar to slavery. When Jeroboam took over, he made things worse instead of better. To keep people from going to Jerusalem to the temple, he made two golden calves for the people to worship from the comfort of their own land; one in Bethel and the other in Dan. He then appointed a feast day which coincided with the official feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.

Imagine a state-sanctioned party which included a feast, lots of drinking, and ceremony consisting of offering sacrifice and some fertility rites. Sounds a bit like the Calgary Stampede, doesn't it? (Oops, that was my outside voice again, huh)

Anyhow, an unnamed man of God comes on the scene in 1 Kings 13. He comes in, tells Jeroboam another king will be raised who will overthrow the idol worship, splits the altar by the power of God. Jeroboam does a little bit of back-pedaling and invites this guy (who really needs a name) to come back for supper.

"...If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place:

"For so it was charged me by the word of the Lord..." (1 Kings 13:8-9)

Not only was he told not to eat or drink until he got home, he couldn't go back the same way he came. He tells the king there is no reward worth breaking a commandment from the Lord.

On his way home, he met up with "an old prophet" (1 Kings 13:11) who told him an angel came and said it was okay to come in and eat. The King James Version reads "...but he [the old prophet] lied unto him [the man of god]" (1 Kings 13:18). The Joseph Smith Translation offers a bit of help here: "...Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water, that I may prove him; and he lied not unto him." (footnote b)

Wait a minute, now I'm even more confused. It's easier to read this story as if the prophet had been a false prophet, but here he is acting under the Lord's direction and intentionally trying to trick the man of God. It almost seems a bit under-handed. But I guess it wouldn't be the first time the Lord has tested his prophet, remember Abraham?

So the man of God goes back with the prophet and has dinner, then on his way home is killed by a lion as a result of his disobedience (1 Kings 13:20-24). Ouch, that seems a bit harsh. But what can we learn from the story?

The man of God received his directions from the Lord Himself. Pretty straight-forward: 1) don't eat or drink until you get back, and 2) don't go home the same way you came. Fairly simple and direct personal revelation. So on his way home, someone else comes and says it's now okay (for whatever reason) to do contrary to the Lord's command, and he goes along with it. He received the original instructions through personal revelation, shouldn't any amendments or adjustments also come through the same channel?

The punishment of physical death seems to be a representation of the natural spiritual consequences we face when we are disobedient. There are many "spiritual lions" just laying in wait, ready to pounce on us when we step off the path.

Is the natural consequence of an action a punishment, or just how things work? For example, if we choose to disobey the law (in Alberta, anyway) by driving without wearing a seatbelt, when we get thrown through the windshield as the car hits something, is that our punishment or just the natural consequence? When we disobey a commandment, are we punished by being separated from the Spirit, or is that just natural cause and effect?

So, here's what I take from this story:
1. It is sometimes harder to be faithful under seemingly good circumstances than it is in the face of opposition. There wasn't anything Jeroboam could throw at this man to make him go against what the Lord had commanded. We see this many times in the Book of Mormon where the Nephites can stay faithful during times of war and hardship, but when things started getting easy for them they started to waiver.
2. Continuing personal revelation is vital, especially in our day. The directions we receive from the Lord through personal revelation are as binding as those which come to us from the prophet or other leaders.
3. There will be all kinds of convincing arguments on why we should disobey the commandments (usually just one or two at a time). In the end, the reasons and reasoning are irrelevent.