Maurine
Welcome to Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me Podcast. We’re Scot and Maurine Proctor.
If you were to do a survey to determine the most influential talk or sermon in history, surely the results would point to the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. Here are contained the eternal “beatitudes;” here is contained the Lord’s Prayer spoken each week by untold millions of Christ’s followers throughout the world; here we have “the golden rule.” The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most densely packed three chapters in all of holy writ. As an added bonus, when the Lord visited His other sheep in the ancient Americas, one of the first things He did was gave the same Sermon on the Mount text with some additional insights. When the Lord purposely repeats something, I think He really wants our attention!
Scot
Maurine, let’s talk briefly about the temple at Bountiful—that very special place that the Lord Jesus Christ came to visit the Nephite’s after His ascension into heaven. We know that this place, this temple was a place of gathering, but how did the people know to come there? I mentioned this briefly in last week’s podcast, but, as a reminder, let’s look again at Alma 16:20. This is a fascinating verse:
20 And many of the people did inquire concerning the place where the Son of God should come; and they were taught that he would appear unto them after his resurrection; and this the people did hear with great joy and gladness.
The people were asking where He would come and they were told when. But as I said last week: we don’t have the whole record. This is an abridgement by the Prophet Mormon, for the most part. The people knew exactly where He was going to come, and they knew when, that it would be after his resurrection and ascension.
Maurine
Here’s the pattern. They knew where Jesus was going to come. They built a temple in Bountiful to greet Him. They absolutely knew that He would come. They gathered there at that temple–and He came.
So, there were 2,500 men, women and children who were there for that first visit and they became eyewitnesses of the Risen Lord at Bountiful on the first day when He came. The very next day, there could have been as many as twelve times that number—30,000 or more.
Do we have a temple today where we have enough room to put 30,000 in one room? No. Neither did the Nephites and Lamanites. It was clearly an ‘outdoor temple.’
Scot
We said we were going to show you a pattern. Here it is. Is there an “outdoor temple” on the earth today? Yes! This same thing is happening at Adam-ondi-Ahman. We know the place where He will come. We know that He will come. We know the approximate season He will come (as we watch the signs of the times and see prophecies fulfilled). The temple is being prepared. It’s an outdoor temple. And He will meet His people there just like He did His people at the temple at the Nephite Bountiful. Will there be more than 30,000 people there? Yes. There will be untold millions who will gather at this sacred meeting. We could talk for hours about this gathering.
The whole of the Book of Mormon is about a people who were told Jesus was coming, they prepared to meet Him, and then He came. That’s our precedent. That’s the pattern. And the place of preparation begins in our hearts and lives—being worthy to greet Him again.
Maurine
It’s so important to pay attention to what the Lord taught this branch of the House of Israel and so significant that one of His main discourses was what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
From Mt. Sinai Jehovah had delivered the great law to Moses. From another mountain, with the blue sea of the Galilee spread below, He gave the new law of the gospel. Now He would give it again to the surviving Nephites and Lamanites.
Where the law of Moses that they had lived for more than a thousand years had focused on outward performances, actions visible to the world and easy to see, the new law focused on the state of the heart, the flow of the soul.
“Blessed are they . . . ” the Lord said again and again, not so much commanding His followers as describing the happy life, the way of true well-being.
“Oh, the happiness of” those who are meek, merciful, and pure in heart. The “natural man” might believe he must compete for his share of things, oppress others, fight for dominion, protect his ego, prove his importance, and be ever wary lest another take advantage of him, but this was the way of misery. “I give unto you to be the salt of the earth,” Christ told His followers. “I give unto you to be the light of the world.” He was teaching something far different from the world’s frail lessons of success, of social survival of the fittest.
Scot
I like those phrases from the Book of Mormon version “I give unto you to the light of the world” and “I give unto you to be the salt of the earth.” That sounds more like a commission rather than just an admonition.
I give unto you to be the salt of the earth. The preservative.
Both salt and fire were used in the offering of sacrifices in the temple. Salt, a preservative, represented the covenant between God and Israel. (See Lev. 2:13 and Numbers 18:19). The priest kept the fire burning on the altar in the temple, symbolizing the perpetual “covenant which made the ordinance of sacrifice efficacious.” Salt, like fire, is also a purifier.
Salt doesn’t lose its savor with time. It loses it by combining with something else.
Maurine
Now we are looking in 3 Nephi chapter 12, between verses 4 and 9:
“Blessed are all they that mourn,” He said, or, in one translation of the Aramaic, healed “are those weak and overextended for their purpose; they shall feel their inner flow of strength return.” The Lord’s love could be counted on without fail to heal the wounded and worn out.
“Blessed are the meek,” He said, or, from the Aramaic, “Blessed are the gentle . . . who have softened what is rigid within; they shall receive physical vigor and strength from the universe.”
“Blessed are all the pure in heart,” or from the Aramaic: blessed “are those whose lives radiate from a core of love; they shall see God everywhere.”
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy,” “they shall find their own prayers answered.”
The meek, merciful, and pure-hearted may seem to be the ones overlooked and trampled in a world where pride and ego rule, but evil is paid back in a heart filled with anxiety and fear, a running for but never finding satisfaction. On the other hand, the Lord offered the way to draw us out of ourselves, to focus His light within us, to give us peace.
Maurine
The Lord is saying: What I give you is in harmony with eternal law. Commandments are not a strait jacket—they are the way to a fulness of happiness and a fulness of joy.
One definition of the word blessed (makarios in Greek) means “privileged to receive divine favor.” So, it could be retranslated as “Oh, the happiness of.” This is true well-being.
Scot
The Law of Moses had pointed the faithful to Christ in types and symbols for generations, now the Lord was asking His followers to let Him into their hearts and let Him be the pattern for all their thoughts and daily walk.
Burnt offerings had marked the Law of Moses, and now the new law required another sacrifice. “Ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” Jesus would say. As an offering on the altar, true disciples must put their old selves, those complaining, protective, frightened selves that see the world through the blinders of their own will.
Maurine
The disciples must be transformed, born again, unafraid to render unto the Lord all that they have and are. They must not hold back even the slightest part of themselves, afraid of what the Lord will ask. As King Lamoni’s Father, said, “I will give away all my sins to know thee,” and indeed that is required. Just as new wine could not be put into old bottles, so a new society could not be built out of external performances.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught:
“To the extent that we are not willing to be led by the Lord, we will be driven by our appetites, or we will be greatly preoccupied with the lesser things of the day. The remedy is implicit in the marvelous lamentation of King Benjamin: ‘For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?’ (Mosiah 5:13). For many moderns, sad to say, the query ‘What think ye of Christ?’ (Matt. 22:42) would be answered, ‘I really don’t think of Him at all!’
Scot
Elder Maxwell continued:
“Each of us might well ask, ‘In what ways am I shrinking or holding back?’ Meek introspection may yield some bold insights! For example, we can tell much by what we have already willingly discarded along the pathway of discipleship. It is the only pathway where littering is permissible, even encouraged. In the early stages, the debris left behind includes the grosser sins of commission. Later debris differs; things begin to be discarded which have caused the misuse or underuse of our time and talent.
“Along this pathway leading to consecration, stern and unsought challenges sometimes hasten this jettisoning, which is needed to achieve increased consecration (see Hel. 12:3). If we have grown soft, hard times may be necessary. If we are too contented, a dose of divine discontent may come. A relevant insight may be contained in reproof. A new calling beckons us away from comfortable routines wherein the needed competencies have already been developed. One may be stripped of accustomed luxury so that the malignant mole of materialism may be removed. One may be scorched by humiliation so pride can be melted away. Whatever we lack will get attention, one way or another.
Maurine
“In conclusion,” Elder Maxwell teaches, “the submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give! End of quote. (Neal A. Maxwell, Swallowed Up in The Will of the Father, General Conference, October 1995.)
What are we willing to lay on the altar? In this Sermon on the Mount both to His followers in the Galilee and to His sheep here at Bountiful, He is not just asking for part of their mindshare or a piece of their hearts, or a good thought here or there from us—He wants our whole souls. And in return, He promises us eternal life.
It makes me ponder: What part of me am I holding back from Him? What favorite sin do I cling to? Who would I be if I had no fear? These kinds of questions course through my mind and the woman of Christ in me says, “What lack I yet?” and “How can I wholly and fully come unto Him?”
Scot
I had one of the most unique experiences of my life one time in the Galilee when we were there shooting photographs for the second century edition of James Talmage’s Jesus the Christ.
It was a very early morning and we had actually come to the traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount—a beautiful hillside that overlooks the beautiful Sea of Galilee. As a professional photographer I’m always watching the light—I keep my eye on the horizon whether for sunrise of sunset. “How much time do we have before the sun will be up?” “How many minutes before the sunset?” It was one of those beautiful mornings and I could see that the sunrise was coming sooner than I calculated so I began to run with my camera along the upper part of this banana grove as fast as I could so I could get a clear shot of the sunrise over the Galilee. I made it just in time and got some wonderful shots.
On my way back up I was looking at our storyboard of the shots we needed and I realized I needed to shoot a wonderful shot of a thistle or tare or weed. I came through this one patch and then turned around and looked at a number of beautiful thistles that were perfectly backlit with the gentle light of the rising sun.
Now you have to know I have shot hundreds of thousands of photographs, perhaps into the low millions, and I’ve had some unique and amazing experiences with people and animals and sunrises and sunsets, but what was about to happen had never happened.
As I raised my camera to shoot, I felt the spirits of these thistles calling out to me, crying, “Pick me! Pick me!” “Let me be the one that is used to testify of my Creator!” It was a transcendent experience. Here were these thistles that today were and tomorrow would be burned or dried to nothing by the sun—and in their brief lifespan, they had one chance to make a bigger difference—to fill the measure of their creation by testifying of the Creator. They wanted to be part of the illustrations that would testify of Him.
I never doubt these kind of things and I was moved and humbled as I took a few beautiful photographs that morning.
Maurine
And don’t you feel that way sometime as your heart swells with love for the Savior Jesus Christ? Don’t you want to serve Him with all your heart, might, mind and strength? Doesn’t your whole being cry out: Pick me! Pick me! Let me be one who testifies boldly of the Creator! Let me be one who invites all to Come unto Thee! The Sermon on the Mount is a personal invitation for all of us to pick Him, to come unto Him and to follow Him at all costs, at all hazards.
I have felt that so keenly these past few weeks as I have been given this very difficult personal trial with my accident. As a writer my hands are so important to me to be able to communicate with you as podcast listeners or with readers on Meridian or in the book that I am writing. I need my hands so much—and to have this left hand shattered and basically useless for these few months has been so humbling.
And then with further complications this past week—with effusions around my lungs and around my heart from the impact of the accident—I was unable to breath in a sustainable way and ended up four more days in the hospital.
But I have to say truly, all I could think about, even when a needle came through my back and they drained off a quart of fluid off my left lung alone, and the pain afterwards was so excruciating, I just was so filled with gratitude for the peace and comfort the Savior gives me and the absolute assurance I have felt through these difficult days that only He can give. I whisper quietly, “Pick me. Pick me.” And with Elder Neal Maxwell who suffered so much from his leukemia, though this is not in that league of a trial, I say, “Why not me?”
Scot
Let’s talk just a few minutes about this sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. We do not have record of the Lord mentioning this required sacrifice in the New Testament. So, what is a broken heart? I think we all have broken hearts in our lives from lost loves or, in some cases, from failed marriages, or from those who disappoint us or children who choose not to follow our teachings as parents. These are surely broken hearts—or is this what the Lord is talking about? Is this the sacrifice He requires?
Perhaps we need to think of the analogy of a broken horse. When wild mustangs or even just young horses are brought in to be broken or saddle-trained, they are feisty and wild, willful and headstrong, they are untrained and unwilling to be led along. They are inexperienced and unable to be useful to their owner or to the person or cowboy who will ride them. They have to be broken—willing to follow their master’s command.
There are many ways to break a horse but really just two main ways to train or break a horse for riding: the gentle way or the hard way. One way works well, and the other causes more problems than it is worth.
Gentle breaking works best because it helps a horse build trust with its handler so this relationship will last a lifetime.
The other method is to force the horse to your will. You can imagine how this goes—it does not work well because practically every horse will rebel when forced to do something. This is not to say that it can’t work. It can be used as a teaching tool, but gentle breaking is just more effective. Horses can be forced to obey, but they will end up resenting you and will act up more often.
Maurine
When we come to the Lord with a broken heart it means we accept His gentle commands, we have submitted ourselves to His will, we have humbled ourselves before Him and are willing and ready for Him to lead us wherever He wants to lead us.
But how about a contrite heart? What does that mean?
In Latin it is contritos corde. And what does contrite or contritos mean? It means to crush, bruise, pound to pieces and grind to powder. The ruptured Nephite lands graphically demonstrated just how complete the new change would be. How possibly could the Lord want of us a heart that is ground to powder? That is an excellent question.
He wants our hearts—the moving force of our beings—to become as the dust of the earth—ground to powder—and perfectly obedient to His every command—just as the dust of the earth is perfectly obedient to His every command. We read in King Benjamin’s talk that the people viewed themselves as less than the dust of the earth (see Mosiah 4:2). And we see in Helaman chapter 12 the unsteadiness of men.
6 Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide.
Scot
We continue in verse 7 of Helaman 12:
7 O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.
8 For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God.
The chapter goes on for a dozen verses documenting how obedient the dust of the earth is to the voice of God.
So, when the Lord asked the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart—a heart that is ground to powder and as the dust of the earth—He is calling for submission and obedience to His every word.
And here in the Sermon on the Mount that’s exactly what the Lord is asking of us—submit to His will both in body, spirit and soul. He wants us to not only be obedient in the outward performances—but deep down in the recesses of our hearts and minds—that we submit our whole selves to Him.
Maurine
It’s back to what Elder Maxwell taught as we said earlier:
“…when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!”
In this sermon to the Nephites, the Lord is asking His disciples, those who choose to follow Him, to enter a new way of life.
Scot
And there’s a mystery or a hidden gem in the beatitudes. This is Messianic language He is using. Let’s compare Isaiah 61:1-2—you’ll be familiar with these verses:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” (emphasis added)
This is clearly Messianic text and He is telling them that he is the Messiah.
Maurine
A true disciple will sense her homesickness. She comes hungering and thirsting. She it is who will be filled.
Listen to this language from the 107th Psalm:
“They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. . . . For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.” (Psalm 107:4-7, 9, emphasis added).
Those who had been studying the scriptures in this ancient audience would have recognized this language from the scriptural text. This would have born testimony to their souls that this indeed was the very Messiah who was talking to them face to face.
Scot
And I love the “blessed are the pure in heart” admonition. It too has Messianic overtones from the Psalms:
“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face.” (Psalm 24:3-6) This, of course, is also a temple reference.
As I was looking at 3 Nephi 13 verses 19 through 21 about laying up for yourself treasures on earth and treasures in heaven, I just had to tell this story again. I told this 75 podcasts ago, but it bears repeating:
I will never forget soon after I returned from my mission, my mother and I were doing a major cleaning out of a shed on our farm. We lived in a rural area outside of Rolla, Missouri and we had no trash pick up, so we had to burn all our trash. It was actually quite fun for me as this was one of my weekly chores.
Mom and I had been burning all kinds of things that day, worn-out items and junk from the shed, but then she picked up our old ice cream maker. It was one of those ones that was made of wooden slats and had two or three metal bands around the wood to hold them together and a wire hand. We had made so many batches of delicious, hand-cranked ice cream on the 4th of July and other occasions. That ice cream maker truly meant something to me. It carried years and years of memories and happiness. And Mom was going to throw it into the fire! I went to grab it before it perished in the flames, and as I wrested it from her hands, it burst apart into pieces on the ground. It was so old—the wood was rotten and the metal rings had rusted. I was gasping in shock at the scene and Mom said, “That, my son, is where moth and rust doth corrupt,” knowing the scriptures well, that is a moment I will never forget. Don’t put your trust in or bind your heart to material things.
Maurine
That’s right. The Lord taught the Nephites as He did the Jews:
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal;
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
This is good counsel for us today. Have you noticed some changes in your heart towards material things during this time of COVID? I have. Material things have never meant a great deal to me, but in these past few months of disruption of Church and Temple attendance, I’ve truly just longed for the spiritual things in life, for my family and for the fellowship of the Saints. It has been a good time to check our hearts and our treasures.
Scot
And I do so love the teachings in 3 Nephi 13, verses 28-30—this is one of our faith scriptures:
Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;
29 And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, even so will he clothe you, if ye are not of little faith.
Now, notice that last line: “if ye are not of little faith.” The King James Version of the correlating verse in Matthew 6:30 says, “O ye of little faith?”—Both the Joseph Smith Translation and the Book of Mormon give us the accurate words the Lord said: “…if ye are not of little faith.” In other words, we have to exercise our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and He will see to our needs. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. (See D&C 88:63)
Maurine
Scot, we need to look at the 48th verse of 3 Nephi 12. This one throws some people off:
Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
First of all, in the King James Version, the verse reads:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48). In the Nephite sermon the Lord adds Himself as one who is also perfect. He had wrought the atonement. He had overcome the world. He was flawless. He was without sin. He indeed was perfect.
But now let’s focus more on this verse for us who are mere mortals:
“Be ye . . . perfect, even as I or your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” In the Greek and Hebrew, perfect means “whole, healed, complete, the end product of a process.”
Scot
That’s right. It was an invitation to joy, for only when we are whole can we be free. It does not mean that we always perform perfectly or competently, but that, repentant, we have no inclination to do evil, having been cleansed through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Christ’s disciples must ultimately choose whether at the center of their souls is their own self-importance or the Lord, for “no man can serve two masters.” We cannot seek both personal gain and the kingdom of God. Only when our eye is single to the glory of God will our “whole body . . . be full of light.”
That gives me hope that I can strive for wholeness and completeness and not necessarily what the world defines as perfection.
Maurine
One of the great foundation insights from this sermon is the extent to which we can come to the Savior and the extent to which He will come to us. To give up finally all that stands between us and Him seems at first a heavy task as we see how all-encompassing the requirements are. Nevertheless, the reward is incomparable. The old concept of God as primarily an emergency source evaporates, as does the idea that we might still live our own lives, God helping a little now and then. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing,” he taught us (See John 15:5)
Scot
Joseph Smith observed:
A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation; for, from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. . . . God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life; and it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth’s sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will not seek his face in vain. Under these circumstances, then, he can obtain the faith necessary for him to lay hold on eternal life.” (Lectures on Faith 6:7)
Again, in this transcendent sermon, the Lord wants our whole soul—nothing less.
Maurine
I love in this first visit of the Savior to the Nephites and Lamanites that He assures them that they are the ones He was talking about in Israel, when He told his followers there, “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” (See 3 Nephi 15:21 and John 10:16)
But then, in the spirit of gathering, He tells them something more in chapter 16 of 3 Nephi:
1 And verily, verily, I say unto you that I have other sheep, which are not of this land, neither of the land of Jerusalem, neither in any parts of that land round about whither I have been to minister.
2 For they of whom I speak are they who have not as yet heard my voice; neither have I at any time manifested myself unto them.
3 But I have received a commandment of the Father that I shall go unto them, and that they shall hear my voice, and shall be numbered among my sheep, that there may be one fold and one shepherd; therefore I go to show myself unto them.
Scot
Now, that’s exciting. We don’t yet have a record of this visit to the lost tribes of Israel, but, someday when we will obtain those records and greet our lost brothers and sisters, do you think that one of the first things He would have taught them was the Sermon on the Mount? Wouldn’t that be wonderful. These teachings are eternal. They are powerful. They are life changing. May they become more a part of our everyday thinking and actions in the days and weeks to come.
Maurine
That’s all for today. Don’t forget to pre-order these beautiful Come Follow Me calendars that Scot has created,
Thanks to Paul Cardall for the beautiful music and to Michaela Proctor Hutchins for producing this podcast. Have a great week until we meet again.
