Obedience as the First Law of Heaven

Obedience as the First Law of Heaven

I have thought about obedience these last few days because we live in such perilous times.  We live in a world where we are surrounded by choices that appeal to our senses but kill the spirit.  I hope my family can always distinguish between what uplifts and what degrades. The best assurances of this are the commandments outlined in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Perhaps Bruce R. McConkie defined the importance of obedience best:

       "Obedience Is the first law of heaven, the cornerstone upon which all righteousness
        and progression rest. It consists in compliance with divine law, in conformity to the
        mind and will of Deity, in complete subjection to God and his commands. To obey
        gospel law is to yield obedience to the Lord, to execute the commands of and be ruled
        by Him whose we are."

I could not help but think of the many great stories in the Scriptures that detail the blessings of obedience and the cursings of disobedience.

Take Adam and Eve for example. What a wonderful life they had in the Garden of Eden. I think Adam came home every day from his work naming the animals and told Eve all about his great adventures - the wonderful animals he had seen and named and the beautiful world in which they lived.

And I guess Eve had his dinner all prepared for him,  a dinner of the finest, richest fruits and vegetables from a garden without weeds or bugs. I guess she would tell Adam about her day, too, playing with the animals, picking wildflowers, and making beautiful bouquets for their home.

The weather was never too hot nor too cold in the Garden of Eden but always just right. Eve never got up in the morning and looked in her mirror for signs of crow's feet, new laugh lines, or signs of gray.

Her beauty and youth were eternal and unchanging, as was Adam's.

He never got up in the morning with his back still aching from the previous day's work. He never felled trees, or shoveled snow, or plowed fields.

If he couldn't sleep at night, it wasn't because of financial problems. More likely his mind was racing ahead to the anticipated adventures of the next day, and his days were 1000 of our years long!

It was wonderful – until a serpent visited Eve.

In this regard, I am reminded of a poem by A.E. Houseman:

               When Adam day by day woke up in paradise,

               He always used to say,"Oh, this is very nice."

               But Eve from scenes of bliss transported him for life!

               The more I think of this, the more I beat my wife!

Adam and Eve by way of commandment had only two things to do – not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and to multiply and replenish the earth.

Simple enough it would seem, if you didn't think too deeply about it.

But Satan came along, tempted Adam first and then Eve, and their world was turned upside down.

When I think of obedience I think of Adam. Satan came to him tempting him with a fruit most delicious, a fruit that would make him like the gods.

Without any hesitation or equivocation, he refused. He would obey God's commandment not to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at all costs.

But then Eve came with the same temptation, after having been seduced herself by Satan. What a dilemma  Adam faced when Eve came to him with the forbidden fruit.

She held it out for him, but again he would not partake.

She asked him if he intended to obey all of God's commandments. He answered, again without hesitation or equivocation, that he did. Eve then reminded him that she had sinned and would not be allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden.

Eve's comments caused him to think more deeply about their situation. She had sinned and would be cast out of the Garden, and he would be left a lone man. What was he to do about the second commandment – to multiply and replenish the earth?

I wonder if he thought about how God had created woman. He had done it once, could he do it again? He had lots of ribs left. 

If so, his dilemma would be solved. After all, Eve had brought this problem on herself.

I wonder if he prayed about it? I wonder if the Lord told him it was okay to break the first commandment in order to keep the second?. This, too, would solve his problem.

In any case, he partook of the forbidden fruit in order that the eternal designs of his Father in Heaven could be accomplished. A Savior would atone for the breaking of the first command, and great blessings would come to Adam and Eve and all mankind because they kept the second.

They lost the Garden, but they gained mortality and the opportunity to work out their own salvation by keeping God's commandments for the rest of their lives.

When I think of obedience, I think of the story of Adam and Eve.

When I think of obedience, I also think of poor King Saul.

He had been called by God to be the king of Israel. And God had blessed him beyond any reasonable expectation. Now he was engaged in a great war with the Philistines, and he had been gathering his armies for weeks in anticipation of the great battle that was to come.

For all his efforts he had only about 3,000 men, and they were divided into three groups. He stood on the heights of Gilgal above Jericho watching the Philistines gathering below in anticipation of the battle.

The Scriptures say the Philistines had 30,000 chariots, 6000 horsemen, and soldiers as the sands of the sea.

Was Saul worried? You bet he was! His only hope was a blessing from God  to strengthen his army. In anticipation of this, he had asked Samuel the prophet to offer animal sacrifices in Israel's behalf.

But a week had gone by, and Samuel had not made his appearance. Out of fear and desperation, many of Saul's men began to flee as the Philistines increased in number every day.

Saul, too, was desperate, and he made a decision that would cost him his crown. He decided he would offer the sacrifice himself.

While he was not a Levite and thus not authorized to do such things, he was, after all, the king.

In his pride and arrogance, he killed the animals and made the sacrifices. Ironically, just as he finished, Samuel made his appearance! Saul was dismayed. If only he had waited just a little longer! He tried to justify what he had done, but Samuel chastised him severely for his arrogance and disobedience.

He took away Saul's right to be king because he had knowingly not kept the commandments.

But this was only the first of Saul's decisions to disobey. Some time later he led his armies against the Amalekites, with a strict commandment by God that he was to to destroy them all.

Instead he decided he would spare their King Agag and bring the choicest animals and riches back to Jerusalem, where he would make sacrifices to God.

Surely God would overlook his disobedience once the sacrifices were made.

But Samuel rebuked Saul again for his pride, his arrogance and his disobedience. As a result, we have perhaps the most profound statement about obedience in all the Scriptures.

Samuel said, "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to harken than the fat of rams ... Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected thee from being king." (1 Samuel 15:22, 23)

With that exchange, Samuel left and never saw Saul again.

When I think of obedience, I think of Saul and what his pride and arrogance cost him.

When I think of obedience, I also think of Uzzah. He was one of David's most favored soldiers. David was told by the Lord to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem from the house of Abinadab, where it had been stored for 20 years.

The ark was placed upon a cart, and Uzzah was chosen to follow behind to ensure its safety.

Can you imagine what an honor that was for Uzzah? The ark was the most valuable possession of the Israelites. Moses had created it, God had protected it, and through it had revealed his word to any prophet who stood before it.

However, only the Levites were permitted to come near it or touch it, and Uzzah was not a Levite. Since the time of Moses, death had been the penalty for anyone who disobeyed this law.

I can imagine Uzzah walking behind that cart, careful to keep his distance, perhaps thinking of the great honor that had come to him, maybe even thinking about how proud his wife would be when he got home and told her about being chosen by King David.

Then suddenly the cart tipped, the ark teetered, and in that instant Uzzah reached out his hand to steady it.

"And the anger of God was kindled against Uzzah," the Scriptures say, "and God smote him there for his error, and there he died by the ark of God."

When I think of obedience, I think of Uzzah and how exacting God is in expecting us to keep his commandments.

I think also of Joseph Smith, whose single instance of disobedience resulted in the loss of 116 pages of translated manuscript from the ancient record of Nephi and Mormon.

He never forgot the terrible self-recrimination for that loss, and as far as I know, he never found himself on the wrong side of God's commandments again.

Finally, when I think of obedience I think of my ancestors who joined the church in foreign lands and gathered to this valley only after great physical and financial sacrifices. They sacrificed so much, even their lives in some cases, because they wanted to obey the prophets of the restoration and keep the commandments of the Lord to gather to Zion.

Any sacrifices we make today, pale in comparison to theirs.

And so I conclude with verses 20 to 21 in the Doctrine and Covenants section 130:

          "There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven, before the foundations of this world,

           upon which all blessings are predicated –

           And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law

           upon which it is predicated."

I know that this doctrine is true. How grateful I am for those who have gone before and shown us the way.

We can learn so much from both those who were faithful in their obedience to the commandments of God, and from those who were disobedient and paid the awful price of their disobedience.

For my family, I pray always that they will study the scriptures, come to understand as fully as possible what is expected of them as Latter-day Saints, and prepare for their calling and election to be made sure so that we can remain a family forever.