There is a conference scheduled for April 11 & 12 in St. George, Utah. The conference website with relevant information is linked here: Culture by Precept and Practice
I’ve been reading the Psalms for the last few days. There was a paragraph that stood out to me this morning. Psalm 78 recites and comments on Israel’s history. After covering the deliverance from Egypt, parting of the sea, giving them water from a rock, feeding them with manna (called “angels’ food”), and sending quail to stuff them when they complained about the manna, the Psalmist reflected on Israel’s ingratitude in paragraph 4. That paragraph gave me pause. It states:
For all this, they sinned still and believed not for his wondrous works. Therefore, their days did he consume in vanity and their years in trouble. When he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned and inquired early after God, and they remembered that God was their rock and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant. But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not. Yea, many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath; for he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away and comes not again.
As I reflected on that paragraph I wondered at how often the Lord has been disappointed by His “chosen people” and how much it would mean if there were ever people whose hearts were right with Him. How great it would please the Lord if there were ever those who were steadfast in His covenant. Israel didn’t. When Israel divided neither the Northern Kingdom (Ten Tribes) nor the Southern Kingdom (Jews) were right before God. The Lehi’s family divided after his death and warred for generations until a final genocide removed all remaining believers. The Saints in Joseph Smith’s day were driven out into a wilderness, just as foretold in the January 1841 prophecy: “But if they will not hearken to my voice, nor unto the voice of these men whom I have appointed, they shall not be blessed, because they pollute my holy grounds, and my holy ordinances and charters, and my holy words which I give unto them. And it shall come to pass that if you build a house unto my name and do not do the things that I say, I will not perform the oath which I make unto you, neither fulfill the promises which you expect at my hands, says the Lord. For instead of blessings, you, by your own works, bring cursings, wrath, indignation, and judgments upon your own heads, by your follies and by all your abominations which you practice before me, says the Lord.” (T&C 141:14.) History shows they incurred all the wrath, cursing and judgments the Lord threatened them with in January 1841.
It must be possible for some generation to have right hearts before God and to be steadfast in keeping His covenant. I say so because the prophecies foretell of such a future event. What a wonder that will be.