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The Power
of Patriarchal Blessings
by
Truman G. Madsen
One day in Nauvoo,
Brigham Young (not long in the Church) approached the Prophet's
father who was the Patriarch. "I would like," he said,
"a patriarchal blessing." For some reason the senior Joseph
Smith was committed to something, could not pull away, and said
to Brother Brigham Young: "Here. Here is a piece of paper.
Sit down at this table and write down every good thing you seek
in righteousness, and I will sign it and that will be your patriarchal
blessing." Staggering.
When I was a
little boy we used to get into the contest of what you would wish
if you only had three wishes. But somebody ended the game by saying,
"Well, if I had only one wish, I would wish for all the wishes
I could ever wish for."
In the heritage
of the House of Israel we receive and give patriarchal blessings.
"A paragraph," as one of my great and admired mentors
taught, "a paragraph from the book of our possibilities."
That was Karl G. Maeser.
I want to refer
to three other patriarchal blessings besides your own that I believe
were given for you and should be as clearly written in your aspirations
as any specific promise or counsel you have from your own personal
blessing. Before I do, may I mention that in the course of my life,
which is stretching out, I have known many patriarchs in the Church
and have had the privilege of counseling with them. Most recently,
as a stake president, I have had the association of Brother Bruce
R. Clark who has been a patriarch for more than 20 years. He is
now in his eighty-second year and still clear and inspired. He has
taught me that the anguish and the initial shock of such a call
is overwhelming- responsibility of not only giving a blessing but
knowing that every word of it will be recorded and that for the
rest of the person's life it will be sought after, and probed, and
prayed over, and that, therefore, he is in effect speaking scripture.
He, among the
many whom I have talked to, was not surprised at his call. It's
one of the interesting common elements in the lives of most of our
patriarchs that at some point in their lives there is a premonition,
a herald, a whispering-this calling will come to you." I know
even of one case where the General Authority walked in on a brother
the morning of a Sunday and said, "Do you know why you're here?"
And he replied, "Yes." "Are you willing?" "Yes."
"Sit down." And he put his hands on him and ordained him
a patriarch. He knew in advance.
Well that same
challenge rests upon any in our history who have served in the callings-with
Joseph Smith- leading. And the blessing I have in mind that reflects
your past, which all patriarchal blessings sooner or later do, is
section 86 of the Doctrine and Covenants. You might look at what
precedes the verses I am going to quote. It's a reference to the
great parable of the tares and the wheat. And you live in a generation
where the tares are winning- tare getting "tarier" and
the wheat getting "wheatier." And the contest is real.
It says:
"[Blessed
are ye] with whom the priesthood hath continued through the lineage
of your fathers."
And now listen:
"For ye
[this is talking about you] are lawful heirs, according to the flesh
[meaning you have been born in this dispensation in the House of
Israel either by adoption or birth you are now in it] . . .
"For ye
are lawful heirs according to the flesh, and have been hid from
the world with Christ in God-
"Therefore
your life and the priesthood have remained, and must needs remain
through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things
. . . "
And then skipping
just a little:
"Therefore,
blessed are ye if ye continue in my goodness ["continue"
means you didn't begin in his goodness in this world]-Blessed are
ye if ye continue in my goodness, a light unto the Gentiles, and
through this priesthood, a savior unto my people Israel."
That is your
first patriarchal blessing in the Doctrine and Covenants. Now another.
Brother Crawford
Gates wrote a magnificent pageant of "Visions of Eternity"
which is his musical arrangement of the section we call 76, sung
and performed where it was first commissioned at Ricks College.
We have it on video and audio, and I have occasionally played it
for my stake family and said: "Look at those young people and
listen to their music. And then ask yourself if their faces aren't
different than some of the rock groups you see on television."
It says, among
other things, that after your testimony of Jesus, you will receive
baptism ". . . being buried in the water . . ." as was
Christ before you. It says that you will ". . . receive the
Holy Ghost . . . [under] the hands of him who . . . [has been] ordained
and sealed unto this power." And then it says of you: "And
who overcome by faith [and it means faith in Christ] are sealed
by the Holy Spirit of promise, which the father sheds forth upon
all those who are just and true." And then there are verses
that have so many alls and everys it is incomprehensible. "Wherefore,
all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present,
or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christ's, and Christ
is God's. . . . [Therefore] they shall overcome all things."
And now the
last one. There are verses in section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
I have heard these verses quoted to explain why it is possible that
some of our aged men and women still seem to have an effervescent
youth and are quickened and strengthened in their service. Yes,
that is one application. I insert that it is striking to me that
we have both the most incredibly young leaders in this Church and
the most incredibly old. Do you know the average age of the men
called to the First Council of the Twelve in this dispensation?
Twenty-six; twenty-six. Do you know the earliest age of a man called
to the Twelve? Twenty-three. Do you know when at least a dozen that
I have studied first had their intimations that they had a mission
in life and had dreams and/or visions of their unfolding lives?
Age, on average, nine; nine! It is almost as if the heavens could
not wait the years of accountability. On the other hand, we have
a president who is coming up on his ninetieth year. Vigorous. Inspired.
Blessed. And that is because living the gospel has begun to regenerate
the race.
Now, back to
my third blessing. " . . . .whoso [it says] [receiveth] . .
. these two priesthoods"- the Aaronic and the Melchizedek,
and it applies to the sisters because it applies whoso receive the
blessings through these two priesthoods - ". . . and the magnifying
their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of
their bodies."
Listen to this promise. Who is your father? Listen to this."
[You] are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of [your] bodies."
[Verse 33] And now the deeper meaning of that transformation: They
become the sons and or daughters. "They become the sons of
Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom,
and the elect of God." [Verse 34] Wherefore, and I am jumping
a little, ". . . all that [the] father hath shall be given
unto [them]." [Verse 38] All. There is that word again.
All.
Having been,
as I have, a stake president and before that a faculty member and,
as you've heard, long associated with missionary work. I probably
have interviewed over 3,000 missionaries coming or going or both.
Students want to know what they'll be when they grow up, and they
have become particularly anxious about that since they have grown
up. I have learned a couple of things about preparing for a life
mission- not just a two-year or eighteen-month mission.
I have learned,
first of all, from serious academic work that (though you may not
believe me and I put it so starkly) everyone sitting here today
is a genius at something. Every one of you has an intellectual gift.
It is indirectly related to what we are so intimidated by, which
is the IQ (which, by the way, does not measure everything and even
what it does measure can be changed; so it is often misleading).
You are a genius at something. You may not have discovered it, but
it is there. And every one of you, according to the teachings of
the modern restoration, has at least one spiritual gift-at least
one. And you have been counseled to pray on the behalf of your leaders
that they may have of all gifts the gift of discernment which enables
them to see in you as the Lord would see: the good when others cannot,
the promise when others cannot, the gold that is in the mine when
other people treat you in other ways.
In addition
to that knowledge, I have the testimony that there are a cluster
of gifts and talents that all of us are more or less good at, all
of which are needed in the work of the kingdom. No matter what you
do in life or vocation, whatever you do to earn and supply and support,
these will be needed. The growth is becoming exponential. There
will be need within five years for us to ordain in any one week
1500 bishops. There will be need within the same five years to have
at least 600 General Authorities just to administer the affairs
of a worldwide Church which is now in 170 countries. What are the
talents everyone needs to cultivate in recognizing these needs?
Well, among others, it is obvious you are going to have to be a
teacher. You are going to have to communicate and teach. That is
even if you have no other singular calling than home teaching, visiting
teaching, or your home and family. But, likely, you will have dozens
of calls to teach and/or speak. There is a worldwide Church program
to upgrade teaching. And the letter from the First Presidency says:
"You who call yourselves leaders [stake presidents, bishops],
you also must understand you are teachers. And you must become better
teachers."
Second, it is
obvious that every one of you will need to be administrators-
who can organize, and plan, and implement, and follow up. That is
the nature of any organization. This is an organization. It is said
that if three Mormons bail out of an airplane, before they hit the
ground they will have a president and two counselors. True, except
that does not quite cover the ground. (If they were Mormons they
would have organized before they jumped and had somebody waiting
for them.)
Third, it is
obvious, and this is more important even than the other two, that
if the Lord is going to have witnesses and leaders and faithful
parents they have to be worthy; and worthy means pure. And the blessings
I have quoted, and I suspect your own in most instances, refer to
the need-absolute need-get the power of the Lord Jesus Christ into
the very veins of your blood and transform you and purge you of
whatever is amiss or whatever poisons you have taken. On the word
poison, indulge me for a brief visit to the Holy Land.
Here was a group
of BYU students sent out to have a "kibbutz" experience,
which meant cutting back certain trees. They were warned when they
went into this grove. "Somewhere out there you may run onto
a black snake. They are known as vipers. Don't touch them! As soon
as you see one, call us; and we will take care of it." We had
an older student who'd had some experience with snakes. He came
onto one. He took hold of it right up by the top of the neck. Instantly
the viper turned and bit him, and his arm began to swell almost
visibly. They ran. They ran for what they thought was the antidote.
They gave him a shot. It wasn't the antidote. It was a tetanus shot.
And by the time he realized he had not been given the antidote,
he was already in critical condition. They took him to the hospital.
Ann and I both visited. He barely survived after a priesthood blessing.
The pain, the anguish, the swelling, the almost black-looking hand
were unspeakably horrible.
You live, as
the Master said you would, in a generation of vipers. And I won't
dwell on it except to tell you that the use of drugs is addictive;
the use of pornography is addictive; the use of other substances
that are now being called date drugs are not only poison, they will
kill you. They will burn your brain ultimately. They will destroy
your conscience. And you get to the point where you care about only
one thing-your own habit. And you will hurt your loved ones, and
you will be unworthy of serving the Lord in His kingdom.
Now there is
always through Christ a way of starting back, but preventive medicine
is better than medicine. I plead with you. If you don't start, you
never have to stop.
Now I was talking
of talents. I will just name six that a man named Calvin Taylor
classifies. There is actually a book on this that has 120 talents
listed. It would be interesting for you to read that sometime and
find out if you fit anywhere. The educational system often teaches
you fairly early, like about kindergarten, where you are weak. And
you assume that you are no good across the board and figure you
are going to have to work harder than anybody else. It would be
marvelous if we had a system that could help you find out at age
five where your strengths are and then cultivate them. I do not
believe they were given to be abused; I think they were given to
be used, and you have them.
Here are the
six he talks about:
He talks about
academic. That is a talent in a way. There are people who
seem to have a special gift for getting through school, for pleasing
their professors, writing the right kinds of papers, getting grades.
I do not like the grading system, but I do not know any other way
to deal with this problem. Some people are just specially blessed
to academics; they are the ones who end up being the teachers. Well,
that is a blessing. And I repeat the statement you all will be
teachers no matter what else you ever do.
Second, he talks
about creative talents. And those are the sort of glamour ones we
all think about who have the power of music and singing, sculpture,
painting, the arts, dancing, and all the spinoffs of those. Some
of you have those gifts, greatly. Some of you may be as my grandfather
was, tone deaf. (In the resurrection it is promised that you will
be able to make a joyful noise.)
Then he talks
about three that are closely related: planning, which I suspect
would lead you into architecture, engineering, and other things;
wisdom, which no one can quite define but some people have it. They
may not know any specifics about a problem, but they are wise in
counsel (sometimes comes with age). And then there is what they
call forecasting. I suppose this is the weatherman phenomenon, being
able to anticipate certain trends or movements or activities.
Finally, communication.
The evidence is that those who are good at conveying ideas or a
vision or a gift to others are also remarkably able in listening.
In the real world, communication with all of its advertised power,
and it is powerful is often a weakness if we're talking about spiritual
things. For ultimately, it isn't a performance the Lord wants from
any of you; it's the worthiness to stand and have the Spirit of
the Lord go through you so that you who teach and you who listen
are as section 50 says "both edified" and "both rejoice
together." Both.
As a professional
teacher I have been puzzled over two things. One, that sometimes
after all the preparation I know how to make, including spiritual
preparation, I have gone into a class and even though I've tried
to do it right-doesn't quite go over. And I know it. And I think
the students do, but they're kind enough not to say too much. On
the other hand, I have gone in not as well prepared in the intellectual
sense but humbled with the responsibility (maybe didn't even have
time to offer a genuine full prayer), and the Spirit of the Lord
comes into the meeting. And I go home saying to myself: I was blessed,
but somebody else was blessed. My theory is that happens because
the Lord wants to bless you and the recipient and he uses you an
instrument, however incompetent you are. Well, your strength (in
that sense) is your weakness. Your strength is to acknowledge before
the Lord that you are dependent upon him and that if you do not
receive the Spirit, you will not teach.
The other thing
that I marvel at is that when the Spirit of the Lord is present
in a meeting, it isn't just words that carryover. It is the face.
It is the person himself. I said once to a man, who had touched
me deeply, that he could have stood up and counted to ten and I
would have been inspired just because of the majesty of the spirit
that was with him. I feel that way at times when I am truly sensitive
in a General Conference. President Hinckley, to me, is a beautiful
man; and he would say he is homely. But when the Spirit is with
him, he is magnificent. And his very face and his smile and his
expressions carry a message, and it rings true.
Now brothers
and sisters, one of the patriarchs I knew told me this story. He
said:
I was hesitant
to give blessings at first; and until I had had the experience,
I hardly slept. One day a girl came in. Though I had never designated
Judah as a lineage, I placed my hands upon her head and it came
to me she is of the House of Judah. And immediately she
began to weep. And for the rest of the blessing she was sobbing.
When I finished I thought that it was because she was surprised
and perhaps disappointed at what I had said. I said, "Sister,
Judah is a wonderful lineage to be from." And she said: "Oh.
It wasn't that. I had impressions in my early life of this but
there is no evidence in our family history that I am of Judah.
Well, he went
on to tell me that he has given (let's say) hundreds (I think it
is thousands) of blessings and that he has come away from those
with two convictions which apply to everyone, whatever their differences.
The first is that in every case when he has given a patriarchal
blessing, he has known that the Lord our God loves this person.
He has felt it. He has yearned to transmit it. And he has stated
it often: "You are beloved of God." That has been true
even when he has sensed under inspiration that the person is not
fully worthy and perhaps is even involved in deception and some
self-deception because of transgression. He still feels the love
of God.
The other is
that in every case he has felt and most often said that, that person
has a lifetime mission for which he or she was prepared before the
foundations of the earth. Let's see, how far back do we go in our
memory? We have amnesia. We do not know our name and rank and serial
number from before. We have a name we received in this world. Yes,
a name and a blessing. But a patriarch is gifted sometimes to see
earlier than that and to speak of that prior world. It is real.
We were nurtured there. And we were sent at this time and in these
circumstances and perhaps to the very families we came, however
traumatic some of the experiences are, because the Lord knew that
is what we needed to experience. That exactly defines our lifetime
mission.
I have a conviction
from retrospect of my own life that all these blessings we are talking
about, and they ultimately become all blessings, are indeed
conditional. But the Lord surely knows who he has sent into the
world and where they are. And the Lord surely knows, even when you
do not, that the gold is in the mine. In my case, I received what
one of my friends would call an "iffy" blessing. So many
"ifs" that I wondered if I could ever really inherit the
promises. "If," one paragraph begins, "you are faithful"
(this is when I was 17) "and true and studious and diligent
and humble and prayerful then . . . ." Well, good heavens.
But the "then" came true because I tried to be those things.
And that is true of you.
Another patriarch
whom I greatly honor whose name was Winslow Farr Smith (close relative
of George Albert Smith and related to that remarkable twosome, the
Joseph F. Smith and the Joseph Fielding Smith, each of whom rose
high in the kingdom) said to me: "You know, more patriarchal
blessings are not fulfilled than are." And that struck me.
I did not like to hear that. He said: "Because [finishing his
sentence] the persons do not fulfill the conditions, and then the
promises fail." See, the glory of it is the Lord never, ever
breaks his word. He never breaks a covenant, he never breaks his
word. But we, being free, can do so.
Now in summing
up and in closing: The late President Wilford Woodruff gave a blessing
to a missionary about to depart, and it was recorded. In due time
President Woodruff, saw to it that it was published because said
he: "This blessing doesn't just apply to Elder [so and so]
but generally to the youth of Zion." Several of our presidents
were so (in their late years) grateful, impressed with their blessings
and their fulfillment that they made them public knowledge. In the
case of President Lorenzo Snow, he saw to it that for a time while
he was president of the Salt Lake Temple his blessing was put on
the wall. Now that is not what most of you are counseled to do.
You are counseled to keep it to yourself; but he was the president,
and he wanted the Church to know that the blessings pronounced upon
him had been vindicated. I am paraphrasing slightly, but this is
the paragraph I wanted to share with you:
The Lord has
reserved a number of choice spirits out of all the creations of
God [I remind you that the creations of God are extensive and
even, by our reckoning, numberless] . . . Out of all those creations
he has selected a group of choice spirits and has kept them in
the Spirit World for 6000 years [which I take it means since the
time of Adam or approximately] in order for them to come into
the Church and the world in this last dispensation. [Now listen
to his summary of why.] That they may receive the testimony of
Jesus Christ; that they may receive the eternal and everlasting
priesthood and its blessings; that they may build up the kingdom
of God unto him and prepare themselves and the world for the second
coming of Jesus Christ.
My testimony
to you today is: Brothers and sisters, you are among those. You
are in the time when the very most valiant will be needed in the
final struggle; and, not only that, you are equipped amidst those
who are untried and who are faltering and failing and who have not
even comprehended the beginnings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I bear you my witness that the Lord Jesus Christ lives; that He
loves you; and that a patriarchal blessing is His message to you
in His time. He wants you to serve him at your best. He wants you
to rise to the majesty of your privileges which always involve responsibilities.
He wants you to avoid the vipers that are in the world today and
live close to Him. And He promises that He will be with you and
be before you and ahead of you in the unfolding of your life. I
bear that witness in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
© 2000 by Ricks College. All rights reserved.
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