Sabbathought : best time to plant a tree . . . .

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago; the next best time is now.

Several months ago my brother asked me regarding one of the first Sabbathoughts, "How long did it take you to come up with that?" I answered, "About forty years. . . . I started working on it around 1970, though the actual organizing and writing took about forty-five minutes this morning."

In 2011, a little over seven months from now, we start to study the New Testament in Sunday School. The New Testament: the record of the life, ministry and teachings, the Atonement and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of you --- though you don't know it today --- will be called to teach it.

The best time to start thinking about the New Testament is five or ten years ago; the next best time is now . . . now, while we are studying and thinking about the preparatory record of His coming and His Atonement, the Old Testament, as we call it.

The Prophet taught: "It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did [and the same as you and I]" (Teachings, pp. 345--6).

This tremendous truth is something to do with our thought of last week: that we are to learn to be like God, or we shall never be permitted to live with Him. This is the plan of happiness.

With all of these salient truths in mind, notice this from Elder Bruce R. McConkie, "Would it surprise you if I suggested that there is more knowledge contained in the four Gospels [the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John], more revealed truth relative to the nature and kind of being that God our Father is, than in all the rest of holy writ combined? All we need is the key to get that knowledge out."

So, . . . what is the key? What is the key of knowledge? "I had learned to call thee Father, / Through thy Spirit from on high, / But until the key of knowledge / Was restored, I knew not why" (Hymns, 292).

God the Father is the Man of Holiness; Jesus Christ is the Son of Man of Holiness. This is why in the Bible Jesus is called the Son of man. The word "man" there should be capitalized. Jesus is the Son of Man, not the Son of mankind. Yet another truth restored through Joseph Smith (see Moses 6:57; 7:35).

What kind of Man is the Father? What is He like? To know the answers to these questions is to start to know ourselves and who we are, where we came from, and why we are here. To find the answers, we go to those who know Him. It all starts in the scriptures, in holy writ, where "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21).

We are so blessed through the Restoration to glimpse these things. None of the other Christian or heathen churches even teach that God is a Person, though this truth is lodged in the hearts of their members, if not taught from their pulpits. . . . "Trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God, who is our home."

What a privilege and a blessing, to be able to learn of God our Father and how to become like Him! What were you doing a hundred years ago? You were somewhere . . . doing something . . . . We knew better there, and then, than we do here and now, the answers to these mysteries contained in the holy word of God. The scriptures, the record from holy men of the past, are our spiritual memory on all of these things (see Alma 37:6--8).

When is the best time to start to search these things seriously? The best time to start is a long time ago . . . and to continue on for eternity. This is the work of eternity, not just an earthly hobby for a few souls so inclined. God bless us all in the pursuit of these holy things!

More later.

Please let us know if this Sabbathought came to you in this new format. Thank you.

Steve