God's Word

I’m convinced God's word is superior to anything else at changing hearts and minds and drawing a people close to Him. Many other modalities will bless your life to varying degrees but will eventually come up wanting. God wants to fill the clefts of your heart Himself.

As a case in point, Alma was sick at heart knowing that some of his people separated themselves from God’s congregation and followed a path that led to iniquity. He decided to go on a rescue mission to help these people. Before departing, the account discusses Alma’s stratagem:

“Now preaching the truth was more effective to lead the people to do what’s right — indeed, it had greater effect on the minds of the people than the sword or anything else available — therefore Alma thought teaching God’s word was their best alternative. […] Now the Zoramites were previously part of the Nephites; so God’s word had been preached to them. But they had fallen into great errors, since they failed to carefully keep God’s commandments and statutes according to the Law of Moses. They also failed to follow the congregation’s practice of regular prayer and worship of God daily to avoid temptation. In short, they perverted the ways of the Lord in many ways. To remedy this, Alma and his companions traveled to their land to preach the word to them.” (Alma 16:16-17.)

According to this account, God's word was: “more effective,” had a “greater effect” on the mind, was the “best" alternative to "anything else available," and was ultimately called a “remedy”. 

That is stirring and unambiguous language. 

To illustrate this concept further, perhaps you learned about a shepherd's rod and staff in Sunday school like I did. These ancient resources are still used today to guide, correct, and protect the flock. The rod in particular was a type of weaponry used to keep adversaries at bay as they sought the life of the sheep. In Hebrew, the rod is also called a scepter.

Authors of scripture have used the staff, rod, and scepter as imagery to describe the way God instructs His people and to also describe the attributes of His faithful servants. 

Another useful illustration of God’s rod is given in Lehi’s vision. He saw people taking hold of a rod (now railing) that guided them to the Tree. The rod he saw was made of iron - a material of unyielding justice and durability. It represented God's word (1 Nephi 3:10).  Lehi states:

"[...] I saw an iron railing extending along the riverbank, leading to the tree next to me. I also saw a straight and narrow path that ran along the iron railing all the way to the tree beside me. It also led by the source of the river to a large and spacious field, as big as the earth itself. And I saw innumerable throngs of people, many of them pressing forward so they could reach the path that led to the tree I was standing next to. They moved forward and started on the path leading to the tree. Then a great dark cloud came up and those who had started on the path lost their way, wandering off and becoming lost. And I saw others pressing forward. They came and caught hold of the end of the iron railing and moved forward through the dark clouds, clinging to the iron railing until they arrived and ate some of the fruit from the tree." 

In this vision, we notice several things:

• The rod leads to the Tree.
• The rod is just as straight and narrow as the path it parallels. 
• The rod does not yield to you, but you must yield to it.
• You cannot walk the path without taking hold of the rod.
• The rod delivers us from our adversaries, also described as a cloud of darkness, which represents the many temptations we face.
• Unlike a literal shepherd’s rod, Lehi could not use a physical object upon others. He could only encourage them to come up to where he was by taking hold of the rod themselves. 

As my fellowship and I were discussing Lehi’s vision, we were reminded that the rod’s purpose is to lead one to the love of God. That’s the end goal. However, the love of God is not found just at the end of the journey, but also along the way. The "end" might be better viewed as a culmination. And this love is only acquired by taking hold of the rod or railing or God’s word.

Interestingly enough, the covenant God is offering us today follows the same pattern and invokes the same imagery of a rod, staff, and scepter. It says in part: 

“Second: Do you have faith in these things and receive the scriptures approved by the Lord as a standard to govern you in your DAILY WALK in life, to accept the obligations established by the Book of Mormon and/or Covenant of Christ, as a covenant, and to use the scriptures to CORRECT yourselves and to GUIDE your words, thoughts, and deeds?

It's fascinating to me that the covenant He offers today is extremely similar to the covenants He offered others in times past. It contains the exact same elements - all of which place the scriptures as its foundation. You could even say that this pattern is the "new and everlasting covenant." 

My hope is that we would honor our covenant, take hold of God’s word, and allow it to be our staff and rod so that we may find ourselves a part of the Tree in every thought, word, and deed. 

"Your rod and your staff — they comfort me." (Psalm 23:1).