Obedient to the Heavenly Vision

I listened to a recent BYU devotional today by Brother David Whitchurch about Orson Hyde and the Holy Land.  Brother Whitchurch mentioned that Orson Hyde had an incredible vision in 1840 before his famous trip to Jerusalem.  Elder Hyde recorded, “The vision of the Lord, like clouds of light, burst into my view. … The cities of London, Amsterdam, Constantinople and Jerusalem, all appeared in succession before me, and the Spirit said unto me, ‘Here are many of the children of Abraham whom I will gather to the land that I gave to their fathers; and here also is the field of your labors.’”  Elder Hyde shared the vision at the general conference a month later and Joseph called him to leave to fulfill his mission.  He subsequently traveled from Nauvoo to Europe and down to the Holy Land by himself (Elder Page did not go with him as expected).  He arrived in Jerusalem October of 1841 and dedicated the land for the return of the Jewish people.  What caught my attention in listening to this devotional were these words from the dedicatory prayer: “Now, O Lord! thy servant has been obedient to the heavenly vision which thou gavest him in his native land” (see here).  It was a terribly difficult journey for him traveling thousands of miles alone across foreign lands and he nearly starved to death at the end of the trip.  And so these were not meaningless words to say he was “obedient” to the vision he had received—he was doing everything in his power to reach the place the Lord had commanded him to go.    

                I think we see in the scriptures that same kind of dedication to the revelations of the Lord that prophets receive.  Visions and revelations, it would seem, come with a very high price tag of required sacrifice and obedience for the recipient after the receipt of the divine communication.  The Book of Mormon starts out with the story of Lehi who “was carried away in vision” and wrote “many things which he saw in visions and dreams” (1 Nephi 1:8, 16).  He saw incredible things and had a vision of the Savior—but it came with a cost in personal sacrifice.  It was in these revelations that he learned that Jerusalem would be destroyed and that he was to go into the wilderness with his family.  With about ten years of the most arduous of journeys and nearly perishing many times, it was no small task to be obedient to his vision.  But he was faithful and we have the Book of Mormon because of it.  Joseph Smith was certainly another example of staying true to his vision of the Savior.  When persecution raged around him he wrote, “I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it” (JSH 1:25).  He made enormous sacrifices throughout his whole life in order to be true to the vision he had received, especially in the midst of terrible persecution and trials.  Paul, with whom Joseph clearly felt a connection, had the same commitment to his own vision.  Like Joseph, Paul spent his life preaching Jesus Christ after he had his divine visit.  He told King Agrippa, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19).  In the same way as Elder Hyde he made enormous sacrifices in order to be obedient to the great things the Lord had manifested to him. 

                So the message for us from this, it would appear, is that if we want great revelations we have to be willing to perform great actions.  It doesn’t seem that the Lord gives knowledge without requiring us to act upon that knowledge; He said, “For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation (D&C 82:3).  But we can know that the Lord will help us fulfill the revelations He gives us, and like Elder Hyde said in his dedicatory prayer we can go forth “under the shadow of [the Lord’s] outstretched arm” and under His “providential care by night and day.”