My Word Shall Not Pass Away

Elder Rasband said this in the most recent general conference: “The ‘word of God’ surpasses all other expressions. It has been so since the Creation of the earth when the Lord spoke: ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ From the Savior came these assurances in the New Testament: ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.’ And this: ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.’” Indeed, there is power in the word of God beyond the individual words themselves because of who gave them. From the beginning of mankind, the inspired word of God has been recorded to bless the children of men. We read this about the time of Adam: “And a book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration; And by them their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled” (Moses 6:5-6). My dad loves to collect first edition books, and I’m sure he would love to have a copy of this book: it was the first edition of the scriptures! Though we may not be able to get a print of these inspired words given to Adam’s children, we do have our own sacred books of scripture that we can cherish and that can bring us power and inspiration in our own lives. Elder Rasband declared, “Words can open our minds to truth. That is why, first and foremost, the Lord’s words matter.” Most of us fill our lives with words available online that are transient and have little lasting impact; the words of the Lord, on the other hand, are permanent as He declared again in our dispensation: “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:38). His words are permanent, but most of what we scroll through today will be forgotten tomorrow. I remember once opening my phone and as I went to read some news article, I was struck with the thought, “Why would I read that instead of the scriptures?” Of course, the former would not be bad per se, but with such limited time I believe we give far too little attention to the eternal words of the Lord that we have constantly available to us at our fingertips.

                Elder Rasband also emphasized the importance of reading and studying the words of the prophet. He shared this experience, “Last October my wife, Melanie, and I were in Bangkok, Thailand, as I was preparing to dedicate what would be the Church’s 185th temple. For me, the assignment was both surreal and humbling. This was the first temple on the Southeast Asia peninsula. It was masterfully designed—a six-story, nine-spired structure, ‘fitly framed’ to be a house of the Lord…. I had prepared the dedicatory prayer months earlier. Those sacred words had been translated into 12 languages. We were ready. Or so I thought. The night before the dedication, I was awakened from my sleep with an unsettled, urgent feeling about the dedicatory prayer. I tried to set aside the prompting, thinking the prayer was in place. But the Spirit would not leave me alone.” In the end he realized that he needed to add to the prayer. He continued, “I sensed certain words were missing, and by divine design they came to me in revelation, and I inserted these words in the prayer near the end: ‘May we think celestial, letting Thy Spirit prevail in our lives, and strive to be peacemakers always.’ The Lord was reminding me to heed the words of our living prophet: ‘Think celestial,’ ‘let the Spirit prevail,’ ‘strive to be peacemakers.’ Words of the prophet matter to the Lord and to us.” The dedicatory prayer is available here and indeed includes the sentence that Elder Rasband added in the second to last paragraph. I think this story emphasizes at least two principles. First, the words of the living prophet are very important for us, and they should be instrumental in guiding our lives. Second, it strikes me that what Elder Rasband was awakened in the night to do involved only adding one sentence to the dedicatory prayer. And yet it was important enough for the Lord that it needed to get done. This emphasizes the point of Elder Rasband’s full message: words matter. We should esteem of great worth the words of the Lord, those ancient and those modern, and they should be to us as the revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith were to the faithful Saints of his day: “Worth to the Church the riches of the whole Earth” (see Doctrine and Covenants 70).