1. The Abrahamic Covenant “Promises fulfilled” Covenant: Empowers both parties to accomplish what they want. Blessings in Mortality Eternal Blessings 1. 1. 2. 2. 3. 3. 3b.

2. Scriptures on the Abrahmic Covenant  Abraham 2:6-11  Doctrine and Covenants 132:29- 50  Genesis 15, 17, 22:15-18  Galations 3  Third Nephi 20:25-29

3. We are so close!  We have everything to gain!  We have everything to lose!  1 Nephi 14:8 We have to know it and live it! The Melchizedek Priesthood, the Temple and the Abrahamic Covenant are synonymous with each other. The purpose is to bring “His children” back to the presence of God!

4. BIC should mean something! Sons and daughters of God = BIC Sons and daughters of man = No covenant made We should be preparing for the Temple! Elder McConkie taught that the two most important things you can do in this life are: 1. Marry the right person by the right authority in the temple. 2. Keep the covenants you make in the temple!

5. Ritual Covenants 1. Cutting 2. Blood Alma 46:12, 21 We should be cutting covenants in our lives right now!

6. Two Elections 1. Calling and Election Made Sure 2. Election of Grace Election of Grace : You’ve earned the right to receive the gospel in mortality because of your excessive faith and obedience in the pre-mortal existence. You’ve earned the right to receive the gospel in mortality because of your excessive faith and obedience in the pre-mortal existence. Alma 13:3, 5 D&C 138:53-56 Abraham 3:22-23

7. Thoughts about the Abrahamic Covenant  You are so close to achieving that which you’ve sought after since the beginning.  He will help us get that which we probably don’t deserve.  We must do everything we can in this life to save our children.  A majority of gentiles will not come into the fold.  All nations will be blessed with gospel opportunities.

8.  The final judgment will be over our entire existence (Alma the younger, Saul).  In the pre-mortal existence most didn’t care, therefore they haven’t earned the right to it.  Patriarchal Blessings declare lineage. It is clear that “gathering” falls with Joseph through Ephraim and Manasseh.  This Doctrine sets us apart from all other churches!

9. The “Father” is glorified by the exaltation of His children, through Celestial Marriage! Therefore, the test of Godhood may very well be “Parenthood.”

10. Those who refuse as husbands and wives to have children are proving themselves already too small for the infinitude of God’s creative power (Harold B. Lee, Ye are the Light of the World, 267).

11. Gathering and the Pre-mortal Existence The plan for the gathering is based on our pre-mortal existence and God’s knowledge of it. Abraham tells us that some of the spirits in the pre-mortal existence were noble and great ones (Abraham 3:23). Obviously, if some spirits were noble and great, other spirits were less noble in developing their spiritual capabilities. However, the Father loves all His children and desires to save them all. In his omniscience he devised a plan by which each of his children would come to the earth at a time and place with right amount of opportunities that would maximize their ability to accept the plan of salvation. Elder Neal A. Maxwell explains this principle in these terms: “It does no violence even to our frail human logic to observe that there cannot be a grand plan of salvation for all mankind, unless there is also a plan for each individual. The salvational sum will reflect all its parts (Determined Discipleship, 71). The plan for the gathering is based on our pre-mortal existence and God’s knowledge of it. Abraham tells us that some of the spirits in the pre-mortal existence were noble and great ones (Abraham 3:23). Obviously, if some spirits were noble and great, other spirits were less noble in developing their spiritual capabilities. However, the Father loves all His children and desires to save them all. In his omniscience he devised a plan by which each of his children would come to the earth at a time and place with right amount of opportunities that would maximize their ability to accept the plan of salvation. Elder Neal A. Maxwell explains this principle in these terms: “It does no violence even to our frail human logic to observe that there cannot be a grand plan of salvation for all mankind, unless there is also a plan for each individual. The salvational sum will reflect all its parts (Determined Discipleship, 71).

12. For some spirits this meant they would receive an opportunity to have the gospel in this life, while for others it meant they would wait until the spirit world for that opportunity. For some it meant the extra responsibility of serving in the government in God’s kingdom and bearing the message of salvation to the world (TPJS, 365). For others it meant coming to the earth at a time when and in a place where the gospel was not available but coming to prepare a people with a certain portion of the light. Such were the missions of Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates, and Plato according to Orson F. Whitney. Speaking of these individuals he said, “They were servants of the Lord in a lesser sense, and were sent to those pagan or heathen nations to give them the measure of truth that a wise Providence had allotted to them (33).

13. “The Election of Grace” Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote: “It is so powerful a doctrine, however that isolated from other doctrines, or mishandled, it can induce false pride, stoke the fires of fatalism, impact adversely upon agency, cause us to focus on status rather than service, and carry us over in the false doctrine of predestination… Thus foreordination is clearly no excuse for fatalism, or arrogance, or the abuse of agency. It is not, however, a doctrine that can be ignored simply because it is difficult. Indeed, deep inside the hardest doctrines are some of the pearls of greatest price.”

14. President Joseph Fielding Smith explained: “God gave His children their free agency even in the spirit world, by which the individual spirits had the privilege, just as men have here, of choosing the good and rejecting the evil, or partaking of the evil to suffer the consequences of their sins. Because of this, some even there were more faithful than others in keeping the commandments of the Lord…. Because of this, some even there were more faithful than others in keeping the commandments of the Lord…. The spirits of men were not equal. They may have had an equal start [see Alma 13:5-7], and we know they were all innocent in the beginning [see D&C 93:38]; but the right of free agency which was given to them enabled some to outstrip others, and thus, through eons of immortal existence, to become more intelligent, more faithful, for they were free to act for themselves, to think for themselves, to receive the truth or rebel against it” (Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954-56] 1:58-59). The spirits of men were not equal. They may have had an equal start [see Alma 13:5-7], and we know they were all innocent in the beginning [see D&C 93:38]; but the right of free agency which was given to them enabled some to outstrip others, and thus, through eons of immortal existence, to become more intelligent, more faithful, for they were free to act for themselves, to think for themselves, to receive the truth or rebel against it” (Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954-56] 1:58-59).

15. President Heber J. Grant taught: “We have been placed upon this earth because of our faithfulness in having kept our first estate. The labors that we performed in the sphere that we left before we came here have had a certain effect upon our lives here, and to a certain extent they govern and control the lives that we lead here, just the same as the labors that we do here will control and govern our lives when we pass from this stage of existence” (“Reward of Conscience”, Improvement Era, Feb. 1943, 75). “We have been placed upon this earth because of our faithfulness in having kept our first estate. The labors that we performed in the sphere that we left before we came here have had a certain effect upon our lives here, and to a certain extent they govern and control the lives that we lead here, just the same as the labors that we do here will control and govern our lives when we pass from this stage of existence” (“Reward of Conscience”, Improvement Era, Feb. 1943, 75).

16. President Harold B. Lee taught: “You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through which you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world’s history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created” (C.R., Oct. 1973, 7). “You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through which you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world’s history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created” (C.R., Oct. 1973, 7).

17. President Joseph Fielding Smith taught: “The numbers of the children of Israel were known and the bounds of their habitation fixed, in the days of old when the Lord divided to the nations their inheritance. We conclude, therefore, that there must have been a division of the spirits of men in the spiritual world, and those who were appointed to be the children of Israel were separated and prepared for a special inheritance” (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:59). “The numbers of the children of Israel were known and the bounds of their habitation fixed, in the days of old when the Lord divided to the nations their inheritance. We conclude, therefore, that there must have been a division of the spirits of men in the spiritual world, and those who were appointed to be the children of Israel were separated and prepared for a special inheritance” (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:59).

18. Elder Melvin J. Ballard taught: “There was a group of tested, tried, and proven souls before they were born into the world, and the Lord provided a lineage for them. That lineage is the house of Israel, the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their posterity. Through this lineage were to come the true and tried souls that had demonstrated their righteousness in the spirit world before they came here” (The Three Degrees of Glory [address delivered in Ogden Tabernacle, 22nd Sept. 1922], 22). “There was a group of tested, tried, and proven souls before they were born into the world, and the Lord provided a lineage for them. That lineage is the house of Israel, the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their posterity. Through this lineage were to come the true and tried souls that had demonstrated their righteousness in the spirit world before they came here” (The Three Degrees of Glory [address delivered in Ogden Tabernacle, 22nd Sept. 1922], 22).

19. Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote: “To bring to pass the salvation of the greatest possible number of his spirit children the Lord, in general, sends the most righteous and worthy spirits to the earth through the lineage of Abraham and Jacob” (Mormon Doctrine, 2 nd ed. (1966), 216).