LDS Sunday School OT Lesson 42

08 April

old-testament-gospel-doctrine-teachers-manual-355700001The lesson this week is called “I Will Write It in Their Hearts” and its focus is “to encourage class members to participate in God’s great latter-day work and to have his law written in their hearts”. They’ve used Jeremiah chapters 16, 23, 29 & 31.

This lesson reminded me of CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. Screwtape (the demon who’s reached a higher level in the bureaucracy of hell) and his nephew Wormwood grapple over the best way to trick their victim into believing in their god who is from below. Every once in awhile they’ll use biblical scriptures to entice the unknowing, but their main objective is to plant seeds of doubt into the mind of the victim so he’ll not know the true God of the Bible.  It’s a battle of the mind and heart of man in Lewis’ classic work, the Bible and even our lives today.  If Lewis’ work isn’t readily available to give an example of spiritual warfare to the Mormon, I suggest you use this lesson as an acceptable alternative.

After collecting my notes to write this article I threw my hands up in the air in dismay and decided against making any sense of it.

The lesson would provide a scripture explaining God’s gifts and promises and then put doubts into their minds by asking how they’re going to work to obtain those gifts.  It totally misinterprets the text and places doubt, shame and burdens on the shoulders of members.

The saddest part of this lesson is the repeated question they kept asking;

“What does it mean to have God’s law written in our hearts? What must we do to have God’s law written in our hearts?”

Having God’s law written in my heart means I am guided by the Holy Spirit and God put it there. If you’re a believer you’re guided by His Spirit and if not then you’ll be groveling in darkness throughout your life.

They said Jeremiah’s book was filled with more doom than hope and somehow failed to see the incredible promise of God’s love for Israelites back then and the future hope for all of us. God was going to write His law on the hearts of man with the advent of the Promised Messiah!  While life would be tough for the Israelites for the next 70 years, to state there was little to no hope in this epic message would be a lie!

Let’s take a look at Jeremiah 31:31-34 to see this great promise of the Lord as this is one of the main passages they used.

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

This is known as the New Covenant.  Smith perverted God’s word by claiming the New & Everlasting Covenant is that of polygamy in D&C 132.  Gone is the promise of God writing His law on our hearts, instead Smith made this about sex and polytheism. Those have always been the two main themes of Mormonism and God has been trampled upon by Smith’s perversion of the gospel.

God isn’t complicated and more importantly God isn’t a liar, nor does He change. That leaves us with only one other possibility of how the lies came to be.

Please pray for those who are taking these classes that God would shield their minds and hearts from the lies!

With Love in Christ;

Michelle

1 Cor 1:18

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