Maxwell - Our Creator's Cosmos

Neal A. Maxwell

"Our Creator’s Cosmos"

CES Conference on the Doctrine and Covenants

and Church History 

13 August 2002 

Brigham Young University

Read / Download the talk HERE

Neal A. Maxwell - Willing to Submit

Neal A. Maxwell

General Conference - April 1985

"Willing to Submit"

When the unimaginable burden began to weigh upon Christ, it confirmed His long-held and intellectually clear understanding as to what He must now do. His working through began, and Jesus declared: “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.” Then, whether in spiritual soliloquy or by way of instruction to those about Him, He observed, “But for this cause came I unto this hour.” (John 12:27.)

Later, in Gethsemane, the suffering Jesus began to be “sore amazed” (Mark 14:33), or, in the Greek, “awestruck” and “astonished.”

Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and other worlds, “astonished”! Jesus knew cognitively what He must do, but not experientially. He had never personally known the exquisite and exacting process of an atonement before. Thus, when the agony came in its fulness, it was so much, much worse than even He with his unique intellect had ever imagined! No wonder an angel appeared to strengthen him! (See Luke 22:43.)

The cumulative weight of all mortal sins—past, present, and future—pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11–12; Isa. 53:3–5; Matt. 8:17.) The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.” (Mark 14:35–36.)

Had not Jesus, as Jehovah, said to Abraham, “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14.) Had not His angel told a perplexed Mary, “For with God nothing shall be impossible”? (Luke 1:37; see also Matt. 19:28; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27.)

Jesus’ request was not theater!

In this extremity, did He, perchance, hope for a rescuing ram in the thicket? I do not know. His suffering—as it were, enormity multiplied by infinity—evoked His later soul-cry on the cross, and it was a cry of forsakenness. (See Matt. 27:46.)

Even so, Jesus maintained this sublime submissiveness, as He had in Gethsemane: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:39.)

While bearing our sins, our infirmities, our sicknesses, and bringing to pass the Atonement (see Alma 7:11–12), Jesus became the perfect Shepherd, making these lines of Paul’s especially relevant and reassuring: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Rom. 8:35.)

Indeed, we are in His hands, and what hallowed hands!

Read the full talk HERE

Maxwell - The Apostasy

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

"From the Beginning"

General Conference - October 1993

4th Nephi 1:36 "True Believers"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum

of the Twelve Apostles

spoke of the characteristics

that define those who truly believe in the Savior:

True believers are settled in their views of Christ.

Despite their weaknesses, their spirituality is centered on the Savior, so their views of everything else are put in that precious perspective.

True believers gladly perform their duties in the kingdom. 

 These duties are usually measurable and straightforward. They include partaking worthily of

the sacrament, rendering Christian service, studying the scriptures, praying, fasting, receiving ordinances, attending to family duties, paying tithes and offerings. . . .

True believers are humble. 

They are ‘meek and lowly of heart’ [Moroni 7:43]. . . . They are not easily offended. They do not resist counsel. . . . 

True believers are willing to do what Christ wants.

. . . Are we willing to let the Lord lead us into further developmental experiences? Or do we shrink back? The things which enlarge the soul inevitably involve stretching.

 

True believers have a balanced contentment.

They strike a balance between being too content and wishing for a more important role. . . .

True believers truly pray.

Their prayers are sincere. . . . The true believer’s prayers, at least some of the time,

are inspired.

True believers have both right conduct and right reasons for that conduct.

They are so secure in their relationship with the Lord that their goodness would

continue even if nobody were watching. . .

 .

True believers rejoice in the success of others. . . .

They don’t regard colleagues as competitors.

True believers remember that forgetting is part of forgiving.

They follow the Lord’s example: ‘I [will] remember [their sins] no more’ (D&C 58:42). . . 

True believers are innocent as to sin, but not naive.

They are kind, but candid. They love their fellowmen. . . 

.

True believers are happy.

Instead of a ‘woeful countenance,’ true believers in Christ have a disciplined  enthusiasm to work righteousness. They are serious about how they live life, but are also of good cheer” (“True Believers,” New Era, Apr., 1994, 20–24).

Read the full article HERE

Murmuring

Neal A. Maxwell

General Conference - October 1989

Of course there are ways provided—formal and informal—for expressing legitimate concerns and complaints, and for doing so productively. These avenues often go unused, especially if one’s real desire is to parade his discontent. Letting off steam always produces more heat than light. True, we may merely gripe or grumble in a passing way. We may even do it cleverly. Still, even mild murmuring can be more pointed than we may care to admit.

.... individuals may acknowledge God, but they criticize his ways. We want things to be done in our ways, even though our ways are much lower ways.

View the complete talk HERE

Willing to Submit

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

General Conference 

April 1985

When the unimaginable burden began to weigh upon Christ, it confirmed His long-held and intellectually clear understanding as to what He must now do. His working through began, and Jesus declared: “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.” Then, whether in spiritual soliloquy or by way of instruction to those about Him, He observed, “But for this cause came I unto this hour.” (John 12:27.)

Later, in Gethsemane, the suffering Jesus began to be “sore amazed” (Mark 14:33), or, in the Greek, “awestruck” and “astonished.”

Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and other worlds, “astonished”! Jesus knew cognitively what He must do, but not experientially. He had never personally known the exquisite and exacting process of an atonement before. Thus, when the agony came in its fulness, it was so much, much worse than even He with his unique intellect had ever imagined! No wonder an angel appeared to strengthen him! (See Luke 22:43.)

The cumulative weight of all mortal sins—past, present, and future—pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11–12; Isa. 53:3–5; Matt. 8:17.) The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.” (Mark 14:35–36.)

Had not Jesus, as Jehovah, said to Abraham, “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14.) Had not His angel told a perplexed Mary, “For with God nothing shall be impossible”? (Luke 1:37; see also Matt. 19:28; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27.)

Jesus’ request was not theater!

In this extremity, did He, perchance, hope for a rescuing ram in the thicket? I do not know. His suffering—as it were, enormity multiplied by infinity—evoked His later soul-cry on the cross, and it was a cry of forsakenness. (See Matt. 27:46.)

Even so, Jesus maintained this sublime submissiveness, as He had in Gethsemane: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:39.)

While bearing our sins, our infirmities, our sicknesses, and bringing to pass the Atonement (see Alma 7:11–12), Jesus became the perfect Shepherd, making these lines of Paul’s especially relevant and reassuring: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Rom. 8:35.)

Indeed, we are in His hands, and what hallowed hands!

Read the Full Talk HERE

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

"According to the Desires of Our Hearts"

Elder Neal A Maxwell

October 1996

General Conference

Desire denotes a real longing or craving. Hence righteous desires are much more than passive preferences or fleeting feelings. Of course our genes, circumstances, and environments matter very much, and they shape us significantly. Yet there remains an inner zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdicate. In this zone lies the essence of our individuality and our personal accountability.

View Full Talk

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

I try to imagine what an intensely poignant moment it must have been for our Father in Heaven when the Savior cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. I don’t believe Father in Heaven forsook His Son on the cross. I do believe the cry was motivated when that Son felt removed the sustaining support He had always enjoyed from His Father. His Father recognized that the Savior needed to accomplish the Atonement totally and completely on His own, without external support. The Father did not abandon His Son. He made it possible for His perfect Son to win the eternal fruits of the Atonement.

Elder Richard G. Scott - General Conference April 2010

Now I speak very carefully, even reverently, of what may have been the most difficult moment in all of this solitary journey to Atonement. I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically but which He may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually—that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when He cries in ultimate loneliness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The loss of mortal support He had anticipated, but apparently He had not comprehended this. Had He not said to His disciples, “Behold, the hour . . . is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” and “The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him”.

With all the conviction of my soul I testify that He did please His Father perfectly and that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required; indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland - General Conference April 2009

President Brigham Young spoke of what evoked the why from Jesus, saying that during the axis of agony which was Gethsemane and Calvary, the Father at some point withdrew both His presence and His Spirit from Jesus (see Journal of Discourses 3:205-6). Thereby Jesus personal triumph was complete and His empathy perfected. Having descended below all things, He comprehends, perfectly and personally, the full range of human suffering!

Elder Neal A. Maxwell - General Conference October 1997

Maxwell: Settle This in Your Hearts

"Settle This in Your Hearts"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

October Conference

1992

These comments are for the essentially “honorable” members who are skimming over the surface instead of deepening their discipleship and who are casually engaged rather than “anxiously engaged.” Though nominal in their participation, their reservations and hesitations inevitably show through. They may even pass through our holy temples, but, alas, they do not let the holy temples pass through them.

Such members accept callings but not all of the accompanying responsibilities; hence, their Church chores must often be done by those already “anxiously engaged.” Some regard themselves as merely “resting” in between Church callings. But we are never in between as to this soaring call from Jesus: “What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” It is never safe to rest regarding that calling! In fact, being “valiant” in one’s testimony of Jesus includes striving to become more like Him in mind, heart, and attributes. Becoming this manner of men and women is the ultimate expression of orthodoxy!

Casual members are usually very busy with the cares and the things of the world—much as honorable Amulek once was. Called many times, he would not hear. He really knew concerning the truths of the gospel, but Amulek would not acknowledge that he knew. One common characteristic of the honorable but slack is their disdain for the seemingly unexciting duties of discipleship, such as daily prayer, regular reading of the scriptures, attendance at sacrament meeting, paying a full tithe, and participating in the holy temples. Such disdain is especially dangerous in today’s world of raging relativism and of belching sensualism, a world in which, if many utter the name of Deity at all, it is only as verbal punctuation or as an expression of exclamation, not adoration!

In contrast, those sincerely striving for greater consecration neither cast off their commitments nor the holy garment. They avoid obscenity, keep the law of chastity, pay their tithes, and love and serve their spouses and children. As good neighbors, they “bear one another’s burdens,” “mourn with those that mourn,” “comfort those … in need of comfort,” and valiantly “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places.”

Read the complete talk here