Elder L. Tom Perry offered the following address at the October 1984 General Conference. You can read it in its entirety here, but I offer the following synopsis.
From the Creation, the Lord has stressed the importance of obedience, beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. After they were driven out, He gave them very specific commandments for them to follow. One of those commandments was that they should offer sacrifices unto His name. Adam did this faithfully, and one day was approached by an angel, who asked why he was doing this. Adam said, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me.” (Moses 5:6-7) The angel then explained that this was done in similitude of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of mankind. The important thing to note here is that even though Adam did not know the reason for his sacrifice, he performed it anyway, knowing he should.
As Adam and Eve received instruction from God on how they should conduct their lives, they passed this information on to their children. Some chose to obey, and some did not. But Adam and Eve were as obedient as they knew how to be, and encouraged their children to be the same.
President Joseph F. Smith reminded us that through our obedience, we please the Father, who then bestows upon us the blessings that appertain to the commandments we keep. This is the eternal law, that every commandment has certain blessings attached, and we will get those blessings as we strive to obey.
Some of the most common blessings we deny ourselves of are those that are connected with keeping the Sabbath day holy. We are promised tremendous blessings for heeding this simple commandment, and yet many struggle with it. However, if we know the Lord’s commandments, it is our duty to keep them. If we don’t, we can’t complain when those blessings do not appear.
Elder Perry closes with his testimony that he knows the Lord will bless us for our obedience, and he prays that we may all choose to follow the Lord and His counsel to us.
Related Blogs: