Thursday, February 7, 2013

3 Nephi 17 (part 2) Angels Did Minister To Them


When all of the children had been brought forward, Jesus kneeled and prayer for them unto the Father.  Imagine, this is God praying to his Father, who is also a God.  The words must have been unwriteable.   Sacred beyond measure, these words penetrated Nephi, and he could not reveal or write them for us.  We can only imagine.  As a result of the prayer, when Jesus stood up, “so great was the joy of the multitude that they were overcome.”  Jesus, too, expressed his joy: “Blessed are ye because of your faith,” he said. “And now my joy is full.  And when he had said these words, he wept…and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them and prayed unto the Father for them.  And when he had done this he wept again.”  Then, the angels came out of heaven to minister to the children.  The children were encircled by the angels who must have brought treats, and drinks, and toys, and celestial songs to uplift and bless the children.  Minerva Tiechert, a gifted Wyoming artist, has painted this scene.  It is one of my favorites.  A copy of it hangs in one of the classrooms in the Laramie Institute of Religion.

Angels minister to us daily.  They speak to us by the power of the Holy Ghost.  We are receiving daily encouragement from our parents and grandparents from beyond the grave.  They are much close to us than we realize.  In our recent stake conference, Elder Richard G. Scott, of the Twelve Apostles, said that his departed wife communicates with him frequently.  He gave the example of one General Conference when he was sitting in his big red chair waiting for the meetings to start, he heard in his mind, “Rich, your cell phone is live; turn it off.”  He said it was from his dear wife.

 

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