Purpose: To strengthen each class member’s resolve to hold fast to righteous standards during times of increasing wickedness.
Review of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant --- Posterity, Property, Priesthood
If you want to have what Abraham has, you need to do what Abraham did.
We'll talk about these events that reveal why the Lord would pick Abraham to be the father of his chosen people.
What Abraham Did
Living Righteously in a Wicked World
1. Dividing the land with Lot
2. Rescuing Lot
3. Paying tithes
4. Refusing spoils of war
5. Bargaining with the Lord over the destruction of the wicked cities
Lesson Sequence:
Briefly review Abraham's travels: He is led by the Lord. He is obedient to what the Lord asks him to do. From Ur of Chaldea at mouth of Euphrates River moves
nothwest to Haran -- named after his dead brother -- father to Lot and Sarah -- his father Terah joins them and dies there -- Abraham does missionary work and gathers many souls there ( Genesis 12:5 and Abraham 2:15) who go with him when he is
called to Canaan -- famine in Canaan -- goes to Egypt and then returns to Canaan from Egypt -- where our studies for today begin. (if questions about Egypt Abraham 2:22-25)
1. Dividing the land with Lot
Read Scriptures
Genesis 13:1-2 rich
Genesis 13: 5-7 why he and Lot have to part ways
Genesis 13: 8-9 Abraham's solution
Genesis 13: 10-13 Lot's choice and Abraham's response
1 Timothy 6:10
How can we follow Abraham's example when we have conflicts with family members or others?
More on Lot's choice
At first he lived "in the cities of the plain outside Sodom", but he
Genesis 13:12 pitched his tent toward Sodom (later moved there)
Mosiah 2:6 (compare)
2. Rescuing Lot
kings, city states -- war -- Lot, his family and goods are captured and taken away by the enemy
Read Scriptures
Genesis 14:13-16 Abraham ("General Abraham" goes to rescue him with his 318 soldiers)
3. Paying tithes painting at BYU MOA -- Abraham dressed as a soldier surprized me.
Genesis 14:18 (Footnote JST Genesis 14:17) Melchezideck
JST Genesis 14:36 - 40 near map section page 798 (D&C 84:14 -- Abraham receive the Priesthood from Melchezidek)
4. Refusing spoils of war
Genesis 14:21-24 (covenant,
What might be considered a thread of immorality or a thread of dishonesty?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123891739&sc=fb&cc=fp
2 Nephi 28: 20, 21
How do we sometimes compromise in the amount of unrighteousness we are willing to accept?We can be destroyed by seemingly small sins as well as by great ones.
Compare reactions to Melchezidek and king of Sodom
5. Bargaining with the Lord over the destruction of the wicked cities
Genesis 18:20-21
What was their wickedness? grievous sexual sins and
Ezekiel 16: 49-30
New video on lds.com -- "Charity, an Example of the Believers"
Mormon 8:
37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.
What did Abraham ask of the Lord? (Tell Genesis 18: 23-32)
What can we learn from the fact that the Lord was willing to spare the city if righteous people could be found in them?
Lot's lot
Three angels/messengers come to Sodom to warn Lot and his family to flee
Lot goes to warn his sons-in-law, but they don't believe him
Genesis 19: 15 - 16 The angels tell him to hurry, he doesn't, they take them by the hand to get them out
Genesis 19: 17 What counsel do the angels give Lot and his family after they left the city?
How do we sometimes look back?
This is what Vivian mentioned today as we talked about love of riches, etc.:
Excerpt:
Once they reach peaks of power and fame, their innate confidence often translates into a willingness to take risks. Powerful men become "legends in their own minds," as Goodstein says, imbued with the sense that they can get away with anything they want because of who they are.
"He [felt he] was entitled to seek out and obtain what he craved, instantly." That's something historian Robert Dallek wrote in his biography of John F. Kennedy, but Dallek could have just as easily been describing any man who feels that flings should count among the spoils of success.
"I convinced myself that normal rules don't apply," Woods said during his public mea culpa Friday. "I felt that I was entitled."
