This week, I am once again hopefully teaching a lesson at church tomorrow, but this time, it's not going to be the Resurrection lesson I had hoped to give on Easter. This time, the lesson I'm hoping and planning on giving is about the importance of the Restoration.
I'll probably start off by sharing Elder Gary E. Stevenson's story about losing his keys on his ski trip. The parallels are pretty much perfect. The cold, dark night on the mountain is perfect for picturing the spiritual situation of the earth during the great apostasy. The car is as excellent symbol for the Priesthood. The miraculous finding of the keys can be related to the miraculous restoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood. One thing that I'll especially want to mention in my lessen that I didn't include in my blog post about this talk is the presence of other people.
In Elder Stevenson's story, he wasn't the only one on his ski trip. His family was with him. As they approached the vehicle together, he searched through his pockets unsuccessfully, while his family waited anxiously. This must have a difficult and embarrassing situation for him. He was the one entrusted with the keys. Everyone was counting on him. Having car keys grants a person a certain amount of power, but it also comes with a tremendous responsibility to carry them and use them well.
Again, the parallel is clear. As I'll be teaching a group of young Priesthood holders, I'll try to teach them what holding the Priesthood really means. The ability to perform essential ordinances is a great power somewhat similar to the ability to drive a car, but a person entrusted with the ability to perform such ordinances is also charged with the responsibility to remain worthy to carry those Priesthood keys. When those young men have families of their own, their families will count on them to remain worthy to carry the keys. They won't want to be in the situation of standing outside their car, unable to let themselves and their families into the car because they had lost the keys.
Of course, I may be going off on a tangent here. I think the lesson actually planned to spend more time explaining the reality of the apostasy and the restoration and the reasons for them. To answer the question of why there was a restoration, the lesson would say "because there was an apostasy," while I would say "because without the Priesthood, we'd be locked out in the cold." But if I explain the analogy well enough, it should be clear that those two answers mean basically the same thing. Apostasy is a period of spiritual darkness, whether it's a personal apostasy or the great apostasy. And, either way, the Priesthood is the key. With the Priesthood, we have access to saving ordinances that enlighten us and bring us closer to God, and that's something that's true for individuals as well as the church as a whole.
While teaching about the great apostasy and the need for the restoration of the Priesthood, I'll also be teaching about personal apostasy and the need to stay worthy to hold the Priesthood. In either case, without the Priesthood, both people as individuals and the world as a whole would be left out in the cold.
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