Every true philosopher, so far as he understands the principles of truth, has so much of the Gospel, and so far he is a Latter-day Saint, whether he knows it or not...
He does not have to be spiteful or vengeful in order that punishment will come from the breaking of the moral code. The laws are established of themselves.
May I suggest that the bishopric and the ward council members be especially watchful and considerate of the time and resource demands on young mothers and their families. Know them and be wise in what you ask them to do at this time in their lives.
We don't believe in infallibility of our leaders. What we believe in is the organization the church has set in place. With multiple prophets, seers, and revelators, and with a council system.
Until now, however, I have never talked in general conference about the most basic and fundamental—and perhaps the most important—of all councils: the family council. Family councils have always been needed. They are, in fact, eternal.
Do you young people want a sure way to eliminate the influence of the adversary in your life? Immerse yourself in searching for your ancestors, prepare their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the temple, and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. As you grow older, you will be able to participate in receiving the other ordinances as well. I can think of no greater protection from the influence of the adversary in your life.
Our world has seemingly been filled recently with strong wake-up calls. From natural disasters to a deadly pandemic sweeping the globe to a most pernicious social plague of racism, we are daily reminded that we need to awaken to the perilous times that surround us, come to ourselves, and arise and turn to our Divine Father, who desires to instruct and edify us through our trials.
I can understand why someone who lacks an eternal perspective might see the horrifying news footage of starving children and man’s inhumanity to man and shake a fist at the heavens and cry, “If there is a God, how could he allow such things to happen?” The answer is not easy, but it isn’t that complicated, either. God has put his plan in motion. It proceeds through natural laws that are, in fact, God’s laws. Since they are his, he is bound by them, as are we.
While temple and family history work has the power to bless those beyond the veil, it has an equal power to bless the living. It has a refining influence on those who are engaged in it.
I recognize for purposes we mortals may not understand, the Lord can control the elements. For the most part, however, he does not cause but he allows nature to run its course.
The United States Constitution is unique because God revealed that He “established” it “for the rights and protection of all flesh” (D&C 101:77,80). That is why this constitution is of special concern for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the world. Whether or how its principles should be applied in other nations of the world is for them to decide.
Because this is a very spiritual work, we can expect help from the other side of the veil. We feel a pull from our relatives who are waiting for us to find them so their ordinance work can be done. This is a Christlike service because we are doing something for them that they cannot do for themselves.
As you go back in time, the records become less complete. As others of your family search out ancestors, you will discover that the ancestor you find has already been offered the full blessings of the temple. Then you will have a difficult and important choice to make. You will be tempted to stop and leave the hard work of finding to others who are more expert or to another time in your life. But you will also feel a tug on your heart to go on in the work, hard as it will be. As you decide, remember that the names which will be so difficult to find are of real people to whom you owe your existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world. When you were baptized, your ancestors looked down on you with hope. Perhaps after centuries, they rejoiced to see one of their descendants make a covenant to find them and to offer them freedom. In your reunion, you will see in their eyes either gratitude or terrible disappointment. Their hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands. You will have more than your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them.
We must give adequate attention to the doctrines of happiness—real happiness, infinite and eternal. They should be the objective of everything we teach in the Church and of everything we do.
There are many ways to describe and speak of divine love. One of the terms we hear often today is that God’s love is “unconditional.” While in one sense that is true, the descriptor unconditional appears nowhere in scripture. Rather, His love is described in scripture as “great and wonderful love,”3 “perfect love,”4 “redeeming love,”5 and “everlasting love.”6 These are better terms because the word unconditional can convey mistaken impressions about divine love, such as, God tolerates and excuses anything we do because His love is unconditional, or God makes no demands upon us because His love is unconditional, or all are saved in the heavenly kingdom of God because His love is unconditional. God’s love is infinite and it will endure forever, but what it means for each of us depends on how we respond to His love.
When you have done all that you can reasonably do, rest the burden in the hands of the Lord.
Let’s not complicate things with additional meetings, expectations, or requirements. Keep it simple. It is in that simplicity that you will find the peace, joy, and happiness I have been talking about.
Have you prayed about your own ancestors’ work? Set aside those things in your life that don’t really matter. Decide to do something that will have eternal consequences.
It is the parents' duty to intervene when they see wrong choices being made. That doesn't mean parents take from children the precious gift of agency. Because agency is a God-given gift, ultimately the choice of what they will do, how they will behave, and what they will believe will always be theirs. But as parents we need to make sure they understand appropriate behavior and the consequences to them if they pursue their wrongful course.
This people have embraced the philosophy of eternal lives, and in view of this we should cease to be children and become philosophers, understanding our own existence, its purpose and ultimate design...
Now today, I feel grateful to add my testimony to those other testimonies—to be one more apostolic voice in support of this temple challenge. I extend the promise of protection that’s been offered in the past. Brothers and sisters, I promise you protection for you and your family as you take this challenge, to “find as many names to take to the temple as ordinances you perform in the temple, and teach others to do the same.”...And if you accept this challenge, blessings will begin to flow to you and your family like the power of the river spoken of by Ezekiel. And the river will grow as you continue to perform this work and teach others to do the same. You’ll find not only protection from the temptation and ills of this world, but you’ll also find personal power—power to change, power to repent, power to learn, power to be sanctified, and power to turn the hearts of your family together and heal that which needs healing.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will, of course, exercise its right to endorse or oppose specific legislative proposals that we believe will impact the free exercise of religion or the essential interests of Church organizations.
Remember, there is no such thing as unlawful censorship in the home. Movies, magazines, television, videos, the Internet, and other media are there as guests and should only be welcomed when they are appropriate for family enjoyment. Make your home a haven of peace and righteousness. Don't allow evil influences to contaminate your own special spiritual environment...
As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I leave my blessing upon you with a promise. That if you look beyond the bonds of time and mortality, and help those who cannot help themselves, you will be blessed with more closeness and joy in your family, and with the divine protections afforded those who are faithful in his service.
All of these things are based on the divine commandments to love God and to love our neighbors. Can there be anything more basic, more fundamental, and more simple than that? Living the true, pure, and simple gospel plan will allow us more time to visit the widows, widowers, orphans, lonely, sick, and poor. We will find peace, joy, and happiness in our life when serving the Lord and our neighbors.
While there are many things you can do to help a loved one in need, there are some things that must be done by the Lord.
We may not be able to fix the whole world, but we can strive to fix what may be amiss in our own families. Tolkien reminds us: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
All are free to choose, of course, and we would not have it otherwise. Unfortunately, however, when some choose slackness, they are choosing not only for themselves, but for the next generation and the next. Small equivocations in parents can produce large deviations in their children! Earlier generations in a family may have reflected dedication, while some in the current generation evidence equivocation. Sadly, in the next, some may choose dissension as erosion takes its toll.
...the Lord’s work is not just to solve problems; it is to build people. So as you walk with Him in priesthood service, you may find that sometimes what seems like the most efficient solution is not the Lord’s preferred solution because it does not allow people to grow.
Under the leadership of the president of the church we meet in council to determine the direction of the church and what are called in the world, the policies of the church. Some of those things called policies are doctrine, some of them are practices, some of them are temporary directions like the age of missionary service. But they come out of council.
Authentic discipleship is the surest way to counter the pervasive anger that is overtaking our communities and politics. Even more importantly, authentic discipleship is the best way to share the gospel’s truth—to live as disciples, to share our light and, in turn, the Savior’s light. In marketing terms, it is called “living our brand.”
Love begins in how we communicate with and about one another.
Christlike communication does not mock or ridicule; it celebrates the good in others. Christlike communication does not demean or belittle; it enlarges and opens. Christlike communication does not coerce or manipulate; it invites and guides.
When the dynamics are more about the personalities than possibilities, and it becomes us vs. them, it is exhausting. You can spend a great deal of time on distractions that lead nowhere or wounds that don’t heal.
If we take the long view, we know how this ends. We know it is going to get worse before it gets better. But in the end, all will be well. So why engage at all? Why bother? Why put yourself through that? First of all, it is not the end, yet, and we are all still living together on this planet, and there is plenty of good we can do.
And He is counting on his covenant people, amid the culture wars and the mommy wars and rumors of war, to be both peace seekers and peace makers.
However, God is good, and He has taught me a valuable lesson about being broken through my life’s experiences: Brokenness is a gift. Why? Because our brokenness connects us to each other, and our brokenness brings us to Christ. It is by bringing our broken hearts to Him that we are made whole.
And I was grateful to God for the opportunity to see His hand touch others through my broken heart.
It’s been in moments like that, when I feel most vulnerable and the most broken, that I have felt the Savior’s love the strongest.
I also believe that these acts are recorded in heaven. God, who sees the smallest act of kindness, does indeed bless those who stop to lift and help people who are helpless to help themselves.
The reader should understand that Joseph Smith himself made no attempt to create a ‘system’ of philosophy. His philosophical utterances were flung off without reference to any arrangement or orderly sequence…These utterances, were given out at various times, and were often separated by long intervals of time…It is our present task to put some of these and other independent utterances into something like orderly arrangement that will suggest a system of thought or philosophy in the teachings of the Prophet of the New Dispensation...and which, when they are finally arranged in proper order, will constitute a system of philosophy worthy of the enlightened age in which it was brought forth…
My love for the gospel grows out of the partial knowledge I have of the great truths it contains. In it I feel the presence of a marvelous system of truth, a philosophy that gives unity to all history and proper relationship to all existing things; that fills life with a real meaning, and makes existence desirable. And if I could only intelligently grasp these great truths…and reduce them to some orderly system which I am sure they are capable of, I would account myself most happy…
Eternalism is the term I would select as the best descriptive word for New Dispensation philosophy; for that term best represents its concepts: an eternal universe, with no beginning and no end; eternal intelligence, working in eternal duration, without beginning or ending, and without ultimates. And hence eternal progression running parallel with eternal lives; and an eternal or ‘everlasting gospel,’ offering eternal opportunities for righteousness; eternal existence of mercy, justice, wisdom, truth and love; all accompanied by eternal relations, associations, unions, eternal youth and eternal glory!
To be known, the truth must be stated and the clearer and more complete the statement is, the better the opportunity will the Holy Spirit have for testifying to the souls of men that the work is true.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
And there is a place prepared, yea, even that awful hell of which I have spoken, and the devil is the preparator of it; wherefore the final state of the souls of men is to dwell in the kingdom of God, or to be cast out because of that justice of which I have spoken.
...and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.
We live in a time of war, that spiritual war that will never end.
You who are young will see many things that will try your courage and test your faith. All of the mocking does not come from outside of the church. Let me say that again: all of the mocking does not come from outside of the church. Be careful that you do not fall into the category of mocking.
You are better than we were. I have the conviction that against what was surely coming and the prophecies that were given, the Lord has reserved special spirits to bring forth at this time to see that His Church and kingdom are protected and moved forward in the world.
There are spiritual and physical laws to obey if we are to be happy.
Put difficult questions in the back of your minds and go about your lives. Ponder and pray quietly and persistently about them. The answer may not come as a lightning bolt. It may come as a little inspiration here and a little there, ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ (D&C 98:12). Some answers will come from reading the scriptures, some from hearing speakers. And, occasionally, when it is important, some will come by very direct and powerful inspiration.
True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior.
Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.
As I grow in age and experience, I grow ever less concerned over whether others agree with us. I grow ever more concerned that they understand us. If they do understand, they have their agency and can accept or reject the gospel as they please.
It is not an easy thing for us to defend the position that bothers so many others.
The ultimate end of all activity in the Church is that a man and his wife and their children might be happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood.
You have the power of the priesthood directly from the Lord to protect your home. There will be times when all that stands as a shield between your family and the adversary’s mischief will be that power.
Our labors in the temple cover us with a shield and a protection, both individually and as a people. So come to the temple — come and claim your blessings. It is a sacred work.
The Lord will bless us as we attend to the sacred ordinance work of the temples. Blessings there will not be limited to our temple service. We will be blessed in all of our affairs.
Temples are the very center of the spiritual strength of the Church. We should expect that the adversary will try to interfere with us as a Church and with us individually as we seek to participate in this sacred and inspired work. Temple work brings so much resistance because it is the source of so much spiritual power to the Latter-day Saints and to the entire Church.
No work is more of a protection to this Church than temple work and the family history research that supports it. No work is more spiritually refining. No work we do gives us more power.
When the servants of the Lord determine to do as He commands, we move ahead. As we proceed, we are joined at the crossroads by those who have been prepared to help us. They come with skills and abilities precisely suited to our needs. And, we find provisions; information, inventions, help of various kinds, set along the way waiting for us to take them up. It is though someone knew we would be traveling that way. We see the invisible hand of the Almighty providing for us. For instance, inventions in the fields of travel and communication have come along just as we were ready for them…The airplane did not come as an accidental discovery…Revelation was involved. It came precisely when we could use it to move across the world to restore the Gospel…When we are ready, there will be revealed whatever we need—we will find it waiting at the crossroads.
Growing numbers of people now campaign to make spiritually dangerous life-styles legal and socially acceptable. Among them are abortion, the gay-lesbian movement, and drug addiction. They are debated in forums and seminars, in classes, in conversations, in conventions, and in courts all over the world. The social and political aspects of them are in the press every day. The point I make is simply this: there is a MORAL and SPIRITUAL side to these issues which is universally ignored.
The scriptures are generally positive rather than negative in their themes, and it is a mistake to assume that anything not specifically prohibited in the “letter of the law” is somehow approved of the Lord.
All the Lord approves is not detailed in the scriptures, neither is all that is forbidden.
The Lord said, “It is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant.” (D&C 58:26.) The prophets told us in the Book of Mormon that “men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil.” (2 Ne. 2:5; see Hel. 14:31.)
Life is meant to be a test to see if we will keep the commandments of God. (See 2 Ne. 2:5.) We are free to obey or to ignore the spirit and the letter of the law. But the agency granted to man is a moral agency. (See D&C 101:78.) We are not free to break our covenants and escape the consequences.
The laws of God are ordained to make us happy. Happiness cannot coexist with immorality: the prophet Alma told us in profound simplicity that “wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10.)
Always when these destructive life-styles are debated, “individual right of choice” is invoked as though it were the one sovereign virtue. That could be true only if there were but one of us. The rights of any individual bump up against the rights of another. And the simple truth is that we cannot be happy, nor saved, nor exalted, without one another.
The word tolerance is also invoked as though it overrules everything else. Tolerance may be a virtue, but it is not the commanding one.
A virtue when pressed to the extreme may turn into a vice. Unreasonable devotion to an ideal, without considering the practical application of it, ruins the ideal itself.
Nowhere is the right of choice defended with more vigor than with abortion. Having chosen to act, and a conception having occurred, it cannot then be unchosen. But there are still choices; always a best one. Sometimes the covenant of marriage has been broken; more often none was made. In or out of marriage, abortion is not an individual choice. At a minimum, three lives are involved.
Except where the wicked crime of incest or rape was involved, or where competent medical authorities certify that the life of the mother is in jeopardy, or that a severely defective fetus cannot survive birth, abortion is clearly a “thou shalt not.” Even in these very exceptional cases, much sober prayer is required to make the right choice. We face such sobering choices because we are the children of God.
Moral laws do not apply to animals for they have no agency. Where there is agency, where there is choice, moral laws must apply.
When our youth are taught that they are but animals, they feel free, even compelled, to respond to every urge and impulse. We should not be so puzzled at what is happening to society. We have sown the wind, and now we inherit the whirlwind. The chickens, so the saying goes, are now coming home to roost.
Several publications are now being circulated about the Church which defend and promote gay or lesbian conduct. They wrest the scriptures attempting to prove that these impulses are inborn, cannot be overcome, and should not be resisted; and therefore, such conduct has a morality of its own. They quote scriptures to justify perverted acts between consenting adults. That same logic would justify incest or the molesting of little children of either gender. Neither the letter nor the spirit of moral law condones any such conduct.
All of us are subject to feelings and impulses. Some are worthy and some of them are not; some of them are natural and some of them are not. We are to control them, meaning we are to direct them according to the moral law.
You may not be able, simply by choice, to free yourself at once from unworthy feelings. You can choose to give up the immoral expression of them.
I have come to believe also that it is not wise to continually talk of unusual spiritual experiences. They are to be guarded with care and shared only when the Spirit itself prompts us to use them to the blessing of others.
I repeat, save for the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the atonement of Christ.
Some members wonder why their priesthood leaders will not accept them just as they are and simply comfort them in what they call pure Christian love. Pure Christian love, the love of Christ, does not presuppose approval of all conduct. Surely the ordinary experiences of parenthood teach that one can be consumed with love for another and yet be unable to approve unworthy conduct. We cannot, as a church, approve unworthy conduct or accept into full fellowship individuals who live or who teach standards that are grossly in violation of that which the Lord requires of Latter-day Saints. If we, out of sympathy, should approve unworthy conduct, it might give present comfort to someone but would not ultimately contribute to that person’s happiness.
We cannot, as a church, approve unworthy conduct or accept into full fellowship individuals who live or who teach standards that are grossly in violation of that which the Lord requires of Latter-day Saints. If we, out of sympathy, should approve unworthy conduct, it might give present comfort to someone but would not ultimately contribute to that person’s happiness.
The punishment may, for the most part, consist of the torment we inflict upon ourselves. It may be the loss of privilege or progress. We are punished by our sins, if not for them.
Years ago I visited a school in Albuquerque. The teacher told me about a youngster who brought a kitten to class. As you can imagine, that disrupted everything. She had him hold the kitten up in front of the children. It went well until one of the children asked, “Is it a boy kitty or a girl kitty?” Not wanting to get into that lesson, the teacher said, “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a kitty.” But they persisted. Finally, one boy raised his hand and said, “I know how you can tell.” Resigned to face it, the teacher said, “How can you tell?” And the student answered, “You can vote on it!” You may laugh at this story, but if we are not alert, there are those today who not only tolerate but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God’s laws and nature. A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. For instance, what good would a vote against the law of gravity do?
But few have captured the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the restoration of it in music, in art, in literature. They have not, therefore, even though they were gifted made a lasting contribution to the onrolling of the church and kingdom of God in the dispensation of the fullness of times. They have therefore missed doing what they might have done, and they have missed being what they might have become.?
You who have such talents might well ask, 'Whence comes this gift'? And gift it is. You may have cultivated it and developed it, but it was given to you. Most of us do not have it. You were not more deserving than we, but you are a good deal more responsible. If you use your gift properly, opportunities for service are opened that will be beneficial eternally for you and for others.
The whole focus of our lives in the military had been on destruction. That is what war is about. We were inspired by the noble virtue of patriotism. To be devoted to destruction without being destroyed yourself spritually or morally was the test of life.
You too live in a time of war, the spiritual war that will never end.
The world seems to be turned upside down...The rules of honesty and integrity and basic morality are now ignored. Conversation is laced with profanity. You see that in art and literature, in drama and entertainment. Instead of being refined, they have become course.
Lehi's dream or vision of the iron rod has in it everything a Latter-day Saint needs to understand the test of life.
At your baptism and confirmation, you took hold of the iron rod. But you are never safe. It is after you have partaken of that fruit that your test will come.
In short, what would you sacrifice? The Saints sacrifice everything; but, strictly speaking, there is no sacrifice about it. If you give a penny for a million of gold! A handful of earth for a planet! A temporary worn out tenement for one glorified, that will exist, abide, and continue to increase throughout a never ending eternity, what a sacrifice to be sure!
If we were prepared to gaze upon the mysteries of the kingdom, as they are with God, we should then know that only a very small portion of them has been handed out here and there.
I will tell you when you and I may consider ourselves truly rich - when we can speak to the earth - to the native elements in boundless space, and say to them Be ye organized, and planted here, or there, and stay until I command you hence;
When I have gold and silver in my possession, which a thief may steal, or friends borrow, And never pay me back again, or which may take the wings of the morning, and I behold it no more, I only possess the negative of true riches.
[Riches] They are like a thing of naught to those who understand the things of the kingdom of God. They are to be used, but not abused. They are to be handled with discretion, and looked upon in their true light, without any lustful desires, as the means to feed, clothe, and make us comfortable, that we may be prepared to secure to ourselves eternal riches.
The only true riches in existence are for you and I to secure for ourselves a holy resurrection; then we have command of the gold end the silver, and can place it where we please, and in whose hands we please.
When we talk about mystery, we talk about eternal obscurity; for that which is known, ceases to be a mystery; and all that is known, we may know as we progress in the scale of intelligence.
When the elements in an organized form do not fill the end of their creation, they are thrown back again, like brother Kimball's old pottery ware, to be ground up and made over again. All I have to say about it is what Jesus says – I will destroy death, and him that hath the power of it, which is the devil. And if he ever makes "a full end of the wicked," what else can he do than entirely disorganize them, and reduce them to their native element?
There can be no such thing as power to annihilate element. There is one eternity of element, which can be organized or disorganized, composed or decomposed;
We believe that God is round about all things, above all things, in all things, and throughout all things. To tell about empty space is to tell of a space where God is not, and where the wicked might safely hide from his presence. There is no such thing as empty space.
Remember, that true riches – life, happiness, and salvation, is to secure for ourselves a part in the first resurrection, where we are out of the reach of death and him that hath the power of it; then we are exalted to thrones, and have power to organize element. Yes, they that are faithful, and that overcome, shall be crowned with crowns of eternal glory. They shall see the time when their cities shall be paved with gold; for there is no end to the precious metals, they are in the native element, and there is an eternity of it. If you want a world of the most precious substance, you will have nothing to do but say the word and it is done.
Why do the children of men set their hearts on earthly things? They are to be used, but not to the abusing of yourselves. They are to be used to make us comfortable. Suppose all the good things of this world should be given to us, the gold and the silver, the cattle and the horses, and all the flocks of thousand Hills; it would be for the express purpose of building mansions and temples, of feeding the poor that cannot be themselves, of succoring the tried and the tempted, of sending Elders to preach the gospel from nation to nation, from island to island, and of gathering Israel from the four corners of the globe. But that moment that men seek to build up themselves, in preference to the kingdom of God, and seek to hoard up riches, while the widow and the fatherless, the sick and afflicted around them are in poverty and want, it proves that their hearts are weaned from their God; and their riches will perish in their fingers, and they with them.
The work of building up Zion is in every sense a practical work; it is not a mere theory. A theoretical religion amounts to very little real good or advantage to any person.
Teach the people truth, teach them correct principle; show them what is for their greatest good and don't you think they will follow in that truth?
My mission to the people is to teach them with regard to their every-day lives…
The skill of building up and establishing the Zion of our God on the earth is to take the people and teach them how to take care of themselves.
Every time you kick 'Mormonism', you kick it upstairs: you never kick it downstairs. The Lord Almighty so orders it.
Do I say Love your enemies? Yes, upon certain principles. But you are not required to love their wickedness: you are only required to love them so far as concerns a desire and effort to turn them from their evil ways, that they may be saved through obedience to the Gospel.
They are just as busy in the spirit world as you and I are here. They can see us, but we cannot see them unless our eyes were opened. What are they doing there? They are preaching, preaching all the time, and preparing the way for us to hasten our work in building temples here and elsewhere, and to go back to Jackson County and build the great temple of the Lord. They are hurrying to get ready by the time we are ready, and we are all hurrying to get ready by the time our Elder Brother is ready.
If you are industrious and faithful scholars in the school you have entered into, you shall get lessons one after another, and continue on until you can see and understand the spirit of prophecy and revelation, which can be understood according to a systematic principle…
We want every branch of science taught in this place that is taught in the world. But our favorite study is that branch which particularly belongs to the Elders of Israel—namely, theology. Every Elder should become a profound theologian—should understand this branch better than all the world.
Yes, if there is a truth among the ungodly and wicked it belongs to us, and if there is a truth in hell it is ours.
‘How much of [‘Mormonism’] is true?’ All of it. ‘How much does it embrace?’ All the truth that there is in the heavens, on the earth, under the earth, and if there is any truth in hell, this doctrine claims it…
If a woman is sealed to me and she wants to be divorced, she has a right to and I am under no obligation. Is not that agency all round? We have the privilege of being sealed or released.
Our bodies are composed of visible tangible matter...What is commonly called death does not destroy the body, it only causes a separation of spirit and body, but the principle of life, inherent in the native elements, of which the body is composed, still continues.
The Kingdom of heaven is first and foremost with us.
We consider that the men in the Revolution were inspired, by the Almighty, to throw off the shackles of the mother government, with her established religion. For this cause were Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and a host of others inspired to deeds of resistance to the acts of the King of Great Britain, who might also have been led to those aggressive acts, for aught we know, to bring to pass the purposes of God, in thus establishing a new government upon a principle of greater freedom, a basis of self-government allowing the free exercise of religious worship. It was the voice of the Lord inspiring all those worthy men who bore influence in those trying times, not only to go forth in battle, but to exercise wisdom in council, fortitude, courage, and endurance in the tented field, as well as subsequently to form and adopt those wise and efficient measures which secured to themselves and succeeding generations, the blessing of a free and independent government. This government, so formed, has been blessed by the Almighty until she spreads her sails in every sea, and her power is felt in every land.
There is one principle that I wish the people would understand and lay to heart. Just as fast as you will prove before your God that you are worthy to receive the mysteries, if you please to call them so, of the kingdom of heaven - that you are full of confidence in God - that you will never betray a thing that God tells you - that you will never reveal to your neighbor that which ought not to be revealed, as quick as you prepare to be entrusted with the things of God, there is an eternity of them to bestow upon you.
Instead of pleading with the Lord to bestow more upon you, plead with yourselves to have confidence in yourselves, to have integrity in yourselves, and to know when to speak and what to speak, what to reveal, and how to carry yourselves and walk before the Lord. And just as fast as you prove to him that you will preserve everything secret that ought to be - that you will deal out to your neighbors all which you ought, and no more, and learn how to dispense your knowledge to your families, friends, neighbors, and brethren, the Lord will bestow upon you, until finally he will say to you, "You shall never fall; your salvation is sealed unto you; you are sealed up unto eternal life and salvation through your integrity.
Do I love murderers and mobocrats as I do good men? No. Do I pray for them? Yes, that the Lord would judge them out of their own mouths, and that speedily.
'Love your enemies!' What, love hell? When people do that, they get where devils are…I would feed and clothe them, take peculiar care of them, and place them where they would not hurt anybody.
I have not much love for them, only in the Gospel. I would cause them to repent, if I could, and make them good men and a good community. I have no fellowship for their avarice, blindness, and ungodly actions. To be great, is to be good before the Heavens and before all good men. I will not fellowship the wicked in their sins, so help me God.
I will tell you when you and I may consider ourselves truly rich—When we can speak to the earth—to the native elements in boundless space, and say to them—“Be ye organized, and planted here, or there, and stay until I command you hence;” when at our command the gold is hid so that no man can find it, any more than they could in California until within a few years back.
When I have gold and silver in my possession, which a thief may steal, or friends borrow, and never pay me back again, or which may take the wings of the morning, and I behold it no more, I only possess the negative of the true riches.
If there were not a true coin in existence, how could there be a bogus produced?
...there is no such thing as a man being truly rich until he has power over death, hell, the grave, and him that hath the power of death, which is the devil.
He does not want to slay His children who love and serve him, He is not a hard master, nor a severe Father, but when He chastens, it is because He wishes to bring His children to understanding, that they may know where the true riches are, and what are the true riches of eternity, and rejoice with Him in His presence, being made equal with Him.
the whole world are gone after the false riches; after that which is not life, after decomposition, after that which perishes, and passes away like the twilight of evening.
When the elements in an organized form do not fill the end of their creation, they are thrown back again, like brother Kimball's old pottery ware, to be ground up, and made over again. All I have to say about it is what Jesus says — I will destroy Death, and him that hath the power of it, which is the devil. And if he ever makes “a full end of the wicked,” what else can he do than entirely disorganize them, and reduce them to their native element? Here are some of the mysteries of the kingdom.
If any of you feel that there is no life in your meetings, as I occasionally hear some of the brethren say, then it becomes your duty to go and instill life into that meeting, and do your part to produce an increase of the Spirit and power of God in the meetings in your locality.
A miracle is supposed to be a result without a cause, but there is no such thing. There is a cause for every result we see; and if we see a result without understanding the cause we call it a miracle.
There is no miracle to any being in the heavens or on the earth, only to the ignorant. To a man who understands the philosophy of all the phenomena that transpire, there is no such thing as a miracle.
This is the place where every man commences to acquire the germ of the independence that is enjoyed in the heavens.
Our religion measures, weighs, and circumscribes all the wisdom in the world - all that God has ever revealed to man. God has revealed all the truth that is now in the possession of the world, whether it be scientific or religious.
"Mormonism" embraces all truth that is revealed and that is unrevealed, whether religious, political, scientific, or philosophical. It comprehends all true science known by man, angels, and the gods. There is one true system and science of life; all else tends to death. That system emanates from the Fountain of life.
All we are prepared to receive, the Lord gives us; all that the nations of the earth are prepared to receive he imparts unto them.
How far does our agency extend? There are certain bounds to it. What we have witnessed in thirty years experience teaches us that man can appoint, but God can disappoint. Man can load his gun to shoot his neighbor, but he cannot make the ball hit him, if the Lord Almighty sees fit to turn it away. He can draw the sword to hew down his fellow-man; but instead of that, he may fall upon it himself.
Our father, the great God, is the author of the sciences, he is the great mechanic, he is the systemizer of all things, he plans and devises all things, and every particle of knowledge which man has in his possession is the gift of God, whether they consider it divine, or whether it is the wisdom of man; it belongs to God, and he has bestowed it upon us, his children, dwelling here on earth. A fact is a fact, all truth issues forth from the fountain of truth, and the sciences are facts as far as men have proved them.
We do not allow ourselves to go into a field to plough without taking our religion with us; we do not go into an office, behind the counter to deal out goods, into a counting house with the books, or anywhere to attend to or transact any business without taking our religion with us. If we are railroading, or on a pleasure trip our God and our religion must be with us.
Every discovery in science and art, that is really true and useful to mankind has been given by direct revelation from God, though but few acknowledge it. It has been given with a view to prepare the way for the ultimate triumph of truth, and the redemption of the earth from the power of sin and satan. We should take advantage of all these great discoveries, the accumulated wisdom of the ages, and give to our children the benefit of every branch of useful knowledge, to prepare them to step foreward and efficiently do their part in the great work.
When we consider the condition of the Latter-day Saints, and see how many there are who seem to have their eyes fixed upon the things of this world, things that are not lasting, but that perish in the handling, and how anxious they are to obtain them, how do you think I feel about it? We see many of the Elders of Israel desirous of becoming wealthy, and they adopt any course that they think will bring them riches, which to me is as unwise as anything can be-to see men of wisdom, men that seem to have an understanding of the world and of the things of God, searching after minerals throughout these mountains; they traverse the hills, and they dig here and there, and keep digging and picking, and rolling the rocks from morning till night. This chain of mountains has been followed from the north to the south, and its various spurs have been prospected, and what do they find? Just enough to allure them, and to finally lead them from the faith, and at last to make them miserable and poor. Ask the brethren why they do this, and the ready reply will be, "Is it not my privilege to find a gold mine, or a silver mine, as well as others?" As far as I am concerned I would say, "Yes, certainly it is your privilege, if you can find one." But do you know how to find such a mine? No, you do not. These treasures that are in the earth are carefully watched, they can be removed from place to place according to the good pleasure of Him who made them and owns them. He has his messengers at his service, and it is just as easy for an angel to remove the minerals from any part of one of these mountains to another, as it is for you and me to walk up and down this hall.
The Gospel of life and salvation which God has revealed to us, incorporates all the systems there are. Every true principle and every true science and every truth there is, are incorporated within the faith of the Latter-day Saints.
It is easier to defend the truth than to defend error. It is necessary that the religions and creeds of the Christian world be defended by the most able and learned students, in order to make them popular and to appear as true. But after these Christian students have been through academies and colleges, and the most famed seminaries in the world, and after they have studied and studied, spending a life-time in the acquisition of a theological education, it takes but one of our boys, with the aid of the Bible and the little Catechism, to wind them up as you would an old clock. This has been the experience of many of our boys, and when they started out from their homes to preach the Gospel, they did not know that they could say anything at all about its principles; but when they have come in contact with those who have professed much and who have undertaken to disprove the Gospel as taught by the Latter-day Saints, their minds have become enlightened and passages of Scripture have come to them, and they have discomfited their opponents, so that they have had nothing to say. I have done so many times myself, and that too with a few words; and the conversation would be turned to something else. With all their study and learning, and with all the philosophy and science there is brought to the aid of false theories, how easy it is to believe the truth! It is much easier than to disbelieve it. Truth commends itself to every honest person, it matters not how simply it is told, and when it is received it seems as though we had been acquainted with it all our lives.
If you were in the Temples of God working for the living and the dead, your eyes and hearts would not be after the fashions of the world, nor the wealth of the world. Yet the whole of this world's wealth belongs to the Lord, and he can give to whomsoever he pleases.
Do not let our minds run after gold and silver, nor upon houses and lands; what the Lord gives us take the very best care of, putting the same to a wise and proper use, or our hearts cannot be for the kingdom.
When I labor in the kingdom of God, I labor for my own dear self, I have self continually before me; the object of my pursuit is to benefit my individual person; and this is the case with every person who ever was or ever will be exalted.
Keep your dish right side up, so that when the shower of porridge does come, you can catch your dish full.
Can we realize how this Providence governs and controls the nations of the earth, and marks out the destinies of individual man? If we have not learned these lessons they are before us, and we have them yet to learn. If we have not yet learned that poverty, sickness, pain, want, disappointment, losses, crosses, or even death, should not move us one hair's breadth from the service of God, or separate us from the principles of eternal life, it is a lesson we have to learn. If we have not learned how to handle the things of this world in the light of salvation, we have it yet to learn. Though we have mountains of gold and silver, and stores of precious things heaped up, and could control the elements, and command the cattle on a thousand hills, if we have not learned that every iota of it should be devoted to the building up of the kingdom of God on earth, it is a lesson yet to learn.
I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is not purely philosophical...
I am a witness that ‘Mormonism’ is true upon philosophical principles. Every particle of sense I have, proves it to be sound natural reason...
That [which we] call eternal philosophy, God’s philosophy, the philosophy of angels—natural philosophy, reason-able philosophy … commends itself to the human mind, to the intelligence that man possesses...
There is no true philosophy in existence which is not embraced in the Gospel, it belongs to the Gospel, it is a part of the Gospel...
You'll always gain more from what you discover than from what you're simply told. Don't just look at the mountain - the doctrine - go climb it. You might just meet the Lord at the summit.
True greatness is found only in the family...our greatest joy would be to live together everlastingly as a family unit in eternity. There neither is nor can be anything greater than this.
To carry forward his own purposes among men and nations, the Lord foreordained chosen spirit children in pre-existence and assigned them to come to earth at particular times and places so that they might aid in furthering the divine will. These pre-existence appointments, made ‘according to the foreknowledge of God the Father’ (1 Pet. 1:2), simply designated certain individuals to perform missions which the Lord in his wisdom knew they had the talents and capacities to do.”
It is better to be a partial Christian than a non-Christian. It is better to believe some of the doctrines of Christ rather than none at all. One truth paves the way for another, and we all need to advance in knowledge and understanding.
I sometimes think that one of the best-kept secrets of the kingdom is that the scriptures open the door to the receipt of revelation. However talented men may be in administrative matters; however eloquent they may be in expressing their views; however learned they may be in the worldly things-they will be denied the sweet whisperings of the Spirit that might have been theirs unless they pay the price of studying, pondering, and praying about the scriptures.
I do not know all of the providences of the Lord, but I do know that he permits false doctrine to be taught in and out of the Church and that such teaching is part of the sifting process of mortality.
I sometimes think that one of the best kept secrets of the kingdom is that the scriptures open the door to the receipt of revelation.
Of all the holy agreements pertaining to the gospel of Jesus Christ, few, if any, would transcend in importance the oath and covenant of the priesthood. It is certainly one of the most sacred agreements, for it involves the sharing of heavenly powers and man’s upward reaching toward eternal goals. None of us can afford to be ignorant of the terms of this contract. To do so might cause us to miss the mark in our performance of duty and result in the forfeiture of promised blessings.
A gospel covenant is a holy contract. “God in his good pleasure fixes the terms, which man accepts.” (Bible Dictionary)
If we overreact it becomes even more traumatizing to our children. They need to know that their relationship with their mother or father is something they can trust and rely on, no matter what is going on in their lives. Overreaction puts up a barrier, and we don’t want to do that. If we’re going to help our children deal with these feelings that are so negative and destructive, our responses need to be calm and patient and not filled with anxiety ourselves or cause us to get into a state of depression.
The fundamental, basic behaviors that invite peace into the heart and into the home are prayer and spending some time in the words of the prophets and the words of the Lord in the scriptures. Spend some time reflecting upon those things, and then look for ways to have fun with your family. Enjoy life. That kind of balance of spiritual, mental, and emotional health through all the busyness of life creates a level of peace and calm and a foundation that everyone can stand on, even in the challenging moments.
Jesus spoke to the winds and they obeyed him. He walked upon the water. Out of five loaves and two fishes he made a great feast, "And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men." All this was done upon natural principles, and we would be able to comprehend this if we understood natural principles thoroughly.
To the extent you willingly engage in the Lord’s work, He will make more out of you than you can ever make of yourself…
You have to develop under the influence of the spirit if you want the spirit to show through in the final product.
I’ve learned that I cannot control another’s behavior and, also, that I am not responsible for anyone else’s behaviors.
I have been puzzled that some scriptures command us not to judge and others instruct us that we should judge and even tell us how to do it. I am convinced that these seemingly contradictory directions are consistent when we view them with the perspective of eternity. The key is to understand that there are two kinds of judging: final judgments, which we are forbidden to make; and intermediate judgments, which we are directed to make, but upon righteous principles.
The Savior also commanded individuals to be judges, both of circumstances and of other people.
The arithmetic of this parable is chilling. The ten virgins obviously represent members of Christ’s Church, for all were invited to the wedding feast and all knew what was required to be admitted when the bridegroom came. But only half were ready when he came.
Evil that used to be localized and covered like a boil is now legalized and paraded like a banner. The most fundamental roots and bulwarks of civilization are questioned or attacked.
Many also deny individual responsibility and practice dependence on others, seeking, like the foolish virgins, to live on borrowed substance and borrowed light.
What are those “holy places”? Surely they include the temple and its covenants faithfully kept. Surely they include a home where children are treasured and parents are respected. Surely the holy places include our posts of duty assigned by priesthood authority, including missions and callings faithfully fulfilled in branches, wards, and stakes.
We are not grounded in the wisdom of the world or the philosophies of men.
Push back against worldly values and practices that are contrary to gospel teachings and covenants.
When I say ‘push back against the world,’ I mean push back against that part of the world’s values and practices that draw us away from the Lord’s teachings and our covenant obligations.
Prophetic teachings often run counter to the popular ideas and prejudices of the world.
Of course this counsel to love, to avoid contention, and to be examples of civility is not meant to discourage us from participating in discussions, debates, and even taking adversarial positions against what we believe to be wrong or inadvisable.
Seekers who have paid the price in perspiration have been magnified by inspiration.
Whether experts or amateurs, most of us have a tendency to be quite dogmatic about so-called scientific facts. Since news writers are not immune from this tendency, news stories based on scientific assumptions should be read or viewed with some skepticism.
Another reason why news stories are unsuited to communicate historical understanding is that their format is such that they invariably report such facts out of context. An individual historical fact has meaning only in relation to other facts. Outside that context, a single fact is almost certain to convey an erroneous impression.
We recognize that our forebears were human. They doubtless made mistakes...But the mistakes were minor, when compared with the marvelous work which they accomplished. To highlight the mistakes and gloss over the greater good is to draw a caricature. Caricatures are amusing, but they are often ugly and dishonest. A man may have a blemish on his cheek and still have a face of beauty and strength, but if the blemish is emphasized unduly in relation to his other features, the portrait is lacking in integrity...
Satan is the great deceiver, the father of lies. This is not because Satan tells only lies. His most effective lies are half-truths or lies accompanied by the truth. A lie is most effective when it can travel incognito in good company or when it can be so intermarried with the truth that we cannot determine its lineage.
The fact that something is true is not always a justification for communicating it.
By the same token, some things that are true are not edifying or appropriate to communicate.
Readers and viewers also need to be sensitive to the bias of the writer or the publisher. That bias may be religious or irreligious, believing, skeptical, or hostile.
Bias can also be exercised in decisions on what news stories to publish and what to omit. This kind of bias is difficult to detect, but it can be discerned over a period of time.
...readers should beware of writings that imply balance but do not deliver it.
Balance for the sake of complete understanding is justifiable; balance for the sake of matching positives with negatives is not.
The inclusion of negatives that are irrelevant or trivial is evidence of bias, not balance.
In terms of the intellectual, readers and viewers clearly need to be more sophisticated in evaluating what is communicated to them. For example, we often hear it said that when two witnesses give two different accounts of the same event, “one has to be lying.” Not so. It is rare for two witnesses to observe the same event from exactly the same point of observation at exactly the same time. This fact accounts for some differences in testimony.
For Latter-day Saints, evaluation also has a spiritual dimension. This is because of our belief in Moroni’s declaration that “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5). That promise assures spiritually sensitive readers a power of discernment that will help them evaluate the meaning of what they learn.
Our Heavenly Father gave us powers of reason, and we are expected to use them to the fullest. But he also gave us the Comforter, who he said would lead us into truth and by whose power we may know the truth of all things.
But the ministering of angels can also be unseen. Angelic messages can be delivered by a voice or merely by thoughts or feelings communicated to the mind. President John Taylor described “the action of the angels, or messengers of God, upon our minds, so that the heart can conceive … revelations from the eternal world.
Many of the most important deprivations of mortality will be set right in the Millennium, which is the time for fulfilling all that is incomplete in the great plan of happiness for all of our Father’s worthy children. We know that will be true of temple ordinances. I believe it will also be true of family relationships and experiences.
You young men and young women, put your cell phones away! Put the technology away and learn to talk to each other face-to-face, eye-to-eye. My goodness, that’s the way this happens. You’ve got yourselves in cocoons.
Closely related to the feeling of comfort is the...purpose or function of revelation, to uplift. At some time in our lives, each of us needs to be lifted up from a depression, from a sense of foreboding or inadequacy, or just a plateau of spiritual mediocrity. Because it raises our spirits and helps us resist evil and seek good, I believe that the feeling of uplift that is communicated by reading the scriptures or by enjoying wholesome music, art or literature is a distinct purpose of revelation.
We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best...
Most of us have more things expected of us than we can possibly do. As breadwinners, as parents, as Church workers and members, we face many choices on what we will do with our time and other resources. We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.
Sometimes we are delayed in the receipt of revelation, and sometimes we are left to our own judgment. We cannot force spiritual things. It must be so. Our life’s purpose to obtain experience and to develop faith would be frustrated if our Heavenly Father directed us in every act, even in every important act. We must make decisions and experience the consequences in order to develop self-reliance and faith.
When one person purports to receive revelation for another person outside his or her own area of responsibility - such as a Church member who claims to have revelation to guide the entire Church or a person who claims to have a revelation to guide another person over whom he or she has no presiding authority according to the order of the Church—you can be sure that such revelations are not from the Lord.
If a matter appears of little or no consequence, we should proceed on the basis of our own judgment. If the choice is important for reasons unknown to us, the Lord will intervene and give us guidance.
If anyone thinks that godly or parental love for an individual grants the loved one license to disobey the law, he or she does not understand either love or law.
All governments formed and administered by imperfect men will be oppressive and limit our freedoms in some measure, since they will inevitably mirror the imperfections of those who rule and those who are ruled. For this reason, we promote the cause of freedom and good government when we fulfill our religious duty to work for good laws, seek diligently for honest and wise rulers, and preach repentance to all citizens.
These principles and precedents, and others too numerous to cite in this limited space, are persuasive evidence that even an oppressive government that limits freedom is preferable to a state of lawlessness and anarchy in which the only ruling principle is force and every individual citizen has a thousand oppressors. Abraham Lincoln was espousing this preference when he said, "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law." (Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, p. 635, 14th ed.) There are exceptions. The command of loyalty to laws and rulers does not compel a citizen to participate in or submit to a government edict that runs counter to the common consensus of humanity, such as genocide or other cold-blooded murder. Nor should it require a person to violate the fundamental tenets of religious faith.
If your picture of God is not working for you, you may need to fire your God and get a new one.
If your understanding of God is not helping you, come unto Him; you need a new understanding.
Forgiving through Christ is the ultimate example of burying the weapons that Satan can use in his war against our souls.
The peace Christ gives allows us to view mortality through the precious perspective of eternity and supplies a spiritual settledness (see Colossians 1:23) that helps us maintain a consistent focus on our heavenly destination. Thus, we can be blessed to hush our fears because His doctrine provides purpose and direction in all aspects of our lives.
Understanding that the Church is a learning laboratory helps us to prepare for an inevitable reality. In some way and at some time, someone in this Church will do or say something that could be considered offensive. Such an event will surely happen to each and every one of us—and it certainly will occur more than once.Though people may not intend to injure or offend us, they nonetheless can be inconsiderate and tactless. You and I cannot control the intentions or behavior of other people. However, we do determine how we will act. Please remember that you and I are agents endowed with moral agency, and we can choose not to be offended.
One of the greatest indicators of our own spiritual maturity is revealed in how we respond to the weaknesses, the inexperience, and the potentially offensive actions of others.
Clearly, the rigorous requirements that lead to the perfecting of the Saints include assignments that test and challenge us.
If a person says or does something that we consider offensive, our first obligation is to refuse to take offense and then communicate privately, honestly, and directly with that individual.
"When we fail to give needed correction or counsel, it’s because we’re thinking of ourselves. We normally think, 'Well, you know, I don’t want to hurt this person’s feelings.' No, that’s really not true; you just want to be liked. And the reason I’m not going to tell you what really needs to be said is because I don’t want to be viewed negatively or fall into disfavor."
For example, the eternal importance of gender and of eternal marriage can be properly understood only within the context of our Heavenly Father's plan of happiness. Emphasizing the institution of marriage without linking it adequately to the simple and fundamental doctrine of the plan cannot provide sufficient direction, protection, and hope in a world confused about these vital issues.
A principle is not a behavior or a specific action. Rather, principles provide basic guidelines for behavior and action.
Principles provide direction. Correct principles always are based upon and arise from doctrines, do not change, and answer the question of "what?". A principle is not a behavior or a specific action. Rather, principles provide basic guidelines for behavior and action.
The fundamental truths of the restored gospel were not delivered to the Prophet Joseph Smith all at once in the Sacred Grove. These priceless treasures were revealed as circumstances warranted and as the timing was right.
Thus, the birth, life, and atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ are the greatest manifestations of God's love for His children...The fruit on the tree is a symbol for the blessings of the Atonement. Partaking of the fruit of the tree represents the receiving of ordinances and covenants whereby the Atonement can become fully efficacious in our lives.
We are the people being raised up in this new millennium. We are the ones who have been well educated. We are the ones who have been raised by good parents.The Lord is depending upon us to rise to the occasion. Be as good as you ought to be. Look as good as you ought to look. Be doing the things that you know are needed and are part of a good life.
Nothing challenges the rationality of our belief in God or tests our trust in Him more severely than human suffering and wickedness. Both are pervasive in our common experience.
All of us have struggled, or likely will struggle, in a very personal way with the problem of evil.
Although apologists for belief in God have labored long to reconcile the world’s evil with God’s goodness and power, they have often overlooked the much more difficult task of reconciling evil not only with His goodness and power but with God’s absolute creation and absolute foreknowledge as well.
One of the most significant ways you can improve learning and teaching is to take the time to orient new teachers, preferably before they give their first lessons.
You are going out to teach people the true philosophy of life, the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation. The world is longing for it.
When the Lord tells you what to do, you've got to have the courage to do it or you had better not ask him again.
In June of 1965, a group of brethren in the Physical Facilities Department of the Church was doing some work outside the Hotel Utah apartment of President David O. McKay. As President McKay stopped to explain to them the importance of the work in which they were engaged, he paused and told them the following: "Let me assure you, Brethren, that some day you will have a personal priesthood interview with the Savior, Himself. If you are interested, I will tell you the order in which He will ask you to account for your earthly responsibilities. "First, He will request an accountability report about your relationship with your wife. Have you been actively been engaged in making her happy and ensuring that her needs have been met as an individual? "Second, He will want an accountability report about each of your children individually. He will not attempt to have this for simply a family stewardship but will request information about your relationship to each and every child. "Third, He will want to know what you personally have done with the talents you were given in the pre-existence. "Fourth, He will want a summary of your activity in your Church assignments. He will not be necessarily interested in what assignments you have had, for in his eyes the home teacher and a mission president are probably equals, but He will request a summary of how you have been of service to your fellowmen in your Church assignments. "Fifth, He will have no interest in how you earned your living, but if you were honest in all your dealings. "Sixth, He will ask for an accountability on what you have done to contribute in a positive manner to your community, state, country and the world."
We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities.
Professional pilots understand that there is an optimum turbulence penetration speed that will minimize the negative effects of turbulence. And most of the time that would mean to reduce your speed. The same principle applies also to speed bumps on a road. Therefore, it is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions.
It is said that any virtue when taken to an extreme can become a vice. Over-scheduling our days would certainly qualify for this. There comes a point where milestones can become millstones and ambitions, albatrosses around our necks.
The search for the best things inevitably leads to the foundational principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the simple and beautiful truths revealed to us by a caring, eternal, and all-knowing Father in Heaven.
I think most of us intuitively understand how important the fundamentals are. It is just that we sometimes get distracted by so many things that seem more enticing.
Hopefully we will learn that when we chase after shadows, we are pursuing matters that have little substance and value.
Therefore, as leaders we must strictly protect the Church and the gospel in its purity and plainness and avoid putting unnecessary burdens on our members.
And so it goes, each step leading to the next and filling us with ever-increasing faith, hope, and charity.
Brothers and sisters, if you ever think that the gospel isn’t working so well for you, I invite you to step back, look at your life from a higher plane, and simplify your approach to discipleship.
Exaltation is our goal; discipleship is our journey.
...I learned that patience was far more than simply waiting for something to happen—patience required actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results didn’t appear instantly or without effort.
If it appears to take forever, remember: happy marriages are meant to last forever!
Those who save marriages pull out the weeds and water the flowers. They celebrate the small acts of grace that spark tender feelings of charity. Those who save marriages save future generations.
Pride is short-tempered, unkind, and envious. Pride exaggerates its own strength and ignores the virtues of others. Pride is selfish and easily provoked. Pride assumes evil intent where there is none and hides its own weaknesses behind clever excuses. Pride is cynical, pessimistic, angry, and impatient.
We all need to remember, "Judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy".
The difference between happiness and misery … often comes down to an error of only a few degrees.
An acceptable sacrifice is when we give up something good for something of far greater worth.
And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice. Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.
And now the year of my redeemed is come; and they shall mention the loving kindness of their Lord, and all that he has bestowed upon them according to his goodness, and according to his loving kindness, forever and ever.
And whosoever among you are sick, and have not faith to be healed, but believe, shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food, and that not by the hand of an enemy.
But as a consequence of being perfectly just, there are some things God cannot do. He cannot be arbitrary in saving some and banishing others. He “cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” He cannot allow mercy to rob justice.
Personal accountability becomes both a right and a duty that we must constantly defend; it has been under assault since before the Creation. We must defend accountability against persons and programs that would (sometimes with the best of intentions) make us dependent.
It is God’s will that we be free men and women enabled to rise to our full potential both temporally and spiritually, that we be free from the humiliating limitations of poverty and the bondage of sin, that we enjoy self-respect and independence, that we be prepared in all things to join Him in His celestial kingdom.
In reality, the best way to help those we love—the best way to love them—is to continue to put the Savior first. If we cast ourselves adrift from the Lord out of sympathy for loved ones who are suffering or distressed, then we lose the means by which we might have helped them. If, however, we remain firmly rooted in faith in Christ, we are in a position both to receive and to offer divine help. If (or I should say when) the moment comes that a beloved family member wants desperately to turn to the only true and lasting source of help, he or she will know whom to trust as a guide and a companion
His commandments are the voice of reality and our protection against self-inflicted pain.
There are many places in the scriptures that counsel mankind to fear God. In our day we generally interpret the word fear as “respect” or “reverence” or “love”; that is, the fear of God means the love of God or respect for Him and His law. That may often be a correct reading, but I wonder if sometimes fear doesn’t really mean fear, as when the prophets speak of fearing to offend God by breaking His commandments.
A permissive parent, an indulgent friend, a fearful Church leader are in reality more concerned about themselves than the welfare and happiness of those they could help. Yes, the call to repentance is at times regarded as intolerant or offensive and may even be resented, but guided by the Spirit, it is in reality an act of genuine caring.
The importance of having a sense of the sacred is simply this—if one does not appreciate holy things, he will lose them.
One cannot imagine a more fundamental defiling of God’s creation than to profane its most sacred use.
Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.”
For this reason it is disconcerting to see how people are becoming careless, even irreverent and disrespectful, in speech, dress, and conduct when they participate in events related to death and marriage. Some funeral services become occasions for lightmindedness and inappropriate humor. Personal remembrances, quite appropriate in moderation, can occupy an hour or two while the Atonement and Resurrection of the Lord and His plan of salvation receive only a passing mention, if any.
God is feeling after us to see if we will prove faithful, and if we have the integrity and sensitivity to honor sacred things, we will receive even more. But if not, our blessings will turn to our condemnation.
Always remember, however, as holiness grows within and you are entrusted with greater knowledge and understanding that you must treat these things with care. We read earlier the scripture affirming that that which comes from above is sacred and must be spoken with care and by constraint of the Spirit. The Lord also commanded, rather bluntly, that we must not cast pearls before swine or give that which is holy to dogs (see 3 Nephi 14:6; D&C 41:6), meaning sacred things should not be disclosed or discussed with those who are not prepared to appreciate their value and who may even attack rather than appreciate them.
Our central quest is to learn and to live the celestial law...If we can learn to abide the celestial law, we become what the scripture calls persons of a celestial spirit.
Healing really only begins when we face the hurt in its full force and then grow through it with all the strength of our soul.
First, it is important that you give this person the time, space, and safety to share his or her meaning. People have an innate need to be heard, especially when they feel that a wrong has been committed.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the Holy Ghost is a spirit man, a spirit son of God the Father. It is a fundamental Church doctrine that God is the Father of the spirits of all men and women, that Jesus is literally God’s Son both in spirit and in the flesh, and that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit separate and distinct from both the Father and the Son.
Latter-day Saints believe in God the Father; his Son, Jesus Christ; and in the Holy Ghost. These three Gods form the Godhead, which holds the keys of power over the universe. Each member of the Godhead is an independent personage, separate and distinct from the other two, the three being in perfect unity and harmony with each other.
Your most important friendships should be with your own brothers and sisters and with your father and mother. Love your family. Be loyal to them. Have a genuine concern for your brothers and sisters. Help carry their load.
We must remember that though the church is engaged in business, it is not the business world. Its success is measured in terms of souls saved, not in profit and loss. We need, of course, to be efficient and productive, but we also need to keep our focus on eternal objectives. Be cautious about imposing secular methods and terminology on sacred priesthood functions. Remember that rational problem-solving procedures, though helpful, will not be solely sufficient in the work of the kingdom. God’s work must be done by faith, prayer, and by the spirit. ‘And if it be by some other way, it is not of God.’ (Doctrine and Covenants 50:18)’
When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints views the family as the most important organization in time and all eternity. The Church teaches that everything should center in and around the family. It stresses that the preservation of family life in time and eternity takes precedence above all other interests.
Some people ask me as a Church leader why we place so much emphasis on the home and family when there are such larger problems around us? The answer is, of course, that the larger problems are merely a reflection of individual and family problems.
Restraint and self-control must be ruling principles in the marriage relationship. Couples must learn to bridle their tongues as well as their passions.
Spiritual growth comes by solving problems together—not by running from them. Today’s inordinate emphasis on individualism brings egotism and separation.
First and foremost, nothing except God Himself takes priority over your wife in your life—not work, not recreation, not hobbies.
Strong families cultivate an attribute of effective communication. They talk out their problems, make plans together, and cooperate toward common objectives. Family home evening and family councils are practiced and used as effective tools toward this end.
Successful parents have found that it is not easy to rear children in an environment polluted with evil. Therefore, they take deliberate steps to provide the best of wholesome influences. Moral principles are taught. Good books are made available and read. Television watching is controlled. Good and uplifting music is provided. But most importantly, the scriptures are read and discussed as a means to help develop spiritual-mindedness.
As the Church grows, it is very important that we build solidly and well, and that our prospective stakes have the basic ingredients that are necessary for success and that existing stakes work tirelessly for full stakehood in the sense of spiritual achievement. These stakes are to be the gathering spots for the Zion of today, and they need to be spiritual sanctuaries and to be self-sufficient in as many ways as is possible.
As a prophet reveals the truth it divides the people. The honest in heart heed his words but the unrighteous either ignore the prophet or fight him.
One of the grand promises which the Lord made when he restored his Church in these latter days was that the Church should never again be taken from the earth (D&C 13:1) nor given to another people (Dan. 2:44). This is reassuring, for no matter how much individual apostasy we may see occur among Church members, the Church itself shall endure and remain intact. Our task, then, is to see that we personally endure to the end in faithful fellowship with the Church.
It is important to realize that while the Church is made up of mortals, no mortal is the Church. Judas, for a period of time, was a member of the Church — in fact, one of its apostles — but the Church was not Judas.
Sometimes we hear someone refer to a division in the Church. In reality, the Church is not divided. It simply means that there are some who, for the time being at least, are members of the Church but not in harmony with it. These people have a temporary membership and influence in the Church; but unless they repent, they will be missing when the final membership records are recorded.
It is well that our people understand this principle, so they will not be misled by those apostates within the Church who have not yet repented or been cut off. But there is a cleansing coming. The Lord says that his vengeance shall be poured out "upon the inhabitants of the earth . . . And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me" (D&C 112:24-26). I look forward to that cleansing; its need within the Church is becoming increasingly apparent.
Yes, within the Church today there are tares among the wheat and wolves within the flock. As President Clark stated, "The ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than . . . We should be careful of them". The wolves amongst our flock are more numerous and devious today than when President Clark made this statement.
Christ taught that we should be in the world but not of it (John 17:11,14-16). Yet there are some in our midst who are not so much concerned about taking the gospel into the world as they are about bringing worldliness into the gospel. They want us to be in the world and of it. They want us to be popular with the worldly even though a prophet has said that this is impossible, for all hell would then want to join us.
A major reason why there is famine in some parts of the world is because evil men have used the vehicle of government to abridge the freedom that men need to produce abundantly.
The precepts of man have gone so far in subverting our educational system that in many cases a higher degree today, in the so-called social sciences, can be tantamount to a major investment in error. Very few men build firmly enough on the rock of revelation to go through this kind of an indoctrination and come out untainted. Unfortunately, of those who succumb, some use their higher degree to get teaching positions even in our Church educational system, where they spread the falsehoods they have been taught. President Joseph F. Smith was right when he said that false educational ideas would be one of the three threats to the Church within (Gospel Doctrine, pp. 312-13).
The type of apostates in the Book of Mormon is similar to the type we have today. God, with his infinite foreknowledge, so molded the Book of Mormon that we might see the error and know how to combat false educational, political, religious, and philosophical concepts of our time…The Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ… It fortifies the humble followers of Christ against the evil designs, strategies, and doctrines of the devil in our day.
I mention family councils because of our consistent emphasis on family unity and family solidarity, by encouraging parents to hold family councils, we imitate in our homes the heavenly pattern.
in the eternal perspective, children—not possessions, not position, not prestige—are our greatest jewels.
...when we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the...demands on our time, the interest we pursue, and the order of our priorities.
The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in...The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature"
We are fast approaching that moment prophesied by Joseph Smith when he said: 'Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction'
The Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith there would be an attempt to overthrow the country by destroying the Constitution. Joseph Smith predicted that the time would come when the Constitution would hang, as it were, by a thread, and at that time 'this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction' (Journal of Discourses, 7:15). It is my conviction that the Elders of Israel, widely spread over the nation, will at that crucial time successfully rally the righteous of our country and provide the necessary balance of strength to save the institutions of constitutional government.
Modern scriptures indicate that having a body is necessary for a fullness of joy (DC 93:33). It is assumed by some Latter-day Saints—but not known by revelation—that it will be necessary for the Holy Spirit to receive a body at some point, but the timeframe in which He does so is not particularly important. (To travel overseas to another country, one needs both a passport and an airplane ticket. It doesn't matter in which order one gets the passport or the ticket, but one must eventually have both in order to reach one's destination.)
ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.
We are all a part of the whole plan, not just a plan for us individually, but the whole plan. That means what I do overlaps with what you do to fulfill the Father’s purposes here on the earth, and in the process we fulfill each of our missions as well.
Depictions of violence often glamorize vicious behavior. They offend the spirit and make you less able to respond to others in a sensitive, caring way.They contradict the Savior's message of love for one another.
Before we get on a bus, we should ask the bus driver a few questions...When we get on the "gospel" bus, we are both passenger and driver. The bus itself is what carries us to our ultimate goal, powered by the most efficient and perfect engine in the universe — the Atonement. But we decide where we are going to go, how fast we get there, and how firmly we put the "pedal to the metal". We all take detours, and it can be a bumpy ride. But this is a "smart bus" with a Gospel Positioning System that invariably points us back to our destination. Our refueling stations are beautiful, and our bus doesn't go very far if we don’t visit them and refuel often enough. And if we can see clearly, we will notice the cheering crowds on either side of our road, smiling and waving as we head toward the Eternal City. And the best thing is that we can invite others along for the ride!
When we say anything bad about the leaders of the Church, whether true or false, we tend to impair their influence and their usefulness and are thus working against the Lord and his cause.
The leaders of this Church are the most practical men in it...Our theory is that a man who cannot sustain himself and also teach others how to sustain themselves is unfit for a leading position...
The Latter-day Saints are in many respects like other people who are not Latter-day Saints. We are apt to entertain views which are not very correct, and which may be the result of our traditions and preconceived ideas.
It was no suspension of law on the part of our Savior, that caused Him to gather from the elements the bread and the fishes necessary to feed the multitude. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to open the eyes of the blind, or to cause the sick to be healed. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to ascend in the sight of His disciples after His resurrection when He visited them. I know that miracles are said to be a suspension of law; but instead of their being a suspension of law, they are due to a knowledge of a higher law, to a comprehension of greater laws, by the knowledge of which, what are called miracles are wrought.
There is no suspension of law on the part of our Father when He interposes in behalf of His children.
When we are living hand in hand with our Savior and Father in Heaven, doors will open so we can accomplish what needs to be done.
We have scarcely scratched the surface. We are engaged in a work for the souls of men and women everywhere. Our work knows no boundaries. Under the providence of the Lord it will continue. Those nations now closed to us will someday be open. That is my faith. That is my belief. That is my testimony.
With the growth of the Church, we likely could never build a hall large enough to accommodate all who would wish to assemble in one place. Nor would accelerating travel costs make possible their coming. The gifts of science have provided a more convenient way. We are confident that as the work of the Lord expands, he will inspire men to develop the means whereby the membership of the Church, wherever they may be, can be counseled in an intimate and personal way by his chosen prophet.
Gone is every element of discrimination. Extended is every power of the priesthood of God.
Today, on this May 15 Sabbath, there was organized in the nation of Nigeria a stake of Zion whose officers and members are all native Africans. These people are able and faithful. They carry in their hearts a love for the Lord. They walk in obedience to the commandments. They honor and magnify the priesthood that they rightfully hold, having been called of God by prophecy, and the laying of hands by those in authority. This is but the beginning of greater things to come as the truth of the restored gospel covers the earth as the waters cover the mighty deep.
Each of us has a small field to cultivate. While so doing, we must never lose sight of the greater picture, the large composite of the divine destiny of this work. It was given us by God our Eternal Father, and each of us has a part to play in the weaving of its magnificent tapestry. Our individual contribution may be small, but it is not unimportant.
Unless the world alters the course of its present trends (and that is not likely); and if, on the other hand, we continue to follow the teachings of the prophets, we shall increasingly become a peculiar and distinctive people of whom the world will take note. For instance, as the integrity of the family crumbles under worldly pressures, our position on the sanctity of the family will become more obvious and even more peculiar in contrast, if we have the faith to maintain that position.
We live in a society that feeds on criticism. Faultfinding is the substance of columnists and commentators, and there is too much of this among our own people. It is so easy to find fault, and to resist doing so requires much of discipline. But if as a people we will build and sustain one another, the Lord will bless us with the strength to weather every storm and continue to move forward through every adversity.
There needs to be a new emphasis on honesty, character, and integrity in our time. Only as we build again into the fiber of our lives the virtues that are the essence of true civilization will the pattern of our times change.
How do we know the things of the Spirit? How do we know that it is from God? By the fruits of it. If it leads to growth and development, if it leads to faith and testimony, if it leads to a better way of doing things, if it leads to godliness, then it is of God. If it tears us down, if it brings us into darkness, if it confuses us and worries us, if it leads to faithlessness, then it is of the devil.
You recognize the promptings of the Spirit by the fruits of the Spirit—that which enlighteneth, that which buildeth up, that which is positive and affirmative and uplifting and leads us to better thoughts and better words and better deeds is of the Spirit of God. That which tears down, which leads us into forbidden paths—that is of the adversary. I think it is just that plain, just that simple.
A scholar once expressed the view that the Church is an enemy of intellectualism. If he meant by intellectualism that branch of philosophy which teaches “the doctrine that knowledge is wholly or chiefly derived from pure reason” and “that reason is the final principle of reality,” then, yes, we are opposed to so narrow an interpretation as applicable to religion. Such an interpretation excludes the power of the Holy Spirit in speaking to and through [us].
Of course we believe in the cultivation of the mind, but the intellect is not the only source of knowledge. There is a promise, given under inspiration from the Almighty, set forth in these beautiful words: “God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost.”
The things of God are understood by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is real. To those who have experienced its workings, the knowledge so gained is as real as that which is acquired through the operation of the five senses.
If we are a temple-going people, we will be a better people, we will be better fathers and husbands, we will be better wives and mothers. I know your lives are busy. I know that you have much to do. But I make you a promise that if you will go to the house of the Lord, you will be blessed, life will be better for you.”
All of our vast family history endeavor is directed to temple work. There is no other purpose for it.
I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor can he consider himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church of Christ.
There cannot be peace where there is not trust; there cannot be freedom where there is not loyalty.
No family can have peace, no life can be free from the storms of adversity unless that family and that home are built on foundations of morality, fidelity, and mutual respect.
Marriage is ordained of God, marriage between a man and a woman. It is the institution under which He designed that children should come into the world. Sexual relationships under any other circumstances become transgression and are totally at odds with the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There is nothing in all this world as magnificent as virtue. It glows without tarnish. It is precious and beautiful. It is above price. It cannot be bought or sold. It is the fruit of self-mastery.
… I speak of pornography in all of its manifestations. … It is devilish. It is totally inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, with personal testimony of the things of God. … … All who are involved become victims. Children are exploited, and their lives are severely damaged. The minds of youth become warped with false concepts. Continued exposure leads to addiction that is almost impossible to break. … So very many … find they cannot leave it alone. Their energies and their interests are consumed in their dead-end pursuit of this raw and sleazy fare.
Suppose a storm is raging and the winds howl and the snow swirls about you. You find yourself unable to stop it. But you can dress properly and seek shelter, and the storm will have no effect upon you.
You live in a world of terrible temptations. Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. It will tear you down and pull you into a slough of evil thoughts and possibly of evil actions. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly. Be virtuous in thought and in deed.
Mental control must be stronger than physical appetites or desires of the flesh. As thoughts are brought into complete harmony with revealed truth, actions will then become appropriate.
It is so important that you young men and you young women get all of the education that you can. The Lord has said very plainly that His people are to gain knowledge of countries and kingdoms and of things of the world through the process of education, even by study and by faith. Education is the key which will unlock the door of opportunity for you. It is worth sacrificing for. It is worth working at, and if you educate your mind and your hands, you will be able to make a great contribution to the society of which you are a part, and you will be able to reflect honorably on the Church of which you are a member. My dear young brothers and sisters, take advantage of every educational opportunity that you can possibly afford, and you fathers and mothers, encourage your sons and daughters to gain an education which will bless their lives.
The fact that one’s skin may be of a slightly different color, that one’s eyes may have a slightly different set, that one may wear a different type of clothing does not in any sense make of him or her a different kind of individual.
I think the Lord expects us to think...that which comes easily departs easily. That which comes of struggle remains.
We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention.
Ignorance is expensive; in fact, it is the most expensive commodity we know anything about. Certainly we make many mistakes through ignorance. If it is a violation of a commandment of God which we have never received and thus do not know, then the Lord does not hold us guilty of the sin. ??to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.? (James 4:17.) And in Paul?s words, ??where no law is, there is no transgression.?(Rom. 4:15.)But even though we may not be guilty of the sin because of our ignorance, neither can we receive the blessing, which is predicated on obedience, without rendering obedience to that law. Therefore, we are denied the blessing through our ignorance. If it is a traffic law we have violated through ignorance, the penalty assessed us is exactly the same as if we had known. Also, if we stick a finger in an electric light socket, we will receive the same shock, irrespective of our knowledge of electricity. I repeat, ignorance is expensive. Particularly is this true since the Lord has decreed, ?It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.? (D&C 131:6.) For surely no man is truly enlightened unless he knows the Lord.
As I kneeled down, my petition was, “What kind of an organization should be set up in order to accomplish what the Presidency has assigned?” And there came to me on that glorious morning one of the most heavenly realizations of the power of the priesthood of God. It was as though something were saying to me, “There is no new organization necessary to take care of the needs of this people. All that is necessary is to put the priesthood of God to work. There is nothing else that you need as a substitute.”
Most men do not set priorities to guide them in allocating their time and most men forget that the first priority should be to maintain their own spiritual and physical strength; then comes their family; then the church; and then their professions.
From this it is plain that we are not called to preach the philosophies of men mingled with scripture or our own ideas or the mysteries of the kingdom, nor are we called to bring forth new doctrine. The president of the Church will do that. But we are to stick to the basic fundamental principles of the gospel.
Talk about possibilities versus probabilities. That can help them calm their worries.
I think our tendency when our kids are suffering is to go easy on them and give them whatever we think they need, but what they really need is consistency so they can feel safe. Rules are a form of love. And in the world where there’s chaos and everything feels out of control for a little kid, setting those expectations and ensuring that they can consistently rely on you for rules and consequences is important.
As mothers one of our big go-to’s when it comes to shame is “I’m not a good mom.” And we need to back off that a little bit. We all have emotions. We’re all going to feel things. We all have agency. But how do we respond? Understand that your children are going to learn from these experiences. We don’t have to “own it” ourselves or think, “I’m a bad parent because they’re depressed” or “I’m a bad parent because they’re anxious.” Back off of that and say, “Okay, so what are we going to do with that?”
You are sent out as shepherds to gather the sheep together; and remember that they are not your sheep: they belong to HIM that sends you. Then do not make a choice of any of those sheep; do not make selections before they are brought home and put into the fold.
It is not for the clay to dictate the potter but the potter dictates the clay, and moulds and fashions it according to his own pleasure…I am in the hands of the potter; and if I continue faithful, he will make me a vessel unto honor.
A testimony is not an exhortation; a testimony is not a sermon; none of you are here to exhort the rest. You are here to bear your own witness.
We think we are secure here in the chambers of the everlasting hills, where we can close those few doors of the canyons against mobs and persecutors, the wicked and the vile, who have always beset us ..., but I want to say to you, my brethren, the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy to the people of God. Then, brethren, look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall; so I say unto you there is a test, a test, a TEST coming, and who will be able to stand?
Let me say to you, that many of you will see the time when you will have all the trouble, trial and persecution that you can stand, and plenty of opportunities to show that you are true to God and his work. This Church has before it many close places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with victory. To meet the difficulties that are coming, it will be necessary for you to have a knowledge of the truth of this work for yourselves. The difficulties will be of such a character that the man or woman who does not possess this personal knowledge or witness will fall. If you have not got the testimony, live right and call upon the Lord and cease not until you obtain it. If you do not you will not stand.
The time will come when no man or woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within himself. If you do not have it, how can you stand?
Well, let me tell you, the Holy Ghost is a man; he is one of the sons of our Father and our God; and he is that man that stood next to Jesus Christ, just as I stand by brother Brigham.
Preaching and talking mean but very little unless our lives are lived in perfect harmony with our teachings.
Let every man feel that he is the architect and builder of his own life, and that he proposes to make a success of it by working.
We owe our families the kind of relationship we can take into the presence of God. We must try not to give offense or take offense. We can determine to forgive quickly and fully. We can try to seek the happiness of others above our own. We can be kind in our speech. As we try to do all these things, we will invite the Holy Ghost into our families and into our lives.
Think carefully about whether the truth you received requires action. It is by obedience to commandments that we qualify for further revelation of truth and light.
He seemed to take particular notice of people who were overlooked and even shunned by society, so we should try to do that too.
Those of you further down the road are smiling because you know something about priesthood service. It is this: the more faithful service you give, the more the Lord asks you. Your smile is a happy one because you know that He increases our power to carry the heavier load. The tough part of that reality, however is that for him to give you that increased power you must go in service to and faith to your outer limits. It is like building muscle strength. You must break down your muscles to build them up. You push muscles to the point of exhaustion. Then they repair themselves, and they develop greater strength.
Increased spritual strength is a gift from God which He can give when we push in His service to our limits. Through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our natures can be changed. Then our power to carry burdens can be increased more than enough to compensate for the increased service we will be asked to give. That helps me understand when I see someone else who makes priesthood service look easy. I know that they have either passed hard tests or that the tests lie ahead. So rather than envying them, I stand ready to help when the going gets harder for them, because it surely will.
When those feelings of inadequacy strike us, it is the time to remember the Savior. He assures us that we don't do this work alone. There are scriptures to put on your mirror and to remember in the moments when you are doubting your capacity.
We can expect in our service to have help sent to us at the right time who will see strength in us and lift us up. And we can look forward to being the one sent by the Lord to encourage another.
If he doesn’t ask the right questions, I give answers to questions he should have asked.
The role of technology in this work has been accelerated by the Lord himself, who has had a guiding hand in its development and will continue to do so. However, we stand only on the threshold of what we can do with these tools. I feel that our most enthusiastic projections can capture only a tiny glimpse of how these tools can help us—and of the eternal consequences of these efforts.
We ought to have a Church full of women and men who know the scriptures thoroughly, who cross-reference and mark them, who develop lessons and talks from the Topical Guide, and who have mastered the maps, the Bible Dictionary, and the other helps that are contained in this wonderful set of standard works.
Let us share with our children the spiritual feelings we have in the temple. And let us teach them more earnestly and more comfortably the things we can appropriately say about the purposes of the house of the Lord.
Let us prepare every missionary to go to the temple worthily and to make that experience an even greater highlight than receiving the mission call.
In recent years we have begun using information technology to hasten the sacred work of providing ordinances for the deceased. The role of technology in this work has been accelerated by the Lord himself, who has had a guiding hand in its development and will continue to do so. However, we stand only on the threshold of what we can do with these tools. I feel that our most enthusiastic projections can capture only a tiny glimpse of how these tools can help us—and of the eternal consequences of these efforts.
The Church has an interest in all of Abraham’s descendants, and we should remember that the history of the Arabs goes back to Abraham through his son Ishmael.
Both the Jews and the Arabs are children of our Father. They are both children of promise, and as a church we do not take sides. We have love for and an interest in each.
I am impressed with the testimony of a man who can stand and say he knows the gospel is true. But what I would like to ask is ‘But, sir, do you know the gospel?’… Mere testimony can be gained with but [superficial] knowledge of the Church and its teachings…But to retain a testimony, to be of service in building the Lord’s kingdom, requires a serious study of the gospel and knowing what it is
I think of all the people in the world we should be the happiest. We have the greatest and most joyous message in the world. I think when we get on the other side, someone will meet us with a smile (unless we go to the wrong place and then someone will grin), so let us be happy. But let our happiness be genuine - let it come from within."
But exactly what are the things of the world? An easy and infallible test has been given us in the well-known maxim "You can have anything in this world for money." If a thing is of this world, you can have it for money; if you cannot have it for money, it does not belong to this world.
The great battles of this world often are not fought on the front lines but in the general?s tent, where tears are shed as difficult decisions are made that mean the expenditure of lives and equipment. Still, those battles must be fought...Make those decisions now...so that when you are on the battlefield all of the tough decisions will have already been made.?
The great battles of this world often are not fought on the front lines but in the general?s tent, where tears are shed as difficult decisions are made that mean the expenditure of lives and equipment. Still, those battles must be fought...Make those decisions now...so that when you are on the battlefield all of the tough decisions will have already been made.
Maybe all hell breaks loose every time the kingdom is poised to take a giant step forward.
Rather than framing today’s controversies as reason to question the soundness of Zion, we can view them as signs that Satan is doing his best to stir up doubt and division in anticipation of the kingdom taking a giant step forward.
We should not sit at home waiting for someone else to cause us to feel more included or valued. Instead we remember we are invited to come to and participate fully in church by the Savior Himself.
"The growth of the LDS church, other than from natural births, comes from people of color: Asians, Africans, and Latinos," said Garcia. "One day, this will be a church for people of color. And once the tipping point arrives, it will be a freefall."
Fundamental to temple worship is the principle that ‘God is no respecter of persons’ (Acts 10:34). Within the hallowed walls of the temples, there is no preference of position, wealth, status, race, or education. All dress in white. All receive the same instruction. All make the same covenants and promises. All receive the same transcendent, eternal blessings if they live worthy to claim them. All are equal before their Creator.
What is discipleship? It is primarily obedience to the Savior. Discipleship includes many things. It is chastity. It is tithing. It is family home evening. It is keeping all the commandments. It is forsaking anything that is not good for us. Everything in life has a price. Considering the Savior’s great promise for peace in this life and eternal life in the life to come, discipleship is a price worth paying. It is a price we cannot afford not to pay. By measure, the requirements of discipleship are much, much less than the promised blessings.
We must recognize that our natural gifts and abilities are limited, but when augmented by inspiration and guidance of The Holy Ghost, our potential increases manyfold. You need help from a power beyond your own to do something extraordinarily useful. You young men can have opportunities and receive blessings beyond your wildest dreams and expectations. Your future may not hold fame or fortune, but it can be something far more lasting and fulfilling. Remember that what we do in life echoes in eternity.
Miracles cannot be in contravention of natural law, but are wrought through the operation of laws not universally or commonly recognized.
The word variety is not found in the standard works; the word is reserved for our most sacred houses of worship. We learn there that the Creator glories in variety. This little detail speaks volumes. It practically opens up a whole new subclass of theology. It takes God from the realm where nothing is authorized except strict adherence to narrow and unyielding law, to a realm where anything good and beautiful is possible and permissible. I like to think, for example, that the Creator had an infinite variety of possible choices in how to fashion, say, the lilies of the field. Innumerable choices were sufficiently good and righteous. He simply chose how to form the lily according to what gave him joy. Having a perfect command of all eternal laws and possessing an infinite creativity, his palette was endless. Goodness and beauty was the only requirement. And looking at slugs and grubs and houseflies it’s obvious God’s idea of beauty is infinitely more expansive than mine. This idea of creative process makes perfect sense when we observe the universe around us - every planet, star, and galaxy have some eternal law in common, yet all are different in form and all possess their own distinctive beauty.
We should do all in our power to increase our gifts that we might receive even more.
The combination of a simple gospel truth with an appealing melody is one of the greatest teachers we will ever have.
There is a lesson in the Prophet Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision that virtually everyone in this audience has had occasion to experience, or one day soon will. It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.
Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.
Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed. While God is at work making those repairs, the rest of us can help by being merciful, nonjudgmental, and kind.
It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.
At the zenith of His mortal ministry, Jesus said, "Love one another, as I have loved you." To make certain they understood exactly what kind of love that was, He said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" and “whosoever ... shall break one of [the] least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be ... the least in the kingdom of heaven."
Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others.
Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don’t rock the boat but don’t even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick marigolds.
Fatigue is the common enemy of us all--so slow down, rest up, replenish, and refill. Physicians promise us that if we do not take the time to be well, we most assuredly will take time, later on, to be ill.
In the most difficult and discouraging days of World War II, Winston Churchill said to the people of England: "To every man there comes...that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to him and fitted to his talent. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour."
I have learned that there is a time and place for all emotions, but that as humans we must learn when to express them or control them as part of facing the consequences of how we use our agency.
Exercising kindness doesn’t just benefit the people closest to you, it changes you. It will open your eyes to your own negative behavior that may be hurting the very relationships you’re wanting to heal.
Kindness is so effective because it is rooted in strength, not weakness. Kindness enables us to speak the truth in love; to proclaim truth boldly, yet with grace; and to stand against injustice instead of remaining silent.
Watch for the right time and season, show gratitude for your gifts by magnifying and using them with pure intentions with an eye single to the glory of God and He will bless your efforts.
“When someone asks me about it and what it means, I quietly say—‘Mormon means more good.’ (The Prophet Joseph Smith first said this in 1843; see Times and Seasons, 4:194; Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 299–300.). . . When I have seen the word Mormon used in the media to describe us—in a newspaper or a magazine or book or whatever—there flashes into my mind his statement, which has become my motto: Mormon means “more good.”
I have the feeling … that those who give themselves with all their might and main to this work receive help from the other side, and not merely in gathering genealogies. Whoever seeks to help those on the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life...
There has been endless speaking and writing about ultimate or final truth. It may as well be admitted at once, and without reservation, that mortal man, gathering knowledge through imperfect senses—his only avenues to truth—must remain content, in many fields of endeavor, with partial truth … Nevertheless, the knowledge gained by the bare eye, or by the aid of instruments, reveals truth—partial but glorious truth, fit to stand by the side of all other truth.
The seen and the unseen worlds are closely connected. One assists the other. Those who fail to partake of the privileges and blessings of temple work deprive themselves of some of the choicest gifts within the keeping of the church.
...those who give themselves with all their might and main to this work receive help from the other side, and not merely in gathering genealogies. Whoever seeks to help those on the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life.
If he will leave his problems behind and in the temple work for himself and for his dead, he will confer a mighty blessing upon those who have gone before, and quite as large a blessing will come to him, for at the most unexpected moments, in or out of the temple will come to him, as a revelation, the solution of the problems that vex his life. That is the gift that comes to those who enter the temple properly, because it is a place where revelations may be expected.
It took some time to make them understand that a good teacher does such work as to enable his students to pass, with ordinary diligence.
God is a person, of form and dimension. Therefore, He cannot, personally, be everywhere present at the same time. But, from His abode issues an influence, filling all space, and permeating every created thing, animate and inanimate. This influence or medium is called the Holy Spirit. It is not to be confused with the Holy Ghost, the third member of the Godhead. Through the Holy Spirit messages are conveyed to the Father to every creature, and from every creature to the Father. It is the means by which all of God’s creations are ever before His eyes and under His control. It is the means of man’s constant access to his Father.
Faith is the first principle of revealed religion. It is a form of knowledge.
The facts of experience, called knowledge, usually pertain to the visible world around us. When we venture into the unseen world, by the use of our subtler faculties, the knowledge thus gained is usually spoken of as faith. Paul made the distinction clear in his famous definition: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith then becomes knowledge of a certain kind, won in a certain way. It makes known that which was formerly unknown. When the work of faith is finished, all will be known.
Paul’s definition makes faith also a moving force. There can be no faith unless we venture out to discover the “substance hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It implies that we must seek faith for ourselves, or it will not have value, or come to stay. Faith is a product of individual action. Like all other good things, it is a reward of self-effort. It must be found by oneself. It cannot be borrowed or stolen from another ... The more faith is examined, the more it becomes an active, prayer[ful], hopeful force, that drives us, without doubt, to an active search for truth. It is a universal principle that leads to human progress.
Faith or its equivalent is the first principle in every human pursuit. Every onward step implies faith. The scientist in his laboratory performs his experiment with the assurance that something will be learned from it. Newton made his calculations that gave us the law of gravitation, with the assurance that, by so doing, he would learn more than he knew about planetary and stellar worlds. Every inventor, builder, artist, or statesman employs faith in his toil. Therefore, we have our great, advancing civilization.
Without faith we not only do not increase, we may decrease. The business man unable to visualize the probable results of his work becomes a mere blunderer. Or the one without confidence in his venture, becomes harassed with fear. Without faith, the chemist would not fill his test tube, the astronomer would not look through his telescope, the business man would not replenish his stock, the painter would leave his brush on the palette. All would stagnate. Success does not wait on blunderers or fearful ones. The fruits of faith are confidence, courage, certainty, progress—all vital elements of success.
The supremacy of faith in all human affairs is universally recognized. Faith is understood to be the first guiding principle of life, the motive power of achievement. Whether in science, business, the professions and the arts, or in religion, faith is the basic principle of action. The entrance into the house of truth is the same, whether it be the cottage of science or the palace of religion.
We understand in part the things of earth; when we see things as God sees them, we shall then understand the philosophy of the heavens: the mysteries of eternity will be unfolded and the operations of mind, matter, spirit, purposes and designs, causes and effects and all the stupendous operations of God will be developed and they will be found to accord with the strictest principles of philosophy, even the philosophy of the heavens...
It is true intelligence for a man to take a subject that is mysterious and great in itself, and to unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it.
You will see the day that Zion will be as far ahead of the outside world in everything pertaining to learning of every kind as we are today in regard to religious matters. You mark my words, and write them down, and see if they do not come to pass.
We see many signs of weakness which we lament, and we would to God that our rulers would be men of righteousness, and that those who aspire to position would be guided by honorable feelings to maintain inviolate the Constitution and operate in the interest, happiness, well-being, and protection of the whole community. But we see signs of weakness and vacillation. We see a policy being introduced to listen to the clamor of mobs and of unprincipled men who know not of what they speak, nor whereof they affirm, and when men begin to tear away with impunity one plank after another from our Constitution by and by we shall find that we are struggling with the wreck and ruin of the system which the forefathers of this nation sought to establish in the interests of humanity. But it is for us still to sustain these glorious principles of liberty bequeathed by the founders of this nation, still to rally round the flag of the Union, still to maintain all correct principles, granting the utmost extent of liberty to all people of all grades and of all nations.
God is light and in him there is no darkness. He is the light of the sun and the power thereof by which it was made; he is also the light of the moon and the power by which it was made; he is the light of the stars and the power by which it was made. He [God] says it is the same light that enlightens the understanding of men. What, have we a mental light and a visual light, all proceeding from the same source? Yes, so says the scripture, and so says science when rightly comprehended.
Too often we, as members, try to jump ahead before we establish relationships. And. while sometimes an approach to a complete stranger yields success, most often it strains a new relationship, rings disingenuous, or creates awkwardness that actually sets back our efforts.
Eager to share what we hold dear, we often race to do so before we’ve established genuine friendship and trust. Instead, we should simply be friends of the highest order: People who step up and help, neighbors who exemplify Christian compassion. We can make huge spiritual strides with temporal service. As we serve, we love our neighbors more and they sense it.
Sometimes it takes years to prepare the soil for a seed to take root and grow. God knows how best to lay the groundwork, and if we follow His promptings we will not find ourselves nervously jumping ahead, or shamefully hanging back.
I was given the reminder that what happens before and after the council is actually as important as what happens in the council.
Priciple for Answers to Prayer... (1) Show Faith Through Works: "The legendary football coach Knute Rockne implied the same principle when he said, I've found that prayers work best when you have big players.' (2) Stop Worrying: "When we worry about the future, we create unhappiness in the present." Instead, we should do all we can and "leave the worrying to your Heavenly Father". (3) Do Good: "As we do good, the Lord can bless our efforts. As our actions contradict our professions of faith, our prayers become weak. When we do good, the Lord can work though us and magnify our efforts." (4) Delight in the Lord: Instead of displaying concern about unanswered prayers, be grateful and happy. "Know that the Lord, in his time, will bring about all your righteous desires, sometimes in ways we predict, others in ways we could not have possibly foreseen." (5) Commit to keeping the Lord's commandments. (6) Wait: "The Lord has his own timetable and, although it may frustrate us, his timing is always perfect,"
When we go into debt, we give away some of our precious, priceless agency and place ourselves in self-imposed servitude. We obligate our time, energy, and means to repay what we have borrowed - resources that could have been used to help ourselves, our families, and others...
In revelation both ancient and modern, the Lord refers to his own words as being “sharper than a two edged sword.” In modern vernacular, much that he said is “politically incorrect.” It is judgmental, divisive, rigid, closed-minded, and all too often just plain embarrassing.
In many of our instructional meetings, the teaching of ethics prevails over the teaching of doctrine simply to avoid giving offense or to avoid disagreement.
Everyone is pleased to speak of God’s love; rare are the mentions of his wrath or displeasure.
You may be interested to know that the word “tolerance” traces back to merry old England at a time when they were experimenting with drugs and poison. The idea was to see how much they could administer to a person without killing him. Your level of “tolerance” was measured by the amount of poison you could endure before it killed you.
When I was a young man, tolerance meant that we treated those with whom we disagreed with civility. It did not mean that we were obligated to accept their point of view. To many of the young people in my classes today, it means that we are to be non-judgmental, holding all men and all ideas to be equal and that it is morally wrong to say that something is morally wrong.
It is not an unusual thing to have students cover willful disobedience in the blanket of God’s love and to advance the idea of a universal salvation that sounds dangerously like that advocated by Lucifer in the councils of heaven.
People like to equate tolerance with Christ-like behavior, which is in many ways a rather awkward fit. My assumption is that you too have noticed that the appeal for Christ-like behavior generally comes from people who have no meaningful
It was Isaiah who said that the Christ would come as “a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence” (Isaiah 8:14). The only way we can square the Jesus of the New Testament with the political correctness of our day (our modern version of tolerance) is to suppose that God is no longer offended by vulgarity, profanity, or immorality.
We seek to treat all that we meet on the path of life with dignity and respect and heartily join hands with all whose lives are founded on the principles of love and kindness. We esteem their religious rights as sacred, as our own, and are their allies in the defense of the same. As to enemies, we did not choose them, they have chosen us. We have always had them and we always will. Where we cannot befriend them we choose to live above them.
As to how we as Latter-day Saints view those not of our faith and as to how we determine who in this world is “Christian” and who is not, may I suggest that though many in the Christian world are anxious to draw a circle and exclude us, we choose to draw a very large and inclusive circle. We will pray with any man who is willing to do so. Our bookstores do not contain anti-anybody literature, we do not attack those of other faiths in our missionary lesson plan, nor do we do so in our church services or in any class sponsored by the Church. We do not give out warnings against those of other faiths nor do we ever forbid our membership from listening to or talking to anyone they desire.
We take it as an article of faith that “there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (D&C 123:12). So it is that we have, or yet will send missionaries to those of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.
Joseph Smith told his story at the peril of his life. We tell it at the peril of social acceptance; surely we can stand that tall. We are not insensitive to the fact that the declaration of the one true church doctrine can generate resistance and that it may be accompanied by observations to the effect that we are unchristian, narrow and bigoted.
Suppose schools were operated on that philosophy, with each discipline a separate path leading to the same diploma. No matter whether you study or not, pass the tests or not, all would be given the same diploma — the one of their choice. Without qualifying, one could choose the diploma of an attorney, an engineer, a medical doctor. Surely you would not submit yourself to surgery under the hands of a graduate of that kind of school! But it does not work that way. It cannot work that way — not in education, not in spiritual matters. There are essential ordinances just as there are required courses. There are prescribed standards of worthiness. If we resist them, avoid them, or fail them, we will not enter in with those who complete the course.
Knowing that laws govern all that we do in this temporal world, can we not suppose that laws in like manner govern all that happens in the eternal world? Can there be existence of any kind if there are no laws? And if such laws exist, can we suppose that we may lay claim to the blessings of heaven while we disregard the laws of heaven?
Let us consider why the “one true church” doctrine is so offensive to some. If we start with the premise, as the traditional Christian world does, that God is incomprehensible — that no one can know anything about him with certainty — then you can be tolerant with all manner of views about God irrespective of how ridiculous they may be. The only view that you could not tolerate would be one of certainty.
Are not the creeds spoken of in the First Vision simply a refill of the same prescription that killed the church in the meridian of time?
If we are concerned about not offending the world, the first thing we ought to do is to reject the Book of Mormon. Can you imagine a book telling someone who believed in infant baptism that they are “in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity,” that they have neither “faith, hope, nor charity,” and that they ought to be cast down to hell for the very thought? (Mormon 8:14).
The Book of Mormon is uncompromising where breaking the laws of God are concerned. It teaches that the effects of sin are eternal and that the laws of God are absolute.
You can say what you want by way of criticism about the Book of Mormon. Give it whatever grade you think it deserves, but what you cannot say is that it lacks for plainness or that you cannot quite figure out where it stands relative to Christ and his gospel. On such matters it is plain, clear, and bold; its writers had no intention of being misunderstood.
...it is philosophically impossible to reject truth without accepting error, to shut out the light without being immersed in darkness, to reject true teachers without cleaving to false ones, to reject the true Christ and his prophets without giving allegiance to those who follow another Master.
As a mission president I discovered that the way we present our message has a good deal to do with who accepts it and how deeply their roots are anchored in the soil of the gospel. On this matter some things are obvious. For instance, it would be no great surprise to you that shallow missionaries get shallow converts. In like manner, I do not think you would be surprised to learn that the more direct we are the more successful we are.
That’s our message: “Ask God.” The way we answer questions about our faith ought to be by finding the quickest and most direct route to the Sacred Grove.
Perhaps we need to rethink the idea of seeking common ground with those we desire to teach. Every likeness we identify leaves them with one less reason to join the Church. When we cease to be different we cease to be. The commandment to flee Babylon has not been revoked, nor has it been amended to suggest that we seek an intellectual marriage with those not of our faith. The fruit of such a marriage will always be outside the covenant.
True it is that there are those who think it quite “unchristian” of Latter day Saints to suggest they cannot be saved in their errant doctrines. Yet it is the same people who hold the gates of heaven open to all who profess Christ except us. Why, we might ask is it that virtually all testimonies of Christ are acceptable in their heaven save ours? And why is it that we are labeled unchristian for not accepting them while their rejection of us is the proof they offer that they are Christian? Let it not be lost on you that it is their creeds that require them to respond in this manner.
To the early missionaries of this dispensation the Lord said, “Preach my gospel which ye have received, even as ye have received it” (D&C 49:2). There is no suggestion here that they cover it with honey or put ribbons on it. A few months later the Lord said, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself” (D&C 1:38). The Lord has never commissioned anyone to make excuses for him, he has simply asked us to trust him.
The plain fact of the matter is that you cannot build strong testimonies out of weak doctrine.
It is an important fact, shown by direct acts and by implication in all the scriptures, that God has done for men all that men cannot do for themselves to secure salvation, but he expects men to do all for themselves that is in their power. In accordance with this principle, it is contrary to the order of heaven instituted before the foundation of the earth, for holy messengers who have passed through the resurrection, or messengers who belong to the heavenly sphere, to come to earth and perform work for men which they can do for themselves.
I maintain that had there been no restoration of the gospel, and no organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there would have been no radio; there would have been no airplane, and there would not have been the wonderful discoveries in medicine, chemistry, electricity, and the many other things wherein the world has been benefited by such discoveries. Under such conditions these blessings would have been withheld, for they belong to the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times of which the restoration of the gospel and the organization of the Church constitute a central point, from which radiates the Spirit of the Lord throughout the world.
It doesn't matter whether your computer is able to compile all the family group sheets for everyone that ever lived on the earth, it remains the responsibility of each individual to know his kindred dead... Even if the work is done, then it is still each person's responsibility to study and become acquainted with his ancestors.
The Holy Ghost is not a personage with a body of flesh and bones, and in this respect differs from the Father and the Son. The Holy Ghost is not a woman, as some have declared, and therefore is not the mother of Jesus Christ.
The message of the Restoration centers in the idea that it is not common ground we seek in sharing the gospel. There is nothing common about our message. The way we answer questions about our faith ought to be by finding the quickest and most direct route to the Sacred Grove.
Our first enemy we will find within ourselves…
If a man and woman should be joined together who are incompatible to each other it would be a mercy to them to be separated that they might have a chance to find other spirits that will be congenial to them. We may bind on earth and it will be bound in Heaven, and loose on earth and it will be loosed in Heaven.
When messengers are sent to minister to the inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from the ranks of our kindred, friends, and fellow-beings and fellow-servants...In like manner our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.
I believe in the Constitution of the United States. I believe in the principles which that instrument promulgatesthe freedom of mankind to do right, to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, freedom to pursue their way in peace and to observe and maintain their rights, their freedom, their liberties, and justly recognize and equally preserve and defend their rights, freedom and liberty of their neighbors and of their fellow beingsand of all God’s creatures. I believe that the Constitution of the United States was and still is an inspired instrument. The Lord God Almighty inspired the minds that framed it, and I believe it ought to be most sacredly preserved. It is worthy of the defense and should be upheld by all the people of our land.
There is a difference between the love we should bear towards our enemies and that we should bear towards our friends.
But we do not love to associate with our enemies, and I do not think the Lord requires us to do it. If He does He will have to reveal it, for I cannot find it anywhere revealed.
I do not love them so that I would take them into my bosom, or invite them to associate with my family, or that I would give my daughters to their embraces, nor my sons to their counsels. I do not love them so well that I would invite them to the councils of the Priesthood, and the ordinances of the House of God, to scoff and jeer at sacred things which they do not understand, nor would I share with them the inheritance that God, my Father, has given me in Zion.
Jesus had not finished his work when his body was slain, neither did he finish it after his resurrection from the dead; although he had accomplished the purpose for which he then came to the earth, he had not fulfilled all his work. And when will he? Not until he has redeemed and saved every son and daughter of our father Adam that have been or ever will be born upon this earth to the end of time, except the sons of perdition. That is his mission. We will not finish our work until we have saved ourselves, and then not until we shall have saved all depending upon us; for we are to become saviors upon Mount Zion, as well as Christ. We are called to this mission.
It is true we are all engaged in a warfare, and all of us should be valiant warriors in the cause in which we are engaged. Our first enemy we will find within ourselves. It is a good thing to overcome that enemy first and bring ourselves into subjection to the will of the Father, and into strict obedience to the principles of life and salvation which he has given to the world for the salvation of men. When we shall have conquered ourselves, it will be well for us to wage our war without, against false teachings, false doctrines, false customs, habits and ways, against error, unbelief, the follies of the world that are so prevalent, and against infidelity, and false science, under the name of science, and every other thing that strikes at the foundations of the principles set forth in the doctrine of Christ for the redemption of men and the salvation of their souls. We should war against covetousness, against pride, vanity, haughtiness of spirit, against self-sufficiency, and imagined or supposed almighty power that some people think they possess. God is the greatest man of war of all, and His Son is next unto Him, and their warfare is for the salvation of the souls of men.
Salvation means a man's being placed beyond the power of all his enemies.
Here then is eternal life - to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.
John Taylor, the third President of the Church, reported: “Some years ago, in Nauvoo, a gentleman in my hearing, a member of the Legislature, asked Joseph Smith how it was that he was enabled to govern so many people, and to preserve such perfect order; remarking at the same time that it was impossible for them to do it anywhere else. Mr. Smith remarked that it was very easy to do that. ‘How?’ responded the gentleman; ‘to us it is very difficult.’ Mr. Smith replied, ‘I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.’
It is necessary for us to have an understanding of God himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong we may go wrong, and it will be a hard matter to get right.
There are but a very few beings in the world who understand rightly the character of God. The great majority of mankind do not comprehend anything, either that which is past, or that which is to come, as it respects their relationship to God. They do not know, neither do they understand the nature of that relationship; and consequently they know but little above the brute beast, or more than to eat, drink and sleep.
If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.
What kind of being is God? Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen Him, heard Him, or communed with Him? Here is the question that will, peradventure, from this time henceforth occupy your attention. The scriptures inform us that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3.) If any man does not know God, and inquires what kind of a being He is—if he will search diligently his own heart—if the declaration of Jesus and the apostles be true, he will realize that he has not eternal life; for there can be eternal life on no other principle.
I will prove that the world is wrong, by showing what God is. I am going to inquire after God; for I want you all to know Him, and to be familiar with Him;
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.
If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man;
Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.
We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.
It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did;
Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.
These are the first principles of consolation. How consoling to the mourners when they are called to part with a husband, wife, father, mother, child, or dear relative, to know that, although the earthly tabernacle is laid down and dissolved, they shall rise again to dwell in everlasting burnings in immortal glory, not to sorrow, suffer, or die any more, but they shall be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it? To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before.
What did Jesus do? Why, I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out His kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to My Father, so that He may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt Him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take His place, and thereby become exalted myself. So that Jesus treads in the tracks of His Father, and inherits what God did before; and God is thus glorified and exalted in the salvation and exaltation of all His children.
When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.
The head God called together the Gods and sat in grand council to bring forth the world. The grand councilors sat at the head in yonder heavens and contemplated the creation of the worlds which were created at the time.
Having a knowledge of God, we begin to know how to approach Him, and how to ask so as to receive an answer. When we understand the character of God, and know how to come to Him, he begins to unfold the heavens to us, and to tell us all about it. When we are ready to come to him, he is ready to come to us.
Now, I ask all who hear me, why the learned men who are preaching salvation, say that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing? The reason is, that they are unlearned in the things of God, and have not the gift of the Holy Ghost; they account it blasphemy in any one to contradict their idea. If you tell them that God made the world out of something, they will call you a fool. But I am learned, and know more than all the world put together. The Holy Ghost does, anyhow, and he is within me, and comprehends more than all the world; and I will associate myself with him.
You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing, and they will answer, “Doesn’t the Bible say he created the world?” And they infer, from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word baurau, which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time He had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end.
I have another subject to dwell upon, which is calculated to exalt man; but it is impossible for me to say much on this subject. I shall therefore just touch upon it, for time will not permit me to say all. It is associated with the subject of the resurrection of the dead—namely, the soul—the mind of man —the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better. Hear it, all ye ends of the world; for God has told me so;
We say that God Himself is a self-existing being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles.
The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal [co-eternal] with God himself.
The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal [co-eternal] with God himself. I know that my testimony is true; hence, when I talk to these mourners, what have they lost? Their relatives and friends are only separated from their bodies for a short season: their spirits which existed with God have left the tabernacle of clay only for a little moment, as it were; and they now exist in a place where they converse together the same as we do on the earth.
I am dwelling on the immortality of the spirit of man. Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it has a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-equal [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven.
All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the housetops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.
Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it.
The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself.
The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits.
When His commandments teach us, it is in view of eternity; for we are looked upon by God as though we were in eternity; God dwells in eternity, and does not view things as we do.
The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead. The apostle says, “They without us cannot be made perfect”; for it is necessary that the sealing power should be in our hands to seal our children and our dead for the fulness of the dispensation of times—a dispensation to meet the promises made by Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world for the salvation of man.
Knowledge saves a man; and in the world of spirits no man can be exalted but by knowledge.
So long as a man will not give heed to the commandments, he must abide without salvation.
If a man has knowledge, he can be saved; although, if he has been guilty of great sins, he will be punished for them. But when he consents to obey the gospel, whether here or in the world of spirits, he is saved.
A man is his own tormentor and his own condemner. Hence the saying, They shall go into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. The torment of disappointment in the mind is as exquisite as a lake burning with fire and brimstone. I say, so is the torment of man.
All will suffer until they obey Christ himself.
The contention in heaven was—Jesus said there would be certain souls that would not be saved; and the devil said he would save them all, and laid his plans before the grand council, who gave their vote in favor of Jesus Christ. So the devil rose up in rebellion against God, and was cast down, with all who put up their heads for him.
When a man begins to be an enemy to this work, he hunts me, he seeks to kill me, and never ceases to thirst for my blood. He gets the spirit of the devil—the same spirit that sins against the Holy Ghost. You cannot save such persons; you cannot bring them to repentance; they make open war, like the devil, and awful is the consequence.
I advise all of you to be careful what you do, or you may by-and-by find out that you have been deceived. Stay yourselves; do not give way; don’t make any hasty moves, you may be saved. If a spirit of bitterness is in you, don’t be in haste. You may say, that man is a sinner. Well, if he repents, he shall be forgiven. Be cautious: await.
The best men bring forth the best works.
What have we to console us in relation to the dead? We have reason to have the greatest hope and consolation for our dead of any people on the earth; for we have seen them walk worthily in our midst, and seen them sink asleep in the arms of Jesus; and those who have died in the faith are now in the celestial kingdom of God. And hence is the glory of the sun.
I have a father, brothers, children, and friends who have gone to a world of spirits. They are only absent for a moment. They are in the spirit, and we shall soon meet again. The time will soon arrive when the trumpet shall sound. When we depart, we shall hail our mothers, fathers, friends, and all whom we love, who have fallen asleep in Jesus. There will be no fear of mobs, persecutions, or malicious lawsuits and arrests; but it will be an eternity of felicity.
I have no enmity against any man. I love you all; but I hate some of your deeds. I am your best friend, and if persons miss their mark it is their own fault. If I reprove a man, and he hates me, he is a fool; for I love all men, especially these my brethren and sisters.
No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don’t blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself.
I cannot lie down until all my work is finished.
Elder Hyde inquired the situation of the negro. I replied, they came into the world slaves, mentally and physically. Change their situation with the whites, and they would be like them. They have souls, and are subjects of salvation. Go into Cincinnati or any city, and find an educated negro, who rides in his carriage, and you will see a man who has risen by the powers of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability. The slaves in Washington are more refined than many in high places, and the black boys will take the shine off many of those they brush and wait on.
Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor like other human beings;
It seems to me that my heart will always be more tender after this than ever it was before. … I think I never could have felt as I now do if I had not suffered.
It is in vain to try to hide a bad spirit from the eyes of them who are spiritual for it will shewe itself in speaking & in writing as well as all our other conduct, it is also useless to mak[e] great pretentions when the heart is not right before God, for God looks at the heart, and where the heart is not right the Lord will expose it to the view of his faithful saints.
I would not have suffered my name to have been used by my friends on anywise as President of the United States, or candidate for that office, if I and my friends could have had the privilege of enjoying our religious and civil rights as American citizens, even those rights which the Constitution guarantees unto all her citizens alike. But this as a people we have been denied from the beginning. Persecution has rolled upon our heads from time to time, from portions of the United States, like peals of thunder, because of our religion; and no portion of the Government as yet has stepped forward for our relief. And in view of these things, I feel it to be my right and privilege to obtain what influence and power I can, lawfully, in the United States, for the protection of injured innocence; and if I lose my life in a good cause I am willing to be sacrificed on the altar of virtue, righteousness and truth, in maintaining the laws and Constitution of the United States, if need be, for the general good of mankind.
The Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner; it is, to all those who are privileged with the sweets of liberty, like the cooling shades and refreshing waters of a great rock in a weary and thirsty land. It is like a great tree under whose branches men from every clime can be shielded from the burning rays of the sun.
A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth.
Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.
Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand and watch over them with tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what pow’r it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind.
God does not look on sin with allowance, but when men have sinned there must be allowance made for them.
All the religious world is boasting of righteousness— tis the doctrine of the devil to retard the human mind and retard our progress, by filling us with selfrighteousness
The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls— to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back.
I am going to talk to all this Society— if you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another.
Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.
Brethren and sisters, love one another; love one another and be merciful to your enemies.
It is a duty which every Saint ought to render to his brethren freely—to always love them, and ever succor them. To be justified before God we must love one another: we must overcome evil; we must visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and we must keep ourselves unspotted from the world; for such virtues flow from the great fountain of pure religion [see James 1:27].
[A member of the Church] is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all, wherever he finds them.
And if there are any among you who aspire after their own aggrandizement, and seek their own opulence, while their brethren are groaning in poverty, and are under sore trials and temptations, they cannot be benefited by the intercession of the Holy Spirit, which maketh intercession for us day and night with groanings that cannot be uttered [see Romans 8:26].
We ought at all times to be very careful that such high-mindedness shall never have place in our hearts; but condescend to men of low estate, and with all long-suffering bear the infirmities of the weak.
Eliza R. Snow reported an address given by the Prophet: “He then commenced reading the 13th chapter [of 1 Corinthians]—‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal;’ and said, don’t be limited in your views with regard to your neighbor’s virtue, but beware of self-righteousness, and be limited in the estimate of your own virtues, and not think yourselves more righteous than others; you must enlarge your souls towards each other, if you would do like Jesus, and carry your fellow-creatures to Abraham’s bosom. He said he had manifested long-suffering, forbearance and patience towards the Church, and also to his enemies; and we must bear with each other’s failings, as an indulgent parent bears with the foibles of his children.
… As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand, let them be enlarged towards others; you must be long-suffering, and bear with the faults and errors of mankind. How precious are the souls of men!
… Don’t envy the finery and fleeting show of sinners, for they are in a miserable situation; but as far as you can, have mercy on them, for in a short time God will destroy them, if they will not repent and turn unto him.
Wise men ought to have understanding enough to conquer men with kindness.
We should cultivate a meek, quiet and peaceable spirit.
… How oft have wise men and women sought to dictate Brother Joseph by saying, ‘Oh, if I were Brother Joseph, I would do this and that;’ but if they were in Brother Joseph’s shoes they would find that men or women could not be compelled into the kingdom of God, but must be dealt with in long-suffering, and at last we shall save them.
There is never a time when the spirit is too old to approach God. All are within the reach of pardoning mercy, who have not committed the unpardonable sin, which hath no forgiveness neither in this world, nor in the world to come.
Our nation, which possesses greater resources than any other, is rent, from center to circumference, with party strife, political intrigues, and sectional interest; our counselors are panic stricken, our legislators are astonished, and our senators are confounded, our merchants are paralyzed, our tradesmen are disheartened, our mechanics out of employ, our farmers distressed, and our poor crying for bread, our banks are broken, our credit ruined, and our states overwhelmed in debt, yet we are, and have been in peace...
(Words of James Burgess): In the month of May 1843, several miles east of Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Legion was on parade and review, at the close of which Joseph Smith made some remarks upon our condition as a people and upon our future prospects, contrasting our present condition with our past trials and persecutions by the hands of our enemies; also upon the Constitution and government of the United States, stating that the time would come when the Constitution and government would hang by a brittle thread and would be ready to fall into other hands, but the righteous people will step forth and save it. I, James Burgess, was present and testify to the above,
Could you gaze into heaven for 5 minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject.
He who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious, and the things of this earth shall be added to him, even a hundred fold, yea more.
I say to you that the price of liberty is and always has been blood, human blood, and if our liberties are lost, we shall never regain them except at the price of blood. They must not be lost!
As friends and family members, it is also important that each of us give honest, insightful feedback to our loved ones. We should never be stingy with our praise but always ready to convey sincere, heartfelt compliments—as well as honest, careful critiques.
Each of us has a responsibility to try to avoid problems before they happen and to learn to overcome challenges when they occur.
Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world's goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all.
I do not know when or why the restrictive practices against my people were adopted and carried out by the LDS Church, but I do know that the policy and practices were the Lord’s doing and not the autonomous or unilateral act of any man or men. I know this by faith in God and through personal revelation from the Holy Ghost. According to God’s wise and just purposes, He allowed the restrictions to be placed upon my people for the trial, growth, and benefit of all His children, especially my people and those of His church and kingdom on earth.
It is important to understand that natural laws were not determined on the basis of popularity. They were established and rest on the rock of reality.
This is what Mormons call “gospel art,” and they revere it less for its artistic merits and more for its religious purpose — to convey the message and doctrine of Mormonism, which binds its 15 million members worldwide.
Yes, it is kitsch, but so what? They are not about artistic expression, but about community, about prayer, about devotional feeling. Theses images are the intimate symbols of the community of feeling to which (Mormons) belong.
Mormons are not the only religious group to bring a specific gaze to religious art, he said, but they bring one that is different from other Protestant groups that have embraced new forms of art and media.
We cannot expect to receive his mercy unless we ourselves are being merciful to others.
Then I realized that every time we ask our Father for anything in prayer we are asking for His mercy. We are asking Him to do something for us we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot expect to receive his mercy unless we ourselves are being merciful to others.
What I am suggesting is that if we want to preserve religious freedom and live in peace in a society that is increasingly intolerant of faith, then we will have to be very clear about what matters most and make wise compromises in areas that matter less. Because if we don’t, we risk losing essential rights that we simply cannot live without
Businesses should not be forced to produce products or types of services that fundamentally conflict with their religious beliefs, but secular businesses are limited by longstanding regulations and civil rights. This is a place to make prudential compromises, because a religious person's business is not able to reflect religious beliefs the same way a home or congregation can.
Preserving the ability of business owners to conduct every aspect of their businesses according to their religious beliefs will be impossible. And the church itself is not in a position to fight that fight if doing so comes at the expense of more core religious freedoms. Protecting those core freedoms must remain the priority, or we risk losing even them.
When states have tried to pass laws that only protect religious freedom, they have faced overwhelming opposition from LGBT groups, media outlets and major corporations, Schultz said. When protecting religious freedom is balanced with making it illegal to discriminate against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, those same groups have been supportive.
These false doctrines—philosophies of men mingled with scripture—had so invested their minds that they were deep in the swamp of fraudulent persuasions.
For those of us who believe in the Second Coming of the Savior, the speed with which events can unfold (as evidenced by the collapse of communism in Europe) should not be lost on us.
White supremacist attitudes are morally wrong and sinful, and we condemn them. Church members who promote or pursue a “white culture” or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the Church.
The nature of male and female spirits is such that they complete each other. Men and women are intended to progress together toward exaltation.
The Lord has commanded husbands and wives to cleave to each other. In this commandment, the word cleave means to be completely devoted and faithful to someone. Married couples cleave to God and one another by serving and loving each other and by keeping covenants in complete fidelity to one another and to God.
Latter-day Saint husbands and wives leave behind their single life and establish their marriage as the first priority in their lives. They allow no other person or interest to have greater priority in their lives than keeping the covenants they have made with God and each other.
All leaders are teachers.
Leaders need to be firm and unyielding in their warnings against sinful behavior but merciful and kind to those who sin.
When making any changes or exceptions for one person, leaders should consider the effect those changes may have on others.
It is simply a fact that we live in a pluralistic society, and different viewpoints must find a way to contend without defeating one another.
Our society’s information environment steers the public to view conflicts as just a part of a bigger culture war, a battle of winner takes all in which there is only ever one right and one wrong, and where the only answer to any question is either “yes” or “no.” Such polarizing only hardens our hearts and coarsens our reason.
Balance between competing interests, not a war pitting one absolute against another, is a more sure way for our pluralistic democracy. Rights work best when sought and shared by everyone. And since we all live and breathe and move in the same public space, there is no acceptable alternative to working out our differences. A society in which everyone gets all they want is not a democracy but rather a Utopia, a word that literally means “nowhere.”
We can allow our unique qualities to complement one another as we face challenges together and grow in love and understanding. We can also be unified with other family members and with members of the Church by serving together, teaching one another, and encouraging one another. We can become one with the President of the Church and other Church leaders as we study their words and follow their counsel.
Invite a student to read aloud the following statement, which is a portion of the introduction to Official Declaration 2...Point out the line that states, “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.” While some people may suggest reasons why males of African descent were not ordained to the priesthood for a time, those reasons may not be accurate. Emphasize that today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past on this issue: black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse; black skin reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; mixed-race marriages are a sin; or blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.
When the gospel is preached to the spirits in prison, the success attending that preaching will be far greater than that attending the preaching of our elders in this life. I believe there will be very few indeed of those spirits who will not gladly receive the gospel when it is carried to them. The circumstances there will be a thousand times more favorable.
We trace the hand of the Almighty in framing the constitution of our land, and believe that the Lord raised up men purposely for the accomplishment of this object, raised them up and inspired them to frame the constitution of the United States…We look upon George Washington, the father of our country, as an inspired instrument of the Almighty; we can see the all-inspiring Spirit operating upon him. And upon his co-workers in resisting oppression, and in establishing the thirteen colonies as a confederacy; and then again the workings of the same Spirit upon those men who established the constitution of the United States.
The central purpose of our mortal probation is to prepare to meet God and inherit the blessings He has promised to His worthy children.
Your knowledge of your life before birth will be restored.
I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to the counsel of their parents. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity — the pure love of Christ — will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy and happiness.
Statements in the scriptures such as “the Holy Ghost fell on [him]” (Acts 11:15), “filled with the Holy Ghost” (Luke 1:15), “the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38), “receive … the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22), baptized by “fire and the Holy Ghost” (D&C 20:41) do not always refer to his person, but to his power, influence, and gifts.
I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart.
God wants men to do good, but he never forces them and does not want them to be forced. He placed in and left with them the power of election. When they do good, he honors them because they could have done evil. When they are coerced, they are entitled to no such honor. God allows men to make their own choices, and he has reserved to himself the judgment as to the correctness of their choices. Free agency has always had rough going, however. Over it the War in Heaven was fought. In the earth it has been abridged by almost all governments, civil and ecclesiastical. Apostate churchmen, kings, and other rulers have from the beginning arrogated judgment unto themselves. They have, contrary to God's law of liberty, preempted man's right, with or without his consent, to determine what would be best for them to do and by every means within their power have undertaken to force men to do their bidding.
The scriptures clearly give to understand that the elect of Israel, together with Abraham and all of the foreordained prophets, were the more obedient and valiant spirits in their pre-mortal defense of Jehovah, the pre-mortal Christ, and of his gospel plan of individual freedom and exaltation. They were those who followed him, seeking truth and righteousness. God is no respecter of persons. His organization and foreordination of the house of Israel (or Jacob) in pre-mortality to become his elect and covenant people on earth was justly occasioned by obedience and valor. God identified, among all of the pre-mortal hosts, those who had qualified themselves to be counted among his chosen people.
What happens when a religious group discovers that it’s spent 200 years assimilating to an America that no longer exists? As their native country fractures and turns on itself, Mormons are being forced to grapple with questions about who they are and what they believe.
Though the Church has never claimed prophetic infallibility, Smith says that for many orthodox believers, the faith is “either true or it’s not—the Church can’t make a mistake; the Church can’t back off; the Church can’t fix something that’s problematic.” Mormon leaders are afraid that if they apologize for the racism of past prophets, she speculates, they will undermine their own authority.
When I talk with my fellow Mormons about what our faith’s third century might look like, one common fear is that the Church, desperate for allies, will end up following the religious right into endless culture war. That would indeed be grim. But just as worrisome to me—and perhaps more likely—is the prospect of a fully diluted Mormonism.
Sister Susa Young Gates…once asked her father [Brigham Young] how it would ever be possible to accomplish the great amount of temple work that must be done, if all are given a full opportunity for exaltation. He told her there would be many inventors of labor-saving devices, so that our daily duties could be performed in a short time, leaving us more and more time for temple work. The inventions have come, and are still coming, but many simply divert the time gained to other channels, and not for the purpose intended by the Lord.
A testimony is essentially a list of those things we have faith in. But faith is distinct from belief. Faith is how we live our lives, not how much we believe in things.
The legacy of being a minority religious group that was alienated, threatened and driven from their homes is a very strong piece of the modern Mormon identity.
Can a member be a Democrat and a good Mormon? That one makes me smile, because if the members who ask it could travel to some countries of the world and meet faithful members of the Church who belong to their national communist parties I fear their blood pressure might be permanently damaged.
There is a strong tendency today for many to talk of Jesus Christ as if His teachings on love were somehow inconsistent with his teachings on divine commandments. Of course the Savior’s love was never withheld from anyone and His words on the cross exemplify that. But, He also expressed love by teaching clear doctrine and standing firmly against sin with sometimes-tough lessons for which people rejected Him.
Repeated use of pornography is typically about numbing stress, fear, boredom, etc. Learning not to start the behavior again means learning healthier ways to face the normal stresses of life — something we all need to learn along the way.
What I learned is when you create a movie, you create a living thing
First, get to know your neighbors. Learn about their families, their work, their views. Get together with them, if they are willing, and do so without being pushy and without any ulterior motives. Friendship should never be offered as a means to an end; it can and should be an end unto itself.
Please remember that a family council held regularly will help us spot family problems early and nip them in the bud; councils will give each family member a feeling of worth and importance. Most of all they will assist us to be more successful and happy in our precious relationships, within the walls of our homes.
Let us speak out and encourage a more uplifting, inspiring, and acceptable media.
The time has come when members of the Church need to speak out and join with the many other concerned people in opposition to the offensive, destructive, and mean-spirited media influence that is sweeping over the earth.
Gone are the days when a student asked an honest question and a teacher responded, “Don’t worry about it!” Gone are the days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue. Gone are the days when students were protected from people who attacked the Church.
Remind them that James did not say, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him Google!”
The effort for gospel transparency and spiritual inoculation through a thoughtful study of doctrine and history, coupled with a burning testimony, is the best antidote we have to help students avoid and/or deal with questions, doubt, or faith crises they may face in this information age.
In addition to listening to your students, encourage them in class or in private to ask you questions about any topic.
Here is one final note about answering questions. It is important to teach your students that although the gospel provides many, if not most, answers to life’s most important questions, some questions cannot be answered in mortality because we lack the information needed for a proper answer.
Now a word of caution: Please recognize you may come to believe, like many of your students do, that you are a scriptural, doctrinal, and history expert. A recent study revealed that “the more people think they know about a topic, the more likely they are to allege understanding beyond what they know, even to the point of feigning knowledge of false facts and fabricated information.”... The authors of the “overclaiming” study noted that “a tendency to overclaim, especially in self-perceived experts, may actually discourage individuals from educating themselves in precisely those areas in which they consider themselves knowledgeable.”
Additionally, may I suggest you hold a personal interview with yourself on occasion and review 2 Nephi 26:29–32, Alma 5:14–30, and Doctrine and Covenants 121:33–46. That will help to identify the kinds of temptations we all may face. If something needs to change in your life, then resolve to fix it.
Opportunities to serve others in meaningful ways, as we have covenanted to do, rarely come at convenient times. But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience. The power comes as we keep our covenants.
As our children grow, they need information taught by parents more directly and plainly about what is and is not appropriate. Parents need to teach children to avoid any pornographic photographs or stories. Children and youth need to know from parents that pornography of any kind is a tool of the devil; and if anyone flirts with it, it has the power to addict, dull, and even destroy the human spirit.
Talk to them plainly about sex and the teaching of the gospel regarding chastity. Let this information come from parents in the home in an appropriate way.
Nothing is more important to the relationship between family members than open, honest communication.
We need to become so deeply converted to the gospel of Christ that the fire of the covenant will burn in our hearts like flame unquenchable. And with that kind of faith we will do what is necessary to remain true and worthy.
Be kind, thoughtful, gentle, and considerate in what you say and how you treat each other.
The same principle applies to you bishops, teachers, and other leaders in the Church as you work to assist families. You don’t have to stand idly by as those over whom you have stewardship make poor moral choices. When one of our youth stands at a moral crossroad in life, almost always there is someone—a parent, a leader, a teacher—who could make a difference by intervening with love and kindness.
Men and women are equal in God’s eyes and in the eyes of the Church, but equal does not mean the same. The responsibilities and divine gifts of men and women differ in their nature but not in their importance or influence. God does not regard either gender as better or more important than the other.
If we are to have the courage to speak out and defend the Church, we must first prepare ourselves through study of the truths of the gospel.
May God bless us to have the courage to study the simple truths of the gospel and then to share them every chance we get.
We need to embrace God’s children compassionately and eliminate any prejudice, including racism, sexism, and nationalism.
We live in a world of comparison. Social media has made this worse as we go online and compare our seemingly less exciting lives with the ‘fake lives’ we see online.
I'm wondering if many of you parents, you couples, have lost that essential moment of kneeling together at the end of the day, just the two of you, holding hands and saying your prayers. If that has slipped away from your daily routine, may I suggest you put it back - beginning tonight!
Couples unhappy in their marriages tend not to give appropriate gospel instruction in the home. They are less likely to be committed to gospel principles in their own lives.
We know that a father's role does not end with presiding, providing, and protecting family members. On a day-to-day basis, fathers can and should help with the essential nurturing and bonding associated with feeding, playing, storytelling, loving, and all the rest of the activities that make up family life.
A mother's nurturing love arouses in children, from their earliest days on earth, an awakening of the memories of love and goodness they experienced in their premortal existence.
Because our mothers love us, we learn, or more accurately remember, that God also loves us.
As husbands, wives, and children recognize the difference between basic necessities and material wants, they lessen family financial burdens and contribute to helping mothers be at home.
Parents should work to create loving, eternal connections with their children. Reproof or correction will sometimes be required. But it must be done sensitively, persuasively, with an increase of love thereafter lest the child esteem the parent to be an enemy (see D&C 121:43).
It can be equally destructive when parents are too permissive and overindulge their children, allowing children to do as they please. Parents need to set limits in accordance with the importance of the matter involved and the child's disposition and maturity.
Help children understand the reasons for the rules, and always follow through with appropriate discipline when rules are broken. It is important as well to praise appropriate behavior.
Parents need to give children choices and should be prepared to appropriately adjust some rules, thus preparing children for real-world situations.
If any of you are struggling with contention in your homes, you can change this. Talk with your family. Ask for their help. Tell them you don't want a contentious spirit in the home anymore and discuss what each family member can do to prevent it.
The family is the basic unit of society; it is the basic unit of eternity. Thus, when forces threaten the family, Church leaders must respond.
Because of its sheer size, media today presents vast and sharply contrasting options. Opposite from its harmful and permissive side, media offers much that is positive and productive. Television offers histroy channels, discovery channels, education channels. One can still find movies and TV comedies and dramas that entertain and uplift and accurately depict the consequences of right and wrong. The Internet can be a fabulous tool of information and communication, and there is an unlimited supply of good music in the world. Thus our biggest challenge is to choose wisely what we listen to and what we watch.
The choices we make in media can be symbolic of the choices we make in life. Choosing the trendy, the titillating, the tawdry in the TV programs or movies we watch can cause us to end up, if we're not careful, choosing the same things in the lives we live.
Often the media's most devistating attacks on family are not direct or frontal or openly immoral. Intelligent evil is too cunning for that, knowing that most people still profess belief in family and in traditional values. Rather the attacks are subtle and amoral - issues of right and wrong don't even come up.
Besides making our voices heard, let me conclude with seven things that every parent can do to minimize the negative effect media can have on our families: (1) We need to hold family councils and decide what our media standards are going to be. (2) We need to spend enough quality time with our children that we are consistently the main influence in their lives, not the media or any peer group. (3) We need to make good media choices ourselves and set good examples for our children. (4) We need to limit the amount of time our children watch TV or play video games or use the internet each day. Virtual reality must not become their reality. (5) We need to use Internet filters and TV programming locks to prevent our children from "chancing upon" things they should not see. (6) We need to have TVs and computers in a much-used common room in the home, not in a bedroom or a private place. (7) We need to take time to watch appropriate media with our children and discuss with them how to make choices that will uplift and build rather than degrade and destroy.
We should strive to change the corrupt and immoral tendencies in television and in society by keeping things that offend and debase out of our homes. In spite of all the wickedness in the world, and in spite of all the opposition to good that we find on every hand, we should not try to take ourselves or our children out of the world. Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven," or yeast. (Matt. 13:33.) We are to lift the world and help all to rise above the wickedness that surrounds us.
The Lord does not need a society that hides and isolates itself from the world. Rather, he needs stalwart individuals and families who live exemplary lives in the world and demonstrate that the joy and fulfillment come not of the world but through the spirit and the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
Find some quiet time regularly to think deeply about where you are going and what you will need to do to get there. Jesus, our exemplar, often 'withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed' (Luke 5:16). We need to do the same thing occasionally to rejuvinate ourselves spritually as the Savior did.
I believe that the desensitizing effect of such media abuses on the hearts and souls of those who are exposed to them results in a partial fulfillment of the Savior's statement that 'because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.'
There is no role in life more essential and more eternal than that of motherhood.
"...I know something of a mother's emotions that accompany her commitment to be at home with young children. There are moments of great joy and incredible fulfillment, but there are also moments of a sense of inadequacy, monotony, and frustration. Mothers may feel they recieve little or no appreciation for the choice they have made. Sometimes even husbands seem to have no idea of the demands upon their wives.
Recognize the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction.
Parents can offer a unique and wonderful kind of prayer because they are praying to the Eternal Parent of us all. There is great power in a prayer that essentially says, "We are steward-parents over Thy children, Father; please help us to raise them as Thou wouldst want them raised."
Come home from work and take an active role with your family. Don't put work, friends, or sports ahead of listening to, playing with, and teaching your children.
In varying degrees, you will not have the same affirmative influence of societal institutions which once strongly supported the family and principles such as chastity and fidelity.
Built, therefore, into the seemingly ordinary experiences of life are opportunities for us to acquire such eternal attributes as love, mercy, meekness, patience, and submissiveness and to develop and sharpen such skills as how to communicate, motivate, delegate, and manage our time and talents and our thoughts in accordance with eternal priorities. These attributes and skills are portable; they are never obsolete and will be much needed in the next world.
Remaining settled and established is not easy, for we are crowded by the cares of the world. We are diverted by the praise of the world; we are buffeted by the trials of the world, drawn by the appetites and temptations of the world, and bruised by the hardness of the world.
With the Holy Spirit as our guide, our conscience stays vibrant and alive. Things which we had never supposed come into view. Seeming routine turns out to be resplendent. Ordinary people seem quite the opposite. What we once thought to be the mere humdrum of life gives way to symphonic strains. Circumstances or a mere conversation which look quite pedestrian nevertheless cause a quiet moment of personal resolve, and a decision affecting all eternity is made.
True there are seeming flat periods in life when we may feel underwhelmed. In such situations, however, we had best get back to the basics of why we are here.
They err who, instead of concentrating on commandment keeping and personal spiritual progress, desire sweeping significance and high visibility in the second estate.
Love and patience are never wasted; they only appear to be. The devoted wife and mother who is a quiet but effective neighbor but whose obituary is noticed by a comparative few may well have laid up precious little here in the current coin-of-the-realm, recognition, yet rising with her in the resurrection will be relevant attributes and skills honed and refined in family and neighborhood life.
Thus when life is viewed superficially, it seems routine and even pedestrian...Brothers and sisters, when anciently we shouted for joy in anticipation of this mortal experience, we did not then think it would be ordinary and pedestrian at all. We sensed the impending high adventure. Let us be true to that first and more realistic reaction.
Each of us has the same commandments to keep and must walk the same straight and narrow path in order to have happiness here and there. Each of us has the same eternal attributes to develop. So our fundamental circumstances are the same.
A hundred years from now, today’s seeming deprivations and tribulations will not matter then unless we let them matter too much now.
Often Church members suffer from a lack of perspective, perhaps understandably, as to the vastness and intensity of the Lord's work in the spirit world. The scope is enormous! Demographers estimate that some sixty to seventy billion people have lived on this planet thus far. Without diminishing in any way the importance of the absolutely vital and tandem work on this side of the veil, we do need a better grasp of ‘things as they really will be’ (Jacob 4:13). Otherwise, we can so easily come to regard family history as a quaint hobby and its resulting temple work as something we will get around to later. Not only does the word vastness characterize the work there but so does intensity.
There is today more ecumenicism, but there is also more shared doubt. More and more people believe less and less — but they do believe it together. The fewer the issues, the easier it is to get agreements. The fewer standards there are, the less there is for congregations to rebel against. Since knowing is tied to doing, and doing to knowing, there is an awful cycle in all of this.
I do not apologize for trying to speak about one of what Paul called “the deep things of God,” (1 Cor. 2:10), only for my inability to go deeply enough.
Just as the capacity to defer gratification is a sign of real maturity, likewise the willingness to wait for deferred explanation is a sign of real faith and of trust spread over time.
These same Church members know just enough about the doctrines to converse superficially on them, but their scant knowledge about the deep doctrines is inadequate for deep discipleship. Thus uninformed about the deep doctrines, they make no deep changes in their lives.
At best, man can judge only what he sees; he cannot judge the heart or the intention, or begin to judge the potential of his neighbor.
Almost invariably, we find that the greatest criticism of Church leaders and doctrine comes from those who are not doing their full duty, following the leaders, or living according to the teachings of the gospel.
Don’t prejudge, but give the person an opportunity. Let him decide for himself to accept or decline.
Let us look for the good rather than try to discover any hidden evil. We can easily find fault in others if that is what we are looking for.
When the woman accused of adultery was brought before Christ, he was indignant because of the accusers’ injustice. They were wanting the woman to be judged on the basis of standards different from those by which they were willing to be judged and on a matter of which some were guilty.
It is true that we must have appointed judges to deal with the laws of the land and judges in the Church to deal with its members; and they are given the heavy duty and responsibility of judging, which they must not neglect, but they must give righteous judgment according to the law of the land and of the Church.
Also, we must realize that every word and every act influences the thinking and attitude of the child. It is in the family that the child picks up the elementary lessons in getting along with people and the virtues of love, compassion, and concern.
Calmness is more than having a quiet voice. It is confidence and assurance inside that a situation can be changed and that a heart can be touched. This assurance comes by having the spirit of love present and by knowing the skills necessary to handle difficult problems.
Learning how to touch and influence the heart of another person takes practice. It also requires possessing calmness ourselves.
Principles of good parenting haven’t changed over the years. Rather, parents just think these principles have changed because some of the “No” answers are about things like cell phones and computer games, instead of about playtime and an extra cookie.
We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own. God's ammunition is not exhausted. His brightest spirits are held in reserve for the latter times. In God's name and by His help we will build up literature whose top shall touch heaven, though its foundation may now be low on earth.
Men use the telegraph for the purpose I have named, and in many respects it is used to good advantage...but the great object which the Lord had in view when this great invention or discovery was brought forth, was to enable knowledge to be sent from the mountain tops, from the midst of Zion, when his glory should begin to be manifested in the midst of his people in the latter days.
The sooner the present generation lose all reverence and respect for modern "Christianity" with all its powerless forms and solemn mockeries, the sooner they will be prepared to receive the kingdom of God. The sooner the treasuries of nations, and the purses of individuals, are relieved from the support of priestcraft and superstitions, so much sooner will they be able and willing to devote their means and influence to print and publish the glad tidings of the fullness of the Gospel, restored in this age, to assist in the gathering of the house of Israel, and in the building of the cities and temples of Zion and Jerusalem.
Heaven is a continuation of the ideal home.
He that hath knowledge spareth his words. Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his footsteps
Another sign of spiritual immaturity and sometimes apostasy is when one focuses on certain gospel principles or pursues “gospel hobbies” with excess zeal. Almost any virtue taken to excess can become a vice.
Some members profess that they would commit themselves with enthusiasm if given some great calling, but they do not find home teaching or visiting teaching worthy of or sufficiently heroic for their sustained effort.
It is appropriate to disagree, but it is not appropriate to be disagreeable.
When allegations are made that are detrimental and often false to either faith or religious liberty, the members of that faith and their friends of other faiths, who feel accountable to God, need to defend them in a positive statesman-like manner. … Too many do not make their positive views known when their engagement is sorely needed.
My plea today is that all religions join together to defend faith and religious freedom in a manner that protects people of diverse faith as well as those of no faith. We must not only protect our ability to profess our own religion, but also protect the right of each religion to administer its own doctrines and laws.
I would suggest that for people of your capability and training, engagement to defend religious liberty is essential... Please do this on your own volition, understanding that you will not always get things exactly right. But also understanding, that the far bigger mistake would be to sit silently by.
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...[C]risis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.
The counterfeiting of “love,” the central ideal of Christianity, for purposes directly contrary to basic Christian morality is a beguiling argument because it seems to allow an individual to avoid the hard choice between the Church and the world, the Tree of Life and the Great and Spacious Building.
If “love” can be reduced to “non-discrimination,” then one can be a true Christian by abandoning the burden of traditional Christian morality and embracing the ethics of a relativist society.
Unfortunately, this debasing of the idea of Christian love has proved attractive even among Latter-day Saints, including prominent voices in LDS higher education, who have every reason to know better.
One way of separating love from morality that is popular among LDS critics of the Church’s teachings on sexual morality and the family is to use the language of humility to set aside our moral principles while elevating “love” (now severed from definite moral principles) as the whole substance of religion.
Thus the counsel of Church Leaders is turned on its head: rather than standing up for an unpopular truth, we are urged, in the name of “humility” and of a “love” severed from commandments and eternal purposes, to consider all opinions as equally uncertain.
...If we have no reliable access to truth, then all views are mere individual “preferences” – and so why should any preference for one lifestyle or another be favored?
The essence of the Love Wins strategy is contained in this formula: the imperative to spread the message trumps any content of the message.
No distinction is admitted between desires for good eternal outcomes and bad ones, because any deliberate pursuit of goals is considered a denial of God’s grace. We are supposed to let go of what we think we want and simply be open to whatever God gives. There is no room in such a radical philosophy of grace for a plan of salvation or a “great plan of happiness” (Alma 42:8) – since planning itself is inherently sinful.
You will have impressions come to you that will be individually tailored to your needs. As you write those impressions down and follow them, they will be guidelines for your life and will help you realize your righteous dreams.
The Holy Ghost communicates important information that we need to guide us in our mortal journey. When it is crisp and clear and essential, it warrants the title of revelation. When it is a series of promptings we often have to guide us step by step to a worthy objective, for the purpose of this message, it is inspiration.
Another principle is to be cautious with humor. Loud, inappropriate laughter will offend the Spirit. A good sense of humor helps revelation; loud laughter does not. A sense of humor is an escape valve for the pressures of life.
On the other hand, spiritual communication can be enhanced by good health practices. Exercise, reasonable amounts of sleep, and good eating habits increase our capacity to receive and understand revelation. We will live for our appointed life span. However, we can improve both the quality of our service and our well-being by making careful, appropriate choices.
For spirituality to grow stronger and more available, it must be planted in a righteous environment. Haughtiness, pride, and conceit are like stony ground that will never produce spiritual fruit.
An individual who is arrogant or who lets his or her emotions influence decisions will not be powerfully led by the Spirit.
Communication with our Father in Heaven is not a trivial matter. It is a sacred privilege. It is based upon eternal, unchanging principles.
As you seek spiritual knowledge, search for principles. Carefully separate them from the detail used to explain them. Principles are concentrated truth, packaged for application to a wide variety of circumstances. A true principle makes decisions clear even under the most confusing and compelling circumstances. It is worth great effort to organize the truth we gather to simple statements of principle.
Choose good friends, those who have made similar decisions in their lives, those like yourself who are wise enough to live a life of order and restraint. When one gets off track, it is generally because the other kind of friends were chosen. Be surrounded by true friends who accept you the way you are and leave you better because of their association.
Then, when you find yourself in the battlefield of life, don't change your standards.
Satan will use rationalization to destroy you. That is, he will twist something you know to be wrong so that it appears to be acceptable and thus progressively lead you to destruction.
Knowledge carefully recorded is knowledge available in time of need.
As you live high standards publicly and privately, and even under great pressure adhere to them, you raise the vision of others, helping them realize more of their divine capacity. Like a worthy magnet, you will draw others to a higher standard.
Your quiet, uncompomising determination to live a righteous life will couple you to inspiration and power beyond your capacity now to understand.
Life is a workshop where you can test the correctness of the principles you have chosen to guide your life. Now is the time to set your course, to establish fundamental priorities.
Upward growth occurs in cycles that build upon each other in an ascending spiral of capacity and understatnding.
The whole course of your life may be altered for your happiness and the Lord's purposes.
When the things that you acquire are used as tools to help others, they won't rule your life.
The voice will be as soft as a whisper, coming as a thought to our minds or a feeling in our hearts.
Some of us unwisely seek the Holy Ghost’s direction on every minor decision in our lives.
It is not enough just to save ourselves. It is equally important that parents, brothers, and sisters are saved in our families. If we return home alone to our Heavenly Father, we will be asked, 'Where is the rest of the family?' This is why we teach that families are forever. The eternal nature of an individual becomes the eternal nature of the family.
Because of great men and women who were willing to use their unique gifts and talents and make sacrifices for the benefit of mankind, Joseph was born in a free land where people were allowed to worship as they pleased. The Restoration took place when all was prepared here on earth...
It has been my experience that very little occurs in the way of transgression that is not first rehearsed and debated in one's own own mind. A key to avoiding these pitfalls is to let virtue guide our thoughts and deeds always, not allowing our minds to wander into places where they should not go.
As experiences accumulate in our lives, they add strength and support to each other.
Through the years, discrimination based on ethnic or religious identity has led to senseless slaughter, vicious pogroms, and countless acts of cruelty. The face of history is pocked by the ugly scars of intolerance.
To Paul’s list I might add the regrettable attitudes of bigotry, hypocrisy, and prejudice. These were also decried in 1834 by early Church leaders who foresaw the eventual rise of this church “amid the frowns of bigots and the calumny of hypocrites.” The Prophet Joseph Smith prayed that “prejudices may give way before the truth.” Hatred stirs up strife and digs beneath the dignity of mature men and women in our enlightened era.
Not long ago the First Presidency and the Twelve issued a public statement from which I quote: “It is morally wrong for any person or group to deny anyone his or her inalienable dignity on the tragic and abhorrent theory of racial or cultural superiority. We call upon all people everywhere to recommit themselves to the time-honored ideals of tolerance and mutual respect.
Only a man who has paid the price for priesthood power will be able to bring miracles to those he loves and keep his marriage and family safe, now and throughout eternity.
The time of harvest is come. A new era of family history work has arrived. As President Gordon B. Hinckley recently noted, “The Lord has inspired skilled men and women in developing new technologies which we can use to our great advantage in moving forward this sacred work.”
Most of the disaffected have separated themselves from full fellowship in the Church not because of doctrinal disputations, but because of hurt, neglect, or lack of love. Progress toward full participation in the blessings of the gospel needs no new programs, only a new vision of love that can be rendered best by friends and neighbors.
If families fail, many of our political, economic, and social systems will also fail.
When giving necessary correction, do it quietly, privately, lovingly, and not publicly. If a rebuke is required, show an increase of love promptly so that seeds of resentment may not remain.
Do not try to control your children. Instead, listen to them, help them to learn the gospel, inspire them, and lead them toward eternal life.
In God's eternal plan, salvation is an individual matter; exaltation is a family matter.
We cannot wish our way into the presence of God. We are to obey the laws upon which those blessings are predicated.
...the future of nations is linked to children. Families with children need to be re-enthroned as the fundamental unit of society.
While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional. The word does not appear in the scriptures. On the other hand, many verses affirm that the higher levels of love the Father and the Son feel for each of us — and certain divine blessings stemming from that love — are conditional.
Jesus operated from a base of fixed principles or truths rather than making up the rules as he went along. Thus, his leadership style was not only correct, but also constant.
So many secular leaders today are like chameleons; they change their hues and views to fit the situation - which only tends to confuse associates and followers who cannot be certain what course is being pursued.
Those who cling to power at the expense of principle often end up doing almost anything to perpetuate their power.
I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse. (D&C 58:64) I am confident that the only way we can reach most of these millions of our Father’s children is through the spoken word over the airwaves...
Stake presidents, bishops, and branch presidents, please take a particular interest in improving the quality of teaching in the Church. I fear that all too often many of our members come to church, sit through a class or meeting, and they return home having been largely uninformed.
[Home teachers and visiting teachers] when you go into the homes, there should be no vain babblings or swelling words. You are going to save souls, and who can tell but that many of the fine active people in the Church today are active because you were in their homes and gave them a new outlook, a new vision. You pulled back the curtain. You extended their horizons. You gave them something new.”
We have paused on some plateaus long enough...We have been diverted, at times, from fundamentals on which we must now focus in order to move forward as a person or as a people...
The words none else eliminate everyone and everything. The spouse then becomes preeminent in the life of the husband or wife, and neither social life nor occupational life nor political life nor any other interest nor person nor thing shall ever take precedence over the companion spouse.
The Church and its members are commanded by the Lord to be self-reliant and independent.
The responsibility for each person's social, emotional, spiritual, physical, or economic well-being rests first upon himself, second upon his family, and third upon the Church if he is a faithful member thereof.
No true Latter-Day Saint, while physically or emotionally able will voluntarily shift the burden of his own or his family's well-being to someone else. So long as he can, under the inspiration of the Lord and with his own labors, he will supply himself and his family with the spiritual and temporal necessities of life.
Sometimes, life's greatest lessons come to us at the most dreadful times of our lives...How we respond at such times of crisis determines if such challenges will be times for progression or merely times of suffering.
Much of the success in life comes from simply showing up, working hard and paying attention. Invariably, what we learn in school or on the job can assist us later, sometimes in circumstances we do not expect...But the 'school of hard knocks' will not teach us all we need to know to return back to the presence of the Father. The Lord does not desire we simply be acted upon in order to learn.
You, alone, are responsible for your spiritual growth and accumulation of worldly knowledge...
...studying shouldn't stop with the scriptures. Education comes as individuals seek to understand all points of view and study out of all of the 'best books'. The Lord does not want the members of His Church to be ignorant and uninformed. We have a responsibility to know what is going on in our world. We cannot be experts in all things, but an expanded general knowledge will help us to be better parents, citizens, teachers and members of the Church.
Participate in class discussions in Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society. The Spirit comes in greater abundance when class members come prepared to act, not just be acted upon. By participating in class discussions during Sunday worship, individuals fulfill the charge in the Doctrine and Covenants to teach one another. Read the lessons beforehand, and come prepared to share your insights in the class discussion. Participation in a gospel-teaching setting provides added opportunities for the Holy Ghost to act upon those in attendance. A question or comment expressed during a class discussion can many times be more effective than the best and most well-prepared gospel lecture. We cannot afford to come to gospel classes simply expecting to be entertained. Real learning occurs if we come prepared and then to participate in the gospel discussion.
The Lord has promised us that which we learn in this world will be a benefit to us in the worlds to come.
We need to know not only the doctrine but, whenever possible, the underlying rationale so we can explain the doctrine in a clear and concise and powerful way.
Eternal life is God’s greatest gift to His children (see D&C 14:7). It is exaltation in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom.
We will be judged according to our actions, the desires of our hearts, and the kind of people we have become.
Effective councils invite full expression from council members and unify their efforts in responding to individual, family, and organizational needs.
He made the tadpole and the ape, the lion and the elephant, but He did not make them in His own image, nor endow them with godlike reason and intelligence. Nevertheless, the whole animal creation will be perfected and perpetuated in the Hereafter, each class in its ‘distinct order or sphere,’ and will enjoy ‘eternal felicity.’
The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals...We believe that God has given and will give to all peoples sufficient knowledge to help them on their way to eternal salvation.
When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.
We live in a time when we are surrounded by much that is intended to entice us into paths which may lead to our destruction. To avoid such paths requires determination and courage.
I recall a time—and some of you here tonight will also—when the standards of most people were very similar to our standards. No longer is this true.
As we go about living from day to day, it is almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged. We may at times find ourselves surrounded by others and yet standing in the minority or even standing alone concerning what is acceptable and what is not. Do we have the moral courage to stand firm for our beliefs, even if by so doing we must stand alone?
Vision without effort is daydreaming; effort without vision is drudgery; but vision, coupled with effort, will obtain the prize.
I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not.
Let the scriptures be your guide, and you will never find yourself on the road to nowhere.
I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and non-existent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey — now.
It would be easy to become discouraged and cynical about the future — or even fearful of what might come — if we allowed ourselves to dwell only on that which is wrong in the world and in our lives. Today, however, I'd like us to turn our thoughts and our attitudes away from the troubles around us and to focus instead on our blessings as members of the Church. … My beloved brothers and sisters, fear not. Be of good cheer. The future is as bright as your faith.
...As you walk through life, always walk toward the light, and the shadows of life wil fall behind you...
How do they expect Americans with opposing views to coexist when they won’t?
Some things that are true are not very useful.
Our 5-year-old son came home from Primary one day singing "Keep the Commandments." We overheard him sing, "Keep the commandments, keep the commandments, unless there is safety, unless there is peace."
Individually we will often make mistakes. In councils we rarely make mistakes.
It takes just as much to save a dead man as a living man.
I wish many times that the veil were lifted off the face of the Latter-day Saints. I wish we could see and know the things of God as they do who are laboring for the salvation of the human family who are in the spirit world; for if this were so, this whole people, with very few, if any, exceptions, would lose all interest in the riches of the world, and instead thereof their whole desires and labors would be directed to redeem their dead, to perform faithfully the work and mission given us on earth; so that when we ourselves should pass behind the veil and meet with Joseph and the ancient apostles, and others who are watching over us and who are deeply interested in our labors, we might feel satisfied in having done our duty.
It causes me to wonder if they really understand and believe the twofold nature of the purpose of missionary work: first, to sanctify the missionary himself, and second, to bring converts to a knowledge of the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and to baptism into His Church...
Pres. Nelson
Because God's love is all-embracing some speak of it as unconditional, and in their minds they may project that thought to mean that God's blessings are unconditional and that salvation is unconditional...they're not. Some are want to say 'the savior loves me just as I am'...and that is certainly true, but he cannot take any of us into his kingdom just as we are. For no unclean thing can dwell there or dwell in his presence...our sins must first be resolved.
If living the gospel for your is a chore, you'll go with other people who feel the same way - because that is the law you are going to love.
Godly fear dispels mortal fears.
You have not failed until you quit trying.
A student of mine said, “Oh, yes,” he said, “Racism is not a character flaw. It’s a system.” It’s not a character flaw. It’s not you’re a bad person because you harbor some deep dark secret. You are part of something much bigger than you unknowingly, maybe sometimes knowingly, that benefits you because of your race. We live in racist systems. They precede us.
racism isn’t a character flaw. It’s a system that allocates life chances based on your race. And the idea that race is not a real thing. This is something that scholars in ethnic studies and in social sciences in the academy have been talking about for decades. Whiteness is a fake idea. These categories of racial identification understanding came into being. We can pinpoint the moments in history when they come into being, when these words start being used in the way they’re being used now. They haven’t existed from the dawn of time this way, right? They became a shorthand in the 17th and 18th centuries where people could go into a really complicated reality and sort it out, right? Imagine you’re in Virginia in 1720 and you have people from everywhere flooding into this place, and race became the shorthand through which people could say, “You play this role. You play this role. I dominate you, you dominate them,” right? So, it was color coding almost to sort out complicated social realities.
So, but if you look at it, there’s no gene for race. Different people have counted as white over time, right? There was a time in history, in US history, when Irish people were not considered white. Southern Europeans were not considered white until they demonstrated through their actions by opting in and supporting the white majority and discriminated against or differentiating from black people that they belonged, right? So, that’s a helpful term as well.
Every true philosopher, so far as he understands the principles of truth, has so much of the Gospel, and so far he is a Latter-day Saint, whether he knows it or not...
Missing Reference