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Showing posts from June 5, 2011

the Lord protected the members of Zion's Camp

Let us take a course that will be pleasing to our Father, and lay aside our follies and our sins, and obtain favor with our God, that his angels may come and associate with us. They would do so now, if you would believe and practice that which is laid before you day by day. And if you will strictly follow the leaders of this people, you never would want for clothing, nor for any of the comforts of life; for if it must needs be that we be protected and delivered from our enemies, God would cause a famine to scourge them, and would rain manna down from heaven to sustain us, as he did to the children of Israel. But he never will do that, until it is necessary to our salvation and deliverance. Now, there is no necessity for such a display of his power, neither will there be, until we are brought into the midst of certain trials, as Joseph Smith and his brethren were, about twenty-two years ago. I refer to the time when he and some of his brethren went up to Missouri; and those who went up

God's protection of the faithful

Read in the nineteenth chapter of II Kings how Sennacherib the Assyrian king sought to overthrow Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:28-37, 19:1-37). Hezekiah, the king who represented Israel pleaded with the Lord for deliverance while Sennacherib mocked him, saying, "Don't think that your prayers to your God can help you. Every place that I have been and taken already, they have been praying. You are helpless," and the next morning a large part of the Assyrian army was found dead upon the ground, and Jerusalem had been preserved by the Lord. He is our strength, brethren, your Father and mine, the Father of all; if we will only be worthy He will preserve us as He did Helaman's sons (Alma 58:39), and as He preserved Daniel from the lions (Daniel 6:20-27), and the three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:20-30), and six hundred thousand of the descendants of Abraham when he brought them out from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and drowned Pharaoh's army in the R

the importance of obedience

Being a member of the Church and holding the Priesthood will not get us anywhere unless we are worthy. The Lord has said that every blessing that we desire is predicated upon obedience to His commandments (D&C 130:20-21). We may deceive our neighbors, and we may deceive ourselves with the idea that we are going through all right, but unless we keep the commandments of our Heavenly Father, unless we bear worthily this holy Priesthood that is so precious, we will not find our place in the celestial kingdom... George Albert Smith, General Conference, April 1943

Testimony of the Book of Mormon--Parley P. Pratt

I have testified and do still testify of the truth of the Book of Mormon—that it is an inspired record, the history of a branch of the house of Israel that lived in America; that it does contain the fullness of the Gospel as revealed to them by a crucified and risen Redeemer; and that wherever it goes and its light is permitted to shine, the Spirit of the Lord will bear testimony of its truth to every honest heart in all the world. Wherever that book is candidly perused, the Spirit will bear record of its truth... Parley P. Pratt, Journal of Discourses 5:195

the character of God

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... Joseph Smith, King Follett Discourse, Journal of Discourses 6:4

Know This, That Every Soul Is Free

Know this, that every soul is free To choose his life and what he’ll be; For this eternal truth is given: That God will force no man to heaven. He’ll call, persuade, direct aright, And bless with wisdom, love, and light, In nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind. Freedom and reason make us men; Take these away, what are we then? Mere animals, and just as well The beasts may think of heaven or hell. May we no more our powers abuse, But ways of truth and goodness choose; Our God is pleased when we improve His grace and seek his perfect love. LDS Hymn #240 Text:  Anon., ca. 1805, Boston. Included in the first LDS hymnbook, 1835. Music:  Roger L. Miller, b. 1937. © 1985 IRI Helaman 14:30–31 2 Nephi 10:23–24

an eternal perspective--John Taylor

Man, holding a relationship with things that have been, with things that are, and with things that are to come, being an eternal being, having existed before, existing now, and destined to exist while endless ages shall endure,—when he understands his relationship to God, how he is associated with his progenitors, the position in which he stands to the Church and kingdom of God on the earth, the blessing he is able to seal on his posterity, worlds without end, and the great things he is destined to enjoy, if faithful,—there is as much difference between his views and the world of mankind in general as there is between midnight darkness and the light of the sun in its meridian glory. John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 5:146

we are here to be tested; we must learn to trust God

We are placed here on the earth that we may be tested. We are very independent beings, we have our agency, and can choose the road to life or the road to death, just as we please. If we would secure eternal life we shall have to take a course to command the confidence of our Father in heaven, and to accomplish this, we must not be weary in well doing, for it is said that only they who endure will receive the reward. Endure what? Why, the trials, temptations and difficulties that we may have to encounter in the path which the Gospel marks out. Our path, as followers of the Savior, is beset with evil on every side, and with influences which, if yielded to, will bring us under the power of the oppressor. They may seem alluring, to a greater or less extent, and so they are, for the power of evil has great influence in the earth. The wealth of the earth has long been controlled by the evil one, and he has bestowed it upon whomsoever he has seen fit. Perhaps this has been ordered so in the e

spiritual things

We become so accustomed to learning through our physical senses—by sight and sound and smell, by taste and touch—that some of us seem to learn in no other way.  But there are spiritual things that are not registered that way at all. Some things we simply feel, not as we feel something we touch, but as we feel something we  feel.   There are things, spiritual things, that are registered in our minds and recorded in our memories as pure knowledge. A knowledge of “things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass.” (D&C 88:79)  As surely as we know about material things, we can come to know of spiritual things . (emphasis added) President Boyd K. Packer, " The Mediator ," Ensign , May 1977, p. 54